Since the debut of the character in 1987, the franchise have been exercised through various media, including multiple comic book mini-series and ongoing series.
In addition, a one-shot was released in August 1990, reprinting in color the 1987 black and white magazine adaptation of the film.
Entering a Marvel Universe, though not the main superhero universe by Marvel, RoboCop's futuristic setting is expanded with more futuristic elements like gangs riding on hover bikes, urban droids carrying out public services like waste disposal, and the fact that almost anyone with the know-how or money can create a giant killer robot.
About mid-way through the comic's run, pressure from fan letters convinced Marvel to eliminate some of the more fantastical elements, such as flying characters, citing that RoboCop was set only in the near future.
This led to a few conundrums and contradictions such as having biker gangs riding flying cycles in one issue and then switching to standard motorcycles in the next.
It also created a major paradox for the writers of the Marvel comic monthly series, as we see the "Old Man" as a good guy in the RoboCop film adaptation, as a villain in the RoboCop 2 adaptation, and strictly a good guy in the early monthly series of original stories.
The consistent theme throughout the 23 issues is RoboCop's continuing struggle to balance his humanity with the machine made after his brutal death.
Between May[2] and August 1992,[3] Dark Horse released a four issue mini-series RoboCop Versus The Terminator, written by Frank Miller, with artwork by Walt Simonson.
This mini-series has RoboCop chasing down some criminals related to a coffin from a recent OCP break-in as he follows them to a snowy Denver, Colorado.
Upon announcing the acquisition, the company's publisher, William Christensen, received several offers from artists and writers hoping to contribute to the project (which eventually led to the Avatar one-shot RoboCop: Killing Machine).
The series was composed of nine issues that were published from August 2003 through January 2006 due to multiple delays under Avatar's Pulsar Press line, which specializes in licensed comic properties from movies.
Randy Lander of comic review site The Fourth Rail gave the first issue a score of 7 out of 10, saying that "there's not a lot of personality to the book" but added that it's "certainly interesting to read and full of potential.
"[4] Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly gave the comic a "D" score, criticizing the "tired story" and lack of "interesting action.
"[5] A recap written for the pop culture humor website I-Mockery said, "Having spent quite a lot of time with these comics over the past several days researching and writing this article, I can honestly say that it makes me want to watch the movie version of RoboCop 2 again just so I can get the bad taste out of my mouth.
Wild Child contained an advertisement for a three-issue mini-series called "Robocop: War Party", again from Grant & Ferreira.
Studios released their own trade paperback of the series under the name RoboCop Volume One, which was larger in size and featured some black and white sketches as additional material.
Last Stand is an eight issue mini-series written by Steven Grant, adapting Frank Miller's original screenplay to RoboCop 3.
These were collected in a trade paperback under the banner title "RoboCop: The Human Element" in which the stories are presented in the reverse order to which they were published.
In the decades since the RoboCop program first began, corporations have taken over public services and the government—and law enforcement is the biggest private contract of all.