Robocop vs Terminator vs Alien vs Predator

Indulging my 80s dream.

I know I’m surprised to that this doesn’t actually exist. We do have Robocop vs Terminator. (video game too!) We do have Aliens vs Predator vs Terminator. But never did we get all 4 together. So here is my outline for a 3-4 issue miniseries of a union of the greatest 80s franchises. (Arnold cameo not listed but assumed.)

Issue 1 – Officer Murphy, I Presume?

We open with a pair descending into the underbelly of a city in humanity’s far future. As they work their way down, we see the debris and ruins slowly changing into something more recognizable and modern-day. Consulting a map the two wander around until they find the remains of a basement. Heading in, they eventually find a large metal door sporting the OCP logo.

The two characters crack open the door like an old safe and behind it discover a storage pod covered with dust from many decades. Wiping it away, they reveal the words “Robocop” on the pod and through a window we see a familiar visage…

Cut to Robocop waking up and our two opening characters introduce themselves (guy & a girl, names to be determined later, for now their exposition girl/guy). While they check and repair his body, they catch him up on what he’s missed since he’s been in stasis for a century or two now. In that time OCP in order to compete with Weyland Yutani merged with another company named Cyberdyne systems. (Now named… let’s call it “Worlds Security” but that can be changed.) One of their projects was the creation of a luxury world for the uber-wealthy to vacation at and live. To protect their investment, a defensive satellite system was put in orbit of the planet called Skynet.

Officer Murphy asks what this has to do with him. Exposition girl explains that a year ago Skynet suddenly blocked all traffic to and from the world. They haven’t confirmed anything, but there were some reports of it also massacring the planet’s inhabitants. It has since cut off communication and any attempts to reach Skynet has ended in disaster. However Skynet was built from old OCP architecture. There is an old data port in the central computer which Robocop can still plug into (using his hand spike) and his software is old enough that he should be able to exploit old vulnerabilities in AI’s coding.

When he agrees to try and stop Skynet, they load a map of the satellite into his helmet and send him on his way in a small emergency pod.

The rest of the issue is an action packed cat-and-mouse game as Robocop sneaks on board the satellite and must overcome Skynet’s defenses to reach his goal. We get classic terminator robots involved in the sequence, culminating in a T-800 arriving to fight Robocop hand to hand. (I would probably add a small sequence of showing Skynet working on developing the T-1000 but its still in its prototype, nonworking stages.) It’s a struggle, but eventually Murphy reaches his goal and plugs into the system, closing out our first issue.

Issue 2 – The Mess of it All

Our exposition pair board Skynet 1 (the name of the first and primary satellite) to find Robocop sitting in a chair like a king…

Except he has no arms and legs.

Skynet is busy constructing and attaching upgraded limbs to Murphy while he explains things to the other two.

A couple of years ago, something crashed into one of Skynet’s smaller satellites (which it uses to maintain the detection grid around the planet). The craft was cloaked until it the crashed but no details could be ascertained before it fell too far into the atmosphere. Skynet followed its programming and alerted the proper authorities.

A year later, signs began to appear on the surface of a deadly infection. Skynet deployed the appropriate countermeasures but the infection steadily grew regardless. Eventually it lost communication with its planetside systems. This is when it began construction of killer robots (which the AI was no originally programmed to do) as a possible “hands on” solution.

Murphy explains that now he is in control and his limbs have been upgraded to be sleeker and faster with more dexterity. He will take a few of Skynet’s units along with additional weaponry down to the surface to reestablish the communication link between Skynet and its planet systems as well as seek out any survivors of what’s happened.

A small craft flies down and lands at the main spaceport in the planet’s largest city, which we can now see is nearly completely covered by xenomorph resin.

(that stuff)

Robocop (seriously armed to the teeth, with stuff like a minigun attached to his shoulder) wanders the city with four terminator robots following. (two of them T-850s, a T-1 and a T-7) They encounter no living thing until the reach the tallest skyscraper which is the main hub of the city that they’re looking for. There a firefight breaks out and Murphy has to explain to the human survivors shooting at them. He has to convince them they’re not enemies. Peace is made in time for the survivors to help Robocop and the others hide from a patrolling ED-209. The T-1 robot is not quick enough to hide and is destroyed by the larger robot’s ordinance before it resumes patrol.

