Slaine - TIME KILLER

[Colin YNWA]

I didn't care for Time Killer one bit at the time, Slaine being my favourite story, but I've grown to love it....

Still hate those bloody leyser guns though.

I'm pretty much the opposite, apparent from the last bit, leyser guns - PAH!

 I recall loving it at the time but not really getting on with it now. Don't think its aged well at all. That said I'm looking forward to re-reading it in the none to distant future to re-evaluate that opinion.

Tomb of Terror I'm looking forward to a LOT less mind!

[Magnetica]

This is the sort of thread I love.

To recap:

Question: Time Killer was a misstep, discuss.

Answer: no it wasn't (mostly).

So for 16 year old me, yes it was great. It took the strip to a whole new level - Cythrons, The Guldig, Elfric, El Worlds - just amazing stuff.

As per another thread on "art versus story", what really catapulted it into the stratosphere for me was Glenn Fabry's art. (And David Pugh was a more than able stand for weeks when Fabry wasn't doing it).

I did re-read it all a couple of years ago, and have to say, yeah still love it.

But, but, but yes even 16 year old me thought those leyser guns were a bit rubbish.

[I, Cosh]

I didn't care for Time Killer one bit at the time, Slaine being my favourite story, but I've grown to love it....

Still hate those bloody leyser guns though.

I'm pretty much the opposite, apparent from the last bit, leyser guns - PAH!

I expected better from you two. Leyser guns is a pun worthy of Sinister/Dexter.

[TordelBack]

It's a fine pun, even a brilliant one, and Mills integrates the concept well into what he has already established (shortly before completely forgetting about it forever).  But still: ugh!

[norton canes]

Thanks for all the replies

I can see that Time Killer was generally pretty well received, though there were a few voices of dissent 

I’m on a prog slog at the moment which has taken in the original Slaine episodes and now moves on to the new sequence. When I originally read the stories (aged 16) I didn’t register the difference in styles; but having gone through them in a matter of weeks, the change was quite a shock.  I suppose the thing is that if Slaine had started with Time Killer, I would have been knocked out. It’s only that having the chance to see the more, shall we say ‘pastoral’ version, that I realised what the new incarnation of the strip missed.

Yes of course, it’s great fun, and the art work of David Pugh and especially Glen Fabry (although he hasn’t quite found his mojo yet) is mightily impressive. I stopped getting 2000AD around prog 640, so would only have caught the opening instalments of The Horned God and wasn’t aware of the direction the strip subsequently took. I guess on balance, it’s a good thing that Pat Mills tried a few different approaches over its run.

[sheridan]

I like it enough now, though I really loved Dragonheist, so was disappointed that we didn't get any more Massimo dragons in Time Killer. 

[sheridan]

Incidentally, talking about the Warrior's Dawn era being set in a prehistoric/mythical Britain is way off: aside from a few moments in flashbacks, Slaine doesn't set foot in continental Europe, never mind Britain, until Dragonheist. All the early stories are set on the floor of the Atlantic, and  most of the flashback stories, Slaine the King, and almost all of Horned God are set on the floor of the Irish Sea. Slaine has always been fantasy on a vastly more ambitious scale than its barbarian wanderer trappings suggested.

I'm not sure he even set foot in mainland Britain at all - when he headed back home on a sky chariot it was going over Lyonesse.  Oh, apart from the dragon story, which took place on the Gower peninsula (or did it - there is mention of Coed Adrian, a submerged forest).

[AlexF]

To some extent, my big brother, and consequently I, came into 2000AD as rabid 'Fighting Fantasy Gamebook' fans. So Tomb of Terror, my first encounter with Slaine, was absolutely my favourite thing ever at the time. I'd probably say this and Time Killer - basically one long epic - are still my all time favourite version of Slaine.
But it's funny to read this whole 80-episode saga as a sort of minor Sci-Fi diversion on Slaine's way back home to become king of his tribe.

Fabry is kind of obviously the better artist, but David Pugh was the one who realised and drew the best Guledig, who remains comics' top gooey-blob type villain of all time. So Pugh's tops in my book! Fabry wins many points for his depiction of n-th dimensional being Grimnismal warping out of the page.

[TordelBack]

I'm not sure he even set foot in mainland Britain at all - when he headed back home on a sky chariot it was going over Lyonesse.  Oh, apart from the dragon story, which took place on the Gower peninsula (or did it - there is mention of Coed Adrian, a submerged forest).

Dragonheist, you mean? 

Prior to the Time Travel stories, Slaine's only substantial adventures in mainkand Europe, Britain or Ireland are Dragonheist and the opening chapters of Time Killer (Wales) and Spoils of Annwn (Glastonbury). This is part of the genius of early Slaine, in my oft-trotted-out opinion, that it takes place in a time that is not a time, and a place that is not a place: a proper proto-European fantasy world, not just Cu Chulainn slotted into Conan, of vice versa, as it often seems to be represented. 

[Magnetica]

Fabry is kind of obviously the better artist, but David Pugh was the one who realised and drew the best Guledig, who remains comics' top gooey-blob type villain of all time. So Pugh's tops in my book! Fabry wins many points for his depiction of n-th dimensional being Grimnismal warping out of the page.

I never tire of saying how much I love Glenn Fabry's Slaine, but you know what, I actually agree with you with regard to Pugh's depiction of the Guledig.

[RaggedMan]

I'm intrigued by Frank's idea that Pat mutates his ongoing strips to reflect his current concerns rather than creating a new work.
Maybe it's to trial new directions?
Council Estate Nemesis tests Third World War Book 2, Time Killer tests Dice Man?

To my 9 year old self the new direction was a bit of a whiplash moment, especially since Slaine had been gone so long - a year is eternity at that age. I wasn't keen on the leysers then but there was so much other good stuff in there, Elric, liquefying horns etc that it kept me on board, despite feeling like a completely different comic to Sky Chariots and Dragon Heist.
The thing I disliked then that I still dislike was the rule of three shenanigans with the light-els and dev-els which just felt... silly. 

On my Slaine reread about a year ago it struck me as a really clever move. Up until this point there's a clear arc of return home, conquer tribe, become High-King and die... This neat sidestep opens up the whole of time and space to Slaine and allows the story to continue before the reader gets anywhere near the Horned God.

On the Fabry versus Pugh debate, if you'd asked me I would have praised Fabry above all, but on my reread I was struck that all of the images that had stayed with me in the intervening years were by Pugh...

[jannerboyuk]

Loving the love for Pugh im another slaine fan who loves time killer!

[glassstanley]

No other artist has quite captured Elric like Pugh. The half-page reveal where we see his 3rd eye for the first time has him oozing 'sexual predator'. His Time Worm is also a wonder - slimier than Dave Gibbons' giant worm created for Dan Dare a few years earlier. His Gulag is a fantastic creation - Pat Mills clearly steered him towards Conquering Armies for the architecture.

It's a shame that Pugh, like SMS on ABC Warriors, seems to have been overshadowed by the storytelling partners future success.

[sheridan]

While I like Fabry and Bisley's art as much as the next Squaxx, I wouldn't mind seeing Pugh and SMS back in the prog...

[Ancient Otter]

Wasn't it Bryan Talbot who introduced Pat Mills to Fabry's artwork?

I was four years old when read I the first part of Time Killer in The Best of 2000AD Monthly No. 33 back in June 1988 - the first time I can clearly remember reading 2000AD, so a big life-changing moment!