Prog 1457 - Riders On The Storm

[VampiraJen]

oh, my god, am i actually getting to start the new prog thread.  hurrah!  



cool cover.


that's as far as i've got.

[The Amstor Computer]

Christ - how long has that stinker of a Future Shock been hanging around? Ugh.

[Artificial Idiot]

Hai! First time I've had a letter printed in the Galaxies Greatest!

My chest is swelling with pride!

Anyway, Dredd, Savage and leatherjack were good as always. The Future Shock wasn't too bad either, but Breathing Space failed to leave an impression until the very end. Although, the term sledgehammer doesn't even begin to cover it...

[Byron Virgo]

I thought the art for the Future Shock was quite nice.

Karl Richardson's colours on the cover kind of reminded me of Ezquerra's colouring, though I can't really say why.

[Funt Solo]

Cover:
Absolutely stunning.  The Earth, the lawmaster, the rain, the headlights - it's an excellent, dynamic composition and (pardon the visual pun) it really jumps out at you.

Judge Dredd: Mandroid
Words almost fail me.  This is simply the best JD story I've read since I-don't-know-when.  The slow burn's been building up to this crescendo and, in fact, we always knew Nate was going to go postal at some point.  Despite that, the build-up makes it far more effecting when he does.  

What will happen now?  More tragedy, as just as Nate is shot down by the Judges, Kitty turns up alive and well?  Will the message-boarder from last week be right in thinking that Nate Slaughterhouse will be a new vigilante character in the style of Batman?  Certainly, his hatred of the scum of the streets of MC-1 is very reminscent of both Batman and Travis Bickle from the movie Taxi Driver.

I think he would make a great long-term character, at odds with the Judges, but I have no idea where Wagner's decided to go with this.

Savage: Out Of Order
Well, the usual platitudes of great art and a script that doesn't rest are owed.  Special mention to the cliffhanger-within-an-episode at the bottom of page 3, resolved only with a turn of the page.  I love to see this technique, where the creators use the medium to their best advantage.  (My favourite examples of this are to be found in The Killing Joke, with the flashback transitions, but that's by the by.)

Leatherjack
Space opera meets Jackanory?  Don't get me wrong:  I'm enjoying this.  Just not sure if it's meant to be a light-hearted romp through sci-fi staples or a dark fantasy, or a mixture.  One thing I do know:  I want the ants to kick some arse.  If all goes to plan, the diseased bloater and the Mary Whitehouse clones will all meet a painful and ingnomious demise.

Future Shocks: Black Jack's Revenge
I enjoyed this, and I think the Hamster Computer must be suffering from some form of virus to dismiss it so calously.  It's worth it just for the frame where our hero screams "NO!" and then says "Did I look terrified enough?"  Well, yes, he did:  that's a good artist, that Ben MacLeod.  I also liked him chatting up the female crew member - he's such a ... Zap Branigan.  The shock at the end didn't even matter.

Breathing Space
Okay, I've now got a theory about who the Earth Murderer is, but I'm keeping it to myself (just in case I'm right).

I am loving this:  from the hard-boiled plotting to the stunning art.  My one gripe would be that it's a bit hard to tell what's going on sometimes.  I had to carefully examine the first two pages to figure it all out.  Maybe the artist intended that it be a bit fast-moving and hard to tell:  I'm not sure.

I do think the Judges should have some kind of neck brace support:  their heads seem to fly off rather easily these days.  Either that, or the flying head belongs to that Judge from Blood Trails and has just made it into lunar orbit.

(I still say this should be a movie.)

[Funt Solo]

ignominious

[Funt Solo]

callously

[Leigh S]

Breathing Space has really lost it for me over these past two issues.  What started as a nice slow burning mystery has had the silly lie detector test, followed by the silly exploding through safety glass to near kill a guy and incriminate the two Judges who just happened to be standing around - are there only two other Judges on Luna 1?  

I suspect so, otherwise King and Julias wouldnt have needed to do their silly dash across Town to the Space station - dont they have their own security at the station or other Judges who could pick them up?  Apparently not, as the Judge Marshal feels compelled to ride his bike onto the top of a passing spaceship...?  Which one of the corrupt Judges then improbably drives at...? Lucky it just happened to be the ship our Judges had landed on top of. The perspective in the final panel of last weeks is mental - Trents Bike is much bigger than King and Julias, but he's behind them...  And this week we have King and Julias jumping out of spaceships onto helicopters!!!!

