Prog 1999 : Streets of age!

[Darren Stephens]

Solid Progage! Absolutely brilliant cover from Boo Cook, featuring Dredd and eldsters march through mega-city. It's superbly drawn, lovely colours and has that old school WTF? that is bound to make folks look twice,

Inside we have a great Dredd one off tale and the chapter ends of all the rest. Really enjoyed this run of strips, especially Outlier and Anderson, who rather strangel gets a final episode drawn by Ben Willsher instead of Nick Dyer. Shame really. No offense to Willsher, as I'm sure the artist swap was unavoidable, but Dyers done brilliantly on this strip.

So then, roll on next week! 

[Frank]

Anderson ... gets a final episode drawn by Ben Willsher

In which she gains a full head of hair but loses forty years and most of her clothes?

[Eamonn Clarke]

Boo!

[TordelBack]

Anderson ... gets a final episode drawn by Ben Willsher

In which she gains a full head of hair but loses forty years and most of her clothes?

Heh, you're a bad man Sauchie.  Sorry to hear Dyer couldn't finish out the story, this has been my favourite Anderson run since Hour of the Wolf, due in part to Dyer's smart redesign and characterful art. Hope he gets another crack at it.

[CalHab]

Good prog. An enjoyable Dredd and Outlier had an unexpected and very final ending.

[Colin YNWA]

The Prog holds its ground so very well prior to next weeks biggie, a few little niggles aside.

Dredd is just a fun one off, its a good fun one off, but of course after what we've just had that's a bit of a dip. Still its a great high energy Dredd from the old skool. Really enjoyed it, just had a lot to live up to. Speaking of which so did Ben Wilsher taking over from Nick Dwyer on Anderson. Just like the Dredd, Wilsher hold his own, just feels a little light weight compared to Nick Dwyer's glorious  work so far. Don't know whats behind the change but its a shame as the actual finale to the story is fantastic. This has been a top tale and I hope to see more Anderson from Beeby.

Jaegir does some nice character work and builds the over arching story nicely. Hopefully this will all lead to an exciting next story, one the series seems to have been building to for a while. Much like Rennie's Absalom I feel we're ready for the meat in the pie now. Lets see what we get served.

Scarlet Traces has a nice teasing conclusion, setting up more to come. While Outlier masters the far harder trick of providing an absolute conclusion and does so will chilling lack of mercy. Its a fantastic conclusion to a series I've enjoyed from start to finish. Its a strong Prog but this genericidal finale gets the the nod for thrill of the week for me.

Top stuff, now lets see what the biggie delievers after this fantastic warm-up act.

[Proudhuff]

Agree with all of the above, except Outhere which I don't read so can't comment.

Anderson thankfully keeps her short hair and clothes on. However Thrills of the Future has her back in Belinda Carlisle mode and exchanging a lovers glance with a fellow Judge, hmmm whachaupto Mr Grant?
The B-by droid seems to have picked up Grennie's hanging chad habit too 

Jagir and Scarlet T excellent.

[Trent]

No prog here in the North. Hoping for Monday but most stories are on my 'read when finished' list so I've got the whole of Outlier, Jaegir and Scarlet Traces to read.
Not so excited, the PJ tale kept me going the past couple of months so roll on Prog 2000.

[Magnetica]

Only a so-so Prog for me. Indeed it seems to me 2000AD is far stronger at beginnings than endings right now. All the focus seems to be on the next jumping on Prog to the detriment of the stories wrapping up.

Dredd - great epilogue to last week revealing how PJ escaped the Dark Judges and where the voice in his head came from. Rather poor (IMO) one off which all seemed a little pointless me.

Jaegir - best thing this week. Really looking forward to the next series.

Scarlet Traces - again it seems I am having difficulty following this. Hmmm it really shouldn't be this hard.

Outlier - now I have liked this series, but I am really torn by this ending. I feel the characters don't really get an ending to their arc other than the whole of humanity is either destroyed by a wave of radiation or gets assimilated by the Borg subsumed into the Hurde. On the other hand the idea that humanity might reassert itself over the Hurde is an interesting one - one that possibly deserves more one page - but I guess just asking the question is enough.

I do though have an issue with the mechanism by which those not subsumed into the Hurde are destroyed...a wave of radiation from an exploding star...really...so how long does that take to reach all human planets?(ok quick physics lesson - the nearest star from the Earth is 4 light years away, so radiation takes 4 years to reach  here from there - and presumably Graegan is considerably further away). And won't the radiation have been considerably dispersed by then (physic lesson part 2 - inverse square law and all that).


Anderson - hmmm not sure about that ending...[spoiler]Anderson controlling the Chief Judge to murder a perp[/spoiler]??? Seems a bit of a departure.

[IndigoPrime]

I enjoyed the Dredd in the main (I mean, c'mon—kids tear through MC-1 on the back of a dinosaur composed of goo!), although given that Steve Jobs died several years ago, I found it a bit odd he was used as the basis for the inventor. The last panel seemed a bit mawkish, too, and didn't rally need spelling out.

[Richard]

Seems a bit of a departure.

Not when the whole city is at stake. Security of the City Act and all that.

[Frank]

Seems a bit of a departure

Not when the whole city is at stake. Security of the City Act and all that.

I think Magenta means in terms of the nature of [spoiler]Anderson's psi-abilities. I can't remember her working someone like a remote control car before[/spoiler].

[spoiler]She might be able to use telepathy to influence the actions of others[/spoiler], but we haven't seen that before. Obviously it's all silly made up stuff and it doesn't really matter.

[Richard]

IT MATTERS MORE THAN THE REAL WORLD!!!

[Magnetica]

I primarily meant in terms of Anderson's character. The new PSI ability was secondary.

City under threat? Nah that was nothing to compared to the peril we have seen before...doesn't justify [spoiler]murdering a cit[/spoiler] (albeit it a perp) not to mention the disrespect of the CJ (well .. actually she DOES have previous for that....)

[Geoff]

I rather like the long haired 'sexy' Anderson, as apposed to the (admittedly more realistic) shorter haired Dwyer version.

A double standard I'm sure...but having said that, Dredd's benefitted from the improved life expectancy and health/rejuve properties of the future, why not Anderson too..

I have to accept the painful truth though, that we'll never see her in the likes of Bolland's high heeled judge boots again 😢