Prog 1869 - Psyche Out!

[Dark Jimbo]

Time bombs were outlawed by the Galactic Crime Commision some time after Johnny's death, so the Stronts no longer use or have access to them.

So, after The Final Solution, therefore not (current) canon?
Or referenced by Wagner with the new continuity?

Canon. Prog 1820, if you want to be exact about it.

[Link Prime]

Time bombs were outlawed by the Galactic Crime Commision some time after Johnny's death, so the Stronts no longer use or have access to them.

So, after The Final Solution, therefore not (current) canon?
Or referenced by Wagner with the new continuity?

Canon. Prog 1820, if you want to be exact about it.

Cheers. Guess the script isn't quite as indelible as it used to be.

[Frank]

I didn't really understand why they really needed Dredd to go there other than cos the strip is called Dredd

Yep. I seem to have enjoyed Titan much more than everyone else, but the way it consigned Dredd to the role of victim, and a passive supporting character in his own strip, was a major miscalculation. The most persuasive criticism I've heard * of the 1995 Stallone film is that it robs the character of agency; he's a poor, put upon soul who's being picked on by the bad guys, who just stands there passively while other characters actually do stuff. From the Clousseau-like HALO drop to a third act which saw the title character prone and silent, Titan probably made the same mistake.

Breaking the character down to his essence through an extreme physical ordeal has provided some of the Dredd strip's defining moments **, but there's no This Cursed Earth will not break me or You claw your way towards your goal, for you are a judge and it is your duty statement of character at the climax of Titan, just acquiescence to Gerhart's logic. Dredd's reason for acting as he does is exactly the same as in those earlier stories - because he's a judge, first and last - but the reasoning and explanation are not his own. I liked pretty much everything else about the story, but there's no getting round that mistake.



* from JOE SOAP, natch

** most notably the sequences in The Cursed Earth and City Of The Damned where he's reduced to a blind, crawling wreck and all that keeps him going is his unswerving determination to do his duty as a judge

[Spikes]

A rather brilliant cover by Mr Alex.
We deffo need more from this chap (Didn't he do a Meg cover fairly recently, as well? Sexy Nuns, if I recall?).

Ulysses Sweet ends - with a pretty good episode. Looking back, I've enjoyed this more than I thought I would. Aside from a couple of duff episodes, its been bonkers fun.

This run of SD I've kinda struggled with, but the last couple of episode have really grabbed me.
The episode as a whole is pretty top notch, especially the last two pages. And the Ikan's are superb, aren't they!
Again, a complete re-read next week.

Another enjoyable episode of Grey Area, and the ABC's is kinda OK, but its starting to feel mightily drawn out now.

And then there's Dredd and the conclusion of TITAN.
I've really enjoyed this story from start to finish. Its not played out like I thought it would, well, not for some characters at least.
A bit confusing at times, but then im not totally up to speed with the likes of Nixon etc.

Some superb writing from Mr Rob - and I've become a bit of a fan TBH, and hopefully this story arc will continue at some point soon.

But for now, this has more than satisfied.

So all told; A pretty darn good, and slightly sweary, prog this week. 

[Steve Green]

Time bombs were outlawed by the Galactic Crime Commision some time after Johnny's death, so the Stronts no longer use or have access to them.

So, after The Final Solution, therefore not (current) canon?
Or referenced by Wagner with the new continuity?

Canon. Prog 1820, if you want to be exact about it.

I missed (or forgot about) that.

I can understand why it's been done, it's a big 'get out of jail free card', in the same vein as Birdie, PSI Division or PSU, but it's hard to imagine that no-one can get their hands on something that useful in a galaxy that big.

[Dark Jimbo]

Time bombs were outlawed by the Galactic Crime Commision some time after Johnny's death, so the Stronts no longer use or have access to them.

I can understand why it's been done, it's a big 'get out of jail free card', in the same vein as Birdie, PSI Division or PSU, but it's hard to imagine that no-one can get their hands on something that useful in a galaxy that big.

Well the Ikans clearly can, at least! Presumably some of the stronts could have done given time, but their intervention in the war was a bit last minute - they only arrived in the nick of time as it was. The ban makes sense in-universe, too - it is the sort of weapon you can imagine a futuristic equivalent of the Geneva Convention cracking down on.

[Steve Green]

I miss D-warps.

[Mabs]

I couldn't locate any copies of last weeks Prog, so had no idea of what to expect in Titan, Stronty etc. But what surprised me the most was Strontium Dog: just as I thought that the tide had turned in the muties favour, the bloody Ikan showed up! They're some scary buggers I'll have to say, the four panels by Ezquerra, depicting one of their number's regeneration was scary as sneck!

Titan also finished strongly, with a nice ending. I haven't read ABC Warriors yet, I'll have to wait for the last Prog to be delivered and then read it in one go. But Ulysses Sweet was great.

