Main Menu

Your favorite 2000 AD 'Twists' - Major spoilers within

Started by The Adventurer, 05 August, 2015, 07:22:02 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

The Adventurer

With Spurrier's The Vort reprinted with this month's Megazine it got me thinking of all the surprise endings/twists I've seen in my years on reading 2000 AD. I'm not talking about Future Shock endings or the like, but the sensation of reading one strip, only to realize you've been reading another all along. Biggest examples of course being...

The Dead Man is Dredd - Before my time, but I actually sat down to read the whole thing in prep for writing this list. Unfortunately its twist has been loooooooooong spoiled for me. So I'd be curious to hear from anyone who was caught by surprise by this strip.

Malone is Flanagan Sinister - Probably my first surprise twist, Hell Shall Suffer No Dumb Minions had ended in such a cluster funt I wasn't sure how the series was going to come back. Early on in this strips run people started to figure out that 'Cal Hamilton' was a pseudonym of Dan Abnett, but I'm not sure if anyone saw the reveal coming and the continuation of Sinister-Dexter's next chapter. Using someone like Simon Coleby, a very not Sin-Dex style artist also helped keep the scent off of it.

Crispy is Lobster Random - What sparked this thread, Spurrier again used a pseudonym to cover his trail, but honestly I'm not sure why he did. The Vort was so different then Lobster Random, and with D'Isreali on art, he could have just treated it like another of his wild strip ideas and still shocked the world at the end.

Dead Eyes was an Indigo Prime story all along - Now, John Smith, he managed to pull this off without resorted to covering his name up. Because really, was anyone expecting the long dormant Indigo Prime to suddenly just return in the last pages of a random John Smith strip? This strip was interesting in that for 90% of its run it treated itself entirely as its own thing, and then suddenly everything the protagonist has been working toward doesn't matter because the reality goes toxic. Brilliant.

Trifecta - Probably the latest mega twist. When three different Dreddworld strips were running at the same time I was a bit eh about it. Afterall, that's what the Megazine's for yeah? And we had just had the return of Lenny Zero a few months before, no suddenly both Low Life and Simping Detective are back? And why isn't Simping in the Megazine where it belongs? And then Dredd kicks Point's door down. And we're off to the races.

Which was your favorite? I'm weird and going to give it to Malone because of how utterly shocked I was at the time that I could have the wool so thoroughly pulled over my eyes. I was a young reader then, easily impressed I suppose. The Vort came a little to close to the heels of that to have quite the same impact. And I'm not sure I cared enough about Indigo Prime when that reveal happened to really understand why I should be excited about that. The follow up made me a fan. And Trifecta was just masterful. But still, Malone.

THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK

Dark Jimbo

Quote from: The Adventurer on 05 August, 2015, 07:22:02 PM
Which was your favorite? I'm weird and going to give it to Malone because of how utterly shocked I was at the time that I could have the wool so thoroughly pulled over my eyes. I was a young reader then, easily impressed I suppose. The Vort came a little to close to the heels of that to have quite the same impact. And I'm not sure I cared enough about Indigo Prime when that reveal happened to really understand why I should be excited about that. The follow up made me a fan. And Trifecta was just masterful.

Yeah, I'm very similar - The Vort came a bit too soon after Malone, and at the time Dead Eyes finished I had no real idea what Indigo Prime was (still haven't checked out the old stuff, come to that) so it didn't mean much to me.

Trifecta wins it for me. The somewhat snarky comment I made in the review thread the very week before the big reveal is particularly funny in retrospect...

Quote from: Dark Jimbo on 18 October, 2012, 03:39:28 PM
I think running Low Life alongside Simping Detective is going to flag up the similarities of both strips to their detriment, especially coming so soon after also-very-similar Lenny Zero - and as if to prove the point (comes right after the Jack), both strips feature a 3-flying-ducks motif this week, of all things - what are the chances?! Not to mention that they're both following a narrator-straight-in-at-the-deep-end-unsure-what's-happening plot; Dirty Frank's got a bump on the head and no memory, Jack's got a hangover and toothache, but it's still all far too similar. Three Dreddworld strips in a five-strip comic is too much. Isn't that what the Megazine's for?
@jamesfeistdraws

IndigoPrime

The Dead Man because I figured it out as the character did. Dead Eyes for the SQUEEEE moment of seeing THOSE TWO GUYS again. And Trifecta for its sheer ballsiness.

Greg M.

Quote from: IndigoPrime on 05 August, 2015, 07:43:43 PM
The Dead Man because I figured it out as the character did.

