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That MC1 would be screwed without Dredd, even though he's ultimately largely responsible for the city being in bits?

How so (genuine question)?

(I agree with the first bit. I don't understand how he's ultimately largely responsible for the city being in bits)

That's a fair point.  Perhaps a scattered review of those events that have had a major impact on MC1?

Okay, so the Apocalypse War was initiated by the Sovs.  Half the city decimated in a "total-nuke-out".  Dredd 'responsible'?  Doubtful.

Necropolis - dark Judges take over the city and cheerfully proceed to murder the population.  Dredd took the long walk off the back of what he saw as questionable decisions by the Chief Judge and those around him.  Again, not really Dredd.

Inferno (much as we would rather ignore this altogether) - psychotic criminal judges take over the city and just go nuts.  All have it in for Dredd but can we really blame him?

Judgement Day - inter dimensional Zombie Lord decides to turn the planet into a global version of the living dead. Nope, can't blame Dredd for this one.

Total War - bunch of lunatic terrorists decide to nuke their way out of Judicial rule.  Okay, you can argue the judges were the reasons they decided nuclear surgery was the only way to excise their control but as solutions go there is something a bit askew here.  Dredd's responsibility is limited to his being part of the judicial system.

Day of Chaos - group of former Sov City operatives decide to get their own back on MC1 by initiating a biological attack.  They all hold Dredd responsible for what happened to their city and his final retaliation.  We can debate the ethics of Dredd's decision until the cows come home but ultimately they had initiated a war against MC1 and invaded.  You can certainly argue that it was Dredd's actions that precipitated this event. 

Possibly the only time it is fair to say he was directly 'responsible'.  Admittedly a more nuanced approach would have argued that the Sovs started it, Dredd did what he thought was necessary and the Sovs chose to harbour a grudge for decades before taking it out on MC1.  That being the case, once more we end up with Dredd shouldering far less of the blame.

Is it fair then to say that Dredd is responsible for the shape of MC1 or is it more accurate to say that despite his seemingly unlimited powers he is actually impotent, or at least far less powerful, against forces, powers and events that transcend his more parochial role as judicial arbiter?

If anything, these events point to the limitations of the law.  In fact, one could argue that ultimately that is a them that runs through Dredd.  The whole premise as originally conceived took the most extreme alternatives expounded at the time and created an entire system and iconic character around them. 

Folded into this was a future scape not a million miles removed from where we are today.  You only have to look at some of the debates around crime in major cities across the UK and US (amongst other nations) to see how prescient the concept actually was.

Dredd has only ever been able to hold the tide at bay, so to speak.  Everyday crime that can be dealt with swiftly and simplistically is possibly the limits of his powers.  He struggles with exactly the same problems current judicial systems do when it comes to organised crime, never mind state-backed criminal activity aimed at undermining opponents.

Given these limitations, his culpability is certainly highly questionable.  At least that would be my take on this.  Feel free to dismantle my arguments though.

I would have to agree on the standard of this prog.  Some outstanding artwork across the board.  Dredd sets its basic premise nicely, highlighting exactly how dire the straits are for MC1. 

Actually, I'd say this is something that hasn't fully been explored properly before.  Other than the TC1 takeover attempt and other oblique references in the odd story, it's a bit of an unspoken issue.

When you consider what MC1 was like when we first started, how powerful Justice dept was and how it stood on the world stage, present day MC1 is a pale shadow of this (kind of like Britain ....).  The effects of these events have never fully been laid bare.  So it's nice to see Niemand leaning into this shortcoming.

As for the rest of the prog, aye, Aquila's ending and setting up the final story make for a fine ending to this chapter.  On one level it will be a shame to see this go but at the same time, that closure is welcome.

Agree on Brink.  Having been working my way slowly through previous runs to try and bring myself up to speed, it really has been interesting to see how this has 'evolved' so to speak.  Culbard manages to create an impressively disturbing environment at times, conveying the claustrophobia of living conditions in habitats that are so massive in scale.  This episode might have been a bit 'talking-heads' in scope but there's still a scintilla of action to keep things moving.

I have to admit to being less than impressed with Intestinauts to date.  Not entirely sure why but this just hasn't clicked with me.  Shades of Banzai Battalion but without the characterisation maybe?  The fact that it is literally toilet humour perhaps?  Possibly the stories to date that haven't done much for me. 

