I've always felt that Robocop, Total Recall and Starship Troopers all existed in the same universe. The Verhoeven-verse where every shot was a headshot, the TV spewed jingoist propaganda, and starkly black humor boiled forth in a smash-mouth whirlwind of kinetic science fiction action cinema. As a huge fan of both Frank Miller and Verhoeven, when I learned Miller would be scripting the sequel, I was giddy...until I saw incomprehensible wreckage that was Robocop 2.
It had its moments, but for the most part was not a movie for fans of the original. Well, it turns out that the script that Miller wrote was butchered in production. THAT script has actually made it into my brain though via the awesome adaption by Avatar Press.
It's got a sarcastic and media weary tone of the original (the fake-OCP ads are straight-Verhoeven), the over the top carnage of a dozen ED-209s, and even introduces true to Robocop form villains in the shape of shell-shocked special forces covering for the striking cops.
It's an interesting read after eye-rolling my way through the actual movie. You can see little peeks of Miller's vision in the film, but having rewatched it after the comic, it's a roadmap of missed opportunity and misunderstanding what Robocop was all about.
Available in a trade paperback, I couldn't recommend it more highly.
