Prog 1301 Spoilers Ah -AHH -AHHH -AHHHH - urk?

[paulvonscott]

Hallebloodylujah!  2000AD is back.  Who'd have thought it.  Someones kicked the comic thats been pretending to be 2000AD for ten years out the window and brought it back again - yehah!

Dredd, marvellous.  I'm sorry it's over, what a joy it was to read.  In fcat it was so good I can't talk about it.

VC's, had my doubts, have to say this week it went up a few notches, it's looking good.

Rogue, yeah, I remember this guy.  Looks really good to me, nice Friday Joke, and a reall genuine nu-earth mystery up ahead.   I can't wait.

Strontium Dog.  It's like I've just opened the ark of the coveneant, I keep out the back and instead of some crumbley boring stones, I've found some classic thrill power.  "Wrong!" Zarjaz!

Jack Bison.  It had such a cliche density that it has to be parody, yet it wasn't that funny, or even interesting.  Everything about it was just so American I thought I'd got the wrong prog.  I appreciate that's the point, but I just think its in the wrong comic.  Incidentally Arnold Schwarzennegger has parodied this stuff himself much better in the Last Action Hero.  Anyway I'm sure this will get a lot of stick, perhasp deservedly, I think the art and the writing are okay for what they are trying to do, but I think it's just a bad idea to begin with.  Oh, okay, i hated it.

At least it calmed me down.  

Wot a prog!

Cheers

Paul

[Mangamax]

Is it just me or does Ezquerra's art look a bit rushed this week - especially page 3

[Dounreay]

VCs - I dunno- I've got a very bad feeling about this. When was the last time a sequel matched the original.

Rogue Trooper/Tor Cyan - what a waste of a good character with a mysterious and dodgy past. Tor is actually Rogue. Cor, I'll have to put something in my tea to stop me getting excited about that one. Why the need to explain everything in great detail? Why spoil the mystery. Next time Tharg should print a family tree and save some ink.

Strontium Dog - never did like Mr. J. Alpha or Ezquerra's art. The man's still drawing the same way he was umpteen year ago. Johnny Alpha bears an uncanny resemblance to every other bloke Ezquerra draws. Even back to Major Eazy in the old Battle comic.

Apart from that everything's fine. If you look up retro in the dictionary it says "Run out of ideas. Mine the past."

   

[Tu-plang]

Right, you're dead.

[paulvonscott]

Let me guess, you're a sin dex fan right?

[Smiley]

The thread title? Best not ask. I just hope the spoiling isn't the pages being stuck together...

Ahem!

VC's - Heh! As soon as the military techno-babble started flowing I thought Dan Abnett was going to do to the VC's what Steve White did to Rogue Trooper. I mean, who gives a rat's arse about "Neo-Abladed-Fractal-Flechette-Slugs" or whatever? Then the hotshot pilot gets shown up big time by the gung-ho old timers. Bloody great! I hope this keeps up.

Bison - Well it rattles along so I suppose it deserves a chance. But it better start coming up with plot twists and ideas soon. I don't think readers are going to sit through weeks of "I'm gonna nail this sucker even if Mayor Dooley takes my badge" etc.

H'mm. Just thought. Bison wasn't previewed. Was that because the guy who does the gravelly voiceovers on movie trailers was unavailable?

[Devons Daddy]

Doun
you need a lay down or somthing, better go for cat scan. ?
sin and dex fan , more likely space girls, and brigand doom and would enjoy a re run  of both by the sound of it.

[The Amstor Computer]

Dredd -- So duty wins out. A wonderful little two-parter after Sin City. Good to see Joe *did* make it to the show, even if he was too late.

Rogue Trooper -- Bloody fantastic start. Gordon Rennie's pulled Rogue to the background & set this up as more a story about Nu-Earth & the squad of Southers. IMO, this is the way to write Rogue, and I'm looking forward to seeing where Gordon takes this tale next. Loved the little touches (the Friday graffiti, the "this is where he belongs" comments...) for fans of the original Rogue.
Also, I've got to praise Staz Johnson & David Roach for their art. As others have said, echoes of Dave Gibbons, but not just a cheap copy of past glories.

VCs -- Like Smiley, I groaned when I read the tech-talk, but that quickly changed to a great dirty grin when Smith appeared in full armour. I don't think the series is going to be saying anything particularly profound, but it looks like being a great future-war romp for long-time fans of Tooth. Henry Flint's art is *excellent* & Chris Blythe is doing sterling work.

Strontium Dog -- Loving it. More than the VCs & Rogue, this is *real* old-school 2000AD, in terms of both writing & art. The "wrong" caption on the final page was a wonderful finish to a near-perfect prog. Near-perfect? Yes, because of:

Bison -- Ughh. If it's a joke, it's not very funny. I'm not surprised this wasn't previewed, because it's an utter dog. Hopefully it'll only run for a few episodes & not turn into another Killer...

[HiEx]

And what's wrong with a bit of techno babble? This is supposed to be science fiction afterall!
Anyway, it's nice sometimes to have a detailed description of what equipment/vehicles the characters are using.

