Prog 2154 - Combat Shock!

[Colin YNWA]

As you were  - which is a very good thing.

Dredd see more revelations and horrors. This is utterly gripping and wonderfully realised.

Defoe ... well it has words and pictures so it has a place here I guess... just none of them have an impact on me in any cohesive or emotional way.

Brink is just the opposite, everything about this is about the quiet and sometimes less than quiet impact. Just so well excecuted. The transition between pages 1 and 2 just needs to be used as a lesson to all storytellers.

Hope is brilliant and dark and tense and fantastic.

Fall of Deadworld is over the top meladrama of the very best kind.

So as I say almost exactly as we were. 4 for 5 and those 4 make it feel like a five for... reviewing the Prog these days is getting a bit samey, but what a good samey.

[Eamonn Clarke]

Clint Langley cover

[Tjm86]

I have to agree with you Colin, this series of Defoe isn't doing anything for me.  It suffers from the same problem as anything Langley tends to do on the art front, bombard the reader with detail.  For me this is the main reason why I have pretty much given up on Slaine and Warriors.  I'm sure there are some good ideas in there somewhere but I'm past caring.

As for the rest of the prog, again we are in complete agreement.  Where Defoe lingers too long, Brink is too soon over for another week.  As for Dredd, I'm still trying to get my head around the inferences in this weeks episode with regards to the individuals Beeny encounters.  Perhaps I am misreading some of the 'family way' references there.  Looks like Wagner is about to drop another revelation on us.

[Jim_Campbell]

So as I say almost exactly as we were. 4 for 5 and those 4 make it feel like a five for... reviewing the Prog these days is getting a bit samey, but what a good samey.

I agree exactly. It's a testament to how good the rest of the prog is that I'm enjoying it immensely even though I'm skipping one story entirely (and I literally never skip stories).

A shame that Pg1/Pg2 transition in Brink couldn't have come on a page turn, but I'm sure that would have occurred to TMO — sometimes the pagination just won't play ball.

[Frank]

In the case of The Simpsons, The Hate Box is a reverse-whimsical play on the phrase hat box. There's also Rudebox, even if I wish there wasn't.

[Southstreeter]

Where's my prog? (Calhab)

[Proudhuff]

Where's my prog? (Calhab)

Ditto...Progmuda Triangle strikes again!

[Judge Olde]

Well well well, Dredd, didn't see that coming - amazing, just keeps delivering & building, wowzers!

[Frank]

There's always a [spoiler]clone[/spoiler]! Of all the speculation I've read about Dying Hershey's last request, this wasn't one of them, so typically unexpected of John Wagner, then.

That misdirection continued right up to the reveal, for me, since America Jara's daughter encountering a silhouetted Latinx woman with long, dark hair suggested a different identity.

SOMETHING HAPPENED IN BRINK! Four series in and still breaking new ground*. Not sure I can say the same of Hope - the character's been through the mill, we've learnt about his past and met the villain, but this doesn't feel like the halfway point of a story.

That sense of stasis seems to be a distinguishing characteristic of Guy Adams' work. I didn't not-like Max Normal or Hope S1, but they offered more running time than incident.

Ironically, Deadworld and Defoe, strips about the undead, kick the comic into life with much munching and bang-bang.

I can't remember if this week's zombie orgy is the first time El Millsio has explored the idea that any new development will inevitably be co-opted by the sex industry, but**, the idea of using the undead to power inverse orgone accumulators*** is droll.


* I'm being hilarious and Brink's very good, but Abnett's taken a deliberate decision to pace the strip significantly slower than his other work and most other 2000ad stories. In terms of plot, but especially with regard to action and incident.

** leaving aside the question of how the genitals of creatures with no circulation function

*** Zombone accumulators? Zomboners?

[Magnetica]

Not sure if it's just me, but I am now totally lost by Deadworld. I am still reading it, mainly because I never skip anything.


When did Sydney become more dead?
When did Fairfax become a dark judge? And how come he seems able to resist acting full on dark judge?
Has Psiren swapped sides?

Probably need to pull out the back Progs.

[broodblik]

Dredd has so interesting twists and the mechanism angle was just a distraction.

Moore's art on Defoe is continuing to improve.

I am really enjoying this season of Hope. I like the way as the story progress that more are revealed about Hope's pass and who he is (this was maybe one thing that was missing from everyone's favorite Skip Tracer)

Brink is on the move after the long introduction sequence. A joy to read as always.

5/5 again for me

[TordelBack]

Not sure if it's just me, but I am now totally lost by Deadworld. I am still reading it, mainly because I never skip anything.


When did Sydney become more dead?
When did Fairfax become a dark judge? And how come he seems able to resist acting full on dark judge?
Has Psiren swapped sides?

Probably need to pull out the back Progs.

Not a bad idea, you'll only need to go back to the previous book Damned from 2018 (Prog 2081-2092), and maybe the 2018 and 2019 Christmas progs. it's really very good.

Quoting myself from a few weeks back aboput Death's death:

Nasty little Tek scrote Casey conspired with the Sisters, who felt Sssidney was getting too big for his bones. Death was chopped up by the Elena-Kurakin-like Martinez, one of Jes' allies, and some of Casey's zombie-golems, and then Casey blasted him with a big gun. I think this is Sidney's first 'death' since he decayed into the role, but have no Fear, he'll work out how to possessss a new host shortly.

Fairfax was captured and dosed with the dead fluidssss, but it's clear he hasn't fully succumbed. That's what Jess and the gang are doing in Sector 13, rescuing him.

Sister Psiren had her head shaken up by a mindmeld with the Resistance psi Agatha Proudwater, and has recovered some of her old self.  The mysterious Third Sister incarnated in Byke probably had a hand too.

[norton canes]

OK, I'm gonna have to call in back-up to help with the Elinora Garcia page.

1. Is there some backstory I should know about? (apart from Hershey's enigmatic death-bed comment)

2. 'Another mother' - confusing phrase. Is the implication Elinora's a clone?

3. Am I missing a wider plot point - why did Uno take Beeny to see her? Simply as an example of how the robot regime treats humans? And of so, why a clone of Hershey? If she is cloned from Hershey, do the robots know this?

4. Uno's comment about the entrance being too narrow for his robots seems a bit pat. Was it a clumsy invention by John Wagner in order to allow Beeny and Elinora to have a conversation on their own? Or did Uno leave them alone for a reason?

Bit lost, sorry.

[Jim_Campbell]

Bit lost, sorry.

Dredd makes an as-yet unexplained reference to finding "the grandchildren" in the preceding episode, so I'm assuming that this is Hershey's daughter (clone or natural, we don't know) and the grandchildren are the ones stolen by the robot regime... but none of this has been made explicit yet, so patience is in order!

[norton canes]

Understood. Entering stealth mode.