This weeks Strontium Dog

[Professor Bear]

"I don't like this story so it's not actually canon and here is why..." is exactly why I avoid places like the Comic Book Resources Forum and Newsarama.
Fans are consumers of a product and not the originator and if you don't like it then that's your personal opinion, but fan opinion doesn't directly invalidate published stories unless your name is Geoff Johns.

[Tweak72]

Johnny Alpha should not have been killed off, simple. It was a big mistake that could not be rectified, and could it be argued that Alan Grant killed him off to spite Wagner in some way, i.e. you gave me Johnny and kept Dredd so I'll kill him off, so nah.

They brought Feral in to replace Alpha, no one could replace Alpha and Feral was an Anti Hero that had a tetchy teenage tantrum personality that was not cool. Alpha was cool, calm collected a many faceted emotional character, he was a guy that you could look up to - a father figure. Feral was like a 'Son of Johnny Alpha', but a spoilt brat that never really listened to his father, even though he admired him, hence the reason he didn't give his life willingly for Johnny. He's like Azrael was to Batman, he wanted to be like Bat's but did not have the self control or reasoning and respect for life like Bruce Wayne has. Same goes for the relationship with Feral and Alpha. Feral should not have been created, instead if they wanted to kill off Johnny they should have created a Son/Daughter of Alpha, a direct relative.

They should not have killed Johnny Alpha, let's hope this retcon brings him back and thank F**k Feral burnt at the stake, goodbye to a waste of a character.

Johnny getting killed didnt read like a spite thing but in retrospect you may not be wrong. I think the problem with Feral was that the only story worth its salt was Monsters and pretty much every other Feral tail sucked.

Ferals recent demise and in fact this whole story line seems to be written for your point of view. It's just I personally feel that Wagner could of done a far better job of it. TBH I would personally be happier if Wagner had used a drunk and bitter Midden Face to ret con the whole time line with via a time lab and left Feral well alone. It might be a more obvious way of doing it but for me the way its been done it a bit poorly done.

[Dandontdare]

"I don't like this story so it's not actually canon and here is why..." is exactly why I avoid places like the Comic Book Resources Forum and Newsarama.
Fans are consumers of a product and not the originator and if you don't like it then that's your personal opinion, but fan opinion doesn't directly invalidate published stories unless your name is Geoff Johns.

Hear hear (or is it here here?) - I feel the same when people start discussing Inferno and other non-Wagner Dredd. It may have been a bit pants, but if Tharg published it, then it happended - Deal with it.

Also, whilst I disagree with some of Jamesedwards' points, I do think he's been slagged off a bit harshly in the last few pages.

[jamesedwards]

"Feral" isn't Feral for pretty much two reasons:

1) Feral hated S/D agents because they weren't community minded - "I'd slit my own throat the day I took norm's blood money". He was a young, angry mutant rights activist to the bone, not a lying and corrupt spacer.

2) Feral had literally no sense of self-preservation - in Monsters he's running at squads of troopers with just his claws bared, in The Final Solution Alpha has to deck him so he won't take on the Lyran Gestalt on his behalf. He already offered to die for Johnny and he didn't want to live long enough to go completely bestial.

This poorly-rendered burning effigy is the exact opposite of the Grant/Ennis character.

[jamesedwards]

"I don't like this story so it's not actually canon and here is why..." is exactly why I avoid places like the Comic Book Resources Forum and Newsarama.

Weirdly enough, I avoid those places because fans develop a mindset based around a certain era or creator then rubbish anything that moves away from it, getting aggressive with nay-sayers  

Mind you, I've re-assessed Alan Grant as a writer through all this - he did a great Middenface.

[Proudhuff]

Also, whilst I disagree with some of Jamesedwards' points, I do think he's been slagged off a bit harshly in the last few pages.

There has been a bit of Byrne-sain fan behaviour recently...

[TordelBack]

Also, whilst I disagree with some of Jamesedwards' points, I do think he's been slagged off a bit harshly in the last few pages.

Yup.  Man has an opinion, and he expresses it clearly and with passion.  I don't agree that TLaDoJA comes across as fan-fiction (quite the opposite - it's brave and confounding in a way fan fiction seldom is) , and I don't believe that the portrayal of Feral differs greatly from that in The Final Solution, or that grim'n'gritty political allegory is the way the strip should be headed, but he does and fair enough.  He's going to be disappointed.  I don't think it's intrinsically wrong to argue that a creator has gone astray with the direction of his strip, even if I don't personally think that's what's happened here.

Jamesedwards may be (in my opinion) wrong in his approach to the material, but I don't think his message board contributions have been anything but positive.

[Jim_Campbell]

Jamesedwards may be (in my opinion) wrong in his approach to the material, but I don't think his message board contributions have been anything but positive.

"Wagner's writing fanfic and has let himself down?" Positive? Really?

