Frank Miller's Abandoned RoboCop 3 Was - A Love Story?

 

I'm looking back at Frank Miller's original plans for RoboCop 3 this week at CBR. The jetpack is there, but so is one strange love story we never saw in the film.

The Surprising Link Between Dark Knight Returns and...Kids TV?

 

Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns changed comics, but this week at CBR I'm looking at its links to everything from Tiny Toons to 1986's Transformers: The Movie.

Frank Miller's Early (And Raw) Attempt At Robocop 2

 

My CBR feature Page One Rewrite returns this week, looking at Frank Miller's earliest attempts at Robocop 2 (and here's come clickbait...I also reveal the comics legend who producers approached before Miller.)

Frank Miller's Abandoned, R-Rated Batman: Year One Movie

 

This week at CBR, I delve into Frank Miller's partially nuts Batman: Year One script, and discover the editors want you using "sex worker" instead of "prostitute." I didn't follow the script's lead and use "whores" repeatedly, though. 

SPAWN/BATMAN - 1994

Credits: Frank Miller (story), Todd McFarlane (art), Tom Orzechowski (letters), Steve Oliff & Olyoptics (colors)

Summary: In Gotham City, Batman fails to rescue an innocent man from the cybernetic device that’s imprisoned him. He traces the man’s dental records to New York, where several homeless have disappeared. In the alleys, he discovers Spawn, who is killing two men who were torturing the homeless. Batman attacks, but Spawn fights him off. Spawn investigates the missing homeless and learns that they’re the victims of “philanthropist” Margaret Love, who he once knew as Soviet agent Nadia Vladova. Soon, Love dupes Batman into fighting Spawn again. After a battle that leaves both disoriented, another cyborg arrives and stabs Batman in the heart. Spawn uses magic to save his life, and show Batman the truth about Margaret Love. The duo team up to stop Love’s ultimate solution to human greed, a nuclear assault. Spawn allows falling debris to kill Love, against Batman’s wishes. Spawn suggests the two part as friends. Batman responds by launching a batarang into his face.

Spawntinuity: As seen in Spawn #21, this issue does count in Spawn continuity. Oddly enough, the inside front cover labels the story a companion piece to “Dark Knight Returns.”

Not Approved By The Comics Code Authority: Spawn says “shit” for the first time. A future letter writer asks why Alan Moore used the phrase “ca-ca happens” in his issue if censorship wasn’t a problem. McFarlane’s response is that each guest writer set his own limits.

Review: Wizard Magazine, at the height of its days as the ultimate hype machine, used to make fun of this comic. Actually, for years, I can remember Wizard making cracks about this comic. I believe McFarlane himself even ran some negative letters about Spawn/Batman. Not only did I enjoy this comic as a teenager, but it also inspired me to buy the Spawn comics pack that included issues #12 and #13, the two issues that convinced me to become a regular reader. And, while I realize that people had ridiculous expectations for a Frank Miller Batman story at this time, I still don’t understand the ire this comic generated.

Did people hate it because Spawn discovers the real villain while Batman is duped? That’s understandable, but this is the comic that gives Spawn the top billing, so he’s going to have to do something important in the story. Plus, this was before the days of the infallible Grant Morrison Batman. It’s not as if Batman had any reason to doubt Margaret Love, and he was eager for a rematch with Spawn (a character he already viewed as a murderer) anyway. Were people upset that Spawn fought Batman to a standstill and later saved his life? Well, the story does establish that Spawn’s “cheating” with magic. I suppose the combination of Spawn saving Batman and leading him to the villain is too much, which is something I didn’t consider at fourteen. However, if you really wanted Frank Miller Batman, this issue is filled with pulpy Millerisms. I ate this up as a teen, and still think many of these lines are great. My only issue with the script itself is the trash talking between Spawn and Batman during their various fight scenes. I don’t know if this is intentional or not, but the characters sound like two teenage boys taunting one another during a pickup basketball game. It doesn’t sound right coming out of either character, and it doesn’t mesh with Miller’s gothic narration either.

Artistically, I considered this McFarlane’s best-looking comic at the time I read it, and that’s probably still true today. (This might be the last comic McFarlane penciled and inked entirely on his own. Greg Capullo becomes co-artist with Spawn after this crossover is done.) Helping McFarlane out are Steve Oliff’s excellent colors, which create unique shades of blue and green that still look striking today. While McFarlane does produce his strongest work, some of the pages are still wonky. Spawn’s mask comes on and off in-between panels without explanation, which just becomes distracting as the story goes on. McFarlane later defended this, saying that the mask’s disappearance was just a subtle indication that it’s a living organism. That may be, but it doesn’t explain the inconsistent designs on Batman’s chest emblem, or the cybernetic gloves he discovers at the start of the story and uses throughout the issue.

