No sooner than Hollywood’s cash in on the pop culture icon Robocop comes the comic world sniffing around – not to continue the adventures of the current Robocop, but to tell the story of the first one. Sure, the film made it sound like this was the first time the characters had thought of putting a living man in a robot suit. Sure, the entire film was centered on this technology being in its infancy and the interaction between the human subject and the robotics. Doesn’t matter though, it’s time to shill comics.
Cue Boom Studios, who has decided to offer up the actual, really, real, very first, no kidding, this is the number uno, take-no-substitutes Robocop. It’s starting to become like the battle over Original Ray’s Pizza. Anyhow, the story of Robocop Beta opens in the Middle East. A crack squad of army commandos are standing around their dead compatriot. With a hole in his skull, Private Joshua Duncan is headed to the meat slab. This is until Omnicorp steps in to make him their first (and this time they mean it) Robocop.
What follows is exactly the same thing as the film. Duncan is freaked out by his new situation, he does a lot of screaming and crying. The kindly doctor (played in the film by Gary Oldman) tries to help him accept his new life, and Michael Keaton’s character inexplicably rushes all of this even though it is brand new technology that, if it fails, could cause deaths and massive lawsuits. The new Robocop is brought out into the test field, which for some reason is the Middle East.
Duncan exceeds all expectations and everybody thinks he’s super keen. Sadly, he keeps having these nightmares of his platoon killing an entire Middle Eastern family for no reason. Driven to madness over it, Duncan decides to seek justice on his platoon. Problem is, it turns out Duncan used to be a psycho bigot and he actually killed the family all on his own. Consumed with guilt, Duncan runs out and attacks the larger robots and gets gunned down. His files and identity are erased, and Omnicorp must start all over again.
I’m sure on his own Ed Brisso is a fine writer, but he’s given nothing to do here. Essentially, he re-writes the film, replaces the police force with the army, and tacks on a “twist” ending to try and give the comic some validity. It has none. There is no reason for this comic to exist outside of a few more bucks from shilling off the movie’s release.
Emilio Laiso’s art is strictly by the numbers. No flair, no originality, just standard comic book art, especially for companies like Boom. The only thing that does stand out is how sloppy and rushed it all looks. The Michael Keaton likeness alone is enough to put the book down. Perhaps Laiso would excel on another project, but here he makes a boring story worse.
