Robocop

Real Name: Alex J. Murphy

Identity/Class: Cyborg

Occupation: Police Officer

Affiliations: Officer Anne Lewis (movies partner, played by Nancy Allen, deceased as of Robocop 3); Lisa Madigan (tv series partner, played by Yvette Nipar); Nancy Miner (partner, Robocop: Alpha Commando cartoon); John Terrence Cable (former partner, a.k.a. Robo-Cable); Gadget; OCP; Ann R.Key

Enemies: Clarence Boddicker (played by Kurtwood Smith); OCP; ED-209; Cain (a.k.a. Robocop 2, played by Tom Noonan); Otomo; Pudface Morgan; Bone Machine; Robo-Cable; The Trust

Known Relatives: Ellen Murphy (wife, called Nancy in the TV series); Jimmy Murphy (son); Russell Murphy (father); Dorothy Murphy (mother)

Aliases: None known

Base of Operations: Detroit

First Appearance: Robocop (MGM, 1987)

Powers/Abilities: Robocop has a series of enhanced senses, and everything he sees and hears is recorded, allowing it to be used in court.  As well as standard vision, he can view things telescopically or with infra-red. He is superhumanly strong, most of his skin is covered with metal body armour (leaving only his chin exposed) and he carries a machine pistol which is holstered in a hollow unit in one of his legs. He is incredibly accurate with this weapon.

History: "Part man. Part machine. All cop. The future of law enforcement."

(Robocop movie) In the near future a cash crisis forces the government to sell off responsibility for policing to private companies. In Detroit it is multinational corporation Omni Consumer Products (OCP) that takes over the city's Police Department. Police dissatisfaction with their new bosses soon builds until a strike is threatened. OCP responds by secretly producing a prototype robotic law enforcer, ED-209, but ED proves unable to show restraint, blowing away an executive during a board room demonstration.

Officer Alex Murphy is one of the better cops in Detroit. Even as his fellow cops talk of striking, the devoted family man continues to patrol the streets alongside his partner Anne Lewis. Sadly his dedication to duty proves no defense when he encounters criminal mastermind Clarence Boddicker and his gang. Separated from his fellow officers, he is viciously maimed before being finished off with a shot to the head. His dying body was retrieved by his partner, and rushed to hospital, where he was declared dead a short while later.

This was the opportunity OCP technicians were waiting for. Since all Police officers had signed waivers when they joined the force, Murphy's body was now OCP property. ED-209 had the fire-power, but not the cop instincts. Alex Murphy had the instincts, but not the firepower. OCP planned to amalgamate the two types of law enforcer, to create the perfect cyborg cop, company property and on-duty 24 hours a day. The man he had been was dead, his memories supposedly gone, and in his place was Robocop, programmed to Serve the Public Trust, Protect the Innocent, and Uphold the Law.

The new cyber-cop was soon in action on the streets of Detroit. Criminals found that his command of "Dead or alive, you are coming with me" was no idle threat, backed as it was by his bullet-proof casing, deadly fire-power, pin-point accuracy and superhuman strength. He was stationed, under supervision of OCP technicians, back in his old precinct, although his fellow cops didn't know who he had once been. But problems began to arise. His memories as Alex Murphy began to revive; his old partner, Anne, recognised him through a trademark gesture (he would spin his gun before holstering it, a trick he had copied off TJ Laser, his son's favourite tv character); and when he ran across Clarence Boddicker and his men again, it became clear they were working for and protected by men high up in OCP. Robocop tried to arrest them anyway, and their paymasters, only to discover another, hidden directive in his programming, preventing him from interfering with OCP business - An OCP product may not act against OCP's best interests... An OCP product may not act against a senior official of OCP...

Eventually he managed to overcome this directive, effectively regaining much of his lost humanity, and put an end to Boddicker and his gang.

(Robocop 2) Robocop continued to serve as a police officer on the tough Detroit streets. Meanwhile OCP tried to replicate their success with him, only to find their subjects committing suicide every time - what set Murphy apart was his regained humanity. So OCP decided to use a drug addict as the base for their new, improved Robocop 2, a criminal called Cain who had been killed by Murphy during a bust. Unfortunately the second Robocop retained his hatred for Murphy and went on a rampage. Even though he was more heavily armed than his predecessor, the original Robocop managed to take him down after a protracted battle.