The hairs still go up on the back of my neck as I remember walking up the road from the newsagent, turning the pages of the revelatory episode in question, my jaw dropping, my eyes as wide as Yassa Povey's. I was thirteen at the time - in the perfect age bracket for it to have maximum impact, I reckon - and there is no twist that can ever compete. I'd love to know who on the forum figured it out in advance, and when.

Jim_Campbell

I twigged Dead Man about halfway through.  There was no specific thing in the strip... I think Dead Man said something slightly Dreddy, and I made the bionic eyes connection.

Trifecta wins for me. I actually gasped at the audacity of it. I'd been one of the low-level grumblers moaning about three Dreddworld strips running at the same time. I had to turn back a couple of pages and read the Dredd/Simp transition again. And the penny didn't really drop until Low Life, and then I gasped. And the. I cackled. Thirty-odd years and 2000AD can still delight me. Fantastic.

Cheers

Jim
Stupidly Busy Letterer: Samples. | Blog
Less-Awesome-Artist: Scribbles.

Eamonn Clarke

Trifecta. Pulling that off in the age of the Internet without any leaks. Astounding. Blew my socks off

Eamonn Clarke

I like the story that the three creators came up with the idea while drinking and then sobered up and thought "I wonder if that would work"

IndigoPrime

"And then Dredd could kick down the door INTO ANOTHER STRIP!" Tharg must have been guffawing with glee at that during the pitch.

Jim_Campbell

Quote from: IndigoPrime on 05 August, 2015, 08:35:11 PM
"And then Dredd could kick down the door INTO ANOTHER STRIP!" Tharg must have been guffawing with glee at that during the pitch.

Yeah. I was really: "Wait. WHAT?!"

Cheers

Jim
Stupidly Busy Letterer: Samples. | Blog
Less-Awesome-Artist: Scribbles.

Tiplodocus

Trifecta.

Because I thought "Heh, that was clever linking those two strips together. Wouldn't it be funny if the third was also... what!"
Be excellent to each other. And party on!

Colin YNWA

Kinda want to say Dead Man cos it was the first of the big 'uns but you have to give it to Trifecta. In this day and age with companies spoiling themselve left right and centre for the publicity that goes with it, even before fans and gossip sites get their mites in to pull this one off was quite magnificent.

Just superb stuff and so fantastically executed.Almost too good. was half way through Simping Detective when I slowed and flicked back. Carried on. Stopped flicked back... carried on... the penny finally drops. Now I'm a bit of a dumb ass I'll grant you, but you hear so many people say this. A twist so good, even when the reveal was made it took tme to sink in.

This thread also go me thinking about another event not on the list, as I don't think its a traditional twist, more an exquiste cliffhanging. But Dredd's escape plan after assasinating Griffin was the only moment more jaw dropping in the comics history.

Eric Plumrose

Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 05 August, 2015, 08:22:33 PM
I twigged Dead Man about halfway through.  There was no specific thing in the strip... I think Dead Man said something slightly Dreddy, and I made the bionic eyes connection.

Have to say, again, I sussed it from the first episode. I couldn't know for sure (obviously) but, y'know. It's set in the Cursed Earth. The main character is described as "a man of violence". And, as Jim notes, bionic frickin' eyes. The same square irises Dredd has in 'Hitman' (I presume Old Stoney Face upgrades at some point because they aren't the ones we see him being given in 'City of the Damned').

All that, along with us being presented with a mystery tied with a Who Is He? bow, I'm surprised more Squaxx didn't have even an inkling of whom he might be.

None of which spoiled my enjoyment, however, despite not being especially interested when Dredd finds himself up against the supernatural.
Not sure if pervert or cheesecake expert.

The Adventurer

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

I know it was all building toward Necropolis, which I still haven't read. But was Dredd shown as taking the long walk in the strip proper ahead of Dead Man's appearance? Or was Kraken inserted in his place with no one the wiser until Tales of the Dead Man (which was previewed in the back of the Dead Man trade I read)


Also from my first time reading Dead Man, the Dark Judge uniforms on Nausea and Phobia were radical. Why have we never seen these designs since? They are way cooler then the usual quartet of Dark Judges.

THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK

Greg M.

#13
Quote from: The Adventurer on 05 August, 2015, 11:17:58 PM
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.

Magnetica

#14
Trifecta for me all day long.

When Dredd kicks the door down into The Simping Detective was just wow, but when the story then carried on into Low Life (which I was then hoping for whilst reading the Simping Detective), well that was just great.

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.

On a relatively much lesser scale, one twist I often think back on was when Ben was revealed as a robot spy in Harry 20 (although a little of the shock was taken out of it by it being on the right page not the left and so I saw it before I was "meant" to).

With Dead Eyes...well I never really liked Indigo Prime back in the day (but I am slowly coming round to it after the last couple of series)..so for me it was more of a let down  :(