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I meant "really old-school characters."

I was really impressed by Michael Carroll's script this month. Everything Banners said above. I liked the cameos by really old-school cameos and little bits of history from Hershey's past. And I enjoyed the humerous sub-plot with Dredd and the CMO. Carroll has shown that he has what it takes to write Dredd regularly and take over from JW when he retires.

"It just sort of ends" isn't a fair summary of Dredd. I thought it was a perfect ending. We found out what Dredd's plan really was -- [spoiler]I thought Dolman and Joyce were just going to be snipers, but what they were really up to was much more interesting, and a resolution I didn't see coming. And I liked the unexpected cameo by Armitage.[/spoiler]

Dredd was using that Texan judge as a human shield, and it wasn't exactly point blank range, so Oswin can be forgiven for not getting him. She should have used hi-ex.

I don't think Reclamation needed to be more episodes, it was long enough to show us that the Texans were trying to take over; any longer and it would have dragged on. We would all have been like "yes we get it, the Texans are taking over, cut to the chase." It was about the right pace for me.

Pleased to see Outlier is back. No idea who that was in Black Shuck. And I still like Brink, especially this week because [spoiler]that nice girl we were all supposed to like actually turned out to be a total complete bitch.[/spoiler]

Not sure what I make of Cold War so far, but I'm prepared to give it time to establish itself.

A mostly strong prog.

Grice's death was great. But I agree that that version of the character was totally different to the original depicted in Wagner's stories.

Rico's not Dredd's brother

Yes they're both clones of Fargo, but in pretty much every story Rico I is in they are still referred to as brothers -- including in the Wagner story in which Rico II first appeared. Their social relationship overrides the biological reality. And I would suggest that the line "he ain't heavy -- he's my brother!" at the end of the prog 30 story works better than "he's my clone" would.

John Hurt and the robot are not killed by the alien

John Hurt was totally killed by the alien. It's a baby, but it's the same alien.

The first Rico was Rico Dredd. Rather annoyingly, some writers and artists have appeared to think that Rico is his surname, which defeats Pat Mills's purpose in creating the character: he's Joe Dredd's brother. They would have the same surname.

The second Rico was originally just called Dredd, with no first name. At the end of his first story, he changed it to Rico, which is his surname (and as far as we know, his only name. Unless he kept Dredd as a first name. Making him Dredd Rico. But probably not).

I love the idea of psis in the SJS. It makes perfect sense, doesn't retain anything, and it doesn't matter that we haven't seen it before because it could always be a new policy. I hope she survives and we see more of her, she has the potential to be a really interesting character.

We don't know what happened to Buell, and we don't know if Waldron is head of SJS. Just because she's on the Council doesn't automatically mean that she is head of her division. Tour of Duty had a Judge Benitez on the Council who was joint head of Forensics, which would be an arm of Tek-Div.

I'm enjoying this story. Let's wait for it to finish before we try to identify plot holes. It's a legitimate writing technique to withhold certain information from the reader until we need to know it.

I disagree with the last three posts.

Brink is awesome.

And The Lion's Den was good. I really enjoyed Armitage's scenes. I have no problems with the pacing.

I wouldn't want this story arc to last for another 20 episodes, and I'm looking forward to seeing that bitch Oswin get her comeuppance. Fuck her.

Thanks Z.

Most of the examples given above I don't really care about. But Lobster Random was excellent. That last story in particular was very clever, and very well told. It ended on a good cliff-hanger with the promise of a massive story to come, and then we never saw it again. A great pity, and I hope it can be rectified one day.

I recently moved house, and now that things have settled down a bit I've got round to thinking about adding my comics collection to my insurance policy as a valuable item. I'd sincerely appreciate any thoughts or advice anyone may have about what they might be worth. (I'm not selling them, sorry.)

I think I have every comic that Tharg has published, except for Tornado and Revolver. Specifically:
Every 2000 AD (free gifts generally missing up to around prog 900, and generally present after that).
Every Judge Dredd Megazine.
Every 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special, and the 1977 summer special.
Every Winter Special.
Every Judge Dredd Mega-Special.
All the Free Comic Book issues to have new material in them (but not the first one, which I understand to have been reprint only).
Every 2000 AD annual and yearbook.
Every Judge Dredd annual and yearbook.
The two Dan Dare annuals.
The Rogue Trooper Annual 1991.
The Dan Dare Poster Prog from 1977, and those poster progs from the mid-1990s.
2000 AD presents Diceman (5 issues).
The 2000 AD Action Special.
Starlord: every issue, a holiday special, and three annuals.
Every issue of Crisis, and two "Xpresso specials."

The condition of the issues is quite variable, as some were second hand, and they were all bought for reading, not for collecting or investing. Issues 900 to 999 were all stored vertically and unbagged for a few years and so they've sagged quite badly. Some have a newsagent's scrawlings on the front cover. But there are no missing pages or missing covers.

I haven't counted them all up but this must be around 2,600 items or so.

I'd be grateful for your views.

That Dark Judges text story was brilliant. It could have won the competition -- a difficult decision for Matt, no doubt. Give it a go.

Joyce disabled the palm print sensor so that he, Joyce, could use it. It wasn't his Lawgiver.

I agree it was more interesting, and worked better dramatically, to do it the way it was done. But sometimes it's nice for a story to make sense internally as well.

it was fairly clear the disabling of the palm print sensor on the  Lawgiver was going to feature at some point, otherwise why bother setting it up?

That's why Joyce could have shot them himself. It doesn't explain why he didn't. It's the whole premise of the question.

Also looking at the political stink kicked up the last time Meg judges shot at Brit Cit judges, which partly caused all this, a Brit Cit detective doing the shooting makes it a lot less of an international situation

But didn't Joyce already kill some British judges earlier in this story?