2000 AD - The Ultimate Collection

[Dark Jimbo]

Well, Final Solution was interesting.

Idle thoughts - I didn't mind Simon Harrison's art nearly as much as I was expecting to. It never really felt like 'proper' Strontium Dog, and there are definite issues of clarity, but he comes out with some great character designs and facial acting. Just wish someone had turned the lights on!

Alan Grant's claim that 'Feral was never intended to replace Johnny' I don't buy for a minute, I'm afraid, even if this is genuinely how he remembers it now. Feral gets the only first-person narration captions in the history of the strip thus far (and lots of them); and at least two episodes end with a single-panel page of Feral 'looking cool' (again, the first full-page panels in the strip's history.) He's clearly being presented with an eye towards 'How cool is this guy?! Right?' I don't really mind him as a character, actually, except that he takes over the story to Johnny's detriment - the angry young ghetto teen who sees the Stronts as having abandoned their mutant kin to jaunt around the Universe having cool adventures is a great angle that we haven't seen before - but it's never really explored, and all it takes is one fight for Feral to change his mind completely.

There is zero need for Sagan to be Kreelman's illegitimate son - we don't find out until quite late in the story, Johnny and Sagan are separated immediately afterwards, and it's not really mentioned again. Grant seems to be suggesting it's the 'reason' Sagan hates muties, (I feel the reader's supposed to have an 'Ahhhhh' moment) but that's a nonsense, of course, and actually cheapens the strip's long-standing hume/mutie tensions. Wagner tackled this story idea much better in Traitor to his Kind.

The greatest crime the story commits is that Johnny's such a lacking presence once they leave Smiley's World. Middenface gets all the funny lines; Feral gets all the 'cool' action moments; Johnny's a mostly silent figure lost in the background shadows of the panels. Considering this is his last story, this is unforgiveable - there's an episode right near the end that gives Johnny some reflective first-person narration, and it's great - if only the whole story had been pitched a bit more like this.

The ending is ludicrously abrupt, and a bit fudged. Even though I spent a whole episode watching it get created, I never understood what the Lyran beast was all about; Charn-El (what was his deal, come to that?) is dispatched almost as an afterthought; the last moments of the Doghouse are cool, but feel a bit 'the strip's ending, might as well.' And the gang forgot very quickly about poor Billy Glum, whose warning and disappearance is the whole reason they meet Feral and end up at Stonehenge.

More good points than I expected, but ultimately a definite missed opportunity. Really looking forward to re-reading Life and Death... for Wagner's retroactive re-positioning of this story as part of a Stront universe I recognise.

[IndigoPrime]

"the last moments of the Doghouse are cool"

Despite it changing scale seemingly at the speed of a mass-shifting Transformer. As for the Lyran beast, I just figured they were all sickos. So: dump the mutants in another dimension, and then have fun killing them all.

[Dark Jimbo]

As for the Lyran beast, I just figured they were all sickos. So: dump the mutants in another dimension, and then have fun killing them all.

Charn-El's introduced as a Lyran renegade (presumably from the other Lyrans) - then seems to be working with them, as they create the beast for his killing dimension. So... are these guys also renegades? Or was Charn-El lying?

If they're all renegades, why does Grant never tell us this? If they aren't, why the heck are they gleefully going along with genocide when the sole previous time we met them they were shocked and horrified by Malak Brood's mere mass murder, to the point where they felt duty-bound to intervene? Like I say, Charn-El's own dispatch is such an afterthought I'm not sure Grant much cared himself by the end of the story.

[karlos]

Always (mostly) loved Final Solution, and am in complete agreement re: the ending. 

After all those delays, why was it so rushed and abrupt?

[IndigoPrime]

Deck clearing for, er... Dry Run?

[Frank]

Obviously, nobody other than Carlos ever needed to draw Strontium Dog, but I liked Simon Harrison's art just fine. Because we all loved Ezquerra, I think we can sometimes forget how weird and divisive^* his art is to other people (or was to us, the first time we encountered it).

