Prog 2254 - Photo Bomb!

[Colin YNWA]

Still as you were - still not a bad thing at all.

Dredd - there's echos of Ennis here, working hard for a way to SHOW. HOW. SPECIAL. DREDD. IS. We know, we get it. He's a titan, we read it. So the 'I AM THE LAW' thing shouldn't have worked... yet Grud help me I couldn't help up enjoy it - even while knowing I shouldn't.

The Diaboliks demonic high octane action and eatting kiddie poison. Its black hearted fun.

Pandora Perfect is just pitch perfect fun as we break into song, dash to escape and wake a moon. LOVE IT!

Scarlet Traces continues with its space combat theme and this time we drop ship down to the action.

bloody hell we're 4 for 4 with the hi pace, action adventure again, even if one does take a break for a song and dance. All of which serves to elevate The Outs comedic hi-jinks and sharp dialogue driven adventures, but those dark undertones lace through the fun MARABUNDA! indeed. The perfect end to a neigh perect comic.

[broodblik]

Cover by Mark Harrison:

[broodblik]

Cover and Logo:

[broodblik]

A good fun prog - enjoying the sequence of stories another high five

Dredd – The action is heating up as Dredd now takes full control. So far so good a straight-forward shoot ‘em up enjoyable stuff.

Diaboliks – Another one off those questions who is the real bad guys as our misfits “rescue” the children? Rennie’s script is fun and moves the plot in blistering pace and Fuso’s art works for the tone of the story.

Pandora – Fun story nothing spectacular just good fun to have here.

Scarlet Traces – The war continues as the series focus now on the final act and the plot takes a breather. As always, the art is fantastic

The Out – As poor Cyd been dragged to the bowels of the earth her changes look dire. Cyd is not a strong heroic character she is almost blasé about her circumstances and this why The Out has drawn us in. Again, another great episode by the team well told and again the story redirects itself. Brilliant!!!!

[Barrington Boots]

Dredd - I'm still really enjoying this. Dredd's speech is deeply cheesy but this is a great, knockabout story full of fun and violence. One of my favourite Dredds for a while. Did I mention last week Jake Lynch is killing it on this story? He so totally is.

The Diaboliks I'm still not enjoying this, apologies. Nothing here for me whatsoever.

Pandora Perfect Nothing wrong with this episode but I'm finding the series as a whole somewhat lacking in cohesion. It looks terrific however and I am into the sausage moon idea - that last panel is excellent, especially with Pandora's little ship sticking out of it, cartoon style. Overall it's alright, but feel this could be better as the one-offs set a high standard. 

Scarlet Traces I'm really into this now. The art is just fantastic, it feels like next level stuff. Big fan of Aaron and Icarus's dialogue too and literally no idea what will happen next.

The Out I might have said this last week but feel like this series of The Out isn't up there with the last one. It's still got that way of flipping from one scenario to the other, which I like a lot, but the dialogue seems a bit more self aware and comedic, which I like less.. I guess I just thought the first series was more interesting. This is still a good read, with loads of crazy ideas and images.

[IndigoPrime]

Another issue where I’m enjoying everything. Dredd is old-school big dumb action flick territory, in a knowing sense, not least with Dredd’s cheesy DON’T YOU KNOW WHO I AM? shtick. Fun. Diaboliks deftly continues its particular line of horror. Pandora still hasn’t grabbed me to the extent the one-offs did, but it’s breezy and, frankly, well-placed in this current run. Scarlet Traces ramped things up further: tense and superb. The Out: I love that you don’t know what’s coming, that it’s different, that it’s fresh, and that it has a female protagonist in a comic that’s usually—although not right now—full of blokes.

Scarlet Traces > The Out > Pandora > Dredd > Diaboliks. But, again, everything here is well beyond the Whatevs Wall of Doom. 5/5, Thargy Boy.

[broodblik]

The cover without the frame:

[norton canes]

The cover's amazing, though I think I actually like the version in the story itself a little bit more. It reminds me of moments in movies like At The Earth's Core when two giant back-projected puppets would erupt from the ground and start gouging away at each other. I have to say, when seeing it in the strip I did wonder for a moment what those giant bulbous red eyes were supposed to be (assuming of course that the giant red bulbous things are eyes...)

Inside, the thrill-meters are still well and truly redzoned. More out-and-out slugfests for Dredd please Tharg, this one's been a blast; though the ruse he plays on the mechs is exactly the same as the one David Tennant's Doctor plays on the Vashta Nerada in 'Silence in the Library' - basically, "Don't you know who I am?!" - and I thought it was a bit of a cop-out then.

The Out is absolutely soaring right now, even if it is tonally a bit different from the first book. The Abnett and Harrison droids seem to be locked in a battle to see who can extract the most laughs, the brilliantly silly "Shit! He slipped off!" matching the frame with Cyd in X-ray.

Diaboliks and Scarlet Traces ensure the action doesn't relent, but it's Pandora Perfect that steals up on the outside to snatch this week's Top Thrill - the fact that it's a continuing strip is a big plus for me as we can actually get some character stuff like the lovely flashback to Gort's getaways, rather than a series of contrived situational gags. Plus, I've got a new exclamation for when something surprises me: Nutbush City Limits!

[Sean SD]

My Top 3 for Prog 2254

All thrills working well for me

1st - The Out - The best sci-fi storytelling makes you feel like you are seeing/reading something that actually happened. Well done droids

2nd - Dredd - some good page turns in this one with the last panel on the previous page making you want to turn over to see what happens.

3rd -  Scarlet Traces - love the green panel bottom of page 4. Brilliant

[DrJomster]

Prog 2254 and all is well. Rather good prog, with my personal favourite being Diaboliks. Lots of fun and that idea with the children was very good (unless you are one of them obviously!!!). Dredd just about pulled it off, just.

[Tiplodocus]

Late to party but loved all of this. THE OUT and DIABOLIKS in particular. I also loved that both DREDD and PANDORA had similar "speech makes a robot realise it's true programming" moments. One used for cheesy drama and one for knockabout fun