A good meg overall maybe not the most prolific but good. Lawless naturally and Surfer is the highlights.
Dredd – The story is becoming more interesting with a bit of a back-story as Justice Department descends on Profundia. Staz art is fantastic.
Death Cap – As Goya start her journey for revenge Boo cook treats us with some great visuals especially his use of colors. The episode ends with an interesting little twist so let's see where we are heading.
Diamond Dogs – Some interesting twist and turns as the story becomes more engaging. Pleece's art is sufficient but not my favorite style.
Lawless – Abnett continue to spin layers on layers off intrigue into the story. We are introduced to a new threat for Bedrock [spoiler](a very Alien feel to this one)[/spoiler].
Surfer – Well the story is getting interesting as Zane's problem gets worse. Lovely work from Wagner and MacNeil.
Cover by Cliff Robinson and Dylan Teague:
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FLPD6OtXwAooVVr?format=jpg&name=large)
Cover and Logo:
(https://dyn.media.forbiddenplanet.com/6w4y0slKSAJ8J9OmeprXJ7rOQS4=/trim/fit-in/779x1024/filters:format(webp)/https://media.forbiddenplanet.com/products/8d/51/1c4d335722859494ee5ba49da48bee4689c9.jpeg)
Quote from: broodblik on 16 February, 2022, 08:44:37 AM
Surfer – Well the story is getting interesting as Zane's problem gets worse. Lovely work from Wagner and MacNeil.
Based on the last page it looks like these poor sods are going to end up recreating Supersurf 11 for real, doesn't it? Unless Big John has another twist in mind, but it is looking very ominous.
Hawk the Slayer part 2 continues in the same vane as the first episode and that is a good thing. Enjoying this fantasy romp from Ennis and Flint's art is just amazing. Bring on part 3 but now we have to wait another month.
Decent Meg as we build on the potential, though it still feels like a number of stories are still building.
Dredd arh thought Dredd gave up the chase too easily - that's why - nice steady build, but after 20 pages next time we need to see a little more of what this is building to.
Death Cap - I'm close to loving this, but its just not quite there and I think the main issue is I've not been made to invest in
Goya and her quest yet.
Diamond Dogs - needs a re-read, but is there enough to make me do that?
Lawless no Meta, no problem. The cast of this series is so great there so much to enjoy. And this one is building layer of intrigue and blasting out the action and adding new elements and... so much going on it builds AND it delievers.
Surfer the tension builds up and the stakes mount - its wonderfully crafted and its going somewhere a little scary. I think we see where this one has been building to.
Some nice text pieces to boot and the floppie - WELL Henry Flint is excelling even his excellent standard. Hawk the Slayer part 2 looks amazing and at the end just about catches fire and has a great ending. Good stuff.
So while a couple of thrills don't quite get anywhere the rest is great, the frustration is and there potential for this line-up to really catch fire and I'm just waiting for that to happen which is stopping me just enjoying how good some of this stuff is already!
Dredd feels solid, if a bit unremarkable. Death Cap for me still struggles with a protagonist that I couldn't give two hoots about. Diamond Dogs is fine, but feels a bit like with a few changes it could be a contemporary drama. Lawless takes things up a notch with its new twist. I assume at some point, we'll head somewhere towards status quo, with the titular character re-taking control somehow. (Her bit a bit-part player in her own strip seems unlikely.) Surfer shows that (as with Niemand's courier) from a skysurfing standpoint, having a younger person in the lead these days makes a lot more sense than dredging up Chopper. Also, that twist at the end was tantalising.
An odd Meg overall for me, in that it didn't really grab hold and scream READ ME, but still solid enough.
Surfer > Lawless > Diamond Dogs / Dredd > Death Cap
B/W Cover:
(https://2000ad.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/7.-Surfer-Cover-Line-Art-784x1024.jpg)
Very much enjoyed this Meg. The Dredd strip built on last month's episode and I'm now wondering if this is a Dreddworld Wakanda parody... which for some reason didn't occur to me last time. Surfer is okay- though it is a bit par-for-the-course and I'm guessing it's only "not a Judge Dredd strip" because it would be more obviously going over the same ground we've seen a number of times before. But the writing and art are as smooth and engrossing as you'd expect from the talent involved.
Diamond Dogs always- always- surprises me. I look at it, think 'Why is this there?', then read it and absolutely love it. I really should reread the whole lot in one sitting, because I've been reacting in exactly that way since episode one. Best of all is Lawless- which was so good I didn't even notice Metta Lawson was absent. I am in awe of every aspect of this story. Look at that first page! Look at the transition from the top to the bottom! Incredible.
I'm afraid I skip the other main strip- as no aspects of it are to my liking, and after the first part of Hawk The Slayer last month, I'm afraid I'm skipping that too. Not for me- but I remember hating the movie at the cinema back in the day, so a couple of 2000AD people doing a sequel isn't enough to thrill me. If Wagner and Ezquerra had done a similar sequel to Tron, I would have felt the same.
SBT
I've got to mention Lawless. Again.
There are barely words for how good this strip is. Worth the entire cost of the Meg just on its own.
So confident is Lawless now, that it can run an entire episode without its lead character and it still doesn't miss a beat. Just shows how strongly the town and its wide range of characters has been built over the years.
And the artwork is just sublime.
It's the best thing in the Meg and Prog in recent times and I simply can't praise it highly enough.
There are great strips in both publications -and then there is Lawless, in a class of its own.
Digging the Meg still.
