Back in the ’90s, Dark Horse Comics scooped up the license to produce comics based on some of the greatest movie franchises of the ’80s. Not content with just pumping out brand new adventures featuring Aliens, Predators, Terminators, and the like, they decided to make dreams come true and smash together much-loved concepts into various crossovers. None seemed so ready-made as Robocop and Terminator.
Terminators were soulless machines programmed to pose as humans, ruthlessly killing anything that stood in the way of their targets. Robocop was a man trapped within a metal body, whose primary duty was the preservation of life. Partly metal, partly real, they were funhouse mirror versions of each other. Bringing these two concepts together was the movie we all wanted to see but would never get. Enter the comic.
Frank Miller and Walt Simonson partnered up to bring a wild ride of time traveling, robot-on-robot violence that traveled from the distant future to even further down the timeline. It was a story of artificial men, artificial intelligence, fate, destiny and all those things in the middle. Which, as cool as that all was, the best thing to come out of it all was the concept of a Terminator Robocop, or, a Robocop shell with an Endoskeleton core. It’s the kind of thing that you never knew you wanted to see until it happened, and when it did, you wonder why it hadn’t happened before. Metal on the outside, metal on the inside, it visually and thematically perfect.
Needless to say, when promo pictures of the toy debuted it instantly rocketed to the top of my gottahave list. It would have been more than enough on its own, but it also came with a Terminator dog.
The Endocop is visually striking. He features the overall aesthetic we all recognize as Robocop, but under his mask is the familiar cold smile of a Terminator’s endoskeleton, and his arms are the skeletal Terminator arms. The combination of the two aesthetics gives him a very strange appearance, which makes him even creepier than either concept by itself.
The sculpting is all very well done and captures the original art nicely. Being mostly Robocop, he’s a little limited in articulation. He has a ball-jointed V-crotch combo that allows for movement but he won’t be doing the Rockette kicks. Obviously this is very true to Robocop’s very limited mobility, so it doesn’t bother me too much; at least he does move.
His arms don’t have swivels at either the elbow or the bicep, so he can only stick his arm out straight. His shoulder has the full range of motion, so he can put it out and so forth, but I would have liked a bicep swivel for a bit more expression. Again, that’s no doubt due to design, so it gets a grudging pass.
Otherwise, he has a nice range of motion in his torso joint, and his knees and ankles bend decently enough. His wrists swivel as well, so some decent poses can be achieved with a bit of fiddling. His only accessory is his signature pistol, which fits into his skeleton hand well and stays put. Unfortunately, there’s no leg holster.
Despite a few areas I would have liked a bit more articulation, the figure is overall a success in conveying two designs crushed onto one concept. Technically the figure is an army builder so I’m sure somebody out there will be putting together a legion of Endocops. I’m kind of content with one, but I might get another set just for the novelty.
The Terminator Dog is another concept that is essentially terrifying. Dobermans and Rottweilers are scary doggie boogiemen when they’re chasing you down, but turn that rabid Cujo-esque nightmare into polished steel alloy that just doesn’t stop and doesn’t quit, and you’re redlining your cynophobia.
For a skeletal metal dog, it fares a little better than the Endocop did in the articulation department. He can do a lot of “dog” things. He has multiple articulation points in his legs and he has ball-jointed attachments to his body which offer a bit of leeway for posing. All of this means that he looks great running, he can do a passable “sit, Ubu, sit! Good dog!” and he can do a great leaping for your throat.
His jaw is articulated, which means he can do a closed-mouth “I might kill you” or an open mouth “I’m definitely going to kill you.” Plus you don’t have to buy him food.
I kind of want a Bowser to go with him, and I don’t think I’ve ever wanted modern C.O.P.S. Toys as much as I do now.
A fun concept and some well executed figures. I really liked this set, so if you’re a fan of the comic or either property, the set is available now at Big Bad Toy Store
