Future Shock! The Story Of 2000AD (2015)

Released on DVD in 2015, Future Shock! The Story Of 2000AD is a gleefully foul-mouthed oral history of Britain's foremost home-grown comic book.

Through a series of talking heads, the documentary charts the comic's growth from its birth in the depressing and anarchic days of the late 1970s.

After 2000AD's founder Pat Mills' first attempt to kick back against the turgid state of boys' comics - Action - had been crushed by the establishment, he realised that sci-fi was a better avenue for his style of storytelling.

Eventually, the success of 2000AD attracted the attention of American comic book companies, particularly DC, and the local talent was quickly poached (Brian Bolland, Alan Moore, Grant Morrison etc) and 2000AD began to suffer because of this.

And it's not really until the title was brought by video game company Rebellion in the year 2000 that the comic started to regain some of its former glory.

A veritable galaxy of comic book talent appears in this documentary, from Pat Pills, Alan Grant and John Wagner, to Grant Morrison, Dan Abnett, Brian Bolland, Kevin O'Neill, Carlos Ezquerra, and Dave Gibbons, to name but a few.

First and foremost this is a historical document, presenting the story of the title, its struggles, its inspirations, and the targets of its subversive satire, but it's also a joyful celebration of a counter-culture icon, a scrappy little niche comic book that has endured for decades, and retained its uniquely British accent, despite occasional great adversity.

It also looks at the enduring legacy and influence 2000AD has had on the comic book landscape (interviewees from DC Comics acknowledge there'd be no Vertigo imprint without 2000AD, for instance) and cinematic aesthete (pointing out that Robocop was a better Judge Dredd film than the first actual Judge Dredd film etc).

Growing up with 2000AD, this was the first comic I read regularly. I still fondly remember the 'free gifts' with the first few issues (a Frisbee, 'bionic' stickers etc) and, in those post-Star Wars days, early strips like Dan Dare and, of course, Judge Dredd had a massive impact on my imagination, my writing, and eventually my gaming.

Robocop (2014)

Paul Verhoeven's 1987 Robocop is a timeless, satirical classic that really didn't need to be remade.

But Hollywood decided to anyway. Yet, instead of cranking all the dials up to 11 and going completely over-the-top, the filmmakers instead decided to dial it back to five, with a 12 Certificate in the UK, thus neutering the concept's dark, Grand Guignol, humour.

It's 2028 and America's largest manufacturer of military robots, Omnicorp, is forbidden by law from deploying its machines on the streets of America. Therefore it hits upon a canny workaround by transforming bomb victim Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman), a zealous police detective, into a part-human, part-machine cyborg aka Robocop.

The first half of this two-hour movie, directed by José Padilha and written by Joshua Zetume, concerns itself with Murphy's backstory and metamorphosis into Robocop, shepherded by scientist Dr Dennett Norton (Gary Oldman) and head of Omnicorp Raymond Sellars (Michael Keaton).

The latter part of the film is Murphy taking his crimefighting skills to the streets and gradually overcoming his programming to investigate his own 'murder' and the corruption of Omnicorp.

It's really this second half of the plot where things get messy, bordering on nonsensical, but - despite the feeling of a lot of missed opportunities - this latest iteration of Robocop is still a pretty decent action movie. If nothing else, it's certainly a better Judge Dredd film than Dredd.

Unfortunately, it's totally devoid of the camp charm and charismatic villains that the original '80s Robocop possessed in spades, and will always come up short in comparison. It pretends to be a smart, savvy retelling but actually rings hollow if you stop and think about it for too long (which isn't recommended).

Robocop (2014) also makes the massive mistake - as these unwanted remakes always seem to do - of referencing the original (e.g. "I'll buy that for a dollar" and "dead or alive, you're coming with me"), but doing it really clumsily and only succeeding in reminding us of just how well those catchphrases worked first time around.

RoboCop (1987)

One of the (many) reasons the 1995 Judge Dredd movie landed so poorly was its heavy-handed attempt to shoehorn in 'wacky' humour in the style of 1987's Robocop.

The irony being, of course, that Robocop itself draws heavily on the original Judge Dredd comic strips from 2000AD for its own inspiration, resulting in some heavy ouroborosian feedback.

As with the 2000AD character. Robocop presents a brutal nightmare vision of the "future of law enforcement" in a satirical narrative that blends social commentary with high octane action and Grand Guignol levels of ultraviolence.

It's been years since I've watched this movie and I'd forgotten just how freaking cool it is.

Almost every line in Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner's script has major requotability factor, so many scenes and characters are iconic, and the whole affair is handled with deft delight by one by Hollywood's masters of movie mayhem, director Paul Verhoeven.

