Comics Fondle

Wow, what an issue. The villain has a TV for a head. Luckily, Robocop kills him without thinking much about it and so there won’t be any further appearances by… oh, right, Furman doesn’t even give him a name. Umm… Mr. TV Head.

And then there’s the really stupid part where Furman decides “The Old Man” from the movies doesn’t have a real name, which is maybe the most asinine thing I’ve ever heard. Or if he does have a real name, he doesn’t remember it… right….

The issue’s content–television shows beamed directly into the viewers’ minds–reminds a little of Batman Forever. It’s the first time Furman’s concepts have predated the more known pop culture items. Grant usually had one such item an issue. I guess Furman wasn’t as innovative.

It’s not a terrible comic–art’s pretty weak, but not incompetent–just useless; hard to stay conscious during.

Robocop goes up against the I.R.S.? Who can win? So far, with Mitch Byrd’s artwork looking like the McFarlene school of everything having lines being a far cry above the other series from the publisher, Roulette is the best. It’s not promising, because it’s still set in the stupid post-Robocop 3 continuity where Dark Horse apparently tried to set up the ground situation and made a silly mess. Not to mention having Robocop barely in the comic and his annoying lab tech around again….

There is the whole Robocop vs. ignorant detective, something no one’s ever explored–where is Robocop in the police hierarchy–but it’s dimly handled. Arcudi does a decent enough job with the action and the dialogue even, but his scenarios and plotting (scenarios, especially) are lame-brained.

It’s only four issues though and it does read fast. Except the I.R.S. nonsense, which is just painful.

It’s not a terrible issue. So far it’s probably Furman’s best, only because it’s an all-action issue. The inking is a little better this time too. Maybe it’s the lack of thought balloons for Robocop. Robocop thinking kind of ruins it, at least the way Furman writes his thinking.

It’s not particularly clear but it reads like evil triumphs over good here, that the corporate bad guys get away unpunished. It’s hard to say. Furman uses a news story to wrap up the issue (much like Marvel’s adaptation of the first movie does) and the whole thing–the three parter this finishes–feels like a tv pilot. It pretends to be gritty, but it’s really super positive and smiley.

Sullivan has some nice work, visible through the mediocre inks and the plotting makes it more readable than usual.

It’s a more tolerable read than usual, if still absent merit.

It’s so, so bad. I mean, I thought since Grant turned in a decent third issue, he might be able to pull off a fourth too, but no. It’s just awful. It’s hard to explain how bad it is without sitting down and reading it because it’s just so unbelievable.

Grant goes for this melodramatic ending and then somehow gives his terribly paced limited series too many endings, the first time showing the inspiring human spirit of Robocop with his girlfriend–sorry, sorry, his female lab technician friend–and then having a comedic finale with the U.S. government about to kill Robocop and him getting saved by some asinine nineties punk criminal guy who he teamed up with for a bit.

It’s so funny Dark Horse let their licensed properties tarnish the image. I mean, I always thought Dark Horse at least tried at this point, but not at all.

Ok, so this issue of Robocop is a little more interesting than usual–a little more interesting, maybe, than any licensed property comic outside of Dark Horse’s Star Wars ones where there was a “enhanced continuity” or whatever LucasFilm called it–this issue of Robocop features one of the series’ mainstay characters, the sidekick and token black executive, Johnson, going bad.

It means next to nothing to anyone who isn’t a Robocop fan (the third film ignores the Marvel comics continuity, apparently–and unfortunately) but it’s a big deal. It’s also amusing because the opening shot of the character looks like an Obama campaign poster.

Anyway, otherwise there’s a lot of lame stuff, like Robocop’s partner still not getting to him and some evil military cyborg who’s got daddy issues.

Sullivan draws some amazing panels and the inks just fail him, over and over and over again. It’s tragic, really.

Holy cow, Robocop, it’s almost an okay issue!

It doesn’t take much for an issue of this series to be better than before, since the first two issues–and lots of this one–are so exceptionally terribly, but this issue does have some imagination to it.

No, not imagination, sorry, what was I thinking… not imagination. Storytelling competence. Steven Grant’s probably written two thousand comic books, it’d be hard for him not to have one acceptable moment and he does, here in the third issue, and it’s a pretty good moment.

Robocop saves some crooks who are going to strip him for parts and it pays off for him.

Amid Grant’s idiotic Denver as lawless future robot city with Grapes of Wrath bad guys (in terms of setting up labor camps), there’s that one decent moment. Oh, wait, there’s Grant’s super-buff, super-tough guy too. He loves those lamers.

Maybe I was too rough on Furman last issue–I ought to be saving my bile for inker Candelario, as this guy completely wrecks Sullivan’s art. Having gone over ten issues with Sullivan inked well, seeing this disaster is just … upsetting.

But Furman, well, Furman’s not terrible. He’s got a handful of decent scenes. There’s some really stupid stuff in it like the Sergeant from the movies being more interested in OCP orders than being a good cop and a mystery bad guy out to get Robocop. Not to mention Robocop’s partner being in a single, totally useless scene.

It’s an action issue from an era where action issues weren’t the norm. The result is a banal, with more bad than good, comic book.

Furman does incorporate the movies well, but it’s like he never read Alan Grant’s issues. The ones far superior to the ones he’s creating.

Blah.

Blah.

The problem, occasionally, here at Comics Fondle is the length constraint. Each review of a standard issue is one hundred and fifty words. I have five words to say about Robocop: Mortal Coils issue two. What a piece of crap.

So how to fill the other hundred words?

Does it matter what’s wrong with it?

I mean, does one even have to read further to figure out why a licensed property comic from the nineties is a piece of crap? Doesn’t it go without saying the writing is awful and stupid and misogynistic? I did like seeing some reference to the Robocop movies before Robocop 3, however; I guess that slipped past the editors, since the license is apparently only for Robocop 3. They’re arguably discrete references.

Or the art? Is it a surprise nineties art isn’t exactly… visually tolerable?

No.

There’s nothing worth saying about this comic at all.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised Furman lacks Alan Grant’s deft touch, since the new editor basically said he would. Furman’s Robocop is, as a protagonist, pretty lame. The series is now a sequel to Robocop 2, but Furman’s Robocop is still all bent out of shape about having been turned into Robocop, something the second movie kind of dealt with. I mean, it ends with him grinning.

The book’s also got a new inker–Harry Candelario–and he looks lousy over Sullivan’s pencils. Robocop isn’t goofy looking, but regular people’s faces lack definition. It’s incredibly boring artwork.

Furman’s also setting up a big conspiracy–flushing the bigger story Grant had been working on–but it’s a licensed property so who knows how much interference they got.

Lots of movie callbacks here, to remind the reader it’s Robocop, even if the character only resembles him visually.

It’s a big snooze.

How to start… maybe licensing Robocop 3 instead of Robocop is a bad idea. I mean, it’s not like The Terminator, where licensing got all split up, sequel after sequel. Dark Horse could have gotten Robocop and not had to do sequels to Robocop 3, right?

This issue is Robocop in Denver. It’s kind of like Passenger 57 is Die Hard on an airplane. No, it’s not. Look at how hard I’m trying to figure out how to talk about this tripe.

Denver is apparently worse off than Detroit, which is stupid and doesn’t fit into the movie mythology–it’s another Judge Dredd lift, or maybe a Road Warrior one. I don’t know. I don’t care. It’s amazing how lifeless licensed properties got for Dark Horse just a few years after they revolutionized the genre with Aliens.

Mortal Coils is going to be awful; banal and inane. Three more issues….