3. Iron Man, ROM, Dredd and Jesus Christ
In the scene where the scruffy looking scumbag decides to hold up a convenience store with a machine gun, he walks in and picks up a comic book off the shelf, the comic book is Iron Man. It was deliberately placed there by Verhoeven as Iron Man shares many similarities with RoboCop with both Murphy and Tony Stark ''saved'' from death by infusing their bodies with technology. The other noteworthy comic on the shelf is ROM: Space Knight, a story about a man who has his brain implanted into a robotic body. RoboCop was heavily influenced by ROM and Judge Dredd. Another influence for the RoboCop character was the ''son of god'' Jesus Christ. In fact one of the things that Verhoeven found so interesting when he was reading the script was that the story is a basic retelling of the story of Jesus Christ. To illustrate the analogy, Verhoeven included a number of on-screen nods to the biblical story. Alex Murphy is executed and then resurrected, Murphy's hand is ''nailed'' by the bullet from Boddicker's gun, RoboCop appears to walk on water during the finale of the film when he's about to confront Boddicker at the steel mill and when he stabs Boddicker in the neck, the blood turns the water red similar to Christ turning water into wine.