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The completely self absorbed 2000ad re-read thread

Started by Colin YNWA, 22 May, 2016, 02:30:29 PM

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Colin YNWA

You know what it doesn't appear to have been?????!!!!!!

I've just checked Barney (Barney is your friend http://www.2000ad.org) and it has no reprints showing in its entry?

Surely this can't be right? Is this a rare over sight from Barney OR a rare oversight from Tharg? Are there any ownership issues? Very strange.

Jim_Campbell

Quote from: Magnetica on 20 March, 2018, 10:34:08 PM
Ok I haven't re-read it, but surely there has to be an element of knowing what happens tempering one's view of this. Even if the rest of it is, as you say a"bit thin", Johnny's death has to be the most shocking event in any 2000AD story ever. Certainly when read at the time with no spoilers.

I have to say, I didn't like it. I didn't like it at the time, and I've never really changed my mind. Back then, it felt like a rot was starting to set in. We'd come off the pretty gloomy conclusion to Song of the Surfer and it kind of felt like the old guard were wrapping up their stories. Final Solution felt to me as if, rather than come up with a story in which Johnny's death was the inescapable consequence, it started with the decision that Johnny would die and worked backwards from there. It felt contrived and, frankly, unnecessary.

And it opened up a void in the prog's line-up that the editorial team seemed ill-equipped to fill. The aforementioned Dry Run is a strong contender for the worst-written thing 2000AD has ever run and I had a strong feeling that the editorial team was asleep at the wheel. OK, maybe no one had the time to work GFD-scale fixing on the scripts (although MacKenzie never seemed that reticent about re-writing other strips) but can anyone honestly imagine a pitch synopsis of Dry Run that didn't sound like a cliché-ridden pile of old toss?

We already had the terrible Fleisher Harlem Heroes and then we added Dry Run and the brain-meltingly tedious Chronos Carnival meaning that although we had Necropolis, half the prog was basically rubbish. These gave way to the equally terrible Fleisher Rogue and Junker. Ennis comes in as a patchy replacement for Wagner on Dredd, Millar's execrable Sam Slade revival... it wasn't good.

Final Solution will always be symptomatic of that inexorable slide through the patchy 700s towards the nadir of the 800s for me.
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Greg M.

I enjoyed 'Final Solution' to a certain extent when it originally ran - specifically, when it was drawn by Simon Harrison. (No disrespect intended to Colin MacNeil, who is a great artist, but I loved Harrison's take on mutation.) I read it again a month or two ago, and I didn't think much of it at all. I still love Harrison's art: his McNulty is a particular highlight. I also had no problem with the idea of killing Johnny off and replacing him with a new lead dog - I like the legacy character idea, if publishers and writers properly commit to it - and I didn't even mind Feral. But I felt the ending, and the script in general, seemed pretty flat: I'd probably rate it as the weakest S/D story.

Tjm86

One thing that does occur to me mind, is that these issues were not limited to Tooth alone.  Across the comics industry there was an incredible amount of dross through the nineties.  Publishers went ballistic with variant covers, lenticular covers, covered covers ... Crossovers for their own sake ... Core characters had their lines expanded to multiple titles ... Rob Liefield ...

It was just a bad time for comics in general, particularly after the heady days of the eighties.  The focus seemed to be on investment rather than enjoyment. (Okay, how many of us have used that line on our wives / husbands / partners to justify the expenditure?)  The industry really seemed to have lost something.

Tooth seemed to recapture something of it's original spirit in the late nineties.  Even in the last few years before the Rebellion takeover it showed signs of rekindled life.  It does seem that this is where Tooth departed company with the rest of the comics industry.  Since then it has gone from strength to strength.  Even the recent blip far outshines so much else that is out there.  Arguably we have been spoilt in recent years and perhaps have been a little unfair on the current creative team.  Considering the writers and artists they are up against it must be incredibly intimidating to join that roster.  I wonder if it is worth taking a wider view?

Fungus

Quote from: Tjm86 on 21 March, 2018, 05:27:02 PM
Crossovers for their own sake ...
Weren't they all?-)

Notable exception: Trifecta!

Quote
(Okay, how many of us have used that line on our wives / husbands / partners to justify the expenditure?) 

I like that 'the collection' never did prove valuable, and looks like it never will. Buying for investment always felt... wrong.

TordelBack

Quote from: Fungus on 21 March, 2018, 06:09:02 PM
I like that 'the collection' never did prove valuable, and looks like it never will. Buying for investment always felt... wrong.

Completely agree. They were printing 100,000 of each of these things at one point, almost everything decent has had a more accessible reprint (notable exception identified above!), why should old 2000ADs be valuable?  They should be easily available as delicious sensory experiences for the prognocenti, not hoarded as investments...


TordelBack

Quote from: TordelBack on 21 March, 2018, 07:00:19 PM
Quote from: Fungus on 21 March, 2018, 06:09:02 PM
I like that 'the collection' never did prove valuable, and looks like it never will. Buying for investment always felt... wrong.

Completely agree. The prog in particular: they were printing 100,000 of each of these things at one point, almost everything decent has had a more accessible reprint (notable exception identified above!), why should old 2000ADs be valuable?  They should be easily available as delicious sensory experiences for the prognocenti, not hoarded as investments...

TordelBack

AND WHY IS THERE NO EDIT BUTTON SO THAT I HIT THE QUOTE BUTTON BY MISTAKE? -sorry-

Tjm86

Quote from: TordelBack on 21 March, 2018, 07:00:19 PM
They should be easily available as delicious sensory experiences for the prognocenti, not hoarded as investments...

