My copy of this still hasn't arrived, but feeling flush I picked one up at the weekend at a newsagents thinking, as a jumping on Prog, maybe I could pass my sub copy on when (if) it shows up. Quick review from me as you guys have all already read it!
Dredd Big fan of this episode, as others have said a very old school / Millsian start with introducing a bunch of novelty hitmen and lovely work from Jake Lynch. Looking forward to seeing this play out.
Diaboliks Mixed feelings on this one - the strip is good, but the characters are so odious I just don't want to read about them and I'm not interested in their adventures - Jenny and Ravne that is, at least.
Scarlet Traces I must admit I couldn't remember what had happened in the last series of Scarlet Traces and, to my shame, I wasn't interested to go back and check. This is one of those strips that whilst I can't say anything bad about it, I just don't like it. I love both D'israeli and Edginton so I don't know why and I'm in a clear minority so I'll just zip it on this!
That aside, more praise from me for the trippy start and the way the art shifted styles from the dream sequence to reality. The art here is magnificent, it really is.
Anderson Didn't dig this at all I'm afraid. I think I said in a thread elsewhere that I think Anderson as a character is played out: it feels like anything interesting with her has been done, she's not as one-note as Dredd in the core concept and chucking in a Justice Department wizard division is kind of symptomatic of this: it's just kind of muddying the waters further because it doesn't seem like there's many other good stories to tell here.
Very dark colour work from Lee Carter here and as others have commented, the lack of backgrounds is a surprise and I assume is down to time constraints which is a shame as his work is beautiful.
Pandora Perfect Perfectly decent start. Interested to see how this translates to the long form, but it's been the best thing in Regened imo so hoping it retains it's crazy feel. I do think it sticks out from the rest of the Prog, both in art and script but I don't think that's a bad thing.
Future Shock Some wonderful art here to set up a completely cheesy joke.
I liked this and would read this as a 3thriller.
The Out Nothing to dislike here although the horrible-things-happening-to-it rucksack joke was less funny this time around. It seems we're constantly changing direction with this story and that's not a bad thing: no idea what will happen next and looking forward to seeing where it takes me.
I'm somewhat less enthusiastic about the Prog than everyone else it seems, but I'm wondering if that's in part due to my frustration in actually getting a copy - I'll see how it pans out with this weeks (I still haven't got my subs copy if that yet either btw). Going back to my initial thoughts about passing a duplicate of this Prog on, I'm not actually sure I would. I work with a couple of guys who are lapsed 2000ad readers and I'm pretty sure this wouldn't be the Prog to tempt them back. Every long form strip here is at a halfway point and is very light on action, barring Pandora (and Dredd ofc). That's an observation, not a critique.
