2000 AD - The Ultimate Collection

[IndigoPrime]

I imagine that might in part be down to how the Dan Dare Corp is feeling on the given day permissions are sought. Although I already own the Rebellion HCs and now I'm cherry picking there's no way I'd swap those out for Hachette books.

[Tamping]

Never heard of Mazeworld, but as a Grant fan, I'll pick that up I think.

[Le Fink]

What's the view on 'Return to Armageddon'? Worth a pick? I've not come across it before. Mazeworld is great, with fine artwork from Arthur Ranson, although got the trade, so umming and ahing about picking it up. I'll be picking up Kingdom to complete the set. Machine Law a no-brainer!

[Colin YNWA]

What's the view on 'Return to Armageddon'? Worth a pick?

It is what it is, but its very, very good at that. Its an early 80s adventure comic 'for boys' but it travels down such wonderful routes in that and is so imaginative in its first 2 thirds. After that it gets a little more typical but that works all the morning with the journey getting there.

Oh and the art by Jesus Redondo is sublime.

[Tjm86]

Redondo on fine form as an artist.  I'd rate it as second to his run on Mind Wars of Starlord fame but then I've always been a little biased towards that tome.  All his hallmark spaceship styles on show. 

For a "one-and-done" of its era it is probably one of the stronger ones but it does feel a little dated by modern standards.  Pretty well paced with an interesting array of characters.  Fortunately it is of a time when Tooth was starting to wake up to the changing sensibilities of its readership.  Although there is still an element of 'juvenilia' about it as a story in what was ostensibly a "kids comic", there is also a growing maturity to it.

It might suffer from comparisons with the likes of Mazeworld and Kingdom for that reason.  That is a little unfair in some respects.  If you enjoy your SciFi with loads of bizarre creatures, galaxy-spanning plots and a dash of fantasy though, you can't go wrong.

If you enjoyed Mark Millar's Robo-Hunter run, I'm afraid there's nothing we can do for you ... 

[Le Fink]

Thanks, I'll be picking that up. Happy to read something a little old-school and am a fan of the Jesus

I was reading the progs during the Morrison /Millar period but have absolutely no recollection of the Robo Hunter reboot. Not good then?

Any new readers of Zenith got through volume one? Be interested to hear a fresh take on it. I still love it but is that just because I read it in my formative years?

[Funt Solo]

I have to post an upvote for Return to Armageddon. I read it in the weekly as it was published, so I might be a bit rose-tinted, but I rate Redondo's work very highly, and the story is batshit (in a good way), and full of bizarrely loathsome characters. It might be like a Nicholas Cage fever dream, if he was born in the mid-40s and exposed to original Buck Rogers and Night of the Demon.

[IndigoPrime]

I was reading the progs during the Morrison /Millar period but have absolutely no recollection of the Robo Hunter reboot. Not good then?

It's abhorrent. Honestly, I liked the original Robo-Hunter a lot less than I expected to when re-reading it in the UC – too much offhand racism and sexism for 'now me'. But the Millar Robo-Hunter is hideous. It strips out anything that made the original good – notably, all the humour. What's left is often cruel and mean, and is peppered with rampant homophobia that Millar seemed to specialise in at the time.

Hughes/Hogan made a valiant attempt to subsequently rescue the property, but it's hard to make something grow when someone's burnt it to the ground, hurled a nuke at the remains and then salted the radiation desert.

[Funt Solo]

I might say that I eviscerated it in my 2Kstages summaries (starting on this page) - but all I really did was summarize it. It fails on its own merits.

Robo-Hunter(*) [*HARSH REBOOT]
Hoagy's all muscly and evil, Cutie (a tiny robot that's basically metal breasts and orifices) magically reforms herself (after having died in 1979, on another planet) because she feels like it (that's the literal explanation) and then Sam and her snog, but his voiceover mysoginistically complains about ugly girls being easy. The writer casts himself as a second Robo-Hunter (that, far in the future, watches MTV and listens to music from 1991).

Escape From Bisleyland
The original Robo-Hunter had a lightness to it that's entirely missing here: now blood splatters the camera as Pseudo-Sam is beaten by brass-knuckle wielding agents, and a young girl (the Newt from Aliens stand-in) is brutally murdered to fuel a cheesy pay-off line. It's like a psychopath's toy shop.

Something for the Weekend, Sir?
Psuedo-Sam laments the cancellation of his three prostitutes (true) and refers to his barber as a dago (still true) before everything descends into Sweeney Todd with robots.

Return to Verdus
There's lots of shooting and yelling, forests made of decomposing body parts and another theme park. A murderous Cutie, who can fly now (and always presents as a blonde babe in a red swimsuit), is ripped apart by an cyborg in a comfy sweater, who earlier seemed to have been murdered by being impaled with a golf club (by a gay insectoid S&M fashionista).

The Succubus
An extended combat sequence between a murderous giant Butler droid and Psuedo-Sam, set in a flooded Manhattan. The script openly derides the time when Robo-Hunter had "cute little robots with a song for every occasion", but fails to offer up a better formula with this repetitive Generic Tough Guy Defeats Big Enemy schtick that Millar rolls out time and again.

Ace of Slades:
Suddenly all of the supporting characters are British, like a Cockney Pope and (oddly) The Fat Slags from Viz: even though this tale is usually set in the US. You don't have to read to the end: it's a Millar script so the unstoppable, invincible, muscle-bound, heartless, murderous foe will get destroyed somehow on the second to last page (after a bunch of stuff gets ruined). And Hoagy's in one frame making tea, even though he died in Escape from Bisleyland.

[Le Fink]

Yikes! I'll be sure to give it a miss...!

[Tjm86]

... and the defence rests ...

[michaelarby]

I bought the robo hunters to have the full collection, but i read the first one and the others are still in plastic wrap! Just didnt appeal to me.

Meanwhile - super stoked that theres a kingdom volume 3. Those were some of my favourites in the UC. Will volume 3 actually finish the story? Or just get it up to date with the prog?

I was looking forward to picking up zenith but forbidden planet dont seem to be stocking it! - EDIT - SCRATCH THAT - it is there, it just has a release date of 22nd aug 2022 for some reason, so it wasnt appearing when i hit sort by release date! Very strange, but ordered now!

[IndigoPrime]

Assuming Kingdom brings us up to date with what's in the Progs, it finishes in the way Halo Jones finished. There could be more. But if it ends there, it's a solid enough conclusion. As for Forbidden Planet, it's still odd how the Dredd book went OOS so quickly.

Mind you, it's perhaps notable that the London Megastore no longer appears to stock these books at all. Last time I was there, the store had an entire facing of the things. But yesterday, there was a handful of Marvel/DC ones bundled with the sole 'magazine' facing that's moved to where the charts used to be. I didn't see a single UC book. The 2000 AD range has been pared right back too. (One facing, but hardly any books – maybe a fifth of what I later saw at Gosh in a smaller space.)

[Jade Falcon]

The last issue I got was 145, but I don't have 144, I just HOPE it's sitting at my local newsagents as otherwise its not possible to get, and it was one I was really looking forward to.

[OrnateColt]

The last issue I got was 145, but I don't have 144, I just HOPE it's sitting at my local newsagents as otherwise its not possible to get, and it was one I was really looking forward to.

You can order directly from hachette if no luck