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Prog 2099 - Unleash Hell!

Started by Colin YNWA, 15 September, 2018, 10:22:50 PM

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sheridan

Quote from: TordelBack on 21 September, 2018, 01:33:11 PM
OTOH Linus' punishment seems perfectly apt to me, and is in line with a long history of Dredd making stupid sentencing decisions, choosing poetic justice over a swift bullet to the head, and thus leaving Owen Krysler, P. J. Maybe, R. L. Booth and countless others free to menace him again.


What should Dredd have done re: Owen Krysler or Bad Bob Booth?  Had they specifically committed any crimes they could be sentenced for (well, Booth had, but through no fault of his own his punishment had encountered technical difficulties).  Following the law, Dredd should perhaps have brought Owen back to MC1, but that would likely have just let him bring disaster to the mega-city in a longer, drawn-out way.  Re: Booth, Dredd didn't have the time or resources to carry out a more effective sentence.

TordelBack

He left both essentially at liberty, or at best in the care of distinctly unreliable gaolers. A weird robot and a farm?  It was bad judgement which came back to bite him,  as he later admitted in both cases.

DrJomster

I'm in the "Dredd either has a plan or is giving some sort of homage to that early prog" camp re that Dredd ending. I don't think he would have missed those reporters standing there though, so it must be part of a plan. I've really enjoyed this run though. Here's hoping we return to this in the future.

There was a comment earlier about how ladies are portrayed in SG. Overall the art's great and this is a pleasure to have in the prog. I sort of know what the earlier comment's getting at though.

Lovely Future Shock there. Nice and dark!

Quite liking Mechawotsit. Hopefully we're to see more.

I do get a bit lost with The Order though. Should probably do a re-read at some point.



The hippo has wisdom, respect the hippo.

TordelBack

Quote from: DrJomster on 21 September, 2018, 10:39:23 PM
I'm in the "Dredd either has a plan or is giving some sort of homage to that early prog" camp re that Dredd ending. I don't think he would have missed those reporters standing there though...

Seeing as they only were there because he sent them to Booth with the fake footage which he had them shoot, I'd say it's a certainty.

TordelBack

Linus,  not Booth.  Apologies.

DrJomster

Quote from: TordelBack on 22 September, 2018, 09:24:32 AM
Quote from: DrJomster on 21 September, 2018, 10:39:23 PM
I'm in the "Dredd either has a plan or is giving some sort of homage to that early prog" camp re that Dredd ending. I don't think he would have missed those reporters standing there though...

Seeing as they only were there because he sent them to Booth with the fake footage which he had them shoot, I'd say it's a certainty.

:D
The hippo has wisdom, respect the hippo.

Richard

I'm a little surprised at some of the criticisms of The Booth Conspiracy. It seemed like a perfectly good ending to me. I assume we won't be seeing Linus again, because he's been left to die on his own in one of the most hazardous places on Earth. It's not a lenient sentence, but a cruel one. Also, if he is dead, then I don't have any problem at all with him being (I'm still going to spoiler this despite the recent debate) [spoiler]the son of President Booth[/spoiler], because that isn't just a lame gimmick to make a recurring baddie more interesting (that kind of thing usually has the opposite effect for me), but a genuinely interesting emotional twist in the tale.

It also led directly to the undermining of Linus's credibility, and that's why the film crew was there -- not just to film Linus being arrested or killed, but to film him having a breakdown and offering to inform on all his subordinates. That footage is even more damaging to his movement than the loss of its leader and so many personnel.

Linus's entire plan, not just in this story but in all of his previous appearances, was always about PR -- making Justice Department look stupid or evil. Well, Dredd has finally won the PR battle an out-played Linus at his own game. I don't need to see a follow-up story; I think this is a satisfying conclusion to this whole arc.

As for the title, it works well as a double-meaning, as someone else said: Linus had his conspiracy, and Dredd had a better one. (It reminds me of Death of a Judge in prog 137, one of my all-time favourites.)

TordelBack

Yep, that's a very good reading there.

I should clarify that my mild disappointment relates solely to the general irrelevance of the Stupid Gun, on which many earlier panels were lavished: otherwise the storyline engaged me throughout, building nicely over a number of linked stories, well-integrated into Dredd's past and present, and with a real sense of weight and relevance. It relied too heavily on Hershpositon, but dear Grud that's a feature of almost every story since Chaos Day.  All that aside, it's definitely one of the best stories of the post-Trifecta era. 

And while I do agree that Dredd's intention within the story is a cruel sentence (and poetic justice to publicly leave Booth's half-mutie son is left  bleeding in the wasteland his father created), I doubt it's the author's long term intention... this Son of Booth will rise again!