Messages

It's okay to not like a story, but I think some of the criticism has been unduly harsh, especially coming from people who've forgotten or didn't understand most of it.

The remote teleporter is how the British kidnapped Dredd in the first place. You remember -- the climax to The Grindstone Cowboys where Dredd's h-wagon exploded and which made a lot of readers think for a few weeks that Dredd had actually finally been killed off. Until he turned up alive in Brit-Cit and got rescued. Which kind of explains why The Lion's Den part of the story existed. Now if you didn't enjoy The Lion's Den then that's fine, that's your prerogative, but it's a bit of a stretch to say that whole part of the story could have been skipped altogether, as if Dredd just magically turning up in MC1 and telling us where he's been and how he got back in a couple of speech bubbles of exposition would somehow be more entertaining.

And a remote teleporter needs co-ordinates. The rifle was one way to get them. I suppose MC could have come up with a less dramatic way to do that, but would that have improved the story?

I see what you mean now. And I do like that MC1 is no longer the superpower it once was. But I thought that teleporting Oswin to the missile silo and then killing two birds with one stone was quite a satisfactory resolution -- it wasn't all just shooty shooty.

it was all a bit to neat and old style epic to ahve Dredd bust in and save the day.

But at least that was fun and interesting, instead of the full and inexcusable alternative you suggest where nothing really happens. You can't compare that to Pirates of the Black Atlantic, which ends with a massive fight followed by a nuclear explosion.

Justice Dept still used civilian auxiliaries today. It's not a big leap to say that the last cops became auxiliaries and lost their arrest powers. Cal could have done it, or Goodman could have gone it while Dredd was in the Cursed Earth.

It was the story in prog 45, set on New Year's Eve when 2099 becomes 2100.

I see the real time thing as a strength of the comic strip rather than as some sort of problem. If you read a Spider-Man comic where he's still a teenager, then that means none of the stories that happened more than two or three years ago could have happened to that character. Essentially they reboot Spider-Man every couple of years (without necessarily saying so explicitly). But with Dredd, the character in this week's prog is the same guy as in prog 2. And it's not just Dredd growing older, it's the sense of history passing each year. The date moves on, chief judges come and go, supporting characters die and stay dead. We've seen Beeny go from being a child citizen, joining the Academy of Law as a new cadet, solve her first case as an experienced cadet, graduate to full judge and join the Council of Five. All of that would be impossible if the strip remained fixed in time. I'll genuinely stop reading if that ever happens.

So he did, I meant Renga.

That first opinion is ridiculous. Just because it's fiction doesn't mean the writers shouldn't aim for some semblance of realism.

Just thought of Vass.

Niles and Garcia we know about. This thread is about characters who have been left dangling. Hollister is one -- in Trifecta she was said to be alive but in a coma, and that's the last we heard about her.

Hope looks great. And it's a bit of a dis to the artist to assume he can't draw people.

Roake and Sanchez.

We haven't had an update on Logan since Dark Justice.

Guthrie is probably ok as he was last seen in an off-shore prison so the Chaos bug wouldn't have reached him. But he became a less interesting character when he stopped being a street judge.

That didn't fizzle out! And it didn't need explaining. It's as if you read a different prog by mistake.

I had assumed that how Lewis becomes chief judge was just implied, but now I think MC is setting up another story.

It's an absolutely fantastic graphic novel, for both story and art. I got it after reading a review in the Megazine about ten years ago and thought it was great. The plot is quite complex what with all the jumping about in time, like the film 21 grams, but if you don't stop and try to work it all out, but instead just keep going, it all comes together and makes perfect sense in time to enjoy the final chapter.

I didn't have time to read it all in one sitting as it's quite long, but I spent all my spare time on it until I finished it. It's a masterpiece. It must have been bloody frustrating to read it issue by issue when it was first published though, as there were very long delays between issues, several months at a time.

The sequel isn't as good, but it's still fun and worth a read.

I've been meaning to read them again for a while actually. It might be time to get on with it...

I meant "really old-school characters."