2000 ADs Golden Years?

[PEO]

For me, the mid to late eighties were and still are the greatest days in the history of the galaxys greatest comic. Anyone agree?

[chaingunchimp]

lol i love it all.
but yea 80s kicked ass tho.some really fantastic stuff going on.i was only born in 84 but loved all the back issues go my hands on from that time
saying that i think Wagner is at the top of his game with Dredd at the mo.

[Leigh S]

Back when you could vote on the stories in the progs in the database, I believe the most popular run of progs was somewhere in the 650s. Not paticulalrly scientific, and it wasn't as consistent a time as the 200 to 400s, but I do still remember that prog 650 "relaunch" with fondness, for all manner of reasons both prog based and not.
I'd felt that with the launch of Crisis a year or so earlier, 2000AD got a bit neglected for a while and this looked like someone realised that it needed a bit of love too.


For me, it was less than a year later that things were going off the rails again, but it was certainly a high point while it lasted.    

[vzzbux]

It's all good. Even the bad.
Oh and welcome.






V

[House of Usher]

I reckon the first 10 years were the best. I reckon it was quite 'golden' right off the bat with Prog 1. Things were going a bit wrong towards the end of the 1980s.

The 'Barney' database is quite helpful here. I'd start with Prog 600 and work away from there in either direction to pinpoint where the Golden Years ended (before they came back again, of course).

http://www.2000ad.org/?zone=prog&page=profiles&choice=600

[Roger Godpleton]

I think Prog 1179 was the best as it came out in the same week that the very first Meat Find was held.

[Peter Wolf]

Prog 175 up to about 350 or thereabouts.Things have been pretty good lately but that  period will always be the golden age and NO NONE of that "rose colored spectacles" nonsense has got anything to do with it whatsoever as the material still stands up today and is always re-readable as i never get tired of it.I felt like i was blessed because it was like the stories and the art were created just for me.

This opinion is purely based on the prog and is not related to anything outside of that although it has to be said that it was a very good period of my life aside from 2000ad.You only get one childhood and i am very grateful that mine was a pleasent one and made all the better by 2000ad every week.I had it delivered as well which was even better.I used to spend ages just looking at the art and studying it plus you didnt have all the superfluous barrage of distractions and too much information that kids have today so it made the prog that bit more special and it was really something to look forward to each week and i used to count days till the following Saturday or when ever it was that i got my copy.

[House of Usher]

A quick sampling to reveal signs the Golden Age was slipping away:

Rogue Trooper finished properly in Prog 392. The 'hits' started in Prog 520.
Mean Team started in Prog 437.
Universal Soldier, Prog 537.
Purity's Story in Nemesis started in Prog 558.
Ezquerra took a break from Strontium Dog after Prog 572.
Moon Runners, Prog 591.
The story that killed off Johnny Alpha started in Prog 600.
Night Zero (which I really liked) began in Prog 607.
Zippy Couriers (which wasn't as bad as all that) began in Prog 610.
Rogue Trooper reappeared as Friday in Prog 650.
Shadows, Prog 672.
Chronos Carnival began in Prog 676, which must signify something! That was 1990.

[eggonlegs]

It's all good. Even the bad.
Oh and welcome.
V

s'right

[Leigh S]

I'd agree with most of those, though i like Nemesis and Shadows wasn't a bad thing in itself.

And new Harlem Heroes is surely the final nail- that was prog 671.

Now both McKenzie and Fleischer are in place to invoice Tharg on an ever increasing spiral of of decay

[Aaron A Aardvark]

We're in the Golden Age now.

No, I'm serious.

[House of Usher]

And the good bits either side of Prog 600...

Zenith Phase 1, Progs 537-550.
ABC Warriors, The Black Hole, Progs 555-581.
Bad Company, The Krool Heart, Progs 576-585.
Zenith Phase 2, Progs 589-606.
Zenith Phase 3, Progs 626-634, 650-670.
Slaine, The Horned God, 626-635.

(Mostly Zenith, really)

Edit: on reflection, I agree that Prog 671 really did mark the end of the (first) Golden Age. Rogue Trooper, War Machine, Part 2, Armoured Gideon and Harlem Heroes. 24th March 1990. Thirteen years and 670 Progs is not a bad winning streak.

[I, Cosh]

I was just going to say that Prog 626 is possibly one of the most thrill-powered issues of all time! The start of The Horned God and Zenith III, an episode of Cinnabar and that cracking Dredd story where he's in the bath and has to pull splinters out of his chin!

My first Golden Age would be from about 300 (unsurprisingly, when I started reading) to 700. Although there's certainly a bit of rot creeping in by 600, there are still a lot of good stories in there. NB I liked The War Machine, The Final Solution and the first Universal Soldier story.

And, while there have been langourous patches, I think most people agree the past few years have been as good as it'll ever be again if you're not ten.

[Trout]

Now. I'll repeat a past post: one day we will look on this time with an overwhelming feeling of nostalgia.

2000AD is excellent, and I can't understand why it doesn't sell in the hundreds of thousands.

- Trout

[House of Usher]

Doing another unsytematic trawl, it looks like the current Golden Age began in January 2004 and goes on (The Red Seas, 'Twilight of the Idols', Slaine, 'Scota', ABC Warriors, Caballistics Inc, Strontium Dog, Nikolai Dante, Sinister Dexter, Savage, Kingdom, Defoe, Shakara, etc.)

If I had my copy of Thrill Power Overload to hand I might have been able to cast the net wider.