Prog 1998 - A Dredd End

[Frank]

I'm offended that my own comments weren't worthy of quoting

You didn't say whether you enjoyed the episode or not, buddy!

Not only that, but it was you who suggested John Wagner might have borrowed Mike Carroll's teleporter, and started the whole 'no corpse, no death' farrago* that has poor Vegesaurus exercised so.

Tips: I agree, the guy Dredd shot was definitely dead, even before he exploded.

That guy was probably the same character who murdered his neighbour with a toy bug in 1987, but in a story where Justice Department identified their suspect as PJ Maybe because his forensics didn't match those they have on file as belonging to PJ Maybe**, there's fantastic, fecund fictional space for ambiguity to blossom.


* Okay, Magnetica sneaked in ahead of you, but he thought Maybe had paid a visit to the Janus Project's cloning labs

** The hair and skin they found in Warren Buffet matched those in the file marked Roberto Smith, which Maybe switched previously

[SIP]

Pj's not done yet........

[Jacqusie]

Thanks for the spoiler alert for the cover... 

Why do people want to be the first to get it on the internet before we actually get our hands on a copy?

I may be old school, but I like finding out what the cover is when I actually get my prog on a Saturday.

I suppose it's as sign of the times and I need to stop coming on this forum, facebook or ECBT2000AD, or the internet in general if I want to avoid seeing the cover for prog 2001 in advance now... 

[Frank]

.
http://www.samaritans.org/

[Dandontdare]

I may be old school, but I like finding out what the cover is when I actually get my prog on a Saturday.

So don't visit any threads in the clearly labelled SPOILERS thread for a couple of days.

Sheesh, it;s not hard - if you don't want to see, don't look!

That doesn't man you have to avoid the whole forum.

[Jacqusie]

I may be old school, but I like finding out what the cover is when I actually get my prog on a Saturday.

So don't visit any threads in the clearly labelled SPOILERS thread for a couple of days.

Sheesh, it;s not hard - if you don't want to see, don't look!

Fair enough if the thread was about prog 1999. I wouldn't have looked then. This thread is on prog 1998 last I looked, which I have and therefore assumed safe to post in.

Is it too much to politely ask to wait until Saturday when that weeks prog threads open, that way we know what we are getting.

I don't need the samaritans thanks, but many will do today and later through the night, that's pretty poor form Butch/Frank to take the piss like that...

[Frank]

.
You have a PM, Jacqusie. Let's not 'jack the thread.

[Modern Panther]

My bizarre theory..
[spoiler]Maybe Maybe's time spent with the dark judges gave the tech genius access to the advanced tech they use to shift between bodies.  Maybe Maybe is using the same think, but inhabiting a living body, shared with another personality.  Certainly the person Dredd killed *thinks* he was PJ, but he lacked the panache of PJ.

We're told that PJ hardly ever resorts to guns, but when cornered the killer immediately shoots up a block store.  The only physical link to PJ is Dna records, which we know Pj is able to change.  Money squirreled away in CB, which he makes no effort to escape to.  The mysterious black voice.  The change not only in gender, but in sexual preference.  The clumsy way he is backed into a dead end.  While pages of dialogue are devoted to "is this really maybe?". 
[/spoiler]

The whole think was a set up to once again convince dredd that PJ is dead.

[Eamonn Clarke]

Serious question.
I post the covers on ECBT2000AD on Saturdays. Would peeps prefer I delayed them till Sundays?

2000AD do post the covers on Facebook and Twitter on a friday and that's where I get the images from.

[TordelBack]

My bizarre theory..
[spoiler]Maybe Maybe's time spent with the dark judges gave the tech genius access to the advanced tech they use to shift between bodies.  Maybe Maybe is using the same think, but inhabiting a living body, shared with another personality.  Certainly the person Dredd killed *thinks* he was PJ, but he lacked the panache of PJ.

We're told that PJ hardly ever resorts to guns, but when cornered the killer immediately shoots up a block store.  The only physical link to PJ is Dna records, which we know Pj is able to change.  Money squirreled away in CB, which he makes no effort to escape to.  The mysterious black voice.  The change not only in gender, but in sexual preference.  The clumsy way he is backed into a dead end.  While pages of dialogue are devoted to "is this really maybe?". 
[/spoiler]

The whole think was a set up to once again convince dredd that PJ is dead.

