While researching for our presentation on O'Gorman's article Detroit Digital: On Tourists in the Apocalypse this past Thursday, I ran across an article on Dynamite's new monthly comic adaptation of Robocop. And while Robocop IV may still be in the distant future the inked version promises to "continue to explore more of the dangers of Detroit, its citizens, and Officer Murphy's (Robocop) continued dealings with the scum that stalks the streets".

Hollywood, over the years, has built Detroit up, or more literally torn it down, in the global mind as a post-apocalyptic wasteland in these types of movies. The abandoned buildings undulating with graffiti dot a sporadic landscape of vacant streets and high fenced grassy tundra. To the outsider Detroit is fraught with these danger exploration scenarios and loss of innocence narratives which are made ever more "real" through the media and thrill seeker fanfair. Williams' plays with the fear evoked by Detroit's virtual image bringing his character back to his roots by "taking away some of the layers that were built over the years – while it's the most difficult thing in the world picking and choosing what is canon and what isn't. You make decisions and hope you're right... I think that I can come out and say that without the violence, the cutting edge shockingly violent nature of the first movie we wouldn't be talking about RoboCop. We want the first RoboCop movie [and] that's what made it so great.

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By exploiting the violent nature of Cinema Detroit are comic's like Robocop promoting the tarnished stigma of a post-apocalyptic forgotten city? By reinforcing the ruin exploration discourse would it be possible for Detroit to prosper from the publicity or is it just another enticement for the adrenaline junkie thrill seekers to set off spelunking through the abandoned decay of warehouses and factories. I guess only time and the blogs will tell.

The series, written by British writer Rob Williams (2000AD, Star Wars), will launch later this year.