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Thrill-Coma 2010

Started by Funt Solo, 25 June, 2018, 09:28:33 PM

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Funt Solo

Oops, I did a copy pasta and mis-credited Damnation Station - it should have looked like this:

Damnation Station [2nd arc] (1850-1861)
Script: Al Ewing
Art: Mark Harrison
Letters: Simon Bowland


++ A-Z ++  coma ++

broodblik

Quote from: Funt Solo on 27 January, 2019, 05:38:55 AM

Aquila: Where All Roads Lead (1851-1855)
Script: Gordon Rennie
Art: Patrick Goddard
Colours: Gary Caldwell
Letters: Ellie De Ville

A smaller five part chunk of bloody mystical mayhem set (if you didn't guess by the title) in Imperial Rome.  This is fascinating stuff, with my only complaint being that I didn't want it to end so soon.  It transpires that the titular immortal killer is being hired to do a sort of "Seven Heads for Hekate" style quest, neatly setting things up for future installments.


It is one of those new thrills which was just awesome but for some reason it just disappeared into the cracks the last few years. It might be a case  where Rennie got bored with the character, but I really would like this to return.
When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.

Old age is the Lord's way of telling us to step aside for something new. Death's in case we didn't take the hint.

Colin YNWA

There's so much stuff here I'm looking forward to getting to in my re-read but its so damned far off.

Aquila was a story I wanted to love but just couldn't make myself do so - mind as broodblik says its a shame its another one that drifted away as its deserves the ending it seemed we were close to. Frustrating when this happens.

Flesh was a story I wanted to love and managed to make myself do so... it will be interesting on re-read to see if it holds up. I know I'm dreading the 7 warriors bit! Shame James McKay didn't work out as I really enjoyed his work.

Dark Jimbo

Quote from: broodblik on 27 January, 2019, 05:57:07 AM
Quote from: Funt Solo on 27 January, 2019, 05:38:55 AM

Aquila: Where All Roads Lead (1851-1855)

It is one of those new thrills which was just awesome but for some reason it just disappeared into the cracks the last few years. It might be a case  where Rennie got bored with the character, but I really would like this to return.

Rennie certainly has form in the 'I got bored' field. I find it a bit hard to invest in new stories by hin and Ian Edginton - who knows when (or if) they'll ever be concluded?

Maybe we'll find out what happened this Wednesday - Aquila is the next Ultimate Collection volume. Can't wait to read the back-up stuff and find out.
@jamesfeistdraws

IndigoPrime

Quote from: Funt Solo on 27 January, 2019, 05:38:55 AMIt's like I ended up stuck at a bar being ranted at by a simmeringly aggressive mysoginistic drunk conspiracy theorist.
That's as good a summing up of that series as I've ever read.

broodblik

Maybe there is a competition between Edginton and Rennie to see how long they can drag out a story before concluding it. We only got the last episode of Caballistics 11 years later. So I have still hope for Helium
When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.

Old age is the Lord's way of telling us to step aside for something new. Death's in case we didn't take the hint.

CalHab

Didn't Edginton promise some sort of conclusion to that in a Thrillcast?

Funt Solo

2014 (1st quarter)

In order of most to least thrilling:


Tharg's 3rillers: After The Vengeance
(1871-1873)
Script: David Baillie
Art: Jon Davis-Hunt
Colours: Gary Caldwell
Letters: Ellie De Ville


The freshest thing in a 13-prog run is this 3-parter about a gang-ridden London following a violent economic collapse.  Great concept, beautiful art, disturbing themes and a clever twist to round it off.  The only thing wrong here is that it was all over so quickly: and the twist doesn't really allow for this to be a launch pad for a longer series.