In the near-future, crime is running rampant in Detroit, so the city enters into a partnership with  mega-corporation Omni Consumer Products (OCP) to run the police department.

OCP's secret plan is to eliminate crime from Old Detroit allowing it to be easily bulldozed and then replaced with a new development under their total control, Delta City.

ED-209 demonstration

OCP Senior President Dick Jones (Ronny Cox) also wants to supplant the police with his giant, militaristic ED-209 robots, but these prove dangerously unreliable, allowing upstart executive Bob Morton (Miguel Ferrer) to push ahead with his "robocop" scheme.

This cyborg project, however, requires the use of a recently dead police officer and so OCP has been manoeuvring suitable candidates into dangerous positions.

Enter fresh transfer to the Metro West precinct, the charming officer Alex Murphy (Peter Weller).

On his first patrol with partner Anne Lewis (Nancy Allen), the pair are ambushed by the psychotic, bespectacled, gang lord Clarence Boddicker (Kurtwood Smith) and his cadre of disturbed goons.

Murphy is tortured by the thugs and finally shot in the head by Boddicker...

Only to wake up months later as the cyborg police officer codenamed Robocop, with a mission to clean up Old Detroit.

This, of course, means he ends up crossing the path of Boddicker's gang again, and the sight of them causes PTSD flashbacks in his programming and, ultimately, conflict with his corporate superiors. 

Clarence Boddicker (Kurtwood Smith)

Even after 36 years, Robocop is a timeless and enjoyable blend of early superhero flick and pure copaganda (the overworked and underequipped police force are shown to be as much the victims of the surge in violent crime as the innocent civilians of Detroit).

It's s a classic sci-fi adventure story about a square-jawed, downtrodden cop (who happens to be a superstrong robot man) exposing corruption at the highest level of a wicked corporation... while simultaneously taking on the city's most dangerous villains.

Murphy is Judge Dredd and Batman rolled into one, but leaning much further towards 2000AD's flagship character than DC Comics'.

Even though a fair bit of the contemporary technology on display - and the extrapolations of what "future tech" might look like from an 1987 perspective - could be seen as dated (I mean, look at the TV sets for one thing), for me, that just adds to the movie's enduring charm, accentuating the odd priorities of this imagined 21st Century environment.

Hobo With A Shotgun (2011)

If Camp Blood and Shark Exorcist set a new low in crapness that I will endure on DVD, then Hobo With A Shotgun has become the new benchmark by which all future OTT, Grand Guignol, splatterfests will be judged.

Inspired by a fake trailer from the Tarantino/Rodriguez Grindhouse double-bill of Death Proof and Planet Terror, Hobo With A Shotgun  is the charming tale of an ageing vagrant (Rutger Hauer), pushed over the edge by the violence and lawlessness run amok in Hope City, who turns vigilante - with aid of a pawn shop pump-action, 20-gauge shotgun - and delivers "justice one shell at a time".

In a Taxi Driver-esque development, he saves - then teams up - with a young prostitute, Abby (Molly Dunsworth), to take on the city's out-of-control crimelord The Drake (Brian Downey) and his two Tom Cruise-inspired sons Slick (Gregory Smith) and Rip (Nick Bateman).

This is Robocop meets Braindead (Dead Alive for Americans) with all the slick, sick, black humour and ridiculously over-the-top gore you would expect from such a pedigree.

Not for the feint-hearted, closed-minded or humourless, Hobo With A Shotgun is in a class of its own for tongue-in-cheek shocks and taboo-bending casual violence (Torching a packed school bus? A human piñata?) but it's also a straight-up revenge story with a mix of great, quotable, dialogue balanced with deliberately campy dialogue and a brilliant central performance from a grizzled Rutger Hauer.

Hobo is pretty much review-proof. It wears its grindhouse credentials with pride and the chances are you're going into this with a good idea of what kind of entertainment you can expect.

And if any sensitive, serious, cineastes should stray into a screening of a film called Hobo With A Shotgun they're going to get what they deserve.

The Return of Tonbridge Comic-Con

"I could do this all day!"

Tonbridge Comic Con & Toy Fair has returned, with (I believe) different people running it, eschewing celebrity signings for more cosplayers, more photo ops, and more traders.

It must be a good five years since there was a Comic-Con at the Angel Centre in Tonbridge (that time I got flustered meeting Hannah Spearritt from Primeval and S Club 7 and got her to sign my copy of the Primeval roleplaying game), but this was quite a different affair.

