Your favorite 2000 AD 'Twists' - Major spoilers within

[The Adventurer]

Speaking of pages being printed on the wrong side, is it me or is Dead Man collection printed incorrectly? The Nausea/Phobia reveal looks like it was suppose to be a double page splash, and the reveal of the Dredd badge was on the right page, when you'd think that should be on the left for the page turn shocker.

[Krakajac]

Another vote for Trifecta.

However...as a young juve reading the prog back in the olden days....the reveal of Dredd meeting ex-Chief Judge McGruder in the Cursed Earth during Necropolis got a genuine 'WTF' moment out of me.

[Mikey]

Speaking of pages being printed on the wrong side, is it me or is Dead Man collection printed incorrectly? The Nausea/Phobia reveal looks like it was suppose to be a double page splash, and the reveal of the Dredd badge was on the right page, when you'd think that should be on the left for the page turn shocker.

Afair, the reveal was on the left hand page which was the last page of the strip too. I entirely loved the Deadman reveal - I had no idea it was coming and even with the reveal panel, I thought it could still be a red herring. It was so exciting though!

And though it wasn't a twist in quite the same vein, the discovery of what was in Kano's black box sticks well in my memory. Again, I was so excited waiting to find out and the fact it changes the perspective on Kano is a nice bonus.

Malone was a good 'un, and Dead Eyes made me incredibly happy, but top spot must go to Trifecta - grins all round when the penny dropped.

M

[Timothy]

I was young at the time, but having just re-read both stories in the mega collection, I do remember being surprised by the reveal of Orlok in Hour of the Wolf, and by the link with The Brainstem Man in Helios.

I missed Trifecta in the prog, and only caught up in the trade at which point the surprise was non-existent. I can imagine it must have been stunning at the time though.

[I, Cosh]

Trifecta by a pretty significant margin. I was certainly guilty of moaning about too many Dreddworld strips running at the same time and I don't think I even realised what was going on in the gutters between Dredd and Simping until later. Looking back on it

Not that they weren't pretty great in their own ways but things like The Dead Man and Malone were constructed around the mystery of the central character's identity. That doesn't necessarily make the reveal any less of a surprise but, for me, the audacity of the Trifecta crossover goes way beyond that.

For what it's worth I was absolutely convinced that The Dead Man was McGruder and the title itself was deliberate misdirection. I like to console myself that she at least turned up in Necropolis a few weeks later.

[I, Cosh]

Actually, now I think about it, my favourite 2000AD twist has to be the Lloigor reaching the edge of the Chimera universe.

And TJ brings up a good one for me to be smug about as I guessed Orlok was the villain pretty early on in Hour of the Wolf. Doesn't the wolf in Anderson's premonition have the same scar?

[Fungus]

Trifecta for me. Returned to the prog at1800 (as others here) and already I was shocked at the quality. Loved the 3 Trifecta strips - the perfect Dredd of this guy Henry Flint and a new favourite artist in D'Israeli - when the reveal happened only a few weeks in. So audacious, fresh but perfectly plausible. So this is 2000AD now... wow.

I think I half-expected  the Dead Man reveal, but the repeated 'Who Is He?' will usually detract from my interest level. Hype is a 4-letter word. Average age of readership at the time probably explains Tharg's desire to milk the Dead Man (there's an image).

[Professor Bear]

Dead Man was a surprise, but I feel it lessens the impact every time 2000ad revisits the gimmick.  I recall the Malone reveal went down badly with some partly for that reason (though I suspect mainly because they'd expressed enjoyment of it and then it turned out to be a tie-in to a strip regularly used as a critical punching bag), and when it happened in The Vort and that recent Harry 20 thing, I just tutted to myself.  I didn't mind it in Dead Eyes, though, because it had been that long since Indigo Prime had been in the comic that it felt genuinely leftfield - though I did pity any new readers who might not have had the first clue why a story they might have been enjoying suddenly ended the way it did.
Trifecta was amusing, but spoiled for me by someone in the review threads who guessed the twist ahead of time.  THANKS JERK.

[credo]

For my money, this run of stories, through to and including Necropolis, is the best Dredd's ever been.

Totally agree with this. I remember reading The Shooting Match over and over. Such a brilliant one-parter, with astounding John Higgins artwork.

I think the genius of The Dead Man is probably lost on those who weren't reading at the time, and lost to memory for many who were there. Context is absolutely key here.

It started at a big jumping on prog, that had been trailed for weeks, that saw a move to 3 full colour strips, the start of Horned God Bk 2, and the reimagining of Rogue Trooper in War Machine (a great story, with beautiful full-colour art, tarnished by what Friday became). Bloody hell, even the fact that the other black and white strip was Zenith Phase 3!

