By: Pat Mills, Alan Moore, Kevin O Neill, Mike Dorey, Dave Gibbons, Bryan Talbot, Mike McMahon

Review by Robert Cornell

A nerve gas leak in Florida? A rocket stuck in a skyscraper? Killer robots on the rampage? Who you gonna call? Ro-Busters!

Debuting in Starlord, Ro-Busters were a team of second hand (and second rate) robots who travelled the world, and sometimes space, rescuing people from natural and man made disasters. (If you had paid your disaster insurance.) Got that? Well, forget it. There isn’t any actual ro-busting going on here.

Now, they are most notable for contributing one of 2000 AD’s most enduring characters, Hammerstein. In this incarnation, he’s a pompous ex-army officer, acting as straight man in a double act. The funny one was Ro-jaws, a mockney waste disposal unit who said, “Knickers!” a lot. (By 1970s comic standards, “knickers” is quite a strong swear-word.)

For their transition to 2000 AD, things had to change. This is a Pat Mills creation, after all, and he indulges his taste for social satire by depicting his robots as a downtrodden underclass, doing all the actual work and, during times of war, all the actual fighting and dying. Themes from his classic World War I story, Charley’s War.

The collection opens with “Hammerstein’s War Memoirs” (also going by the more evocative title of “Yesterday’s Hero”) which can only be seen as a dry run for The ABC Warriors.

Hammerstein (now with his “normal” head, having sported a weird “Cyclops” style in civilian life) fought the Volgans in WWIII. Sent to the front to fight with a human unit he is instantly despised. A Volg ambush leaves them all dead, apart from the blind and confused Sergeant. The pair head through the snowy wastes and Hammerstein eventually wins the human’s respect. (Then shoots him.)

In the second half of the story, Hammerstein is posted with another bunch. These are much nicer to him and the story ends with humans being replaced by the first ABC Warriors.

“War Memoirs” is a seminal 2000 AD story. Making up what it lacks in originality with a brisk pace and much Volgan beastliness. It packs a lot into only five episodes and contains nice touches, like the soldier who thinks he’s an airplane, and excellent characterisation as Hammerstein becomes a better killing machine by taking on human traits. (He berates himself for wasting time digging a grave for the dead sergeant.) It’s even quite touching. By 2000 AD standards.

Not so hot is the artwork, suffering from the routine switching between artists from episode to episode. At the time, this was standard practice.

(I’ll brush over “Old Red Eyes Is Back,” an Alan Moore scripted story from the 1983 Annual. It demonstrates that even the most talented writer will fail if he doesn’t “get” a character.)

At this point, Extreme Edition falls apart as, presumably for reasons of space rather than quality control, two stories are missed out. Specifically “Ro-Jaws’ Memoirs” which fleshed out the world beyond the Ro-Busters’ unit and “The Terra Meks,” really, really big robots trying to demolish a northern city. It’s the publicity fallout from this story that leads the owner of Rob-Busters, Howard “Mr 10%” Quartz, to blow up the whole team as an insurance scam.

"The Fall and Rise of Ro-Jaws and Hammerstein” is a curate’s egg of a story. Displaying all of Mills’ traits, good and bad.


Poorly paced Pat allows the story to go on for at least a couple of episodes too long. Once they’ve escaped, the robots spend much of the next thirteen weeks hiding around corners and tip-toeing past the police as they try to make contact with the Robot resistance and escape to a Robo-utopia on Titan, where gold-plated robots live in peace, free from human cruelty. (Yes, really.)

Funny Pat gives us the unforgettable sight, courtesy of McMahon, of Ro-Jaws’ head on Hammerstein’s body when the robots play “swapsies” during their escape.

On the other hand, playful Pat is a truly awful thing. He stages a song and dance number during a punch-up at the bar. (In a comic?) Although this does provide the image for Boo Cook’s wonderful cover.

Preachy Pat doesn’t go beyond “slavery=bad” and “humans=evil” neither of which are too contentious, and don’t get in the way.

Forgetful Pat fails to give Howard Quartz his come-uppance, leaving an unsatisfying void in the story.

Irritating Pat inflicts one of his very worst characters, Ginger, a sickeningly weedy new recruit from Ro-Jaws’ memoirs, constantly moaning about his blanket and at one point doing a Larry Grayson impression. (Also silent.)

Action Pat gives us some great sequences, notably the chase through the Travel Tube. Mills and O’Neill would later expand this into an entire universe for Nemesis.

Creepy Pat does Dr Feely Good, a robo-doc performing a series of unnecessary surgeries on Casey, a super-realistic android. Shudder. Even creepier is Ro-Jaws’ photo from his cross-dressed wedding to Hammerstein.

Angry Pat… well, he’s always kinda angry, isn’t he?

It’s interesting that, just as in The ABC Warriors, Hammerstein thinks he’s in charge when someone else is. Ro-Jaws provides the brains, gives the orders and then shows surprising bravery when a group of robots, sacrifice themselves so that the other, much less useful, robots can escape. It should be a great climax but it goes on too long.

Yet again, we get a tag-team of artists. Four of them, each with quite distinctive styles. Very detrimental to the story.

This retrospective was a disappointment for me personally. I must confess that at the time Ro-Busters was one of my favourite stories and doesn’t live up to my rose-tinted memories. As a collection, X24 is weakened by the missing stories and is unsatisfying as nostalgia as well as failing to give newcomers the full Ro-Busters experience. As a story, Ro-Busters hasn’t aged as well as some of its contemporaries and deserves the Extreme treatment rather than the full case files but there’s interest and entertainment, not too much politics and lots and
lots of robots.

I like robots.

And as for Ro-Jaws and Hammerstein, Well, a thousand years later, they would be reunited on the other side of the galaxy by Nemesis but for now, they walk off together into a literal sunset. It’s a perfect ending.