McFarlane chooses to draw Batman mostly as geometric shapes throughout the comic, rarely showing his face and often even ignoring his teeth. Miller did this trick a few times in DKR, but McFarlane goes for it on almost every page. At the time, I thought this was the coolest Batman I’d ever seen. Today, I wonder if McFarlane wasn’t at least partially motivated to save time by covering Batman in black. I still like the look, but it doesn’t need to be on virtually every page. McFarlane going even more stylized is certainly a contrast to Batman/Spawn, which had the audacity to actually show Spawn’s physique and Batman’s chin.

So, while McFarlane could be inconsistent, that wasn’t anything new. I could nitpick things, but I really think he took a rather large artistic step with this comic. And certainly the production values are terrific. I don’t think anyone chose to hate this comic for the art. I think the rancor came from a combination of impossibly high expectations of Miller, and the sense that Batman was getting “punked” in some way. If people thought that Miller was putting a zany sense of fun over the serious work of writing Batman this time…well, we all know what was in store for them. And, yeah, I still like this comic, regardless of what 1994 Wizard has to say about it.

SPAWN #11 - June 1993

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Credits: Frank Miller (writer), Todd McFarlane (art), Tom Orzechowski (letters and editor), Steve Oliff, Reuben Rude, & Olyoptics (colors)

Summary: Spawn’s home in the alleys is disrupted by gang violence. Buffy of the Creep gang is killed by Boomer of the Nerds. After Spawn steals his military hardware, Boomer escapes to the Nerd headquarters. Boomer is accidentally killed by Byron, the largest Nerd. James of the Creeps discovers Buffy’s body and begins harassing Spawn’s homeless friends. Spawn tricks the gangs into a confrontation, which leaves only Byron alive. Spawn teleports inside Byron’s armor and rips open his body. Spawn then tells his friends they can move back home after the police clean up the mess.

Spawntinuity: Spawn believes his encounter with Cerebus from the previous issue was a dream. How exactly Spawn returned after touching Angela’s lance in issue #9 isn’t addressed. Boots, the other major member of the homeless supporting cast, appears for the first time. He’s named Boots because he owns a nice pair of boots that he keeps in mint condition. Hey, Frank Miller never sued for ownership of Boots, did he?

Creative Differences: The original announcement had Miller writing a Sam and Twitch story, which this clearly is not. McFarlane will soon establish that the duo has been assigned to desk duty since Billy Kincaid’s body was found in their office, so maybe he asked Miller not to use the characters.

Not Approved By The Comics Code Authority: Many characters, including Spawn, have holes shot into their chests. The alleyway is littered with dismembered corpses after the gang fight. After Spawn rips out of Byron’s body, he dumps his disembodied head into the pile of body parts.

The Big Names: Geoff Darrow draws a pin-up. The previous issue announced that Frank Miller and Darrow were doing a new Image book called The Big Guys, which soon became Dark Horse’s Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot. Rusty and the Big Guy are in the poster, along with the Dark Horse logo in the background.

Review: Was it widely known by 1993 that Frank Miller had lost his fool mind? I know some people have dismissed this as a mercenary job Miller rushed out for a paycheck, but I’m not so sure. Miller declared in the first Spawn TPB that he was a genuine fan of the comic and read it every month. I think it’s possible that Miller enjoyed the absurd aspects of the book (as opposed to the overly serious gothic material), and perhaps viewed this as an opportunity to create the most ridiculous Spawn story yet. It is certainly ridiculous, but it’s usually more bewildering than honestly funny. I can’t imagine what McFarlane thought when he hired the writer of “Born Again” and got a story about nerdy white gangbangers with gigantic, Liefeld-style guns. At the very least, Miller does write in his standard pulp-influenced narrative style (which just makes everything more absurd), paces the story so McFarlane can work in a few Spawn pin-up pages without slowing things down too much, and gives Tom Orzechowski a chance to show off, as most of the gang members have distinctive fonts and are introduced with big dramatic captions. Miller also gives Spawn the closest thing to a clever line I can remember him speaking (he invites Byron to “play ‘Alien’” with him before he teleports inside his body and rips it apart). Maybe this issue stands out so much because McFarlane continues the book on such a deadpan, somber path as the years go by. It’s certainly an anomaly in the title’s history; almost the equivalent of Batman’s wacky ‘50s adventures with aliens.