By Dustin Cabeal
This is more along the lines of what I expected in the first issue. That is to say that it’s more along the lines of every other RoboCop comic from BOOM! that I’ve read. Much of this comic is inconsequential to the plot and offers no character development.
The entire theme of the comic is forced gentrification. OPC sets fire to the “Ruins” so that it can rebuild it. They decide to take RoboCop slash Alex Murphy out of the game for good and also destroy the “Shore” at the same time. That is all that happens outside of the very predictable decoding of Murphy’s “retirement” programming that doesn’t allow him to pick up his gun or do much of anything anymore.
The robots are still incredibly sassy, and that includes the flying drones that start up a dialogue with a small child left alone in the house while her mother works. There’s even a moment in which one waxes philosophically to itself, but never once feels like a commentary on A.I. Which is strange given how thick the social commentary is on this issue. From the very obvious Fox News knock off to the talking head “Thanks O.C.P.!!” moments. Nothing is subtle, and maybe it’s not meant to be. The charm of the first RoboCop was that it was subtle with a lot of its commentary. Not all of it, but with a lot of it. That seems to have disappeared here as Wood attempts to blend a Transmetropolitan world with RoboCop.
That is what this feels like, and for some of you, that notion is exciting. Unfortunately, it’s a notion, and nothing more as Wood is unable to capture the charm, danger, and intrigue of the world he’s either attempting to homage or has stumbled into copying. Listen, I’m not saying he set out to copy Transmet, but that’s ultimately what this world feels like, even if it’s just a fraction of it. Instead of having Spider’s unique perspective in the world we have a poorly drawn Alex Murphy, who uses “literally” incorrectly and it pissed me off a lot. My biggest pet peeve in comics lately is using incorrect grammar to sound “real,” when it does anything but sound real. What’s worse is that this is in the future, so we’re just condemning ourselves to never fixing our bad grammar and instead will double down on it… the future is fucked.
The art for the world and characters is quite good. There’s a variety of body types, and the book looks like the real world instead of a white-washed comic that normally comes with “futuristic” stories. The robots and RoboCop, look horrible. It wasn’t as bothersome the last issue, but seeing Murphy move around, particularly without the helmet… constantly, is the furthest thing from cool. His size seems average instead of bulky. He has zero presence, and it’s not that he appears sad, which is what the story and art is trying to make you feel. It just seems like he’s a sloppy loner. At the end, there’s a crowd around Murphy, and all the details disappear from the faces except one woman, whose face changes shape and size three times on the same page. The details never return to the faces, and two of the characters are “main” characters to the story. Also, and this is all nitpicky, but fucking RoboCop’s hand looks like an oven mitt and nothing like the kickass glove from the films.
When a movie comic book adaptation decides to pull lines from the original movie for cheap pops, that’s usually when I call it good on the series. Mostly because it just shows that there’s nothing original left for the story. Movies used to be wonderful at pulling throwback lines, but anymore it’s just an eye-rolling moment in any story. This issue ends on one such line, and it’s just stupid sounding. The context is different, it’s being used as a rebuttal but it doesn’t quite work, and it’s just not even the best RoboCop line. Which strangely sums up this entire issue and series. Not the best.
Score: 2/5
RoboCop: Citizen’s Arrest #2
BOOM! Studios