Now the human survivors reveal that Skynet had been sending and constructing various killer robots for years in order to wipe out whole population centers in an effort to contain the plague. Their group – led by a woman with the last name of Connor – had to fight the machines as well as the ravenous aliens. They don’t even know if anyone else is still alive on the planet or if they’re the last dozen humans.

To prover her point, a half dozen aliens suddenly swarm the ED-209. It’s weapons and sheer size are able to kill over half of them before their acid blood begins to eat at its body. The surviving aliens manage to swarm over the robot and savagely tear it apart until it falls to the ground.

Connor explains that infected life forms give birth to those things, while automated factories had been converted to produce the weapons of war. They have no idea who is winning the fight or what the real numbers of either side are. Murphy promises to help them all get out but they need to reconnect Skynet to the planet so it can send new updates to the killer robots and coordinate a proper counterattack to the aliens. The survivors warn that the building he is looking for seems to be in the thickest section of the alien hive.

Working together the group manages to make it to the building, though to get inside one of the T-800s has to be sacrificed to draw away some xenomorph guards. Once inside it becomes a race to climb the tower, Robocop using his new limbs to fight and blast their way through xenomorphs that try to stop them (though his left arm gets damaged by some acid). They eventually reach the top of the skyscraper, the “control room” though not without some losses to the group.

That’s when they open the door, and discover a spacecraft inside.

A spacecraft not made by humans.

A spacecraft with facehugger eggs inside.

Skynet contacts Murphy to alert him to a log it found in the system. A hologram of a scientist then appears exclaiming that their study of the craft was successful, and they have been able to contact who it belongs to, and they would be arriving soon.

The issue closes with 3 red dots in a triangle formation appearing on Robocop’s helmet.

Issue 3 – No Honor, but Duty

We open with a tense standoff between Murphy and a towering Yautja that we’ll call Bear in our script. The two seem ready to blast each other away when several xenomorph come up from behind. Robocop and the predator both turn their weapons fire on them instead of each other. Once the battle is past, Murphy convinces the Yautja to let the humans evacuate while the two of them put a stop to all this. Bear agrees, but he does single out one man in the group. There are protests and it looks like things might break down when a hereto unknown chestburster erupts from the man (it is swiftly gunned down).

Now satisfied that everyone is clear of the “infection,” Skynet agrees to pilot the spacecraft to pick up the survivors and get them to Skynet-1 while Robocop and Bear head deeper into the building. (After Bear tinkers around with the seedcraft the humans stole.)

They fight through waves of xenomorphs, eventually coming across an old model T-800 that had been built on the planet which Murphy is able to take control of. The three of them are finally able to reach the building’s sublevel, where they find an alien queen (and hundreds of eggs) waiting.

An intense battle follows between the queen with her entire hive and our 3 heroes. Eventually they are able to defeat the queen which Bear takes no trophy of, but he does set up a glowing, pulsating device. Murphy realizes it is a bomb to destroy everything and orders the T-800 to guard it and make sure it explodes.

They make it outside, and the two of them exchange salutes of respect before Bear boards his scout ship and flies away. Murphy orders Skynet to let the ship go as it lands a craft to fly him off planet.

A short time later, a massive nuclear explosion consumes the entire city.

On a ship heading back to earth, Murphy has a talk with exposition girl while she fixes his damage. She comments about how the Yautja are usually known for hunting and killing humans. He replies that he could tell this one wasn’t like that, but was like him: an officer of the law. Alien law perhaps, but still a law.

He also reveals that his original assumption that the human survivors had cut off Skynet’s ground communication was wrong. He had realized that the scientists studying the alien craft had cut off the AI to prevent it from leaking or informing anyone of the discovery. The reason Skynet couldn’t stop the infection is because it was deliberately being spread by the Worlds Security corporation as an experiment.

Exposition girl replies that such an accusation would be hard to prove in court to which Murphy replies, “They may be less happy with… ‘other’ officers’ kind of due process.”

The story closes out with one of the survivors sneaking away to a terminal on the ship where they covertly contact the corporation. We cut to an office where an executive is informed that they have the data. On a giant screen in front of him, we see the Yautja language slowly being translated as the executive says, “Excellent. A whole new customer base to sell to…”