So what was Smiley doing during the Seinfield coup? Having a holiday.
Ewing & Co feel they've covered that with Smiley's line about how it was Bachmann's job to take care of those exigencies and it was his job to keep an eye on her - he only stepped in when Bachmann herself became the threat. And there's this line:
"where I've tweaked here and there you'd be surprised"It's more interesting to ponder what part he
did play in the many calamities, conflicts and coups which have befallen MC1 over the last twenty years. Those will have to remain
Untold Stories for now, but
BigBarryPenge! (nee Tordelback) was on the money as usual when he said last week that the real villain of the story (and probably the next few years) had just revealed himself.
"Why do I get the feeling you just swapped one problem for another"Smiley's an interesting antagonist, given the unique circumstances in which Dredd writers and readers find themselves regarding authorial authority; because of the largely invisible and undetectable role he plays in MC1, Smiley can drop in and out of the strip as required. He provides Wagner's understudies with the opportunity to script a major character with a significant role in long-term continuity (even to subtly
rewrite existing continuity), while his absence and apparent inaction during Wagner scripted stories (in which he presumably will not feature) need not be explained ... at least until other writers return to the strip. Smiley might be Team Ewing's response to the dilemma of
If Wagner didn't write it it didn't happen.