HiEx

[The Amstor Computer]

Nothing, in small amounts, but when it's used constantly it's just irritating & frankly unbelievable. Would future soldiers really gibber on all the time about "M-Brain causal predictors and telepresent tar-plot actuators" and tell their soldiers to watch out because "those hombres are coated in personal K-7 field shrouds" and are "packing man-portable M110 plasma assault rigs"?

Doubtful. In this instance though, it could be explained as the young soldier showing off to the veterans.

Like Smiley said, Rogue Trooper - under Steve White - ended up substituting techno-babble for decent writing. He may well have spent ages considering what to call that weapon, or how that vehicle worked, but it didn't mean shit if his Rogue was boring as hell.

The other thing is this: weapons, vehicles, tools, etc... all have nicknames or abbreviations in modern day usage. Why should the future be any different? Why shouldn't "M-Brain causal predictors and telepresent tar-plot actuators" simply become "M-Brains" or "T-plotters"?

[Smiley]

I see what you mean HiEx. But by techno-babble I meant buzzwords that sound made-up on the spot and just get shoved into the dialogue in a mistaken attempt to ground the story. With no description or explanation as to why the technology would be useful.

[paulvonscott]

"The thread title? Best not ask. I just hope the spoiling isn't the pages being stuck together... Ahem!"

Ahme indeed, that was the sound of suffering from a severe thrill power overload, only saved by the reading of bison at then end to cool down the overheated thrill circuits.

[Tiplodocus]

I did enjoy this prog, but yet again, I was left with the feeling that it was all a little TOO retro.

Art throughout was fabulous; clean, unfussy and in places idiosyncratic without being inaccessible.

JD was good but too short - didn't really go anywhere - hopefully will be followed up later.

ROGUE was OK ish but I can't help feeling that this would have been polished off in a single episode in the old days.

VCs - thoroughly enjoyed it.  Technobable actually had bearing to the characters and actions rather than just being made up nonsense.  However the old timers showing up the young guns is a bit of a cliche.

BISON: Speaking of cliche... the only thing that can save this is a major reversal of style and/or genre.  A twist of the size that turned Psycho from a heist movie into a slasher movie or that turned FROM DUSK TIL DAWN from Tarantino movie into naked vampire blood fest.  Tharg would never commisson a (adopt gravelly voice) "He's a cop on the edge..." story so I'm thinking that this must turn into an out and out parody or something completely unexpected.  As someone pointed out, it reads like the start of LAST ACTION HERO.

STRONTY DOG: OKish. I loved the art, I loved the "WRONG" but if it turns out they are in some form of mad alien ZOO or in an alien hunting ground ("where we test your abilities.  You have passed Mister Alpha, you are free to go".). I'd be most disappointed.  John Wagner's hardly disappointed me since the days of Battle - I do hope he's not going to start now.

cheers
Mister Tips

 

[Tu-plang]

Dredd:  Wrapped up too quickly.  Lets hope Wagner doesn't take another 20 years to finish this one off.  Dredd said he DOES care about Vienna, he reads her school reports and is always just an ocean away.  Let's hope he come's back to this.

Rogue: Cool, good thing it was given to another writer rather than Tomlinson, who would have arsed it up with that Tor Cyan bullshite.  This will be good old fashioned Rogue.

VCs: Yeah, sort of.  Could be good, maybe they need to tone down the cliche of old soldiers returning to their war.  Has a sort of racist undertone somehow, like the Geeks were good guys at the beginning, but they'd always return to their ways, even years later. "You can never trust the dirty geeks, they were plannin this all along." which is odd, but I like it.

Strontium Dog:  Never a dud, pity we only get one story every 200 odd years.  The old-skool style is so spot on, let's always have black/white SD, it kicks.

Bison: Well, not too bad. Needs sci-fi twists, and doesn't need good cop/bad cop bolsh that it probably is.

Can't win em all.  Nearly can.  That with the new uniform desgn means that I now wait for my prog as much as I wait for my Megazine.

[The Amstor Computer]

---VCs: Yeah, sort of. Could be good, maybe they need to tone down the cliche of old soldiers returning to their war. Has a sort of racist undertone somehow, like the Geeks were good guys at the beginning, but they'd always return to their ways, even years later. "You can never trust the dirty geeks, they were plannin this all along." which is odd, but I like it---

Don't know about the "racist undertone", but:

I've got a feeling that the hints about The Polity & our sympathetic Geek in the first episode may mean that the attack isn't quite as clearcut as it seems. Geek ships outfitted with bleeding-edge technology? Maybe The Polity are playing a more direct role?

---Rogue: Cool, good thing it was given to another writer rather than Tomlinson, who would have arsed it up with that Tor Cyan bullshite. This will be good old fashioned Rogue---

IMO, John is a good writer, and Tor Cyan could have been a good character, if it wasn't for the whole tie-in to the Rogue/Friday continuity. Everyone was just so sick of the whole debacle that nothing John could have done would have been right. If Cyan had been a brand new character instead of a continuation of the Rogue bloodline, I've got a feeling his reception would have been far smoother.

---That with the new uniform desgn means that I now wait for my prog as much as I wait for my Megazine---

Que???