Amen!

Colin YNWA

Quote from: Tjm86 on 22 March, 2018, 06:10:42 AM
Quote from: TordelBack on 21 March, 2018, 07:00:19 PM
They should be easily available as delicious sensory experiences for the prognocenti, not hoarded as investments...

Amen!

Testify.

AlexF

S'right. Yup.

My thoughts on this era in particualr are that editorial was struggling to appeal both to younger readers (the classic 8-12 of the 1970s period) as well as to the now 20-somethings who had grown up with the Prog, and also to potential new adult readers of any age who had heard that comics were trendy.

It all ends up as a bit of a mess, with things like Chronos Carnival being all-the-way child friendly, while Dry Run has a child-friendly cliche story, but more teen/adult friendly art as it's pretty nasty stuff being depicted, and then things like The Horned God and especially The Final Solution being very grown-up, not least for its overt referencing of the Holocaust. (Although I'd agree that Dry Run IS a strong contender for worst ever 2000AD script, even compared to the upcoming Junker! But, you know, the basic idea is good on paper, and the writer was the friend of a friend of the editors...)

Moving into the 700s, my feeling is that Burton was always chasing the 'appeal to everyone, especially children' angle, while Alan 'Acid House' McKenzie was chasing the trendy crowd, with both somewhat coasting on Wagner and Mills to keep the regular readers happy. The good thing is there were a lot of new series, short stories and such, so lots to sample even if not all to everyone's tastes.

Leigh S

I concir with Jim and Alex here

The Final Solution seems designed backwards - we want to kill off Alpha ("because Carlos is gone and Wagner is gone", "because I've been told to cut back my workload and we don't want this particular one falling into enemy hands", "because Strontium Dog is old school are all about the new bold COMICS ARE FOR ADULTS"  etc...) - whatever the reason, it didnt feel like an "in story" reason for it to happen, but a victim of external forces on both the creators, the comic and the industry itself.

So you have expansion (Crisis as the start of this), coupled with Steve MacManus' attention being with the shiney new world, Burton indulging his fanboy with Fleischer and McKenzie pulling the comic towards "hip" ratehr than teh comic pulling the hip towards it.

Colin YNWA

Quote from: Leigh S on 23 March, 2018, 04:08:43 PM
...Burton indulging his fanboy with Fleischer and McKenzie pulling the comic towards "hip" rather than the comic pulling the hip towards it.

Love that line at the end and working my way gruelingly through the late 600s and there's some pretty rough stuff here. I do think Fleischer's Harlem Heroes is so guilty of this. The characters seem to be crafted to echo the 'grim and gritty' pre-Image types of X-World comics. They are meant to be so hard and alternative they fall utterly flat and drag down with them any chance you can engage with the story. In 694 I've just read the death of Trips (I think he was called) and its meant to impact and it just doesn't. The's all this big dramatic action, impacting big dramatic story points and it doesn't matter 'cos I couldn't care less about the characters, in trying so hard to be different they are so cliche and hollow.

Not far away John Wagner and Carlos have some Judge cadets I barely know trying to lead an urchin I know even less, away from Judge Mortis, and man do I care, its chilling and tense, cos the masters at their game have managed to make me care about folks I just don't even know yet. He makes the drama matter.

The contrast is stark!

Colin YNWA

Oh and Prog 695

Nest to Ukko "But there's always been more to Slaine than just some muscle-bound barbarian. It's an attempt to redefine the hero. To convey the matriarchal origin of myth."

Okay, okay Pat we get it already, you've been telling us that pretty clearly for 2 1/2 books to this point no need spell it out!

Colin YNWA

By 699 I'm skim reading 3 of the strips, and didn't particularly enjoy the Future Shock. Any current melancholys are nothing compared to this surely.

That levels us Dredd and I find my option of Necropolis remains consistent with what it was almost 10 years ago (gulp) when I last read it, all be it then in one go, not episodically. So in a supreme act of self-reference (well look at the title of the thread) and laziness I'm goin' in for the full self quote. In summary for those that baulk at such egotism, its good, great even, but not the best, nor the absolute classic I think it is and struggles to live up to its exceptional build up. Mind with this build up what could!

QuoteME IN 2009: .... Deadman was a classic and stood up really well on re-reading. The demise in Dredd's faith in the system had been brillantly played out over, what was it 3, maybe 4 years and this was the big climax, it had a lot, a heck of a lot to live up to. Have to say I was pleasently surprised. Its a pretty good 'epic' nicely told in must parts. Not fantastic and compared to the build up I mentioned not as good but still a lot better than I remembered. The art was glorious, no surprises there but the way the tale [is] told was great. I loved the way there was a slow build of tension. The enemy gathering at the gates. The cut to Dredd and the terrible consequences aren't really seen until he arrives at the city. You can see a bit of where Morrison might have got some ideas for Final Crisis here!

Anyway the main thing I thought about after re-reading was did this mark the end of Judge Death as a truly scary, effective villian? Due to the nature of the cut away to Dredd at the peak of the villians plans one problem with the tale is I don't think we get to see Death really in charge of this evil masterplan. We don't see him marshalling the terrible fate he has in store for Mega City One. On top of that I felt as though once the Dark Sisters were out the way Wagner didn't know quite how to sustain the end. It felt to me at least on this reading as though he was saying 'Look there's the story I've had to put Death in it but I really can't come up with an interesting way to end his story here. Lets just move on shall we'.