Strontium Dog: The Life and Death of Johnny Alpha; Chapter Four; Dogs of War
(p2014 & 1862-1870)
Script: John Wagner
Art: Carlos Ezquerra
Letters: Simon Bowland


It's quite odd trying to get to grips with Strontium Dog as purely bleak.  It's always explored dark themes, but does best when those are balanced with the light humor evident in earlier stories.  Wulf was a great foil, as he stuck a sock in Schicklegruber's gob.  In the midst of the The Killing, the Osmunds provided slapstick humor.

Here we have an all-out war, where the norms have irreversibly sterilized the mutant population of the UK.  Alpha is set on total war and seems okay with the idea of executing civilian prisoners, but is held in check by Middenface's morality.  This really changes Alpha's character: so it seems like resurrected Alpha isn't morally trustworthy.

Still: these themes are interesting (if a bit of a re-tread of Portrait of a Mutant), and we get to see a bunch of racist Nazis get their comeuppance.  The end suggests the death of a main character which I assume will get reversed in a future tale. 




Judge Dredd: Titan (& Fit)
(1862-1869 & 1873)
Script: Rob Williams
Art: Henry Flint
Letters: Annie Parkhouse


This opens as a mini-epic with a beautiful splash of Titan orbiting Saturn but takes odd turns until we end up with a convoluted plot that has Aimee Nixon (once of Low Life) continuously torturing a captured Dredd and shouting at Hershey on the vid phone.

I always felt it was a shame that Nixon (who I thought of as central to Low Life) eventually became a side-villain to Dirty Frank's adventures.  And now she's twirling her (metallic) moustache and screaming of injustice as she flails at everyone and everything. 

In true Die Hard fashion, Dredd seems to bleed his way back to Earth and ride his Lawmaster from the spaceport to a Sector House, his uniform still smoldering (see the first frame of Fit in prog 1873) to declare that he needs some medical assistance.  This is weird for many reasons but especially as between Titan and Fit, he managed to be perfectly well and riding his Lawmaster along a giant worm to make it eat itself in Squirm!  (Which is also weird, of course, for all its own reasons.)




The A.B.C. Warriors: Return to Mars
(p2014 & 1862-1866, 1868-1873)
Script: Pat Mills
Art: Clint Langley
Letters: Annie Parkhouse


Or we could have not returned to Mars.  This bamboozles me, plot-wise, because of the flashback structure.  I think it starts on Mars, then flashes back to the atomic wars.  Then it flashes back to Shrapnel on Mars, where he dies, and the Warriors bury him.  The flashback then has him come back to life years later to fight some zombies (but it's still a flashback) in a different art style.  The Shrapnel flashback then segues into a Warriors flashback, in which they return to Mars (but I'm not sure when), but Shrapnel doesn't want to hang out with them.  The flashback art now changes back to the first style, so I think we're back (time-wise) in Flashback A.  Are you following?  I'm not.

For some reason, the art changes again and we are told the tale of Tubal Caine (which is Shrapnel) adopting a human boy, only for Howard Quartz (who's never really been part of the Warriors, because he was a more childish one-note character present in Ro-Busters) to turn up and be all super villain.  This takes us (in the final episode) back to the opening scene (and out of all the flashbacks).  The series ends with Hammerstein saying he's going to look in his memory files - and we get as the final splash page another flashback, indicating that the next series of The ABC Warriors will actually be a Ro-Busters ... flashback.

Talk about being stuck in the time wastes.  It's like Pat just keeps remixing all the same ingredients.  I lost track of how many times Shrapnel dies, only to not be dead.  So, death is meaningless in this strip.




Ulysses Sweet: Centred
(p2014 & 1862-1869)
Script: Guy Adams
Art: Paul Marshall
Greytones: Chris Blythe
Letters: Ellie De Ville


Another weird choice in which the only vaguely likeable character is a poodle.  Trying for broad laughs, this descends too readily into horrible sexism by allowing Ulysses to be abhorrent to everyone.  I had fond-ish memories of an amusing couple of one-off tales from 1987: so it's a bit odd for this character to show up with his own series in 2014, but okay.  The other thing that makes this an unusual choice is that it's sort of Big Dave ('93-94) in Space, and that's known as a bit of a touchy subject.  So: why?  Is it Zombo's fault?




