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Prog 1998 - A Dredd End

Started by Eamonn Clarke, 10 September, 2016, 10:27:52 PM

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Satanist

As a big fan of PJ I hope this is an elaborate ruse because if that really was the end then it was a bit of a damp squib IMO.

There were other stories in the prog and most of them were good.
Hmm, just pretend I wrote something witty eh?

Proudhuff

Quote from: Frank on 15 September, 2016, 02:14:47 PM
.


Not to mention a faithful family retainer droid* and billions salted away in Cuidad Barranquilla.


* Like Robert in America, who also helped his master act from beyond the grave, and Inga  .

Now that's more interesting than a re-heated hash of DJs  ;)
DDT did a job on me

Muon

Anderson was a goodie this week. I loved the mind trick she played on the other judge. It made a change from the "putting your hands on someone's head and looking like you need a poo" trick of yesteryear. Can anyone recall Anderson doing similar stuff in old stories? All I can remember is scenes of her reading people's minds.

Jaegir was a nicely ram-packed episode that took an unexpected turn. It's always a highlight of the prog for me. In a sense, this strip is a throwback to the old character-driven stories.

Scarlet Traces reminds me of being 12 and staying up with a bag of crisps and a cup of Ovaltine to watch old sci-fi films on Channel Four. Yep, it's that good.

Outlier hasn't really held my attention unfortunately, but I'm strangely attracted to the blonde woman because she reminds me of someone I used to work with.

Dredd was a weird one for me. It seems like an anti-climactic death for a long-running character but the thing that makes me doubt that he'll still be around is the way they've been trumpeting the death of a major character, so much so that Tharg went on about it in the Nerve Centre. To me that precludes [spoiler]Maybe[/spoiler] living on in a conventional "baddy escapes yet again" way because 2000 AD usually steers clear of lame stuff like that.

So to me, either Mr Wagner was so bored with the character he's truly gone for good or he'll come back as some kind of supernatural being. Perhaps everyone clearly being sick of the Dark Judges is in itself quite a good reason for a new supernatural foe to come in and shake things up. Everyone seems to be taking the suggestion of a DJ connection to mean they themselves would come back, but to me there's room for a new ghostly baddie who only has quite a tenuous relationship to them.

Having said that, Occam's Razor suggests the guy's outta here.

James Stacey

Quote from: Bogbrush on 15 September, 2016, 03:15:56 PM
Anderson was a goodie this week. I loved the mind trick she played on the other judge. It made a change from the "putting your hands on someone's head and looking like you need a poo" trick of yesteryear. Can anyone recall Anderson doing similar stuff in old stories? All I can remember is scenes of her reading people's minds.
Well she did something similar in the movie with Kay.

The Sherman Kid

Dredd Well bit of a surprise there  :o. Not PJ's death but the lack of explanation ref the dark voice. Expect there will be an epilogue next week like others have said  then perhaps a 'Wot I did to esceep the dark judges' for prog 2000. Hope so anyway, too many unanswered questions.

When did the sisters bring back Death remind me.

Frank

Quote from: Bogbrush on 15 September, 2016, 03:15:56 PM
Can anyone recall Anderson doing similar stuff in old stories? All I can remember is scenes of her reading people's minds

Alan Grant's vision of Psi-Division seemed to break everyone down into single talents - general telepaths being the majority of psi-judges and psi-criminals, with specialists like empaths, precogs, telekinetics, and pyrokinetics less common.

Even Owen Krysler, the most powerful psychic the Dreddverse had ever known, was mostly limited to telepathy until he died and became The Mutant*.

Grant had Anderson learn astral projection and, in Doomsday, Wagner framed her planting suggestions in the mind of her jailer as a new skill she was working on. You could argue that once you've developed the ability to plant an abstract idea in another mind, planting an image isn't much of a stretch.

All that's limited to manipulating either her own mind or that of someone else, so I suppose as long as Anderson doesn't start shooting plasma out of her finger tips and levitating you can argue that it's all just a development of her single, core ability.


* Krysler has a line about seeing the future in Destiny's Angels, but he's been struck by a vague vision - like Anderson's ambiguous, metaphorical psi-flashes in Hour Of The Wolf - rather than deliberately projecting his mind into the future

Steve Green

Krysler had pretty good precog abilities for other people's future - Brother Bunsen using him as a fortune teller of death.

