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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Deset Gled" data-source="post: 9633854" data-attributes="member: 7808">I agree that there should be a super human element to super heroes.  The reason that Iron Man's or Batman's gadgets are treated as superhero powers is because they are current day stories but represent tech that does not (or cannot) exist in the current, real world.  Their goodies are effectively treated as fantasy rather than speculative fiction.But I'm not sure if RoboCop has that.  His stuff (body armor, weapons systems, etc) is shown to just be a very expensive amalgamation of products that are commercially available.  His tech is essentially equivalent to that of ED209 and other robots.  He's literally built by Omni Consumer Products.  In the original movie the cybernetics are not treated as new science or otherworldly power, it's just the natural progression of technology.  It's the same tech that you expect any large company or police department to have regular access to; even the real estate companies in RoboCop's world use VR and robots to sell houses.  From that POV, RoboCop is sci-fi, not a superhero.I think part of the confusion for this is because the original movie is set as a "5 minutes in the future" dystopia. But that's 5 minutes in the future from 1987.  It's easy to see how people who watch the movie now don't see it as futuristic.  It easily comes across as modern or past times, which throws it right back into the "tech that does not (or cannot) exist in the current real world" definition that I just said makes Iron Man and Batman superheroes.I think it's actually okay to say that RoboCop was sci-fi in it's first 1987 incarnation, but morphed into a superhero later.  Whether that happened in RoboCop 3 when he got more comic-booky and received more powers, during the kids cartoon show, or just as a result of time marching on would be hard to pin down.FWIW, I said the same thing about Batman in the other thread (<a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/best-superhero-movie-of-all-time.712814/page-6#post-9633657);" target="_blank">Best superhero movie of all time?</a>) ; he was essentially a detective first and a superhero later.</blockquote>

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