Grey Area [4th arc]
(1863-1873)
Script: Dan Abnett
Art: Patrick Goddard, Mark Harrison
Colours: Abigail Ryder, Mark Harrison
Letters: Ellie De Ville


Well-drawn and bearable for that.  I just find it difficult to see past the fact that Birdy's entire character is petulant jealous girlfriend to the noble Bulliet.  "He's talking to another woman?  But ... I need him ..."  Ooh wah, slarty var. 

The central premise of Grey Area has always bothered me as well: why do all these aliens rock up at Earth knowing that they're not allowed in and have to live in what's basically a fascistic airport?  The adventures are all a bit Future Shocky - with luggage that's really aliens.  And money that's really aliens.  That this is still running as a modern thrill (although I haven't read past this point) bamboozles me, but lots of people have said it improves with age. Perhaps not my cup of tea, then.

++ A-Z ++  coma ++

Colin YNWA

Grey Area definately improves with age and alas is the scenario you describe for its premise is horribly familar for the poor folks herded into camps at Calais and so is a very chilling realisation of modern problems, Solidly 2000ad in my mind.


Funt Solo

2014 (2nd Quarter Kick-Off)

A really strong line up of thrills (three of the old guard, one new and one spin-off) feels fresh after the previous quarter languished too heavily in the past.

The cover of prog 1874 lines them up for us: Slaine, Dredd, Sinister Dexter, Outlier and Jaegir.  In order of most to least thrilling...


Judge Dredd: Mega-City Confidential
(1874-1878)
Script: John Wagner
Art: Colin MacNeil
Colours: Chris Blythe
Letters: Annie Parkhouse


A beautifully wrought thriller from Wagner in which he deftly juggles the Justice Department as fascist surveillance operation with Dredd as partly just a cog in the machine.

Colin MacNeil renders a noirish nightmare where almost everything is framed askew and Justice is a dark silhouette preying on the citizens.

The only bittersweet part of such a top notch thrill is the knowledge that Wagner is writing less and less Dredd: nobody else can quite grasp the blend of cop procedural and noir nuance that is modern Wagner Dredd.

 


Slaine: The Brutania Chronicles: Book One: A Simple Killing
(1874-1886)
Script: Pat Mills
Art: Simon Davis
Letters: Ellie De Ville


Slaine returns with mutton chops and beard, looking a bit more middle-aged than in previous incarnations and therby providing a sense of time (in a tale that has sometimes seemed stuck in a cycle).  The drune lords and their skull sword troops are back as a threat, and Slaine finds himself on a quest to save Sinead (a recent aquaintance) from their evil clutches.

The art from Simon Davis is absolutely belting, and Mills does a good job of keeping the action moving (even if, a bit like the norse myths, his Slaine tales lack some continuity).  There are also hilarious moments, like when a nonchalantly peeing giant asks Slaine if he is stuck because he hasn't run away yet.  It's really difficult to choose an image to show, because the art throughout is just a joy, but here's Slaine panicking as Sinead is infected by evil magic that turns her into a twisted version of a mermaid:




Jaegir: Strigoi
(1874-1879)
Script: Gordon Rennie
Art: Simon Coleby
Colours: Len O'Grady
Letters: Simon Bowland


Just when you thought it was safe to take off the chem mask, Kapiten-Inspector Atalia Jaegir of the Nordland State Security Police suddenly kicks back open the door to the Rogue-verse with a darkly atmospheric horror story about once proud warriors mutating into homicidal monsters.

Historically, we've been bereft of a series set in this universe since The 86ers (2009), so this was unexpected and a great surprise.  Simon Coleby does a (spookily) beautiful job of bringing it to life, whether rendering Nort hoppers against leaden skies or enraged bears in gloomy forests.  Top thrill!