Same with Prosser/the Jigsaw man.

It was more his own destiny he seemed to be a bit crap at.

Didn't he use some kind of Telekinesis to kill Pa Angel (or at least send him into those lava loving aliens)

Goaty


Frank

Quote from: Steve Green on 15 September, 2016, 05:19:13 PM
Krysler had pretty good precog abilities for other people's future ... Didn't he use some kind of Telekinesis to kill Pa Angel

He looked into the mind of the rock ledge and predicted it would snap.



Apestrife

Quite liked Dredd. While it made me laughs than being on the edge of my seat, it had me guessing all the way. Classic Wagner judge procedural Dredd with a fitting end. Hunting Maybe down, and ending him. 

Given Wagner's Dredd of recent, I wasn't so sure I'd get to see that. Since he hasn't been very successful recently. Failing to realise that Judge Bender was bent, the housing that blew up, the JD:s being lost in space and so on.

And about the JD:s. I think PJ got a similar send off as they did. With the Serial Serial story's spin on a Whodunit (Who was Maybe) and PJ:s two voice in his head. Sorta leaves the door open, a bit like the JD:s in space. Wagner probably won't write them again, but some new Ennis-kinda Dredd writer certainly could (and perhaps shouldn't).

Muon

Quote from: Frank on 15 September, 2016, 05:08:10 PM
Quote from: Bogbrush on 15 September, 2016, 03:15:56 PM
Can anyone recall Anderson doing similar stuff in old stories? All I can remember is scenes of her reading people's minds

Alan Grant's vision of Psi-Division seemed to break everyone down into single talents - general telepaths being the majority of psi-judges and psi-criminals, with specialists like empaths, precogs, telekinetics, and pyrokinetics less common....


Gotcha - thanks for that. Also noted the similarity with what the Thirlby version of Anderson does in the movie. Now you mention it I have vague memories of Anderson astrally projecting with some psychic twins in a story years ago - the one where a sheep demon turns up and burns to death a load of people celebrating Burns night.

It makes sense to widen out the abilities of the mature Anderson a bit more - she's had a long career to learn a lot of things. I guess it wouldn't be very 2000 AD to have her prancing about doing magic like a superhero, though.

Fungus

A poor prog, redeemed only by the consistently-developing Jaegir.

The game's all about opinions (Brian) but I can't agree with the reliable TB on PJ's demise. I can't agree that his execution or clever escape are possible and both satisfactory endings. Cornered and shot by Dredd, the straightforward outcome was a damp squib to an excellent story deserving of better, while I also would not be impressed to find some twisty-turny escape had been achieved (involving undead fluids or timebombs or whatever else). He was run down and was beaten. I regard the inner voice as a problem.

Maybe it's the hype that rankles. Kill a character, but don't tell us in advance, please.

Just double-checked the wording on page 2, TMO had mentioned this prog's death. Alas, there's wriggle room on the finality of it and while I hope it doesn't happen, prog 1999 might be a footnote, as suggested.

Starkers

Well Dredd was a bit of a damp squib. I'm not so bothered about how the death itself was handled, its just the unanswered questions.

1. What was the black voice? I know people are suggesting that it'd always been there, or that it was a manifestation of PJ's increasingly unhinged state, but if there wasn't some deeper meaning to it then coming off the back of PJs interaction with the DJs then it was an odd choice.

2. Why did Morgan's Vienna audition involve her dressing like a slab walker and talking like a character from a B-Movie? I can maybe accept that she's Wally Squad and was dressed like a hooker because of her previous assignment, but why the low budget script? Or am I forgetting something about Vienna? Is she an actress?

3. Was it actually PJ who snagged Mrs G? It read like it was supposed to be happening contemporaneously with PJ waiting outside Vienna's block, or did I misread this and it was supposed to be some time later giving PJ time to do both? 

Steve Green

Vienna is (or was) an actress.

Morgan had been undercover, the dialogue was presumably something she just plucked out of the air, based on her previous identity. It was more about getting the voice right.

Spikes

I enjoyed this tale - heck, it's Carlos, and John innit.

But as with the Dark Judges - and their meet with P.J, it feels like more stories are yet to be told, and so it's hard to see this as the end....