Prog 2372 - Escape Pod!

[JayzusB.Christ]

Did think it was a little bit of a cop-out (if you'll excuse the pun) to end the penultimate instalment with Dredd at the hands of a baying mob, then start the next episode with the hand-waving explanation the riots "dwindled to nothing hours later".

(Or did I miss something..?)

I'd forgotten about that, with the assassination of Maitland overtaking all other events.  But yeah, you're right. It didn't make a whole lot of sense.

[Barrington Boots]

This is a really good discussion!

I really wanted some change coming out of this story and what we got was the jackboot - it left me feeling quite down, but reading all this has cheered me a lot.
The ending is bleak, but there's still the possibility of some hope. That's tempered by the fact that we didn't really see too much change after stuff like DoC and the IP is presumably too valuable to mess with too much. But 2000ad has never been a publication to shy away from risks with its tales.
What's very interesting about this time around is that I feel Dredd is not part of the solution but part of the problem. His inaction in tackling the larger issues, time and time again, whilst slinging his judgement at those who do is grating.
I don't know how much of this is shaped by being seen through the lense of a longtime reader though. It'd be interesting to get a new readers perspective on all of this.

It's the hope that gets you, I suppose.

[broodblik]

I also felt like Dredd was quite distant in this saga almost that he just did not care. Maybe the death of Maitland rattled him at the end thus directly taking on Hernandez

[don wiskerando]

This week I loved everything except FTB which just left me cold. 

So I've been back and re-read the current series to date and while I'm still not convinced by the artwork I can see where the story is developing.  It does seem to be better consumed in one go so I'll keep trying with it.

Indigo Prime makes a good effort at explaining then tidying some messy back story.

Elsewhere, Deadworld moves us on to another set of characters and still remains one of my favourites.

Dredd concludes with two old men making oblique threats towards one another and I'm interested in the next part of this story but I'll be surprised if we don't end up with whiplash if we just get a couple of single-issue joke episodes.

Thistlebone is still the highlight,  for me,  in a really good set of thrills.

[Funt Solo]

Did think it was a little bit of a cop-out (if you'll excuse the pun) to end the penultimate instalment with Dredd at the hands of a baying mob, then start the next episode with the hand-waving explanation the riots "dwindled to nothing hours later".

(Or did I miss something..?)

I'd forgotten about that, with the assassination of Maitland overtaking all other events.  But yeah, you're right. It didn't make a whole lot of sense.

On the one hand, Dredd being up against all odds and surviving comes as no surprise. On the other hand, it was a bit "cliffhanger::never mind". The bigger question for me (aside from the off screen "how did Dredd get out of that?") is whether or not Control were deliberately ignoring his pleas for help.

Bit of a bummer if control keep *krzzzt*-ing him when he's in trouble.

[Southstreeter]

I thought it was pretty clear last week that a bash on Dredd's helmet had knocked out his comms.

[13school]

In theory I'm all for the more political Dredd stories - my younger self was clamoring for them, and always got excited when the Council of Five showed up for a handful of panels - but these days I don't see the point. Or I do, but I can also see beyond the immediate thrill of having Dredd up against the system (the one bad guy he can't beat) to the point where all these stories do is set Dredd up to lose.

We know Dredd is bad at politics, because he's always been bad at politics: it's a core part of the character. And with Dredd pretty much proved to be the Greatest Judge Who Ever Lived, it's hard to come up with plausible bad guys that provide a threat. But the system's never going to really change, because if it does that's the end of the series. In the past there's been a bunch of good stories exploring Dredd vs Justice Department, ranging from The Day the Law Died to Necropolis to Tour of Duty. But they were all focused on Dredd himself: either the system (for whatever reason) wanted Dredd out, or Dredd himself had enough doubts to quit (and then come back because MC1 wouldn't last a week without him).

Of late we get stories where Dredd is off to the side, a bystander to events he doesn't like but isn't comfortable tackling head-on. Those earlier stories were all about Dredd restoring the system and a lot of the dramatic tension came from our knowing the system Dredd was defending was actually pretty bad. Now it's all about rubbing how bad things are in old man Dredd's nose while he just... puts up with it, because otherwise there's no series.

If all this was leading to something - Dredd quits, Dredd guns down the Council of Five and takes over - then the downbeat endings would have some meaning. But what seems to be the pattern in recent years is that Dredd eventually takes out the trash (usually by playing second fiddle to some other character that does a lot of the hard work), only for a new batch of corrupt or dodgy Judges to turn up. It might be realistic, but dramatically it's not all that satisfying to read.

[Robin Low]

But the system's never going to really change, because if it does that's the end of the series.

I don't that's the case, for reasons I mentioned in an earlier post: crime is still going to exist, the same way it does in our world despite education and democratic systems. There'll still be a place for Judges. Dredd can still be Dredd. The city might change over time, but the realistic procedurals, the future crimes, all the weirdness is still there to play with.

Regards,
Robin