how to do a prog slog

[Lobo Baggins]

2000AD and Starlord Prog 96: We're gonna hit him! That guy's dead... unless he's – Superman! Eject into hell with – Angel!

A new non-human Deputy Chief Judge!  Exodus!  The ruler builds a wall!

2000AD and Starlord Prog 97: We take... a giant step for comic-kind every week!

Ginger dies!  Don't worry, he'll get better...

Ginger's story in Ro-Busters is lifted more or less directly from the novel Black Beauty, by the way - Beauty's fiesty friend Ginger is systematically broken down with over work and is eventually spotted being carted off to the knacker's yard, because it's a Victorian morality story and they're unrelentingly grim.

There's a racehorse called Harry Angel now. It regularly beats Zarjaz. It's all terribly confusing...

[sheridan]

2000AD and Starlord Prog 96: We're gonna hit him! That guy's dead... unless he's – Superman! Eject into hell with – Angel!

A new non-human Deputy Chief Judge!  Exodus!  The ruler builds a wall!

2000AD and Starlord Prog 97: We take... a giant step for comic-kind every week!

Ginger dies!  Don't worry, he'll get better...

Ginger's story in Ro-Busters is lifted more or less directly from the novel Black Beauty, by the way - Beauty's fiesty friend Ginger is systematically broken down with over work and is eventually spotted being carted off to the knacker's yard, because it's a Victorian morality story and they're unrelentingly grim.

There's a racehorse called Harry Angel now. It regularly beats Zarjaz. It's all terribly confusing...

The Black Beauty reference went completely over my head - thanks for pointing it out (wonder if that one is hiding in the things that went over your head thread?

[sheridan]

2000AD and Starlord Prog 98: Onward, my beauties – sing while you slaughter! Slicey-slicey, oncey-twicey claw and fang'll kill Dredd nicely!

A new droid joins the editorial team!  We see Justice 1 for the first time (it doesn't look very space-going).  Massimo gets replaced on Flesh Book II - I wonder what he's up to instead...  Also, the Terra-Meks begins!

[sheridan]

Has it been three days since I posted here?

2000AD and Starlord Prog 99: The Terra-Mek's hurling us into its atomic grinders... We'll be crushed to a pulp!

Crime is legal, Angel finishes (thankfully) as does Flesh (not so thankfully), Kevin O'Neill gets into the interviewing lark.  Meanwhile, in Northpool we know things have gotten serious because there's a mournful dog and a teddy bear (not in the same frame).

2000AD and Starlord Prog 100: 100th Thrill-powered issue! Robo-Hunter Returns Still fighting – Still in trouble! Did Dan Dare die? Find out in Servant of Evil!
Angel / Flesh Book II is replaced with Dan Dare, more superheroic than ever before.  But at least the same prog also gets a new character - Fergee (not Fergie).

2000AD and Starlord Prog 101: I... must... obey... the... Mekon!
Another new superhero is born - E-Man!  (who?)  Charlie is all at sea.  Sam Slade and Kidd have a problem with B.O. in the sewers.

[sheridan]

2000AD and Starlord Prog 102: What's the big idea, creep? Your players are cheating! Play Robopoly with Robo-Hunter!

Sam Slade has a problem with B.O.!  Fergee is the King of the Big Smelly!  But no stories about sewer droids...

2000AD and Starlord Prog 103: Turn up the heat! The robo knackers yard is— Hell on earth!

My favourite Ro-Busters story starts!

[SpaceSpinner2000]

Love the Mass Effect/Dragon Age reference with Kidd (Kidd will remember this). You're entering a section of Dan Dare that always felt very video-gamey to me. Like Dan starts picking up new party members with specific special abilities, then gets an upgradeable super weapon of his own, then gets kicked out of the organization where he had a lot of power so he has to start a new one. It's basically Dragon Age: Inquisitor with ray guns

[sheridan]

I've had no clicks so far today!  Must be a post-Day of Dredd comedown.  Also I haven't posted on this thread for three days which obviously affects how many people read the posts!

Day 1: 2000AD and Starlord Prog 104: Death on the Mutant Express!
Ron Smith's debut!  Also other things, but surely Smith's first work for 2000AD overshadows all?

Day 2: 2000AD and Starlord Prog 105: Judge Dredd is a Wotten Cweep Twue by Judge Walter Dredd Betrayed!
Slocum gets pickled!  Miss Marilyn's last appearance, timeline-wise (she'll be back in stories in the annuals which take place before this story).

