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Prog 2109 - Shark-Infested Waters

Started by Eamonn Clarke, 24 November, 2018, 11:12:05 AM

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sheridan

I wish SMF would obey spoiler tags properly!

Try again:

That's what we thought when Dredd [spoiler]blew up the Judda hideout[/spoiler], but a year or so later we got  [spoiler]Kraken[/spoiler] showing up.

The Sherman Kid

Quote from: sheridan on 01 December, 2018, 01:57:31 PM
I wish SMF would obey spoiler tags properly!

Try again:

That's what we thought when Dredd [spoiler]blew up the Judda hideout[/spoiler], but a year or so later we got  [spoiler]Kraken[/spoiler] showing up.

it did actually say in the original story that a few Judda who attacked the Grand Hall were captured....just saying.

TordelBack

Been avoiding Small House discussion on the "if you've nothing nice to say..." principle, but then I realised this is the internet, and it only exists in opposition to that maxim.

I enjoyed the story. The art was splendid throughout. The storytelling was brisk and dense at the same time, tension was maintained, and there were more than a few good lines and shocks.  Dirty Frank was in it (and has been revived by Hershey as her own personal undercover asset, or I'll eat my helmet). Invisible Ninja Judges appear to have been banished from the strip.  The little oddities (Were their ninja-specs all nicked or not? Is that all the 'Enceladus energy' amounted to? How can Hershey tolerate Dredd's very public insubordination?) don't really bother me. 

But.  The plot itself was very disappointing. Smiley's "cull" rationale, with Dredd as Top Trump stopping it going too far,  makes absolutely no sense: the Block Mania contaminant (which affected Dredd and nearly removed him from the game), the destruction of the Atlantic Wall and nuclear strikes (which knocked-out Dredd's H-Wagon, something Joe had no influence on preventing, and again very nearly took him out), and the Apocalypse Warp combined were effectively unstoppable. The desired "cull" was achieved when the southern sectors were nuked, before the Warp was even activated. A secret mission to counter or destroy that technology followed by a war would have served his purposes better.

The idea that there was a 90% chance of victory because of Dredd is just nonsense: he could have died/been lost at any time through no fault of his own, and on four occasions during the war very nearly was. Smiley appears to be viewing Dredd as if he was reading the strip itself, and acting as if he was Wagner and Grant looking for a handy way to trim the city back to a believable size. No-one so insane as to believe that should have been able to credibly manage 40 years of covert activity. 

It reduces Smiley to just another Cal-level loon, instead of a machievellian mastermind, and I find that shift pretty boring.  I accept that this might all be clever meta-commentary, but I don't have to like it.

One last genuine niggle: Maitland's speech about Sam is bizarre. "A good soul". Really. Is she Judge Corey now?

Rest of Prog very good.  Missing Infestinauts already.

Leigh S

Yeah it is such a bizarre claim from Smiley that I can only take it as a poor attempt to flatter Dredd, rather than any real calculation on his part - as you say, you could allow the first strike to wipe out half the city, but then have a real plan to fight back with the info you had that ran into a bit more detail than just "let Dredd sort it"

Mikey

Necro post! It's been a while - how's everyone keeping? I'm fine, thanks.

I've been chomping through coming up to about a year's worth of progs so just finished The Small House last night. I thought it was brilliant and graced with what is possibly my favourite Flint art so far, and that's saying something. That's inextricably linked to the magnificent colouring by Blythe.

It was tense and cracked along at a great pace managing to keep me guessing until the last episode. I could say I'm slightly disappointed it ended so soon, but as there's more where that came from this is but a step on the journey. Adding it to the whole shebang starting with Low Life it's undoubtably a crucial chapter, but where will it all end? I mean that in a good way, can't wait to find out!

Elsewhere, Brink continues to be fabulous, so much so that I'll be buying the trades. The rest of the prog wasn't too shabby either, but just happend to pale in comparison to the big two.
To tell the truth, you can all get screwed.