2000 AD - The Ultimate Collection

[Tomontherun94]

Good to know it's not just me then. It's a shame cos the characters are great and there's so much you could do with them. The Deadlock series was admittedly pretty good and helped a bit with the somewhat meh ending of Nemesis. The less said about Nemesis and Deadlock though the better.

At the risk of kicking a wasps nest full of razor blades, I'd love to see where another writer could take the series.

[Tomontherun94]

Just finished both Vols of The Volgan Wars and wow did the series make a big 180. Not sure if it's just because of the gorgeous Langley artwork but it felt incredibly fresh compared to the last few books, even if if did retread some old ground. I'm hoping when we finally get a Return to X book in the next extension it keeps up this level of quality

[broodblik]

Except for the Langely art they are all repeat, rehash, nothing new

[The Corinthian]

Indigo Prime: it's slightly disappointing the collection doesn't include the organisation chart that went with the first episode proper (complete with Fervent and Lobe struck off, Academy of Law-style). But I can live with that!

30 years ago* I had the vague idea that there was more going on with Mary Seward than met the eye and I still have it now. I've always felt mildly annoyed that she didn't turn up as a recruit when the series was rebooted. Admittedly, she's dead but so's everyone else in the series.

* Oh god, I'm old!

[sintec]

Just finished Killing Time - and... wow. The collection would have been far less ultimate without that. The whole book has been great but that tale was a massive dose of high octane thrill power. Absolutely superb work from both droids. Gonna have to take a break now - at risk of thrill power overload.

[IndigoPrime]

Killing Time is, for me, an all-time 2000 AD classic. Why it wasn't in the original 80 books, I'll never know.

[Tomwe]

Killing Time is, for me, an all-time 2000 AD classic. Why it wasn't in the original 80 books, I'll never know.

I guess once they decided they were going to include ALL THE SLAINE, and the other long running strips they decided John Smith would get his dues later?

[sintec]

Yeah it's hard to pick 2 things that I'd swap out from the original run to make space for the 2 books of Indigo Prime. Maybe Hewligan and one of the modern single volume entires (Aquila or Ichabod). That would have kept the spread of original publication dates roughly similar too which I suspect was a consideration, although it would have meant less standalone volumes which might also have been a factor.

Very glad we got the extension though Red Seas and the John Smith volumes have been superb so far and (as far as I'm aware) were hard (if not impossible) to get physical copies of before this.

[IndigoPrime]

Yeah it's hard to pick 2 things that I'd swap out from the original run to make space for the 2 books of Indigo Prime.

Scrap Ace Trucking. Or compress Robo-Hunter into two books and bump one of Aquila/All Star Future Shocks/Hewligan's Haircut to the extension. Ampney Crucis could have gone. Invasion also. Plenty of choices.

Also, I'd suggest Indigo Prime could have sat as just that first book in the original run, which could have made it even easier to include.

Still, it's there now, and this first bunch of extras, up to 111, looks really solid. Whether I'll continue past that point remains to be seen though.

[Tomwe]

One more delivery and I'll have to rejig my shelves to accommodate a new row of the books. I already moved the Transformers collection.

[sintec]

Dead Eyes rounds out the first volume of Indigo Prime by delivering the government conspiracy story that Greysuit wished it could have been. The big reveal at the end is somewhat spoiled as you know it's going to tie back into the universe simple at some point. But despite that it was still a cracking tale. Great art (if a little murky in places) and a story that just kept on building. Makes me wonder if Greysuit really just needed to take a bit more time to build it's world before Blake broke his programming and set out to bring down the organisation.

[Colin Zeal]

I don't really get most of John Smith's work as it just doesn't make sense no matter how many times I read one of his strips. Killing Time is the exception to this and also the reason why I keep trying. It is helped by the wonderful artwork by Chris Weston. I got a sketch from him once at a convention (does it still qualify as a sketch if you have to pay for it? Anyway) His other requests were for Dan Dare and he seemed surprised and pleased to get asked for a sketch of Winwood. I somehow lost the book which contained said drawing while moving house. Seven years later and I'm still annoyed about it.

[Jade Falcon]

Picked up the latest Red Seas volume, I've also still to read Indigo Prime.  This one seems a bit on the slim side.  Any reason for that?

[sintec]

This one seems a bit on the slim side.  Any reason for that?

I think it's just a result of the story lengths. Either this volume of the last volume of Red Seas was always going to be a bit on the slim side (or require some backup strip). This way around leads to the more average distribution bringing the next story into vol 3 would have left vol 4 very slim and probably in need of some supporting strip(s).

I'm assuming vol 3 contains:

Story	Page Count	Progs
Signs And Portents	40	Progs 1617-1623
The Chimes At Midnight	30	Progs 1644-1649
Hell And High Water	70	Progs 1688-1699

Which would leave the following for book 4:

Story	Page Count	Progs
Gods And Monsters	70	Progs 1728-1739
Beautiful Freak	45	Progs 1792-1796
Fire Across The Deep	70	Progs 1813-1823

[Dark Jimbo]

The existence of slim volumes gives me hope that the final two books of Kingdom might still make it into the 2nd extension.

I still think they could have excluded Beautiful Freak from the Red Seas books, allowing them to fit it (just) into three volumes.