Day 3: Tornado No 1: Free Turbo-Flyer! Plus The U.K.'s First Real Live Super Hero!
Starlord launched with a bang, with the 22 issues bringing us Strontium Dog and Ro-busters: memorable characters who are with us to this day - or at least to this decade - it's still unclear what exactly will happen with Strontium Dog after Carlos :-(
Anyway, dwelling on the present ruins the joke - for this is the first issue of Tornado, whose 22 issues won't have quite the same impact on the history of British comics as Starlord did...
Also - this is the first comic I've read since starting the prog slog blog that isn't a re-read - I bought the weekly run of Tornado for the blog and have held off reading them until now (I already had the special and annuals).

Love the Mass Effect/Dragon Age reference with Kidd (Kidd will remember this). You're entering a section of Dan Dare that always felt very video-gamey to me. Like Dan starts picking up new party members with specific special abilities, then gets an upgradeable super weapon of his own, then gets kicked out of the organization where he had a lot of power so he has to start a new one. It's basically Dragon Age: Inquisitor with ray guns

I don't have such the background of video games, though have played a few with a narrative where you end up with a companion but they don't stay around for long.  If anything more advanced than Pong and Space Invaders had been around, the late Dare would have been a prime candidate for ripping off (or even licensing, if IPC got it together enough).

[SpaceSpinner2000]

I don't have such the background of video games, though have played a few with a narrative where you end up with a companion but they don't stay around for long.  If anything more advanced than Pong and Space Invaders had been around, the late Dare would have been a prime candidate for ripping off (or even licensing, if IPC got it together enough).

Oh sorry, I made an assumption (of course Kidd will remember these lights in future progs). In a lot of those games you get computer controlled party members, and they often have a "relationship" statistic, like what they think of your character. Sometimes in the game you'll choose a dialog option that either pleases or pisses of the party member and a message appears on the screen like "XXX approves" or "XXX will remember you said that" things of that nature.

I'm trying to click through, but am reading a lot of the posts on my RSS reader, so I'm not sure how that effects metrics. Very interested to hear about Tornado!

[sheridan]

I don't have such the background of video games, though have played a few with a narrative where you end up with a companion but they don't stay around for long.  If anything more advanced than Pong and Space Invaders had been around, the late Dare would have been a prime candidate for ripping off (or even licensing, if IPC got it together enough).

Oh sorry, I made an assumption (of course Kidd will remember these lights in future progs). In a lot of those games you get computer controlled party members, and they often have a "relationship" statistic, like what they think of your character. Sometimes in the game you'll choose a dialog option that either pleases or pisses of the party member and a message appears on the screen like "XXX approves" or "XXX will remember you said that" things of that nature.

I'm trying to click through, but am reading a lot of the posts on my RSS reader, so I'm not sure how that effects metrics. Very interested to hear about Tornado!

No worries - I've played a few of those types of games, just not that many (I'm definitely looking on later episodes of the last Dare story differently now though!)

As for Tornado - it's telling that the stories contained within didn't have as long a life as those from Starlord.  I'm a great fan of 2000AD Blackhawk, but that's because of Belardinelli.  Tornado Blackhawk is entirely different, and shares about half a panel worth in common with the merged version (just before he gets [spoiler]teleported from Rome[/spoiler]).

[sheridan]

Onward ever onward!  I'm three visitors off of this being the most popular year for the prog slog blog (not views but visitors).

2000AD and Starlord Prog 106: Blow Their Circuits Out, Kidd! What do you Think this is – a Baby's Rattle?.

For the second time, Cal sentences MC1 to death.

[TordelBack]

It's still quite hard for me to believe that the remarkably sophisticated and still very readable Fall & Rise... ran alongside the tired drivel of later Dan Dare... they feel at least a decade apart.

[sheridan]

It's still quite hard for me to believe that the remarkably sophisticated and still very readable Fall & Rise... ran alongside the tired drivel of later Dan Dare... they feel at least a decade apart.

The Dave Gibbons artwork is a large part of why it's even readable...

[sheridan]

Tornado No 2: Your Multi-role Maydaypack's got Codes; Tests; ID pass and all you need to form your own T.T. units!
Shadowy hands kill all they can...   Not one but two Superman rip-offs!

2000AD and Starlord Prog 107: Johnny Alpha Enters The City of Lost Souls
Judge Fargo, 2001 - 2051.  Sam Slade gets knocked unconscious and wakes up a while later, with no memory of what happened while he was unconscious (we'll find out in about four and a half years time).  The Genesis of the Robots!

[sheridan]

Tornado No 3: Who is Storm? Where is he from?

New thrill (can we call them thrills when they're in non-2000AD?) starts, Benkei ends, everything else continues.

[Dark Jimbo]

Tornado No 3: Who is Storm? Where is he from?

Should the Tornado entries not have a Tornado logo rather than a 2K one...?