A Monday Prog here. I’ll take it. I liked the cover. It stands out. I like the Dredd more. Sure, folks can grumble about the dodgy senior Judge trope or the slight verbosity of the lead, but no-one writes Dredd like Wag—. Sorry, Niemand. Honestly, I’ve not been this excited about a bunch of Dredd strips since Al Ewing’s run. There are other writers I’ve enjoyed – still enjoy – on Dredd, but there’s something about Niemand’s scripts that just feel right. And I bloody loved that twist on the last page.
After that, Joe Pineapples is like being repeatedly slapped in the face with a wet and rotten fish. I’ll admit, I quite liked the lift bit, but the rest of it? Just no. The dialogue on the last two pages was woeful.
Hope was better, in that it ended and was quite interesting – and, finally, broadly coherent. I’m sure there’s a great story fighting to get out of this strip, but this run was far, far too long. I’m not sure what happened here, because Hope was tight and horrific in its earlier series. This one just felt messy and muddled. Given how it does end, I think it’ll warrant a re-read to see where it next heads. But it won’t be at the top of my list.
The Out is good rather than great this week, and feels in search of its next thing, which is presumably set up on the last page. (Still, some nice playing with stereotypes there, in a manner that felt 2023, unlike Joe Pineapples living in the 1970s.) And then Proteus Vex continues to ramp up the epic.
In all, another solid Prog, with three hits, one almost, and one ‘never darken my door again’. Although this issue, it felt like Dredd was ahead of the other quality thrills my some margin, despite them also being quality reads.
Dredd > Vex > Out > Hope > Rotten fruit
