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. Details that were cut out of both the scripts that Frank Miller wrote for RoboCop 2 and RoboCop 3, mainly the detail on RoboCop's brain, were used in the story.
Plot
Using elements from both the RoboCop and Terminator universes, the comic book series puts its own spin on proceedings by having Skynet send three Terminators back in time to Detroit to protect a burnt out RoboCop from a lone human soldier (also) sent back to destroy him.
Discovering that the technology used to build him is partly responsible for the future development of Skynet, RoboCop soon sets upon himself to take down Skynet in the post-apocalyptic future single-handedly. Part of the story focuses on his mind, the only part left of him, hiding and moving throughout Skynet's systems, fighting back as best he can.
RoboCop's human consciousness (Alex Murphy) waits for decades in hiding deep within Skynet's "consciousness", avoiding detection as the slaughter of humanity takes place. He waits for the opportunity when Skynet's attention will be focused on other matters with the war against the humans for him to make a move. A human assault allows Murphy to create a Terminator body that resembles his old form. He makes his escape and is nearly destroyed by human resistance fighters. He identifies himself as an ally and after gaining their confidence begins to plot to destroy Skynet with them.
Human Allies
As the planning continues, the humans devise a final assault on the central location where Skynet is being housed. They realize that they do not have the manpower to complete their assault. One of the humans asks RoboCop how he was able to build his body. Upon explaining how he accomplished this, the human asks him why he couldn't do the same thing many times over. The group begins their assault on the Skynet compound and it is evident that they will not succeed when a buzzing is heard from behind them. RoboCops are now able to fly (in a different fashion than in RoboCop 3), they darken the sky as their numbers are so great. They descend upon the battle and turn the tide. While the battle rages on outside the facility, the original RoboCop and several resistance fighters sneak into the facility and send RoboCop, surrounded in a blob of the human flesh that covers the Terminators, back to the past before the appearance of the original Terminators.
Upon the appearance of the strange blob in the present, the people are confused and then terrified as the metal RoboCop tears forth from the mass of flesh and immediately blasts off into space. He finds the earliest iteration of Skynet, which in this story is a spy satellite, and destroys it. Upon the explosion of the satellite, he immediately 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 without any inner turmoil from the beginning of the story, returning to the police headquarters for much-needed rest.
Issues
Part 1
In the machine-dominated future of 2029, a human rebel gains access to the Skynet computer's Time Displacement Equipment and sends herself into the past on a desperate mission to kill officer Alex Murphy, a.k.a. RoboCop. But Skynet is onto her plan and dispatches a trio of Terminators to the past as well. The Terminators' mission: protect RoboCop at all costs. Just what the heck is going on here?
Part 2
Enter the weird, psychedelic mindscape of RoboCop's computer brain as he searches for a way to prevent the machine-ruled future of the Terminators from ever coming into existence. There's only one solution-Robocop must die!
Part 3
After encoding his own personality and programming directly into Skynet's memory banks, RoboCop plays a deadly hide-and-seek game with the master computer bent on destroying all organic life on Earth. Is RoboCop beaten? Don't place any bets until you see the "RoboCop of the future"!
Part 4
Trapped in the machine-ruled time of the Terminators, the newly constructed RoboCop of the future launches a full-scale war against the forces of Skynet. But that's just the first step for RoboCop: the final phase comes when he uses Terminator technology to send himself back to his own time to destroy not only the as-yet-unaware Skynet computer, but himself as well.
Collected editions
The series has not yet been collected in a traditional trade paperback, although 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.
Diamond Comics
|
Video game adaptation
Main article: RoboCop Versus The Terminator (SNES)