I haven't see "The Island", but its reminding me of the reviews, which said the film had 20 minutes of plot, and 2 hours of implausible explosive chase action.  

And if the mystery is solved by a Psi Judge rather than some clever detective work.... well... that'd be pretty rubbish, so I hope Bartram doesnt get the chance to say any more.  I also have a Bison style theory for the identity of the murderer - two weeks a go it seemed too silly a theory - after the last two weeks, I'm starting to reconsider it.

[Dark Jimbo]

I agree totally, Breathing Space is rapidly becoming incomprehensible. Last week's riding in the sky and jumping on top of H-wagons was difficult enough to understand, and the first two pages this week? What's happened to his bike? What does he hit? Why does his head come off? Why does the bike explode above the ship? Why does the ship explode? What exactly happens to it? And come to that how did the psi-judge end up in hospital, I don't even remeber anything happening to him!!

[Funt Solo]

Yo, Watcher,

I agree that there seems to be a lack of Judges on Luna-1:  I'd had that very same thought myself.  (Of course, willing suspension of disbelief could invent reasons such as low Judge numbers owing to poor funding resulting in a lack of support at both the spaceship and the sector house.)

However, you're (probably fairly) mistaken about exactly what happens at the spaceport.  King and Julias land on top of an H-Wagon that they've ordered to the scene.  Meanwhile, the corrupt Judges have chosen a spaceship to board, but they need to jump a ramp:gap to get onto it.  King orders the H-wagon to hover inbetween the ramp and the spaceship, which is when Trent decides "feck it" and attempts to take them out.

Of course, if there was an H-wagon there, why didn't King just order them to zap the bad guys?  H-wagons are good at that kind of thing.  I guess I'm just enjoying the action, and wilfully ignoring slight gaps of logic (as I do with Judge Dredd practically all the time).
 
You're right about the wonky perspective, but I didn't notice it on first reading.

As for your Bison style theory:  shush - if you're right, you can bask in glory later, but telling us about it now might spoil the denoument.

[Funt Solo]

Jimbo:  the goodies have made it inside the H-wagon.  The bad guy jumps his bike into the H-wagon, losing his head in the doorway in the process.

His bike carries on, past the goodies, and explodes inside the H-wagon.

The resultant fire causes the H-wagon to lose power and crash, which is why the goodies have to leap (improbably, yes) to safety.

The Psi-judge was knocked cold by Breeze Block (sp?) when he smashed (improbably, yes) through the safety glass.

[Banners]

Sorry to join in, but the first two pages of BS are, well, BS.

First, it makes no sense if you haven't seen the previous episode. And even if you have, it is still very confusing. I'm not sure where the blame lies, but this kind of thing is bad enough in fanzines. Here's how I read it...

P1 1) There's a bike in the air heading towards King and Julias on the right of the panel.

2a) King gets whacked by the bike.

--or--

2b) The camera spins 180 degrees, and the bloke on the bike gets whacked by a plank that has emerged from nowhere.

3) Despite the effects of gravity, the bike floats upwards - above the ship which King and Julias are kneeling on top of - and explodes. Someone's head emerges from somewhere.

4) Some flames come out of the ship.

5) A man smiles. Who is he? Why is he smiling?

6) Julias falls off the ship. She is well out of reach of King's arm.

P2 1) King catches her however.

2) The ship hurtles towards the ground

3) Despite this, King's boots maintain his grip...

4) ...as he pulls up his colleague...

5) ...and they jump onto a passing 'helicopter'.


It's so much the unbelievability I'm bothered about - hey that's a good thing in Tooth - but the incomprehension. You have to refer back to earlier panels to make the sense and get of a sense of the context. Poor.

M@

[Wake]

Breathing Space

Remember that this is taking place in a low gravity environment, so there may be falls and jumps which would be impossible on Earth.

Unfortunately this doesn't stop me being confused about what's going on.

Cheers,

Wake

[Dudley]

I was planning to run a "Breathing Space Bingo" based on who the Earth Murderer is.  This has been cancelled as I genuinely can't remember any character names or functions and when I get the Earth Murderer's name it's likely to mean zilch.  Unless it's King himself.

Wasn't Savage awesome?  
Wasn't Dredd awesome?
Wasn't Leatherjack scarily like the most twisted dream you ever had as a child?
Wasn't that Future Shock pure cack?

[Trout]

I enjoyed the prog again.

The best bit was Savage, followed by Dredd.

- Trout