Action Special 1992

[abelardsnazz]

Quite a pleased Snazz here - on a trip to York today picked up a copy of this for a quid in Oxfam. Looking forward to reading.

[sheridan]

Let us know what you thought of it...

[abelardsnazz]

An intriguing piece of Tooth history. I mostly enjoyed this, with the exception of The Spider, who Mark Millar for some reason rewrites as a psychopathic killer. Can't fault the art by John Higgins and David Hine though. Steel Claw, Cursitor Doom, Mytek the Mighty and Kelly's Eye all seem to follow the tradition of the original strips well, and there's great work from John Smith and John Burns on the more obscure Doctor Sin. As promised at the end of the Kelly's Eye strip, there was a short-lived follow-up in the Prog before rights issues reared their head. Overall, a fun experiment.

[AlexF]

I got this whenit came out and remember funding it utterly impenetrable. I think mostly because I was 14, and hadnt even heard of any of the characters within. To my young eyes it seemed to epitomise the era of 2000AD being edgy and pretentious. Some of the art was good, though! I did reread it a few years ago and it made more sense, some of it was indeed pretty good - better than The Valiant, if I may be so bold. Not my thing…

[The Corinthian]

As promised at the end of the Kelly's Eye strip, there was a short-lived follow-up in the Prog before rights issues reared their head. Overall, a fun experiment.

Kelly had been in the third and final run of 'Universal Soldier' the previous autumn, with Tharg teasing us that it would involve a famous returning character then having to explain who it was to a readership who were stil largely too young to have read Valiant.

[Leigh S]

And so unlike Millar to write beloved legacy character in such a way... 

I mostly enjoyed this, with the exception of The Spider, who Mark Millar for some reason rewrites as a psychopathic killer.

[JayzusB.Christ]

I loved it.  It was one of the most unrelentingly grim specials Tharg has ever put out.  I wasn't very familiar with the characters beforehand, and thus didn't mind Mark Millar's Spider at all; but for my money the standout piece was Cursitor Doom, which for me was John Tomlinson's best strip ever.  It managed something comics rarely do for me - it was scary, especially when you realise that the TV host is in an infinitely looping self-built hell.  (The weird thing is, I thought he totally deserved it at the time - these days I have a lot more respect for Randi-type skeptics who debunk 'psychic' con artists.)   It was also very clever in that it lampshaded the fact that it was in black and white, something that Tharg was thankfully beginning to reintroduce to the prog.

The hired assassin version of the Steel Claw was brilliant too.  Oddly, the John Smith story was, for once, not one of my favourites in a special - still a decent read, though.

[Barrington Boots]

Inspired by this thread I dug out my copy of this and read it for the first time since 1992.
When it came out I remember it being fascinating and very very dark but since then I've mainly remembered it for Mark Millar's abomination rewrite of The Spider. On a re-read it's better than I remember it: The Cursitor Doom story is excellent and there's some lovely art on Doctor Sin and Steel Claw from John Burns and Sean Phillips respectively. The Doctor Sin story is pure horror, it could almost be in Books of Blood or something.
It is extremely joyless throughout and very 1990s but a lot better than it's remembered, I think and well worth exhuming.

[The Corinthian]

Millar did set the trend of having every revival of The Spider involve him busting out of an incredibly high-security prison, but it does give off the vibe - not unique to Millar - that everyone on 2000AD had been really impressed by 'The Silence of the Lambs' and couldn't think about anything else for the next three years.

[GordonR]

but it does give off the vibe - not unique to Millar - that everyone on 2000AD had been really impressed by 'The Silence of the Lambs' and couldn't think about anything else for the next three years.

You have no idea how painfully accurate this is. I wasn’t writing for the prog then - still blacklisted, I think - but I remember two then-young scriptdroids of the time being obsessed with two things - Silence of the Lambs (or serial killer stuff in general) and Grant Morrison.