In a strange - but comforting - kind of way, this fresh iteration reminded me a lot of Cavalier (our annual wargames show), but with people dressed as superheroes and anime characters and staged cinematic photo opportunities in lieu of wargaming displays.

The time we spent at the comic-con was really enjoyable, I got to chat to a load of people (stall holders and cosplayers) and - as you can see - Rachel took loads of pictures.

Today's event was 'nicely busy' (enough people to make me think it was a success for the organisers, but not so many that it felt claustrophobic or made getting to any particular place a struggle).

This definitely helped me adjust to the situation, and I surprised myself with how conversational I was with the many people I spoke to. Normally, I hold back, for fear of my aphasia tripping me up, but this felt really relaxed.

Major kudos to the Captain America cosplayer who we met before we got inside the event. He embodied the spirit of Cap nicely and, after he remarked on my t-shirt, we talked enthusiastically about James Gunn's impending Superman movie.

Meanwhile, inside the Angel Centre, the chap who'd 3D printed then built the array of animated Star Wars droids was clearly a Doc Brown-level genius.

Huyang moved (he didn't walk though!) and spoke with David Tennant's voice

These are the droids I was looking for

Deadpool dance class

"You now have fifteen seconds to comply." Robocop's ED-209 was quite threatening

"Beam me up!"

"This is The Way!"

Rachel snuck into Andy's room to play with Woody and Buzz

"The claw! The claw!"

Just chillin' with Thanos before we destroy the Universe

Radio-controlled baby droids to play with

Lightning McQueen

Our shockingly conservative haul from the day

Much to my (and Rachel's) amazement I didn't actually buy anything at the show (although there was some great art, action figures, and prop replicas that caught my eye), although I did get a free 28mm goblin from a man promoting promoting his self-published fantasy novel.

Rachel treated herself to a "Trust Me, I'm A Dogtor" pin badge to go on her NHS lanyard.

We may have stayed for only an hour, but we had a great time.

The only minor quibble I would point out is that for a COMIC convention, there was no one selling actual comics, which was a shame.

Tokyo Gore Police (2008)

Simply put, Tokyo Gore Police is quite possibly one of the craziest, most mixed-up movies I've ever enjoyed.

Merrily playing hopscotch along the line between genius and insanity, decorated with more severed limbs than you'd ever want to see and almost certainly the largest volume of free-flowing blood, there is no escaping the "gore" in the film's title.

Set in the near future, with a recently privatised police force controlling the city and freaky cybernetic mutants, known as "engineers", running rampant, Tokyo Gore Police tells the story of Ruka (Eihi Shiina) - the Force's top "engineer hunter".

The katana-wielding cutie is haunted by dreams of the death of her father (also a police officer) and is plagued by a penchant for self-harming.

The movie mixes the body horror of David Cronenberg with the dystopian future and dark humour of Robocop, but just as you think it can't get any more over-the-top it pushes the envelope that bit further like a live-action anime where literally anything is possible.

The engineers have a power which may be scientific or supernatural (but most likely somewhere in between) to transform any wound into a weapon, leading to such mind-hammering creations as phallus cannons and breasts that spray acid.

In pursuit of a particularly methodical serial killer, Ruka, begins to find herself turning into an engineer as she is simultaneously drawn into mystery of her father's murder and the police impose a major crack-down on engineers (and anyone who shows the slightest resistance to their investigations).

There are definitely shades of Buffy The Vampire Slayer in there as well, with an attractive protagonist raised to fight monsters that she discovers she has a dark connection with but as blood-splattered satires go, Tokyo Gore Police is in a class of its own.

Enduring images will be seared into brain - from the police chief's quadriplegic gimp pet to the physically re-sculpted prostitutes in the night club (the human chair is truly disgusting) - but Tokyo Gore Police isn't just about the shocks, at its heart is a solid (if a bit hackneyed) mystery-revenge story that allows the horrific action to evolve around it.

Add in some random TV adverts for self-harming knives, supersharp swords and the Tokyo Police Corporation, and you've got almost two hours of crazy that is quite happy to swing from extreme violence to the poignancy of Ruka surveying the aftermath of a slaughter by her fellow officers.

Be warned though, where Western films might cut away and fade to black, Tokyo Gore Police lingers that bit longer and, yes, the special effects are often quite primitive puppetry but that doesn't make them any the less suggestive. You don't need a multi-million pound CGI budget to get under an audience's skin.

Certainly not for the feint of heart or easily disturbed, Tokyo Gore Police makes Hollywood nonsense shock-horror franchises look like the silly little homemovies they are by not sacrificing plot and character on the altar of excess, using the gore instead to paint a picture that actually tells a story.