That was an utterly bizarre episode of Slaine. I loved (and had been hoping for) SBD's interpretation of the Goddess and it was quite brilliant, although undermined by the most unnecessarily ghastly font choice in the history of 2000AD. I liked the shouting across the country bit, and the lead in to the next chapter with New Troy and sliced-up Terry Thomas. But in between, WTF happened? It wasn't only that it felt like two pages had been inadvertently dropped (not suggesting this actually happened), but Slaine's whole design seemed to change between panels. What happened? How did Slaine defeat the stone warriors? How did Goddodin escape? Wasn't the whole fight taking place in a chambered tomb? Why'd Yortlebuzzgubbly just give up? Very odd indeed, and a pretty messy conclusion to an otherwise solid story with some of the best art to ever grace the prog.
Dredd. I dunno man. If it wasn't for the boisterous art and maybe the dog surfing, I'm not sure I'd have got anything out of this story. Another female Sov pal for Joe? What was the reason for the paperwork nonsense at the beginning, was it really just Kafkaesque humour? Was all this fuss for access to asteroid minerals? When the Meg already has a well-established space infrastructure, even if everything else has gone to shite? How many times did one side take/search the other for weapons? Maybe the follow-on will make sense of it all, but not really doing it for me so far.
Absalom suffers a wee bit from Mills syndrome (making me wonder again to what extent 'the Mills' themselves are a sly jab), with the two teams lining up for their end-of-term photos, short ones at the front, bigger boys at the back. Still, Rennie uses this beat sparingly, and limits it to a half page each, and thus it feels more like a gathering up of threads than a way to burn up an episode (or two). the hint of negativity I detect in my reaction probably stems from my real reluctance to see this series apparently drawing to a close.
The 3riller, while fun and very smartly turned out, didn't quite stick the landing, in the end feeling more like a lost Tale of Telguuth than a new three-parter. Maybe some prior emphasis on the market value of hybrid blood would have given the resolution more of a feeling of closure? Personally I'd like to see more of this setting, but that may be because I felt a little short changed by what I got,
And that was our lot. Not the best pre-Crimbo wrap-up, not the worst.