Clearly this is personal so I'm going to be careful with my assessment of the tale.  Maybe this will be the one that finally clicks and forces a reappraisal?

Certainly I can't fault the artwork.  It's up there with some of the best Tooth has to offer.  There's that fine balance between humorous, cartoonish and serious sci-fi.

The plotting is neatly done.  The premise for the tale is lain clearly with the multiple threats comfortably established.  TBH I can't remember where the 'bots were at last time round so there on scene arrival and the tribulations they'd just overcome are lost in the recesses of my addled memory.  I imagine for new readers that might be a problem and deter from appreciation. 

The same holds for the 'big bad' introduced in the final moments.  Who is it?  What do they want?  Why have they got it in for the Intestinauts?  How does this link with the incident in the lab? 

If this episode has any flaws it is here.  Don't get me wrong, it's a nice, dramatic ending.  Unfortunately it lacks the full punch it deserves as a result.  Certainly for me, anyway.

This series of Proteus Vex has been far more interesting than previous ones.  This week we literally dig into who or what Flesh Pilots are.  Revelations produce as many questions as they do answers.  To say that this tale is multi-layered is an under-statement of epic proportions.

This is rapidly becoming one of my favourite strips, Tooth at its finest.  It is so far removed from the 'Federation-esque' styling of far too much Sci Fi - a pseudo-human world in which aliens are the periphery.  Everything about it is alien, every single character, events, relationships ...

I would also have to say that on this strip Lynch has utterly transformed himself as an artist.  He has capably and ably stepped into Flint's shoes after the first storyline, no mean feat for a man second only to Belardinelli for the creation of the utterly alien in Tooth for my money.  Gone is the artist who delivered the grotesquerie of the Orlok strip.   He may well have taken Flint's template but he has also made it his own, building deft touches that set it apart from that first run.

With a couple of weeks before the new Rogue Trooper run, I'm guessing we've got another Thr3ller to come.  Be interesting to see what this one comes up with.  They seem more challenging than Future Shocks with a bit more space to breathe but the challenge of delivering the story in 3 acts, so to speak.

BTW, IP has not done full justice to Percival's cover work.  The full wraparound is up to his normal standards with the back cover focusing more on the main protagonists of this tale. 

Wow! That sounds like a really impressive Batman collection, really impressive. Which are your fav runs. I have two more Batman runs still to appear here. Nothing as exciting as is in your collection I imagine.

I'm currently picking my way through No Man's Land from the early 90's.  Read it back in the day and in all honesty it is not one that really shines in any coherent way.  Given this was the hey-day of the 'million titles per best-selling character' policy of the main two American publishers, it is not surprising.

I do think this is the biggest problem with Batman.  There is just so much stuff out there it is hard to find anything consistent.  Year One was something special when it first came out and it is fairly easy to understand why Dark Knight returns was as well received as it was but quite often you can end up going to the other extreme with some stuff.

I mean, Death in the Family is actually quite a mediocre tale.  Dark Knight 2 was dire and I've still not got round to reading Master Race.  Hush benefits from Jim Lee on artwork but otherwise there is not that much to recommend it really.  Knightfall is in the same vein as No Man's Land, for me.

I think the New 52 confused the living daylights out of me.  There are some nice stories there but overall it was hard to make sense of what was going on.  Is it an alternate universe story?  I don't know.  Some of the latter tales certainly didn't blow me away.

I'd have to say that some of the best stuff are the 'hidden gems' that people tend to neglect.  Norm Breyfogle's Detective Comics stuff is, for my money, criminally under-rated with some absolutely insane stuff going on.  I love Gotham by Gaslight with Mike Mignola's sumptuous artwork and any of Kelley Jones' work on the title (as well as his amazing Deadman miniseries' that are well worth a look).  Batman Year Two is a nice little read, lifted by Alan Davies' artwork.  Then of course there is a lot of Alan Grant's work on the character across the various titles.

I'm still looking to track down some of the Ra's Al Ghul stuff but at the moment, other than the Hachette collection, print copies are bonkers prices and I refuse to buy digitally from Amazon since they've locked me out of all my old Comix purchases. Plus, I really am a luddite when it comes to comics.  It is a physical medium, sorry.