Outlier
(1874-1883)
Script: T.C. Eglington
Art: Karl Richardson
Letters: Annie Parkhouse


This sci-fi thriller has us following Carcer, a sort of intergalactic private eye (with magic ... eyes), who finds himself up against an unstoppable hi-tech assassin bent on revenge.  Because of the back-story, the only flaw here is that the protagonist takes something of a back seat and serves more as a mugaffin than a hero.  That's probably fine if this is just a one-off thrill: but it would be difficult to see why we'd want the follow-up adventures of Carcer.

Karl Richardson does an amazing job of depicting all the intergalactic mayhem and body-morping.




Sinister Dexter: The Generican Dream: Gun Shy
(1874-1879)
Script: Dan Abnett
Art: Smudge
Letters: Ellie De Ville


A strained allegory, increasingly forced puns and shallow characters mostly fail to land and so struggle to propel this shaggy dog story as it stupidly wags from scene to scene.

I'm not sure what can be done to revive Sinister Dexter: it used to be quite compelling - and one of the key characters was the city of Downlode.  But then the Moses plot got stretched out over years of drip-fed plotting, bringing in and then dismantling multiple dimensions until it felt like it had truly run its course.  Now it feels like the tail end of Ace Trucking: running on fumes.

++ A-Z ++  coma ++

Colin YNWA

Wow has it really been five years since we got so excited about Simon Davus taking over in Slaine! Doesn't time fly and all that. And to think it all started so well...  but.... well I need to do a read - I'll get there eventually, but being up to Secret Commonwealth in my re-read this was certainly a step up.

I really enjoyed Outlier and think the subsequent two books took the story to interesting places. Again a re-read is called for but looking forward to this one.

TordelBack

Funt's periodic Thrill Coma updates are one of the highlights of this forum.   :thumbsup:

IndigoPrime

Outlier got better and reads well collected. Sadly, The Brutania Chronicles did not, wasting the goodwill from that broadly excellent first series to mire itself in turgid, slothful plotting, retreads, and LOTS OF SHOUTY SPEECH BALLOONS.

Funt Solo



2014 (Mid Year Cement)

As the longer thrills of the 2nd quarter (Slaine and Outlier) finish up, and the scheduling for a prog 1900 jump-on starts to kick in, we get a mix of Tharg's [F]illers (which, to be fair, are often REALLY good), vari-sized Dredds, some shorter thrills (Grey Area & Sinister Dexter) and the return of Indigo Prime.

A selection of those, in order of most to least thrilling...


Judge Dredd: The Heart is a Lonely Klegg Hunter
(1888-1889)
Script: Rob Williams
Art: Chris Weston
Colours: Michael Dowling
Letters: Annie Parkhouse


Non-Wagner Dredd sometimes suffers by comparison, but here's the proof that it can be done, and done blindingly well.  We follow a day in the life of Sensitive Klegg (a periodically recurring character) and find that things aren't going well for him and seem to be getting worse - even to the extent that he might be in danger of giving in to his baser desires.

This is not just a beautiful tale by Rob Williams, but sublimely realized by the real treat of Chris Weston on art duties.  Here's a thrill that makes us feel bad for all the non-Squaxx out there who just don't get to experience it.




Tharg's 3rillers: Colony
(1880-1882)
Script: Kek-W
Art: Vince Locke
Colours: Adam Brown
Letters: Ellie De Ville


A cross between John Carpenter's The Thing and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Colony is set in the harsh world of a soviet gulag.  It's a blend of bleak dystopian hardships and pulp sci-fi one liners ("T-They're all over me!  Imperialists from outer space!") that works really well in this short format. 




Indigo Prime: Perfect Day
(1880-1887)
Script: John Smith
Art: Lee Carter
Letters: Simon Bowland


You can't accuse it of being dull - either in terms of action or art (and Lee Carter's art is beyond compare), but Indigo Prime suffers from a sense of impenetrability which seems as if it's probably deliberate (no spoon-feeding here) yet also perhaps a side effect of having such a large cast spread out over multiple realities.