I can see how Burton and McKenzie were thinking when they replaced Ezquerra, even if I think attempting to do so was crazy and morally wrong.

The story doesn't make sense because Strontium Dog's a series that was never designed to end about a guy who, somehow, always finds a way out of whatever fight he gets into^**, so Alpha coming up short for once feels contrived and out of character.

That said, Grant's final monologue figuring Alpha's life as a series of deaths leading inevitably to his own is a fine piece of writing (and storytelling, from the great MacNeil). Strontium Dog doesn't need an ending, but, since talented people went to the trouble of creating one, The Final Solution is how Stront ends, for me.


* Although Ezquerra's draughtsmanship and storytelling are solid in a way Harrison's would never be

** I originally typed 'comes out on top', then remembered Malak Brood. That story's definitely about Alpha finding a solution to a seemingly insoluble problem, but it's difficult to figure that story's resolution as a win. As such, linking it to the story that would prove Alpha's ultimate undoing works for me.

[Frank]

After all those delays, why was it so rushed and abrupt?

Tharg du jour, Richard Burton, claims he thought Strontium Dog had become stale and that it was his idea to kill Johnny Alpha, in an attempt to reinvigorate the strip.

Burton's vision for the strip was to turn it into a team book with a rotating cast and team of creators, hence the experiment of Tales From The Doghouse, where other creators were given a crack at creating stories about the SD Agency.

The Final Solution was published in dribs and drabs over the course of two years*, so, presumably, Burton was keen to wrap it up as quickly as possible and deliver his magnificent vision of Strontium Dogs to the world - and prove the strip didn't need its original creators to succeed:

http://www.2000ad.org/?zone=thrill&page=profiles&Comic=2000AD&choice=STRONTS


* Presumably, because Simon Harrison had problems delivering art on schedule, although I've never seen that confirmed

[Dark Jimbo]

That said, Grant's final monologue figuring Alpha's life as a series of deaths leading inevitably to his own is a fine piece of writing (and storytelling, from the great MacNeil).

Yeah, as I said, that episode's great, a real stand-out. The only shame of it is to remind you how absent Johnny's been throughout most of the story.

[abelardsnazz]

The erroneously numbered Slaine volume seven contains:

The Triple Death
The Swan Children
Macha
Beyond
The Secret Commonwealth

I'm still hoping for the Diceman stories but not sure that's going to happen.

[Frank]

That said, Grant's final monologue figuring Alpha's life as a series of deaths leading inevitably to his own is a fine piece of writing (and storytelling, from the great MacNeil).

Yeah, as I said, that episode's great, a real stand-out. The only shame of it is to remind you how absent Johnny's been throughout most of the story.

Agree limit has been exceeded: please clear space to allow further consensus.

Same goes for your observation that someone was clearly (and not too subtly) pinning their hopes on Feral as the future of the strip. Nothing against him, but it's like when your mum and dad try too hard to convince you fruit & veg are cool:

[Dark Jimbo]

Same goes for your observation that someone was clearly (and not too subtly) pinning their hopes on Feral as the future of the strip.

Wait, was I the first person to make the Feral/Poochie comparison?! I'm wittier than I thought...

[karlos]

I remember reading Alpha's death and, a la Spaced, I did tear up.

The idea of the character, my all-time fave, dying, really hit my 16 year old self hard.

No-one really seemed to know what to do with Feral, did they? 

I always liked him in FS and Monsters, but then after that...

[IndigoPrime]

A problem, I guess, when you change what was always a western in space into a space opera.

[Jade Falcon]

So another Slaine book yesterday, which for now I refuse to read. The reason being that I'm still missing the previous one. Looks like I'll have to contact the clowns at Hachette again. I want to read them in order, well obviously bar Horned God since that was the first issue.

[Tomwe]

Lush Cam Kennedy (i assume) cover to the Invasion! Issue (60)