[always]

Finally my replacement copy loads (went to eBay as I gave up hope of my sub turning up which means it will land Monday - its happened before!

Had a couple of progs get lost in the dimensional oubliette of RM over the last few years.  One thing I will give subs is that they always sort out a replacement no quibble and PDQ.

Just finished Susan Cooper's Silver on the Tree and the full Dark is Rising Sequence.  A fascinating collection that follows that tradition of merging English folklore with Arthurian Legend.  One of those books that I'd always looked at down through the years but for some reason never got around to reading. 

For my money it leaves Rowling's Harry Potter in the dust.  The quality of writing is an order of magnitude better than those books.  Even though it's a fairly standard tale of good versus evil, it is far more original and lacks the over-dramatisation of that more popular series.

It's fair to say that Cooper's work deserves its status as a classic of British literature even if it is criminally under-appreciated.

[Power Pack]

Power Pack was one of my first experiences of Marvel, especially the early Snark's run.  A couple of tidy crossovers with X-men and the Morlocks before the Mutant Massacre but it kind of lost its way after issue 25 when it went bi-monthly.  Think it was always one of those titles that was bumping cheerfully along. 

Prices tend to be a bit all over the shop and, as with so many things, tracking down the last dozen or so issues can be a bit of a challenge.  That said, unless you're an obsessive completionist, they're nowt to write home about.

Early 80's Marvel does seem to be its hey-day.  By the late 80's they seem to have crawled up their own backsides before completely losing the plot in the speculator boom of the 90's. (trillion's of covers, holograms, card covers, die cut covers, cover covers ...)

Been slowly working my way through much of King's work of late (along with quite a few other writers).  It's interesting how he has shifted in some respects but also remained quite consistent in others.  I sometimes wonder how much of his having been pigeonholed as a horror writer is down to struggling to find a category for his work.

Granted there are seriously disturbing aspects to his books at times but quite often the themes and ideas are actually more fantastical than horror, it seems to me.  You've got books like Carrie, the Dead Zone and Firestarter that are all about psychic powers.  Talisman and the Dark Tower could more accurately be classified as fantasy.  To an extent the same can be said for The Stand.

Cujo is an absolutely fascinating piece of work for me.  The focus on the dog by so many folks ignores the plethora of monsters that inhabit the novel.  It's almost like a psychological thriller.

In defence of the Dark Tower I would say that the first novel is probably the weakest (at least of those I've got through so far).  Once the Gunslinger picks up with his fellow travellers it becomes far more interesting.  Of course it is going to be interesting to see whether this holds for the last few books ...

Feel a little that this thread might stray into some rather disturbing territory if we're not careful. If nothing else is does highlight that the currently blended social and legacy media spheres are reacting in dangerous ways. 

Trial by (social) media is becoming too commonplace.  It is leading to tragic consequences too often. Ultimately only a handful of people know what really happened.

Perhaps something best left alone other than acknowledging the passing?

[without]

... and a fella without a shovel in his head is called ...

I can appreciate that.  Some of the best tales I've read over the years have been the short one and done.  I'm on constant record as absolutely loving Wagner and Dillon's Alone in a Crowd which is such an amazing piece of work on absolutely every level.  The run of crazy crime stories before and after Judge Child Quest and even after Apocalypse War.  Both the Chopper stories are great (although much prefer Midnight Surfer ... Cam Kennedy artwork ... 'nuff said).

That's possibly the best aspect of Dredd, there's just so much variety to it.  I just wish we could move away from these interminable "there's something rotten in Justice Dept" stories though ...

I do think that is where Rebellion have got things right with some of the more recent reprints cherry picking Dredd tales.  Granted Apocalypse War has been reprinted more times than I can remember but as a starting point it is fantastic.  it captures everything that is great about Dredd - the sheer brutality of the world, Dredd's indifference to citizens and almost obsessive approach to the Law / MC1, Ezquerra, Grant, Wagner ...

Ultimately Dredd is one of those strips that can, to a certain extent, be read in whatever order you want.  True, the repercussions of earlier strips carry through but at the same time you don't always need to fully understand the history in the way you do with some other strips.  There are so many tales that are almost like vignettes rather than part of a continuous narrative.

As for reading Calvin and Hobbes in bulk ... is there any other way?  It's more addictive than Uncle Ump!