Not to spoil the plot but there's a blend of Nazis and dark gods that sets up a cliffhanger threat (so that this entire series is just a preamble): which might set one to think that it's an easy fix for Indigo Prime - just shut down the reality that's having the problem - but then only Smith knows how this multiverse operates, so perhaps it's some kind of omni-threat. (Most thrills don't involve us asking questions this bizarre.)

While trying to follow the dimensional shenanigans, it was jarring to accept the switch to Monty Python level comedy with OAP combat robot pilots complaining about their lumbago and absent-mindedly wondering if they left the oven on (whilst still trying to care about the fate of the IP operatives who are in mortal danger). 

Summary: it's beautiful to look at but sometimes frustrating to follow.




Judge Dredd: Shooters Night
(1879-1882)
Script: John Wagner
Art: John McCrea
Colours: Chris Blythe
Letters: Annie Parkhouse


The ambiguity of the missing titular apostrophe drives the plot forward as Dredd attempts to solve a case and thereby stop a planned mass shooting.  Generally the art serves the tale well, but there are a couple of confusing compositions (like a sudden draw down at the end of the second episode that seems to come out of nowhere, or an entire page framed against Dredd confronting a perfectly well perp that was bleeding out in a previous frame).

Summary: a great build up with a tricky third-act that is hampered by some unusual storytelling.




Grey Area: Nearer My God To Thee
(1884-1888)
Script: Dan Abnett
Art: Mark Harrison
Letters: Annie Parkhouse


New employee Birdy, having started a sexual relationship with her line manager (Adam Bulliet), is finding it difficult to adjust when he gets a promotion to head of department.  She becomes increasingly jealous as a new and glamerous female CEO (Lyra Hallard) seems to be taking up a lot of Adam's time.  Birdy becomes convinced that they're having an affair and (despite planning to keep their relationship a secret from the rest of the team) she spends a lot of her work day complaining to her colleagues about feeling sidelined.

When Adam finds out about her continual jealous digs to colleagues he decides to resolve the problem by passionately kissing Birdy in front of all the other employees, then expletively berating her ("Now get your shit in order...") before getting on with the day's business (of nuking an interplanetary god-being intent on the destruction of Earth).

The series ends on a cliffhanger, as we don't know whether Birdy will attain feminist enlightenment, lodge a complaint with HR or feel economically and societally restrained to continue in the role of subserviant chattel.  (Plus, it seems as if the team might have died in a nuclear inferno.)




---

One line mini-reviews:

Judge Dredd: A Night in Sylvia Plath - a jolly romp featuring Walter and Mrs Gunderson.
Judge Dredd: Traumatown - a solid 5-part thrill reminscent of The Haunting of Sector House 9.
Terror Tales: Done Deal - an exceptionally wrought setting (high-rise, working class) with a despairing twist.
Tharg's 3rillers: In Seconds Flat - fun, fast moving time twister that's as dumb as a bag of hammers.
Future Shocks: The Name of the Law - an intriguing tale of dark assistance hampered by a smelly closet reveal.
Tharg's Time Twisters: Burping Hitler - uhm ... there's something distasteful about making Hitler fun.
Sinister Dexter: The Generican Dream: Congo - Sin & Dex continue to circle endlessly around Moses Tanenbaum.
Judge Dredd: Student Bodies - a mean-spirited tale of mutie prejudice with a gloomy resolution.
Tharg's 3rillers: Voodoo Planet - unrelenting horror and the elimination of hope makes for a bit of a bummer. 
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

Frank

Quote from: Funt Solo on 17 June, 2019, 06:52:58 PM
Judge Dredd: Student Bodies - a mean-spirited tale of mutie prejudice with a gloomy resolution.

Depends how you voted in the referendum.  You sure do write purty.