[DrJomster]

The cover was brilliant this week, I have to say!

[Link Prime]

The cover was brilliant this week, I have to say!

One thing we'd all agree on I'm sure. Amazing cover.

[Richard]

The time bombs only send people a few seconds or minutes back in time, so not really useful for changing the course of history. When Alpha went decades or centuries back in time in Judgement Day or Max Bubba it wasn't with a time bomb but with some bigger equipment he had to stand inside, a bit like Star Trek's teleporters.

[Steve Green]

It can be longer - one was used in the Mork Whisperer to get intel from a day or so ago, and the one in Blood Moon sent them years back.

So they could be used, but due to the damage it could cause they generally don't.

[Cactus]

The cover was brilliant this week, I have to say!

One thing we'd all agree on I'm sure. Amazing cover.

I thought it was ok but a bit bland, then I saw CF's arrangement in Smiths and it really does look good on the shelf.

[TordelBack]

Fantabulous cover, and a fitting marker for my changed attitude to Ulysses Sweet.  The debut episode annoyed me greatly, and the subsequent few did nothing much to improve my opinion.  Then it went on, and on.  However, the final three parts have tickled my fancy, and the run ends with the all-important TordelSeal of Grudging Approval.  My only objection this week was that I'd like to have seen the supporting cast get their own resolution of some kind, since they were actually pretty interesting. Make the next run 3-5 episodes, try to find some stronger points of difference with Zombo and Lobster Random, keep Marshall and Blythe on B&W art, and we'll see if this potential can be realised.

Dredd: There's been lots to like about this, the stylish art, the sustained atmosphere, but ultimately it didn't work for me as a story.  While I agree with Dredd (and Hershey) not destroying the innocent cons, it really irked me to hear Gerhart lecturing Dredd on the subject: I could see this coming from Hershey, Beeny, Rico II, Johnny Alpha, DeMarco, Roffman, Sinfield, hell even Walter, but Gerhart is a blow-in on only his (I think) third appearance, and awarding his improbably cybernetic ass the moral high ground over Joe Dredd, thereby denying his decreptitude the rights to the only significant contribution he might have done in the whole story, just doesn't cut the mustard. 

Everything else I want to say on the subject of Titan has been covered by Dark Jimbo and others, except to observe again that this most closely resembles a Millarson-era story, full of out-of-character speeches and inexplicable reversals.  Happily the art and general stylishness meant it wasn't unenjoyable, just a bit of a missed opportunity.

ABC Warriors:  Liking this far more than I would ever have expected.  Proper old-school ABC Warriors, all the better for Langley's B-style, which I could look at all day.

Grey Area:  What is the deal here, every time I post a negative rant about some strip, the next issue delivers an episode that makes me feel horribly guilty.  This one is better, although I'm wondering why Bulliet is forgetting the inhuman gun-skills Birdy manifested in rescuing Kymn from the neo-nazis.

As to the use or not of time technology in Strontium Dog, it's not as if these issues haven't been explored at great length. Time weapons form a major part of Portrait of a Mutant, and their use and the more general use of time travel as a combat strategy are plot points in innumerable SD stories.  The Ragnarok Job is specifically about using time travel to change the future/present, as is the Judgement Day crossover. Outlawing the casual use and ready availability of time technology made excellent sense, as does the idea that the perpetrators of a genocide might see to it that their agents have such technology available.

Aside from the 300K price tag established in the tax-inspector story, the issue with time-bombs as transport through time and space is that they need to be very precisely programmed - e.g. Johnny uses one at the end of The Killing to travel interstellar distances, and he and Wulf arrived several metres in the air - what if it had been several metres below ground?  Hence the use of dedicated time travel facilities where calculations can be more accurately made, and the simultaneous use of 'conventional' FTL transports.

Bloody good episode, too.

[JOE SOAP]

Yep. I seem to have enjoyed Titan much more than everyone else, but the way it consigned Dredd to the role of victim, and a passive supporting character in his own strip, was a major miscalculation. The most persuasive criticism I've heard * of the 1995 Stallone film is that it robs the character of agency; he's a poor, put upon soul who's being picked on by the bad guys, who just stands there passively while other characters actually do stuff. From the Clousseau-like HALO drop to a third act which saw the title character prone and silent, Titan probably made the same mistake.

It is a strange one in the case of Titan (which is otherwise brilliant in both art and writing) and it might be a symptom of 'only Wagner can change the game' (justifiable) whether that's editorial directive or fear is neither here nor there; if a character is going to act out-of-character (nothing wrong with that) then I believe it must be justified by making it front and centre of the story and telegraphed to the audience that this is the point i.e. Tale of the Dead Man.

Titan leaves me with the question of what has happened to Dredd to make him act like this and why does Gerhard need to tell him what he should be thinking?