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Prog 2271 - Back to the Front

Started by Colin YNWA, 26 February, 2022, 07:07:52 PM

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Colin YNWA

Well with this line-up it was always going to be a good Prog, but this is a GREAT prog. Its a smackin' collection of tales.

Dredd Well the team of Wagner and Cornwell kinda telegraphs this is going to be superb and it is. So much achieved in just 6 pages. It worked as a Dredd 101 with at least 4 superb ways of expressing him as a character. But we got some new characters we got to know in the brief time we had. AND with enough space to spare for some grizzly Sov death. Just wonderful, wonderful stuff.

Speaking of which Proteus Vex is simply brilliant this week as we get more confliciting views on who Vex is and what drives him. Some top class space fleet destruction. Its belting stuff. Only misses Midnight Indicating Shame and this would be perfection!

The Order is a wonderful balance of driving things on and allowing things to breathe. Superb.

Kingmaker good evil uinderlining and then some literal shit flinging action. Great stuff.

Brink is the only down step, now lets qualify that. Its Brink and its still brilliant. INJ is still an absolute genius. Its just very dense as it establishs the new situations and factions in this take on what we've seen before. Dabnett next makes it feel a chore to read, just as I was doing so I was consious of how much my aging brain would retain when some of this stuff was needed back. That said reading Brink is a delight so its not like it will be a hardship when I decide I need to recap what'a what! I mean its a downstep due to my failing not its and this is wonderful!

So yeah a Five-for no less. This line-up is fantastic.

Jacqusie

Dredd - Page two - the prescient panel two

That short snippet of dialogue and the action in the strip is quite spooky as happens from time to time. The writer being John Wagner just adds to the gravitas and I do often wonder how far removed from the conflicts around the world I am when I read about them in a comic or watch them on a screen.

Reminds me of the time around the London Bombings and the Charley's War reprints which were happening at the time and how the two stories converged as in the strip people were being told to get into the underground as it was safer there. This was in stark contrast to the devastating scenes of destruction by coordinated suicide attacks on the 7th July 2005 on the transport networks.

That day the threat be came closer than ever before and it breaks my heart to see some of the scenes in the Ukraine at the moment. When I first read The Apocalypse War it struck me how senseless it all was just for one man's lust for power, and today that is shockingly all too real.




broodblik

Cover by Cliff Robinson and Dylan Teague:


When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.

Old age is the Lord's way of telling us to step aside for something new. Death's in case we didn't take the hint.

broodblik

When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.

Old age is the Lord's way of telling us to step aside for something new. Death's in case we didn't take the hint.

The Mind of Wolfie Smith

it was probably set in stone a long time ago, so this is not a criticism at all, but that cover and (even more) the captions are really, really unfortunate right now. i read this brilliant comic for escapism not underlining of the misery of now.

broodblik

This is a great prog. Diversity in stories art and writing. Al thumbs up from me

Dredd – This chapter feels still like we are only doing the setup on what is to come with a heavy focus on action. We are introduced to a few new characters as Dredd enters the fray. Still a good episode maybe I do not have the patience to wait for the big reveal but let's see what magic Wagner will wield.

Porteus Vex – Another great episode as Vex is going from strength-to-strength.  Vex has had reprieve as we get conflicting "stories" on how he escapes. My current highlight of the prog.

The Order – We jump to another part of the story as Armoured Gideon is now fully rebuilt. This chapter looks like it is heading to the end game, bring on the shadows.

Kingmaker – I enjoy Kingdom but so far, the whole series just felt like one big setup. This is the episode which I felt is where things have changed, and it is a good change.  A very good episode as the episode ends with a highlight.
 
Brink – As well know by now Brink was never about pure action (when it happens it is violent and bloody) but the journey. It is a slow burner that build up and we have 24 parts (after an interview with Matt) for the candle to burn. This was almost episode where nothing happened only a discussion on the one incident leading from prog 1984. Great stuff
When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.

Old age is the Lord's way of telling us to step aside for something new. Death's in case we didn't take the hint.

Barrington Boots

My sub arrived today, which is early by 2022 standards. Great cover, but it does feel ill-timed given current events. Not anyone's fault.
Dredd is excellent - Dredd himself is an utter bastard here, and whilst that's in character with his wartime self, I do wonder if there's an element of unreliable narrator at work. It seems evident that Winterton hates Dredd, and I think we're going to see a very harsh and very dark Dredd indeed in this story.
You're a dark horse, Boots.

norton canes

Yeah 'The Citadel' makes for somewhat uncomfortable reading this week. It's no fault of any of the droids involved, of course, but the fact that John Wagner's included a lot of really graphic incidents in his revisiting of the Apocalypse War hostilities really cements comparison with the current situation in Ukraine. I know the original mega-epic was pretty unflinching but there's some pretty grim stuff here that puts it in a different league to the previous tale's more fantastical plethora of Strato-V's, sentenoids and stub guns. I was bigging up Dan Cornwell's work last week and while it remains impressive, I really don't know what to make of the way his cartoony little figures get blown to smithereens. It's all good stuff but as has been said, for once the parallels with the present day world are perhaps too close.

Elsewhere Proteus Vex continues to boss the prog, at least while Brink is still warming up. The Order and Kingmaker appear to have rediscovered something of their mojo this week too, pushing the prog further up the thrill-scale.

Barrington Boots

Good summary there Norton.

I didn't comment on the rest of the Prog above but I thought this was a really good one.  Vex is truly excellent .. I thought The Order was better this week with the two groups about to come together: I welcome Armoured Gideon being rebuilt rather than remaining as mud golem Gideon, but this seems a bit sudden - 'oh yeah, we rebuilt this giant battle robot with the bits of other robots off screen' is stretching it a bit, even in this tale.
Speaking of sudden, my previous comments on Kingmaker stand about fearing it's either wrapping up or gearing for a change in focus but this was another superb episode and Leigh Gallagher's work is just outstanding again. Brink is the opposite - unbelievably slow - but by now we know this build will all pay off in the end, so that's cool.
I thought this was a more rounded Prog than last weeks and I'm looking forward to next week on all five strips, so it's doing things right!
You're a dark horse, Boots.