From what I've seen trade paperpacks can often be pretty easy and cheap. I'm selling at a mart this weekend (Sheffield come buy my stuff - normally not listed here as the stuff I talk about here is the stuff I'm keeping damnit!) and you'll get all sorts of offers on trades. There are of course exceptions. Its the bigger hardcover, deluxe and omnibus type things that seem to go wild in price.

Bit of a slog from here in South Wales (having done it several times to visit my sister who lives in Loxley), otherwise I would ...

I think it does depend on what you're looking for, you're right.  Marvel Omnibuses tend to have odd runs / reprint patterns so they can be a bit crazy.  So Secret Wars 2 or Hickman's Avengers stuff can be bleeding daft in prices.  Others have gone through multiple reprints so are relatively sane.

Maybe my problem is that I'm looking for relatively (okay, possibly insanely) obscure stuff like IDW's reprints of the Star Trek Gold Key and TV21 strips or Titan's third Flash Gordon book.  Sort of stuff that didn't have a massive print run in the first place and has now dropped off the radar.  I've nearly completely Boom Studio's Do Android Dreams in hardback and that has been a challenge too.

What I find with conventions now is that they are so tied up with film / manga that they're not really worth the effort any more (especially when you've been collecting for a few decades and have insanely eclectic tastes).

[TL:DR - fairly standard multi-dimensional scrag match. Decent artwork. Links to Identity Crisis and Infinite Crisis. Final Crisis works well as a standalone.]

... and finally reached the end of Final Crisis.  I say finally because of the time spent wading through 52 and Countdown to Final Crisis.  After the bafflement I felt reading Infinite Crisis the first time, I figured it was worth working through the prequel material.

Taking Final Crisis as a piece on its own, it's a bit difficult not to be distracted by Morrison's 'go to' plot devices.  A borderline omnipotent multi-dimensional creature wants to recreate reality in his own image?  Teams of heroes and villains pulled together from across different dimensions?  Is it just me, or is this the plot of Zenith?

That said, it is told with panache.  Can't fault the artwork either.  It hangs together quite nicely and you could probably get away with reading it without picking through 52 or Countdown.

Treating it and Infinite Crisis as linked stories works quite well too.  One of the nice things about 52 is the fielding of characters that don't often get much attention.  With the 'big 3' (Superman, Batman and Wonderwoman) out of the way, so much more rests with players that would to a large extent be consider B or even Z listers.

Countdown does see the return of the big 3 but not to a massive extent.  There is also a growing focus on the antics of the Monitors as well as Apokalips.  So it is really only towards the end that they come into play.  We also see nods towards Identity Crisis so there is quite a bit to unpack.

Overall it's not a bad read, whether in isolation or as part of the larger whole.  Personally I felt it worked better being familiar with Identity Crisis and the other pre-Infinite Crisis series. 

They do suffer from repetition though.  Big-bad-multiversal threat ... all got to gang together ... bit of a deus-ex ending ... Other than that, they are slightly above a lot of the output of the Big Two (Marvel and DC).

TL:DR - fairly standard multi-dimensional scrag match.  Decent artwork.  Links to Identity Crisis and Infinite Crisis. Final Crisis works well as a standalone.

[Part 5]

Part 5

Where to find it

Liberty Meadows doesn't seem to be as available as it once was. It's all been collected but I'm not sure it's all still in print and some seem to be getting a bit pricey. I'm not sure the collections are available digitally either?

One thing I've noticed since the pandemic is that graphic novel prices have risen quite a bit on the 2nd hand market.  Used to be that they were cheap as chips and easy to track down.  Now though, you see crazy prices being asked.

Some of this is the print runs towards the end of series.  That's not always the case though.  I do wonder how much of this is algorithms slowly pushing prices higher and higher.

Lou Gossett Jr is one of those criminally under-rated actors who appeared in so much back in the day.  Totally agree with Angry Vince on Enemy Mine.  That was a cracking film. 

The other series I remember him for is the Iron Eagle films.  An absolutely bonkers idea, that a teen could effectively steel a fighter jet to go after his dad after he'd been shot down in the Middle East.  Back in the day when pretty much everyone was making "America is the greatest military nation in the world" films with whatever bat-shit crazy idea they could angle in to it.  Crazy as it sounds, it worked.  Largely because a) LGJ and b) nobody took it too seriously.