Zenith returns in Prog 2050!

[Frank]

I was about to splutter that literally nobody thinks Phase III is the best ...

https://goo.gl/forms/8txJYs9bOdyW8mjo2

Listen to the Phase IIIers, Cosh. More horrifying than a child's doll driven mad by the things it has witnessed or looking up to see the sun turned black.

What have we unleashed upon this world?

[I, Cosh]

I was about to splutter that literally nobody thinks Phase III is the best ...

https://goo.gl/forms/8txJYs9bOdyW8mjo2

Listen to the Phase IIIers, Cosh. More horrifying than a child's doll driven mad by the things it has witnessed or looking up to see the sun turned black.

What have we unleashed upon this world?

I definitely did not see this coming. Phase fucking IV currently has more votes than 1 or 2!

[Satanist]

I voted phase 2 as that's still my fave after a recent re-read - He fucks his mums clone, fights his da and the villain is Scorpio from the simpsons, whats not to love?

[Frank]

I definitely did not see this coming. Phase fucking IV currently has more votes than 1 or 2!

I think Phase III probably conforms more to US comic sensibilities.

I came to 2000ad straight from the Beano and Asterix, and the things I enjoyed most in mainstream culture were Top Of The Pops and Spitting Image, so universes colliding and armies of superheroes seemed like a puzzling diversion from the good stuff.

[Colin YNWA]

Yeah I'd always go Phase III it's GMozz's Crisis on Infinite Earths before he knew he'd get to play Crisis on Infinite Earths with the original DC characters. It's all the better for the fact it's not bound by DC's IPs and so he gets to go for broken and the shackles are off cos he can go all 2000ad on its ass.

Looking forward to seeing if I stick to this view after my current re-read. Having just finished Phase I I'm really looking forward to the more intimate Phase II.

But yeah good as Phase IV is better than I or II nah that's crazy talk to me!

[Frank]

He fucks his mum's clone

Every rational person's dream. Also, if you know what's good for you, just pretend I typed the correct phase number in my previous reply.

[Greg M.]

I think Phase III probably conforms more to US comic sensibilities.

I suspect that some people embrace Phase III not because they're familiar with US comics sensibilities but for the exact opposite reason - because they're not familiar with them, and hence the story gains an increased freshness for them.

[Jim_Campbell]

I love Phase II, if only for the startling leap Yeowell's art takes from Phase I. In the first book, the Owl seems to be channelling an odd (but appropriate) hybrid of Davis and Leach, but with Phase II, he's suddenly his own art droid, dragging in influences from all over the place, creating this thing with great angular slabs of black and an astonishing sense of movement.

[sheridan]

I know you all think Phase III is the best, but I was waiting for the US comic in-jokes to finish so we could get back to The Hitman and Her, politics, and recent history.

I was about to splutter that literally nobody thinks Phase III is the best but then I had a better idea.

At which point I discovered that it's not possible to create a new poll on this forum (even though there is a little "poll" icon at the bottom of the screen) so I've made my own to let us settle this once and for all.

It's science, yo!

How did you decide which stories to leave out?  There's the interludes, three or four annuals and specials stories and I think that's it.

[karlos]

Here's a link to the story, with pic:

https://www.newsarama.com/36398-morrison-yeowell-s-zenith-returning-to-2000-ad-with-new-story.html

(Scarily, I have the same beard).

[Jimmy Baker's Assistant]

Phase III is undoubtedly the weakest of the phases, with the weakest art.

Phase I is the best, Phase IV and then Phase II.

Glad this new Interlude is not part of Sinister Ted Dexter. Annoyed it's a one-off and not Phase V. Really want a Phase V.

[Frank]

Phase III probably conforms more to US comic sensibilities.

I suspect that some people embrace Phase III  ... because they're not familiar with (US comics sensibilities), and hence the story gains an increased freshness for them.

It's as good a theory as my own.

I think Phase III might have represented a hurdle because it introduced me to the idea that one series could build upon the last. The afore mentioned Beano conditioned me to strips resetting each week. Asterix stories had call back gags, but nothing you'd describe as continuity.

From my limited experience*, Dredd seemed like Dennis The Menace, resetting every week. Sometimes, like Strontium Dog, it would have stories that lasted for more than one episode, but then the next story would give you a different villain and setting.**

Now I can see that Morrison foreshadowing and slotting individual stories together to form his own fictional Omnihedron was smarty pants stuff, but to someone for whom Oor Wullie sitting laughing on his bucket represented a satisfying narrative conclusion, it just seemed like recycling old ideas and characters that had been used up already.***


* In 1989, I'd been reading for less than two years

** Although I thought both stories were the dog's bollocks, I remember being incandescent with rage when I realised that Hitman followed on directly from the final episode of Oz. This Wagner guy was obviously a hack - none of the TB Grover stories I was reading in 2000ad Monthly relied on cheap stunts like having anything to do with the story printed in the previous issue.

*** To be fair to my pubeless self, he had a point. Even then I could see the problems that having Dredd age in real time would cause, as well as the mess that would result when a new writer found themselves inhibited by something his predecessor had written a decade ago

[Fungus]

Barely remember Zenith, but read part 4 on the catch-up recently. The colouring didn't do it any favours.

[TordelBack]

Phase II for me, because it's clearly the best.  Tight story, buckets of plot development, amazing art, invocation of Beatrice Dalle.  Like 'em all though, even the colour bits.

As to Phase III, the US comics tropes Morrison employs/mocks were still pretty fresh - we had yet to have our enthusiasm beaten to death with biannual ragnarok - and the bleak horror spin he puts on proceedings had only barely been touched on (by Moore, of course).

Also:

One reason Zenith 2017 would be a bad cover version of previous hits is that music's no longer central to popular culture.

Frank man, when did you get so old?  Aside from accusations of today's music just being noise, that's been the most common refrain of the geezer since we were hitting antelope bones together on the savannah.

[Colin YNWA]

Also:

One reason Zenith 2017 would be a bad cover version of previous hits is that music's no longer central to popular culture.

Frank man, when did you get so old?  Aside from accusations of today's music just being noise, that's been the most common refrain of the geezer since we were hitting antelope bones together on the savannah.

Ha! So very true. Even though she's only 8 I keep congratulating my daughter when she doesn't like my music and I hate whatever pish she's listening to. As it ever been and ever should be.