Russell Murphy was a Detroit Police Department Captain. He was the husband of Dorothy Murphy, father of Alex Murphy, and grandfather of James Murphy. Russell instilled in his son a sense of duty and dedication to law enforcement, even after his transformation into a cyborg.
Biography[]
As a Detective, Murphy investigated the Nazi Corp. explosion, which killed six people. Tessa Stark, his prime suspect, bore a birthmark on her hand that a witness reported seeing. She stuck her hand in a paper shredder, destroying Murphy's key evidence and saving herself from being convicted.[1]
Murphy had been promoted to Captain by the time of a series of bombings orchestrated by Felix Webber, a disgruntled former OCP employee.[2]
Webber escaped prison shortly before Russell and his wife visited the grave of their son Alex,[2] who had been slain in the line of duty by the Boddicker gang.[3] When they returned to the car, Russell saw a bomb inside and ran to safety with his wife. The police arrived shortly after and RoboCop – who the Murphys were unaware was actually Alex – described a bomb he defused at the OCP headquarters. Russell felt this bomb was not part of Webber's grand scheme and must have been planning something bigger. He suggested the police place SWAT teams at all OCP locations, but Sergeant Stanley Parks told him the Anti-Corporate Terrorism Squad, led by Stewart Granger, was in charge of OCP's security. Murphy scoffed at this, feeling that Granger – a former colleague – was incapable of the job.[2]
Murphy and his wife went back home, with RoboCop and Detective Lisa Madigan in tow. He played a game of chess with Madigan, who was soon replaced by RoboCop. Murphy doubted the cyborg's ability to play chess, feeling he lacked the "human factor" required to be a good player. However, he was surprised at RoboCop's abilities, which Russell had taught his son years earlier.[2]
At RoboCop and Madigan's insistence, Murphy offered his help to Granger, who declined, feeling that all they needed was their access to the latest technology. Murphy warned Granger that Webber tended to study his prey and would likely turn their technology against them. His attempts to persuade Granger proving fruitless, he left with Madigan, joining RoboCop at the precinct. They examined a map of Webber's previous targets, but because Webber said he was "spinning a different web," he would not follow the same spiderweb pattern he had used before. They researched different kinds of webs, settling upon a sheet web pattern, which showed them the next target would be the OCP Refinery. They indeed found a bomb there and Murphy worked with RoboCop to defuse it.[2]
Webber gained access to the OCP towers with a nuclear bomb. When RoboCop took a helicopter up, he asked Murphy to call Webber and get him away from the window by using the Velikovsky gambit. He achieved this by telling Webber that the OCP Chairman had been arrested for stealing Webber's research, firing him without proper cause, environmental destruction, consumer gouging, and selling faulty products. Once RoboCop rappelled into the building, he knocked out Webber, then Murphy walked him through disarming the bomb. Outside, Murphy commended RoboCop as a "damn good cop," a compliment the cyborg returned as they shook hands.[2]
While his daughter-in-law was out of town, Russell and his wife took care of their grandson Jimmy. They accompanied him to a Big Business Buddies (BBB) ceremony, where Jimmy was honored with the award for Best Essay on the Importance of Business Language in Corporate Society. As Russell proudly filmed his grandson, he was distracted by a women peeking into the room, who he suspected was Tessa Stark. He took the footage to RoboCop, who enhanced it, determining that it indeed was Tessa.[1]
When Roger John Waldo retrieved Jimmy for a BBB tour of Delta City Telephone, Russell grew suspicious when Dorothy, a retired teacher, commented that she would have given Jimmy's paper no more than a C grade. He followed Jimmy to the phone company, sitting outside. At the tour's conclusion, he saw Waldo convince Jimmy to ride back with him instead of with the other BBB members, but was then distracted by numerous people running from the building. He went inside, providing backup to a security guard. He confronted one of the perpetrators – the Corporate Raiders – but was held at gunpoint by another, who prepared to kill him until RoboCop arrived. The Raiders ran from the building, detonating bombs behind them. Russell was knocked off his feet and nearly crushed by falling debris, but RoboCop saved him and they both escaped. They were greeted by Madigan, who asked "Murphy" if he was okay, to which both Russell and RoboCop responded to, much to his confusion. He told Madigan that he believed the Raiders were connected to Tessa Stark, as he heard one of them mention a "Tess."[1]
Russell told RoboCop everything he saw, believing that the BBB were connected to the crime. However, upon finding nothing after a scan, RoboCop insisted upon finding more evidence. This briefly frustrated Russell until he realized that Alex would have thought the same thing. He asked RoboCop to accept his apology, which RoboCop was able to, as he was an adaptive cyborg.[1]
Russell returned home, finding a note saying "gone to store," believing that meant both Dorothy and Jimmy. After looking at a photo of himself and Alex, he got out a dictionary and looked up the definition of cyborg: "a human being who has certain physiological processes aided or controlled by mechanical or electronic devices."[1]
When Dorothy returned home without Jimmy, Russell recalled seeing him leave the phone company with Waldo. He armed himself with his pistol and told Dorothy to tell Metro South that he was headed to the BBB headquarters. Upon his arrival, Russell entered Tessa's office and found Jimmy being held captive, but was disarmed and stunned. Tessa took Russell and the OCP Chairman to a substation where she prepared to intercept stock trades in order to devastate OCP. She further planned to kill Russell and the Chairman, planning to stage it as a murder-suicide and implicate the Chairman in the Nazi Corp. bombing. RoboCop soon arrived and stopped Tessa's stock trade device, allowing Russell to overpower one of her Corporate Raiders. Seeing Tessa remotely swinging a pipe toward RoboCop, Russell tried to warn him, but the cyborg could not respond quickly enough and had his helmet knocked off. As Tessa prepared to crush RoboCop with the pipe, Russell destroyed her controls and backup arrived to arrest Tessa and her henchmen. Russell, seeing RoboCop hurry away and hide his face, determined that he was Alex.[1]
Russell picked up RoboCop's helmet and followed him outside, making him halt once he mentioned Alex by name. Russell was troubled by seeing the face of his son, wondering who to get angry at for incorporating his remains into a machine. Alex told him that they could not change the past and asked Russell to not tell their family that he was RoboCop. Alex then said he was still a cop, to which Russell agreed.[1]
Behind the scenes[]
Alternate versions[]
In the novelization of RoboCop (1987), the father of Alex Murphy is instead given as James Patrick Murphy, who moved his family to Detroit to take advantage of the automotive business. However, the industry eventually dwindled and he was forced to take a low-level job at the newly formed Omni Consumer Products.
While looking out a window one day, Murphy was struck by a bullet. He looked up at his son and whispered, "Sumbitch," then shrugged and smiled before he died.
A flashback in the Marvel Comics story "Mind Bomb" depicted Alex Murphy's father as an abusive puritanical named Frank Murphy.
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 RoboCop: The Series – "Corporate Raiders"
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 RoboCop: The Series – "The Human Factor"
- ↑ RoboCop (1987)