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Terminator/Robocop: Kill Human is easily the worst comic I have ever read, and if you have ever seen me, you know I read a lot of comics. I literally live in my parents basement, so take my word for it.
Published by Dynamite entertainment, publishers of excessive TV to comic adaptations (and basically nothing anyone would recognize), this is a clear indication as to why one should trust the DC & Marvel when it comes to buying comics. Full of painfully bad artwork and the most convoluted yet somehow oversimplified time-travel story of all time, this comic manages to erode and eradicate the integrity of the source material to the point of cringe worthiness.
I know what you’re saying, “I don’t read comics for feasible timelines or stories, I’m here for the strange and unusual, and I really enjoy reading them for their artwork.” You are horribly mistaken in having this logic when deciding to attempt to read this cesspool of poorly adapted movie icons. I have an excessive list of issues with this comic, being a purist and lover of the Robocop and Terminator franchises alike, and they are all legitimate in the overall context of a bigger, more perfect canon.
Starting on the Japanese cover, or the back of the book with just another front cover picture, we see a standard T100 exoskeleton looking menacingly at the reader, casually holding a smoldering, completely skinless human skull while brandishing a hefty weapon of the future. Pretty cool way to start a book, if you don’t mind very quick and painful letdowns. The Terminator universe is known for epic time-travel stories, the constant idea of the grim and horrific future subtly looming over you for the duration of the movie, badass women, badass robots, and even more epic battle sequences. If you’re a Terminator fan looking forward to these things but in comic book form, look to Frank Miller’s Robocop Vs The Terminator (it’s on Amazon). If you’re looking for a blatant disregard of the time travel rules set in stone in the Terminator canon, and an overbearing Robocop pestering the reader about how he has to save humanity, first get a lobotomy, then consider reading this. I hope you don’t like Sarah Connor if you choose to read this, because you will only be disappointed. I hope you also don’t like Arnold and his one liners, because you will also be horribly disappointed.
Robocop, known for his morality, trying to cope with his nonhuman components, and Robocop/Christ imagery, is not in this comic. The Robocop we get to know and hate in this is fully robotic, totally uninterested in his humanity, a murderer, and swears more than the angriest Christian Bale in on-set meltdown mode. OCP, being the evil corporation in Robocop, is soon replaced with Skynet, and OCP later deus ex machinas to be the good guys.
I would much rather have Pierre Brassau, the chimpanzee, drawing this than the soulless monster who was apparently paid to draw this comic. Every character excluding Robocop looks like they have tried every drug known to man, looking almost ghoul esq. Sarah Connor, the sexy and deadly female heroine of the good Terminator movies is replaced with something I can only assume is the best effort of someone who has never seen a human, but decided to draw what their blind friend described as a human. John just looks like the worst of the 1990s fashion wrapped into one kid. I really hope you don’t like seeing different guns in comics, because you will be seeing four guns total, many poorly drawn Desert Eagles, a few different iterations of a GE Minigun, Arnie’s famous M79 grenade launcher from T2, which looks closer to a pipe with screws sticking out, and Robocop’s pistol, which I can’t bring myself to complain about. I can only hope the artwork is so horrendous because the artist wanted it to match the story, but we will never know for sure.
Finally, don’t even bother buying or reading this, you will be horribly disappointed. To put it into perspective, imagine when Robocop found out his wife was remarried in the second movie. I give this book a Terminator Genesys/10. This comic managed to go against all of Robocop’s prime directives, including the secret fifth one that says he won’t bring comic Nerds to riot, and made the Robocop remake from 2014 look like Casablanca.
