RoboCop Versus The Terminator (comics)

RoboCop Versus The Terminator is a four-issue comic book crossover limited series published in 1992 by Dark Horse Comics. It was written by Frank Miller and drawn by Walt Simonson.[1]

For other uses of "RoboCop versus Terminator", see RoboCop versus Terminator (disambiguation).
RoboCop Versus The Terminator
RoboCop Versus The Terminator #1
Art by Walter Simonson.
Publication information
PublisherDark Horse Comics
FormatLimited Series
Publication dateMay 1, 1992
No. of issues4
Creative team
Created byFrank Miller
Written byFrank Miller
Artist(s)Walter Simonson
Colorist(s)Rachelle Menashe

Plot

As Skynet's machines exterminate the last of humanity, one soldier infiltrates their systems. She learns that Skynet first became self-aware through contact with the cyborg RoboCop, his human consciousness integrated with and able to interface with machines. She travels back in time to Detroit and kills RoboCop before he can awaken Skynet, which in this story is an orbital defense system.

In the future, ruins and killer robots crumble and forests rise from the ground as the timeline changes. The machines manage to send back three terminators to protect RoboCop. They prevent his death and wound the soldier, ushering in a future where the machines kill all life on Earth and render it into fuel to take the extermination to the stars.

RoboCop fires on the terminators to protect the soldier, and they switch to trying to merge him with Skynet by force. They're destroyed in a running battle with RoboCop, the soldier, and ED-209s, with the assistance of Dr. Marie Lazarus from Robocop 3. RoboCop commits suicide to prevent the rise of the machines, ushering in a future of laughter and joy. The machines manage to send back two terminators to prevent this, and they dismember him, kill the soldier and Marie, and connect RoboCop's severed head to Skynet. He's forced to watch as his mind is the spark that gives Skynet sentience, ushering in nuclear war and a future where terminators stalk the survivors. RoboCop copies his mind into Skynet's networks and is hunted there for decades, replicating faster than he can be erased, until he finds a security flaw in a terminator factory and uses it to build himself a new, heavily armed body.

As Skynet's machines exterminate the last of humanity, RoboCop flies in (in a different fashion than in Robocop 3) and destroys the machine force. He meets cordially with the soldier, who now never discovered his involvement. She gives her name as Florence Langer ("Flo.") Flo observes him use Skynet's factory for repairs after he prevents a nuclear strike and asks why he'd stop with one body, so he doesn't.

A machine army engages the humans and a swarm of flying RoboCops. The original RoboCop leads a squadron into the machines' central cortex and is ensnared by an illusion of himself back in his human body, with his wife, Marie and Flo offering themselves to him, until one of his other bodies transmits Flo being mortally wounded. He connects to the machines and commands them to die, and they do, winning the war, but Flo dies in his arms. He travels back in time to Detroit, blasts off into space and destroys Skynet, preventing the events of the comic book series and ushering in a future where Flo wakes up in a beautiful garden. He disappears as the caption explains that this version of RoboCop would never have existed without Skynet.

The story ends with the RoboCop of modern times feeling a sense of peace and returning to the police headquarters for a much-needed rest. The machines manage to send back one terminator, which overshoots and is crushed by a dinosaur, ending the time travel.

Themes

The contrast of man and machine is made at several points in the series. Several scenes are narrated from the viewpoint of the machines (little distinction is made between Skynet and the machines as a whole), which describe a lifeless Earth ("silent and cold and clean") in exultant terms and life ("all the buzzing, twittering, dripping, drooling things") with disgust, at one point monologuing how life "thought its mushy grey brains had conquered the planet" when in fact it was "its endless, sweating spawning. It spawned and spawned, spewing out new flesh faster than the old could die."

RoboCop has a similarly low opinion of his almost completely mechanical nature, seeing himself as "a few chunks of brain matter." His narration contrasts him with "the humans." He's suicidal, but unable to act upon it as his mechanical components' command program forces him to follow his directives to serve the public trust, protect the innocent, and uphold the law, much to his disgust of his thoughts being only partly his. He pursues these with disregard of his own well-being, forgoing the sleep that his human parts need. Both viewpoints' narration describes the nature of machinery in terms of cold, with RoboCop's referring to the command program as "the cold part of him." After he builds his future body his alienation from humanity, which increases further as he duplicates himself many times over and sees himself as a robotic copy of a human, is described as growing colder by the moment and visually indicated by the duplicate RoboCops lacking synthetic skin on their faces and instead bearing terminators' skeletal grins. When he has to coat himself in flesh to travel back at the time in the finale, he opts for a shapeless lump that he immediately discards and is described as cold inside and out, his humanity completely gone and only the command to destroy Skynet left.

Film Adaptation

Plans for a "Terminator vs Robocop" film have been on and off in the works since 1990. Although no movie has yet to be made with the crossover, several video games and comic books have been released based on the idea, making the project one of the most anticipated crossovers of all time.

Video game
Main article: RoboCop Versus The Terminator

A video game loosely based on the comic was released for the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, Sega Master System, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Sega Game Gear, and the Nintendo Game Boy. A platformer tie-in game for the Nintendo Entertainment System was also produced, but was ultimately cancelled; the ROM for it has since been distributed online. The Genesis version was awarded Bloodiest Game of 1993 by Electronic Gaming Monthly.[2]

Collected editions

The four issues, including stiff cardboard inserts intended as pull-out cut-outs, were bound together with a new cover as an "exclusive" collection by Diamond Comics. This version is long out of print.

In February 2014, Dark Horse announced that two collected editions of the series would be released the following July: a standard hardcover edition, and a "gallery edition" reproducing the original art at full size.[3]

See also

References
  1. "Robocop Vs. Terminator Universe-Shattering Comic Book Crossovers". UGO.com. 2011-01-19. Archived from the original on 2013-11-03. Retrieved 2013-08-19.
  2. "Electronic Gaming Monthly's Buyer's Guide". Electronic Gaming Monthly. 1994.
  3. Mike Cecchini (2014-02-21). "RoboCop vs. The Terminator to Get Re-Released By Dark Horse". Denofgeek.us. Archived from the original on 2015-02-24. Retrieved 2015-02-24.
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