Dredd Good Dredd this. It being the [spoiler]Sovs[/spoiler] behind things seems a bit simplistic given the amount of work that's gone into the worldbuilding and personally I'm hoping for some kind of squid-based resolution. The art, and the setting, make this a worthwhile tale.
Death Cap - Boo Cook's art is startlingly good but I'm not invested in the story much. Still very readable however.
Diamond Dogs - I've missed all the previous instalments of this but there's nothing here that makes me want to go back and read them.
Lawless Maintaining it's usual high standards artistically and dialogue-wise even without Lawson herself. Like Scrotnig above me, I also think this is worth the price of the Meg alone. Masterful.
Surfer Brilliant stuff. I'm not sure about this being tense, as I think we all know what's going to happen when Supersurf 11 gets re-enacted unless there's a massive swerve coming up... but there's more plots going on than just that. Wagner and MacNeil feel like the best people to be telling a skysurfer story as well, so this just feels perfect.
Hawk the Slayer Also pretty much perfect, the sequel I didn't know I wanted. Whilst I'm not sure about the bard character, it's nice to see some love for poor hapless Ranulf with the reveal of his [spoiler]daughter[/spoiler] and the return of his machine gun crossbow and you can see Ennis's love for the original film coming through from his sullen Crow to the 'Wizaaaaarrrd' line. Henry Flint's artwork is seriously great in this too.... No idea if this would appeal to those who don't know / don't like HtS but it's awesome by me.
Quote from: Barrington Boots on 21 February, 2022, 10:24:22 AM
Hawk the Slayer .... No idea if this would appeal to those who don't know / don't like HtS but it's awesome by me.
Well I watch the movie and it could not have left me with a great impression of it I can not remember anything about it but the story so far is just great. So I think you do not need to like or even remember it just read it
Never seen the film, enjoying the comic though!
Quote from: Blue Cactus on 21 February, 2022, 03:27:25 PM
Never seen the film, enjoying the comic though!
Same here. I'd never even heard of the film but that doesn't impact on enjoying this, not one bit.
In fact the recap chapter at the start adds something to the experience because even without seeing it, you understand there's a back story to it.
Another thumbs up for Hawk The Slayer from someone who has never heard of it before. Main Meg stuff is great too.
QuoteDiamond Dogs - I've missed all the previous instalments of this but there's nothing here that makes me want to go back and read them.
I've read the last Book of this but I don't think I could in all honesty tell you a thing about it. Who are the characters? What are their relationships? What are they trying to achieve? Why should we care what happens to them? If a story can't answer those basic questions then it's unfortunately failed to engage an audience.
Out of all the cast Armitage is the only one that sticks in the memory and that's only really because of his familiarity and history in his own strip. He's also far more subdued and passive than in his previous appearances so it doesn't even really feel like the same character.
Another great megazine to balance the lacklustre Prog.
Hawk the Slayeris what I'd hoped Kingmaker would have been.
This Meg compels me to post, as I often don't.
Fantastic cover, classic surfin' goodness! That B&W version is particularly lovely.
Dredd: How could I resist such marvellous Zoidberg/Cthulu worshipping people (missing my old avatar). A not so subtle representation of one of those crazy religions humans have, at least in my head, but it's great fun, hail Profundia!
Death Cap: Creepy mushroom action, great stuff. A long time ago I criticised Boo's art, in a way that came across worse than intended and if I didn't apologise at the time I should now, as he's one of my favourites these days and indeed, for many years (Sorry Boo!). The horse reminds me of the old Ron Smith horse from the black plague, one of those visceral images that has always stuck with me, that bit when he got bitten. The art has that same "in your brain" effect.
Diamond Dogs: I'm afraid I don't like this much, so in the interests of not repeating the aforementioned sin, I'll skip on...
Lawless: Holy sneckin' funt! Like pretty much everyone, I've been loving Lawless since it started. The writing is Abnett, so that goes without saying at the worst of times but Lawless has been the best thing in the Meg without doubt for years now I guess. The artwork started out great and has only improved over the years. It's what we all used to say we missed from the golden years, B&W artwork with a crazy amount of detail and obvious "work", in the manner of O'Neil, Belardinelli, McMahon et al. This copies none of those in any way yet has that same awe-inspiring effect. That's up till now. This month, it's been kicked up a notch. Is it the lockdown effect? How long did that first page take? And the rest? The detail, the crazy reflections in the SJS helmets, I was stunned. Took me nearly an hour to get through that I'm sure, just beautiful.
Surfer: However good Lawless is, it's certainly equalled by the privilege to read that is Wagner and MacNeil doing anything. Chopper has sometimes felt a bit overdone on occasion, but not this time. A fresh extension of the story with some fantastic boarding action, more than worthy of the promise in the cover. I sense dark times ahead...
Hawk the Slayer: The best extra to come with the Meg ever. I can't remember if I ever saw the film and if I did it was once, back in the mists of the 80s. As someone else said, I was more of a Krull man too :) Absolutely loving it though. Ennis moves the action along nicely with some great characters, new and old and you don't get much better than the Flint droid for artwork (apart from everyone else above that is also "brilliant!"). It's cheesy fantasy of course but it's raised well above that somehow by these masters. I don't know how he does it but his art has always looked at first glance a bit scrappy and rough, yet it's not by any means. Loved those red and black pages, very Shakara and a nice evil contrast to the "real world" parts.
This slightly tipsy review has been brought to you by Ardbeg, with musical accompaniment by Dälek.