Jim

[jamesedwards]

Hear hear (or is it here here?) - I feel the same when people start discussing Inferno and other non-Wagner Dredd. It may have been a bit pants, but if Tharg published it, then it happended - Deal with it.

"The Ancient Egyptians viewed reality as multi-layered in which deities who merge together for various reasons, whilst retaining divergent attributes and myths, were not seen as contradictory but complementary" - one my favourite finds on Wikipedia lately and as far as I'm concerned literally the only way to understand or appreciate serial fiction. I think it was said on the letters page too when someone mentioned the Millsverse - just don't worry about it, they're all different branches of a forking timeline, have a bit of a chill. The comic's had many direct and clear contradictions - Savage reimagines a lot of previous stories, the ABC timeline is a mess if you make everything try to fit, Rouge Trooper has at least two different timelines and I believe John Smith pitched a third...

Reboots are fine and they don't negate the existence of previous stories, but it provides the reader with a choice, and I'm choosing the pre-Life and Death stories.

Also, whilst I disagree with some of Jamesedwards' points, I do think he's been slagged off a bit harshly in the last few pages.

Ah, I can take anything... except being compared to Scojo. Because Scojo.

[Dunk!]

I was an angry know-it-all teenager when The Final Solution aired so feel Feral is just echoing the majority of his readers from that time:

He's still got the same haircut and taste in clothes yet has mellowed, lost his claws, put on a few pounds and been burnt at the stake as a sacrifice.

Like looking in a mirror.

[TordelBack]

"Wagner's writing fanfic and has let himself down?" Positive? Really?

Not the sentiment by any means, but it's a valid topic for debate - even Wagner (urge to type Wanger is powerful) isn't infallible, and shouldn't be above criticism.  Not all opinion on the subject has to be positive for the discussion itself to make a positive contribution.  

For example, thanks at least in part to jamesedward's posts I've been thinking hard about Strontium Dogs and itching to re-read them, when I'd all but dismissed them.  I've also read all sorts of well thought-out responses to his points, which have made me appreciate the current story even more.  Lively debate = positive.

[Richmond Clements]

even Wagner (urge to type Wanger is powerful) isn't infallible

Indeed, and even the great man has produced a few failures in his time.
This one though... I'm in a starnge position of having a little inside info on it, and I know the work and the great deal of thought he put into this before hand. Maybe I'm biased from that angle, I dunno...

[LARF]

Jeez, LARF, get of the fence, will ya!

LMAO

I posted a comment on John Wagner's Facebook page in response to a comment left by Jim Campbell to say that I'd laughed out loud when I read SD when Feral burnt as to which John replied that he'd been very nervous about response to the episode. I really, really disliked Feral - not very often that I dislike characters but I think that at the time of his inception UK comics were going through their 'teenage' phase, the angst and rebellion of Crisis, the letting go of childhood in 2000AD and the route to adulthood with the painful growth of the Meg - with it's adult themed stories that have in time bled more into 2000AD to date. I class Feral as a personification of the darkness of the 90's, a seed change in trying to get 2000AD to grow up by shedding off it's childhood characters in favour of more complicated anti-heroes that seemed at the time to be more grown-up yet in the long run seem far more dated and despairing of the times than the characters they destroyed with their creation. It's only now that 2000AD has grown-up in it's re-embrace of Strontium Dog and the subsequent destruction of the bastard Feral, a character created out of union of anything positive, a dark and despairing monster of its' times long past his time, hence according to John Wagner's characterisation, a fat, bloated and angst ridden adult, plagued by the past that deserves to be burnt and forgotten about.

To sum up in 20 years time will we be all saying that it was sacrilege to kill Feral and he should be brought back via Retcon, or will we be praising the volumes of the 'Best of Strontium Dog' 2010 - 2015, I know what I'd like to be doing.

[Jim_Campbell]

Not the sentiment by any means, but it's a valid topic for debate - even Wagner (urge to type Wanger is powerful) isn't infallible, and shouldn't be above criticism.  Not all opinion on the subject has to be positive for the discussion itself to make a positive contribution.

Hmf. As ever, you prove yourself a better man than I, TB.

Cheers

Jim

(But I still think he was being a dick.)

[Bolt-01]

JamesEdwards

Feral hated S/D agents because they weren't community minded - "I'd slit my own throat the day I took norm's blood money". He was a young, angry mutant rights activist to the bone, not a lying and corrupt spacer.

Actually I think here that this was Feral's viewpoint at the time we met him. By the end of the adventure Feral had a very different opinion. He may not have liked that it was 'Norm' money that the S/D's sought, but he was in absolute awe of Johnny.

As for being a lying and corrupt spacer- Feral spent a lot of time in Strontium Dogs travelling between planets, and from the time we met him till the end of S/Ds (When he was metamorphosed into Firefall) Feral was presented, to me, as being a very gullible altruist.

For me, Monsters still works as canon, and from my readings of the current strip Feral is fairly well depicted. He got a heck of a send-off, too. The only thing I wish I'd noticed was the skin colour.