Remember also that this is pre-meg, so the idea of another Dreddworld thrill wasn't unexpected (Song of the Surfer started in 654). I think I kept on expecting the Judges to show up and try to arrest 'Dead Man' placing him as some Chopper-like honourable anti-authority figure (and perhaps the inclusion of Song of the Surfer alongside helped to push that and further normalise the Dreddworld presence). As others have said, there was also absolutely nothing in the actual Dredd stories hinting at what was to come.

The Dead Man was really easy for readers to dismiss, especially younger readers (like I was), more easily captivated by all the shiny events occurring elsewhere. An excellent piece of misdirection.

[JPMaybe]

...the reimagining of Rogue Trooper in War Machine (a great story, with beautiful full-colour art, tarnished by what Friday became).

On this subject (well, vaguely) what are some of the worst twists?  Have there been any as inducive of a giant 'so what?' as much as Rogue showing up in the rebooted strip?

[Greg M.]

The Dead Man was really easy for readers to dismiss, especially younger readers (like I was), more easily captivated by all the shiny events occurring elsewhere. An excellent piece of misdirection.

You've totally nailed it. The Dead Man sneaked in there: a quiet, slightly old-fashioned-seeming slow-burner, in amongst all these flashy 'big deal' strips, going steadily about its business without any gimmickry.

[Dandontdare]

That Prog also changed my reading habits for good. I now always read the stories in the Prog in order. Previously I read then in whatever order took my fancy.

I am just so happy I read them in the correct order that week.

I always read my prog from least-favourite to favourite, so I too read these in the wrong order - it took me a while flipping back and forth to twig what was going on, so it did lessen the impact somewhat (haven't changed my reading habits though!)

I'm ashamed to say that every one of these twists has come a complete surprise to me (though with trifecta I did notice the similarities and had a fleeting thought of "wouldn't it be cool if they all linked up...", but I never remotely thought it would actually happen the very next week!

Dead Man was the one that blew my tiny teenage mind though!

[sheridan]

For people who were there at the time... what was going on in Judge Dredd at the time when Dead Man was running?

In the same prog as The Dead Man started was 'The Shooting Match', which reintroduced Kraken to the series. (He hadn't been seen for over a year at that point, and he was swiftly established as being better than Dredd - his replacement in-waiting.) Following this, we got 'Young Giant', which introduced the titular cadet - if Kraken was heir to Dredd's flesh, Giant felt like his spiritual successor. But after that, it was just several one-offs, nothing out of the ordinary - just Dredd going about his business. The prog after the revelation, we get 'A Letter to Judge Dredd' - the trigger for Dredd's resignation. So we only found out about the Long Walk after it had happened - part of why the Dead Man's such a shocker.

For my money, this run of stories, through to and including Necropolis, is the best Dredd's ever been.

Edited to clarify: At no point is Kraken subbed in without us knowing - The Dead Man's occurring about a hundred days ahead of where the regular strip was.

Full list of Dredd stories while The Dead Man was running:
650: The Shooting Match
651-655: Young Giant
656: Politics
657: It Still Pays to be Mental
658: Little Spuggy's Xmas
659: Family Affair
660: I'm Manny, Me Fly
661: A Letter to Judge Dredd
662-668: Tale of the Dead Man
669-670: By Lethal Injection
671: Rights of Succession
672-673: Dear Annie
If memory serves, the last five stories in the last five progs before Necropolis had a 'Countdown to Necropolis' sub-title.

[sheridan]

Actually, now I think about it, my favourite 2000AD twist has to be the Lloigor reaching the edge of the Chimera universe.

I quite liked the way that Iok Sotot turned out to be Zenith's son in some extradimensional time-transcending way.


Least favourite twist for me was the recent Harry 20 - mainly because the story as it stands does not change anything in any way whatsoever.


I wouldn't say it's my favourite yet (Dead Man and Trifecta are probably vying for first place for that one) but I'm really looking forward to the next series of Stickleback...

[sheridan]

On this subject (well, vaguely) what are some of the worst twists?  Have there been any as inducive of a giant 'so what?' as much as Rogue showing up in the rebooted strip?

While I'm aware they did get joined up in the end, I can't even remember how the Friday stories eventually finished.  Something about a war memorial?


I wouldn't say the Rogue appearance was a twist, rather a painful, inevitable attempt to give credence to the post-War Machine stories.  Having said all that, my recollections are tarnished by the absolute worst of the Friday stories - I'm sure some of the others will be better than I remember.