The Three Laws of Robotics in Popular Culture - Comics

Comics

• In October 2001, in the final episode of the ABC Comics title Top Ten, a superhero parody written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Gene Ha and Zander Cannon, robot law enforcer Joe Pi asks his human co-workers while on a case if they have heard of Asimov's Laws of Robotics. When they reply that they haven't, Jo Pi says "good" and proceeds to speak to Atoman through the intercom of his impregnable lab, subtly convincing the villain to take his own life rather than face trial, be stripped of his powers, and go to prison with revenge-seeking supervillains.

• In December 2001, a parody of the three laws appeared in an issue of PvP (issue 4 in the Dork Storm Press published PvP series). While Christmas shopping, Skull gets an overdose of sugar and near-unconscious walks into the mall Santa dressing room. Here he finds, posted on the wall, the three laws of Mall-Mart Santas:

1. A Santa may not discourage a sale or, through inaction, allow a sale to be lost.
2. A Santa must obey the orders given it by management except where such orders would conflict with the first law.
3. A Santa must maintain that he IS Santa as long as doing so does not conflict with the first or second law.

• Webcomic author R. Stevens populates his Diesel Sweeties series with a mixture of humans and robots, most of whom are continually violating the Three Laws. In particular, Red Robot C-63 follows a self-appointed mandate to "crush all hu-mans". In strip 688, he references the Three Laws explicitly: humans are "all like, 'if you cut me, do I not bleed?' And we're all like, 'not able to injure a human being or let them come to harm'. What a bunch of drippy-ass hypocrites!" (See also The Merchant of Venice.)

• In April 2004, the comic strip Piled Higher and Deeper ran a series entitled "I, Grad Student". Cast as a never-before-seen Asimov short story, this series of strips features a robotic grad student whose "procrastronic brain" malfunctions, leading it to violate the "First Law of Graduatics". In full, these Laws are the following:

1. A grad student may not delete data, or, through inaction, allow data to be deleted.
2. A grad student must obey orders given by its advisor, unless such orders conflict with the First Law.
3. A grad student must protect its (insignificant) existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Later in the story, a Zeroth Law is introduced: "A grad student may not harm its advisor's ego, or through inaction, allow that ego to come to harm." The strips feature a character named Susan Calvin, and their visual style parodies the I, Robot movie released that summer.

• In a 2005 comic of Questionable Content, Marten mentions that the inability to resist duct tape was originally the fourth law of robotics, and that Asimov's publisher forced him to change it.

• In March 2007, User Friendly introduced the Three Laws when system administrator Mike Floyd builds a refrigerator which can launch beer cans at the touch of a remote control. "Why do you need the Three Laws for a beer dispenser?" asks Miranda Cornielle, to which Mike replies, "Note the growing purple contusion on my forehead."

• In August 2010, Freefall introduced a negative one law: "A robot shall take no action, nor allow other robots to take action, that may result in the parent company being sued."

• In the 2011 Mega Man series by Archie Comics, robots are initially unable to take any action against an anti-robotic terrorist group called the Emerald Spears because they do not pose any danger to humans. When their leader orders them to attack humans, however, they begin to fight back (reasoning that inaction would cause harm to a greater number of people).