Robocop Vs The Terminator

Robocop Vs The Terminator

by Frank Miller (story) and Walter Simonson (art)

Dark Horse Comics, 1992

One of the best comic book series of the 1990s was the four-issue series 'Robocop Vs The Terminator,' published by Dark Horse Comics, from September 1992 to December 1992. I remember collecting these comics when they first were published, and hanging on to them for more than 30 years now.

At that time Dark Horse owned the licensing rights to both franchises, and while much of those early 1990s iterations of both the Terminator and Robocop titles were mediocre, with 'Robocop Vs The Terminator,' the company produced an exceptional series.

 

 

It helped that Dark Horse editor Randy Stradley (or maybe it was publisher Mike Richardson ?) recruited Frank Miller to write the series. Miller had participated in writing the script for the Robocop 2 film, and understood the nature of both franchises. With 'Robocop Vs The Terminator' he avoided making the plot too complicated, and came up with an energetic storyline that delivered action and mayhem, while avoiding contrivance. 

And Miller being Miller, there are notes of sarcastic humor throughout the series:

Walter Simonson, at that time one of the foremost artists in comics, undoubtedly had more work than he could handle in terms of his assignments for various publishers, but his pencils for Robocop Vs. Terminator display care and imagination and really bring Miller's conceptions to fruition. Lots of that early 1990s flavor for superheroes and big guns, explosions, and set-piece battles. Lots of violent deaths, too ! Even little kids and the blind are not spared death at the hands of the robots !

 

 

I won't disclose any spoilers, save to say that the initial issues of the series tread familiar ground, with Terminators dispatched via time machine to Detroit, there to shape the future by selected intervention in the timeline. Of course, a resistance fighter (in this case, a young woman named Flo, sporting a bowl-cut hairdo) from the future also travels back in time to try and thwart the Terminators.

 

It turns out that for the 'Terminator future' to be realized, a cyborg policeman named Alex Murphy, aka Robocop, must merge with Skynet and precipitate Judgment Day and the triumph of the machines.

In the latter issues of the series, Miller takes things in a 'cosmic' direction, outside the normal boundaries of either franchise, and I've not seen such an imaginative treatment of the franchises since 'Robocop Vs The Terminator.'

As 1990s comics, 'Robocop Vs The Terminator' had to have some gimmicks, and in this case, it's cardboard cutouts stapled into the midsection of each issue:

Unfortunately, here in 2025, getting copies of 'Robocop Vs The Terminator' is not easy. The individual issues still are available, but are a bit pricey ($12+ each). 

 

  

In 1992 Dark Horse issued a trade paperback, copies of which are quite rare. In 2014 Dark Horse reissued the series as a hardcover edition, but being out of print for over a decade now, that hardcover has exorbitant asking prices ($121 on up for copies in 'acceptable' or 'good' condition, with one speculator at amazon asking $274 for a 'good' condition copy).
 

If you want to get your hands on 'Robocop Vs The Terminator,' your best approach is to try and get the four individual issues. Either that, or hope that at some point in the future Dark Horse decides to make a second printing of the 2014 compilation.......