Completely agree on all counts, close to my own reading (the black voice is 'Real' PJ, a so-far unexplained development from his time with the Three Deadegos), but with the caveat that I think the story also works brilliantly without any of that (the black voice is just the part of PJ that is disgusted by his present failures).

[NapalmKev]

Serious question.
I post the covers on ECBT2000AD on Saturdays. Would peeps prefer I delayed them till Sundays?

Personally, I'm not bothered about covers being revealed early. Just carry on posting them!

Cheers

[Echidna]

Serious question.
I post the covers on ECBT2000AD on Saturdays. Would peeps prefer I delayed them till Sundays?

Like Jacqusie said, as long as it's in the relevant thread, it's all cool.

Regarding Maybe: my Dredd slog is only up to Prog 800ish so far so I don't know Wot PJ Did between Necropolis and Serial Serial, but it sounds like the Black Voice (totally deserves to be capitalised) is a new development - it would be strange to introduce such a thing and kill the guy off without addressing it. For that reason alone I don't think Wagner's done with this story just yet. PJ is like Schrodinger's Cat at this point: both dead and not-dead until Wagner reopens the case.

[Muon]

My bizarre theory..
[spoiler]Maybe Maybe's time spent with the dark judges gave the tech genius access to the advanced tech they use to shift between bodies.  Maybe Maybe is using the same think, but inhabiting a living body, shared with another personality.  Certainly the person Dredd killed *thinks* he was PJ, but he lacked the panache of PJ.

We're told that PJ hardly ever resorts to guns, but when cornered the killer immediately shoots up a block store.  The only physical link to PJ is Dna records, which we know Pj is able to change.  Money squirreled away in CB, which he makes no effort to escape to.  The mysterious black voice.  The change not only in gender, but in sexual preference.  The clumsy way he is backed into a dead end.  While pages of dialogue are devoted to "is this really maybe?". 
[/spoiler]

The whole think was a set up to once again convince dredd that PJ is dead.

Dunno, man...

That's a lot of Maybes.



I'll get me coat...

[jabish]

I thought Dredd this issue was a terrific ending to a terrific tale and kind of the only way [spoiler]PJ Maybe[/spoiler] could have gone. Cold, hard, Dredd style. I gasped at the last page and that Carlos image is up there with[spoiler] 'Because I hate you' from Strontium Dog[/spoiler]. Two brilliant creators firing on all cylinders and a great palate cleanser after the Tex-city takeover storyline which I'm afraid I didn't like at all. I suspect he is gone. I love the doubts of course. For me these little unanswered questions make the story even better. They are not huge dangling plot threads but little niggles. And I suspect John Wagner did what he did so no other writer will be tempted to use [spoiler]PJ Maybe[/spoiler] in their stories. Proper order.

Great to have a proper Dredd tale again.

[Frank]

I gasped at the last page and that Carlos image is up there with[spoiler] 'Because I hate you' from Strontium Dog

God yeah. This was muscular, gritty Carlos, fully engaged with the material and pulling off storytelling back flips to impress the girls by the pool. From the fun he had with Sexy Maybe to that shot of the bike looking like a Harley built by JCB, the old dog was up to all his best tricks*.

Wagner was a riot too - I won't read or hear a one liner better than "I'm going to make Dredd regret the day he was born. Not that he was, of course" in any medium, all year. He clearly enjoyed fucking with us as well. The litany of loose ends and false feints above should include Maybe instructing his valet to prepare 'a pipe of number 3 mixture' to aid his plotting.

Mayan astral projection ritual or evidence of Maybe's descent into dissolution? Doesn't matter, it's just one more ambiguous signifier that demonstrates anyone insisting on a single, definitive, limiting interpretation of this endlessly entertaining story is rubbing up against the wrong trouser leg.


* Maybe six months of drawing men in tanks for Garth Ennis has increased Carlos's appreciation for the pleasures of the female form and the imagination