(Robocop 3) An elite section of the police, dubbed the "Rehabilitators", start to combat a group of terrorists operating in the city. However Robocop discovers the terrorists are actually citizens trying to defend their right to stay in their own homes. Murphy's conscience combines with his directive to Protect the Innocent, and Robocop comes in on the side of the citizens, making him an outlaw. The Japanese backers of the Rehabilitators send in  Otomo, a ninja, to take him down, but even the martial arts cannot defeat the cyborg cop.

(Robocop TV series) Robocop continued to defend his city and it's people, battling corrupt members of OCP and criminals such as Pudface Morgan.

(Robocop: Prime Directives) It has been ten years since Murphy became Robocop. Detroit, now run entirely by OCP, has been dubbed "The Safest Place On Earth!", with new neighbourhood Delta City being a showcase for high-tech architecture. Murphy's son, James, is now an OCP lawyer, having been raised in one of their orphanages, unaware that his father is still alive. Alex is beginning to feel his age - many of his systems are considered antiquated, and spare parts (when he needs them) are hard to come by. John Cable, an old partner of his (prior to Anne Lewis) has returned to head OCP's security. Together he and Murphy investigate a mysterious masked vigilante known as the Bone Machine, who has been blowing up building's in Delta City, and killing criminals with the aid of an experimental armoured combat suit. During an encounter with Bone Machine, Alex's enhanced optical sensors discover his high-tech weapons are OCP products, supplied by a faction within OCP known as The Trust. Deciding that Cable and Murphy are getting too close, someone hacks into Robocop's systems and reprogrammes him to terminate Cable. The Security Chief is able to get through to his old partner's human side, but this still doesn't save him, and he dies at Robocop's hands.

Robocop buries his grief by becoming colder and more mechanical. However Cable has been reborn as a new, updated cyborg, and is sent to take out his predecessor. Recognising his old friend, and unwilling to endanger innocents or the man he thought he had killed, Robocop retreats into the ruins of Old Detroit, where he allies himself with a group of cybernetically-enhanced mercenaries led by the enigmatic Ann R.Key. Hot on his heels comes Robo-Cable and a trained squad of anti-cyborg RoboHunters.

Battle ensues, ending with Murphy victorious but near death. Cable meanwhile falls into the hands of a renegade scientist Dr David Kaydick, who plans to unleas a doomsday weapon on Delta City and the rest of the world. Robocop is rescued and repaired by Ann R.Key and her allies, only to have to face another squad of RoboHunters, this time armed with an EMP disruptor that can shut him down forever, and led by his son James.

Overcoming them Robocop returns to Delta City to stop Kaydick and his doomsday device. Along the way he has to face his friend Cable in one final battle. One of them will not survive it.

Comments: Created by Michael Miner and Edward Neumeier. Played in the first two movies by Peter Weller, Robert Burke in the third, Richard Eden in the 1994 series, and by Page Fletcher in the most recent set of TV movies. Voiced by David Sobolov in the 1998 cartoon version.

As well as the original three movies, Robocop starred in a TV series that ran 23 episodes between March and November 1994. He also had his own cartoon, RoboCop: Alpha Commando, which lasted forty episodes, running between September 1998 and February 1999. Most recently he has appeared on TV again, in four made-for-tv-movies, under the umbrella titles RoboCop: Prime Directives - individually they are titled Dark Justice, Meltdown, Resurrection and Crash and Burn.

He has also appeared in a variety of comics. Marvel adapted the original movie back in 1987, followed by a series which ran 23 issues starting in 1990. They also adapted Robocop 2, both as a magazine and as a three issue mini-series. Dark Horse then acquired the license, adapting RoboCop 3, and producing a number of mini-series, including Mortal Coils, Prime Suspect, Roulette, and most interstingly, Robocop versus Terminator, where they establish that much of Robocop's technology would later be used by Skynet as a basis for the Terminators.

• Judge Dredd, who seems to have inspired many of his mannerisms

• Deathlok, another cyborg warrior

Any Additions/Corrections? Please let me know.

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