2000 AD - The Ultimate Collection

[Magnetica]

The censorship reason for leyser guns is interesting...guess that went out of the window by the time The Horned God came around?

As for taking characters out of their established world - yes I agree it is generally a bad idea and it is the world that has been built as well as the character that provides the interest. But it can work, as you say, on a limited basis, after all The Judge Child quest is my favourite Dredd epic.

[Dark Jimbo]

Pat obviously thinks different, but I just don't think Slaine is interesting or charismatic enough to anchor the strip when you take him out of his natural surroundings - thank the Goddess for Ukko!

[TordelBack]

Yeah. my books are here too. The Sin/Dex book's contents was one we queried early on due to the sheer number of appearances in the prog and Smith talks about this in the intro. The progs covered are:
984, 988-989, 992-993, 1024-1031, 1051-1061, 1079-1082, 1084-1086 & 1090-1091.

Well arse. I was just heading down to the shops to get this, but now I suppose I'm back on hold until there's some effort made towards a complete Sin Dex.

[Mardroid]

I've been reading the Kenny Who volume, and so far it's been really good funny stuff! I do like the more recent stories, but it would be nice if they produced more humour strips. Not as a replacement for what we've got, but a mixture would be great.

[leethomson]

Hang about, are the covers volumes an actual thing? I didn't opt out, but was never charged and never received one (and am two volumes behind, natch). I assumed the whole idea had been quietly dropped. A spot of Facebook messaging might be on the cards.

[sintec]

Hang about, are the covers volumes an actual thing? I didn't opt out, but was never charged and never received one (and am two volumes behind, natch). I assumed the whole idea had been quietly dropped. A spot of Facebook messaging might be on the cards.

Covers volume 1 came out a few months back (some time after the delay which put most us 2 vols behind).  So yeah if you wanted one I'd hit them up on FB asap.

[Nellgrove]

With some series being released incomplete it makes it harder to understand why there's 13 volumes of Slaine coming in the collection (it's almost as bad as Deadpool getting 80). Plus if there are this many Slaine books coming why haven't more been included already? I hope this series gets extended as there's a lot of B&W classic material i'd want to see ahead of some of the modern stuff that's in there.

[IndigoPrime]

The tail end of the collection is going to be very Sláine heavy, clearly, with books coming very regularly. My guess is that specific series were earmarked from day one as having to be complete at the point the series spec was compiled. Nikolai Dante, for example, just doesn't work piecemeal. Strontium Dog lacks the Starlord strips (*grumble*) but will otherwise be the entire arc through to Final Solution, and then everything from then reboot. Sláine gets the same treatment, in part because of its popularity, but also because it mostly has a coherent narrative that threads throughout.

Sinister Dexter is more like Dredd. You can relatively easily hack out inconsequential episodes rather than aiming for completes. Also, it's a pretty divisive strip, and so my instinct is that a great many more Sin Dex books would have been more of a gamble.

[TordelBack]

Sinister Dexter is more like Dredd. You can relatively easily hack out inconsequential episodes rather than aiming for completes. Also, it's a pretty divisive strip, and so my instinct is that a great many more Sin Dex books would have been more of a gamble.

All true, but I was (naively) hoping that the volumes we did get would be complete in themselves, and maybe even run up towards the Meg floppies.  I know it's not the purpose of the Collection, but I'm not seeing much hope in other formats...

[sintec]

With some series being released incomplete it makes it harder to understand why there's 13 volumes of Slaine coming in the collection (it's almost as bad as Deadpool getting 80). Plus if there are this many Slaine books coming why haven't more been included already? I hope this series gets extended as there's a lot of B&W classic material i'd want to see ahead of some of the modern stuff that's in there.

Next Slaine is expected in November (so December for most subscribers) then The High King follows March/April next year.  After that I think 1 in every 5 books will be Slaine volume, so one every 3 months or thereabouts.  If they'd spaced them more evenly from the start then it would have been approximately 1 in every 6 books (1 every 6.15 books to be precise) which would still boil down to one every 3 months for subscribers, although we would now be up to The High King.

I'm guessing they figured it was better to show the range of strips in the early section of the run. Although that doesn't explain why we've had 3 out of 4 Nemesis volumes already, if we applied the logic of trying to show of the range of characters early in the run then it would have made more sense to have 1 of the Bad Company or Caballistics volumes already instead of Vol 3 of Nemesis.  That probably also would have give us the conclusion of the ABC Warriors Black Hole arc before Nemesis Vol 3 which probably would have made more sense.

Personally, as a new reader, I'm finding the mix of material about right.  I'm glad this isn't more heavily classic era 2000AD as some of the modern vols we've had have been among the best in the collection so far for me.  Shakara, Kingdom & Zombo were all top thrills, whereas I could have lived without volume 1 of Stront and the 2nd half of the Robo-hunter volume (and we've got another 2 vols of that 2 come )

As for Deadpool getting 80 volumes, wow, er good luck to them with that.  I certainly won't be buying another book case for that one.

[Arkady]

Personally, as a new reader, I'm finding the mix of material about right.  I'm glad this isn't more heavily classic era 2000AD as some of the modern vols we've had have been among the best in the collection so far for me.  Shakara, Kingdom & Zombo were all top thrills, whereas I could have lived without volume 1 of Stront and the 2nd half of the Robo-hunter volume (and we've got another 2 vols of that 2 come )

As a reader who started in the early 90s and lapsed around the Millennium I couldn't agree more. The new stuff like Shakara, Kingdom and Zombo has been revelatory. I've really enjoyed the timeless early stuff, where the quality of the writing still shines through - Nemesis, Rogue Trooper, Stronty from vol II on, and so on. But some of that 'classic' stuff just comes off as childish bilge to me - Robo-Hunter and Ace Trucking being the main culprits. It's meant to be the Ultimate Collection, not the nostalgia collection.

A think it's partly down to the age you were at the time. I wasn't around for those, so they don't have the benefit of nostalgia. I'd love to read Mambo and Finn again for instance, and I bet I'd love them, though I'm sure older readers regard them as among the worst things ever printed.

[leethomson]

Sinister Dexter is [...] a pretty divisive strip, and so my instinct is that a great many more Sin Dex books would have been more of a gamble.

I credit Sinister Dexter with ultimately driving me away from 2000AD, not long after it debuted. I just couldn't see the appeal and resented how frequently it was given space. As a result I gave anything by Dan Abnett a hard pass for many years. I've changed my position on Abnett, but can't say I'm looking forward to these volumes.

[James Stacey]

whereas conversely I'd have rather the volume of Slaine in the collection be redirected to Sin Dex instead. Slaine at its height has had some cracking stories. Theres been a lot of dross too.

[leethomson]

There's a lot of stuff I'd prefer over either of them tbh, but that's 2000AD's fault for being so prolifically good for so long!

[Tomwe]

Just got done with the Sin Dex book.

Like Arkady and leetomson, I was reading throughout the 90s and bailed after Prog 2000, so I remember when there was ALWAYS SinDex and also resented the effort to force a classic by simple repetition.

I'm happy that they trimmed the fat. It's a tighter read with very enjoyable art and mostly linked storylines.