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2000 AD in Stages

Started by Funt Solo, 23 July, 2019, 10:57:01 PM

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Dark Jimbo

Quote from: broodblik on 31 August, 2019, 11:18:40 AMMaybe that is why we had a "dark age" period because for a long period no new characters where introduced.

I don't think that was the problem - there were loads of new characters and strips in the 90s. Dead Meat, Junker, Trash, Kola Kommandoes, Dry Run, Babe Race 2000, Mother Earth, Mambo, Soul Sisters... the list is long, but generally not very good.
@jamesfeistdraws

broodblik

What I am trying to say is that with any successful company complacency is a big problem. Sometimes your success today creates a failure tomorrow. Suddenly in the start of the 90s all the creators that as part of the golden age where not around. A lot of the stories created during this period was all new and tried to something completely different (which many or most did just not work).
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.

Funt Solo

Stage #11: Going Out (progs 435-467)

Generally the comic seems strong and confident in this stage, but when people think of a golden age they're probably remembering Nemesis, Strontium Dog, Slaine and Halo Jones.  Conversely, they're probably not thinking of Mean Team, Rogue's return from Horst or The Doppelgarp.



Nemesis the Warlock, Book V: The Vengeance of Thoth
Skipping ahead ten years from Book IV but carrying on the Thoth plot from Book III, this sees Nemesis get married to Magna but then almost immediately do a Total Recall, but not before she's eaten Grobbendonk.  Varty slar!

Original Torquemada died for good in the previous book, but Thoth goes and grabs a copy from earlier in time.  Oddly, the new Torque teams up with Nemesis and the ABC Warriors (who have replaced Mad Ronn with Mek-Quake) and by the end of the book they're all on the tail of Thoth and his pet: a fireball breathing Satanus (because Millsverse).

More unpredictable mash-up madness in Book VI, next stage...

Robo-Hunter: Farewell, My Billions
101 progs after Sam Slade's Last Case it's a surprise to see him return to the prog for his "first case since his last case".  It's a comedy of errors in which Hoagy and Stogie attempt to get Sam back into the Robo-Hunting game despite his being quite content as a rich retiree.
Robo-Hunter, Samantha Slade (about Sam's niece) plays out from 2004-2007 (written by Alan Grant), and there's a one-off flashback style story (The Bodj Job) in 2014's Sci-Fi Special (authentically written by Alec Worley).  More controversially, Mark Millar started writing knock-off stories under the banner of Robo-Hunter in 1991 but most kindly these should be considered a temporary reboot.

Judge Dredd
1985 finishes out with a sequence of short tales that riff on existing themes.  Most memorable would be The Man Who Knew Too Much, Magnificent Obsession, Death of a Politician, Love Story and The Squadron That Time Forgot.  Prog 450 stands out with the 14-page A Merry Tale of the Christmas Angel.

1986 starts strong with The Warlord and has significant Dreddverse beats in A Chief Judge Resigns (McGruder takes The Long Walk, Hershey joins The Council of Five) and the absolutely vital Letter From a Democrat.

Tharg's Future Shocks
Peter Milligan, Oleh Stepaniuk and Grant Morrison share script duties on these one-off shocks. Of note seems to be Morrison's first work for the prog in 466's Hotel Harry Felix.
More in the next stage...

Tharg the Mighty...
Exit the Wally, Enter the Beast; Psmith's Farewell & Supersub tell veiled tales of Nerve Centre shenanigans.
More in the next stage...

Mean Team
Blackhawk meets The Mean Arena, in that it's got aliens but also an urban future sport.  Oddly, it's more reminiscent now of computer games: so like a cross between League of Legends and Call of Duty.  This may mean it was ahead of its time, but it's an odd fish.  The lead character, Bad Jack Keller, is a murderous asshole and the best thing that can be said about the melodrama of one of the player's having his brain transplanted into a panther is that his reaction when he wakes up and looks in the mirror is pure comedy gold.

It feels like it loses its way, having the team transplanted to what seems like an entirely new story (itself a sort of Meltdown Man meets Death Planet) at the end of this opening salvo, but the first page lays this out as the intention all along. Can perhaps be summed up well with this quote: "Just one man - and a cat with a man's brain, but they were too much for the Black Swamp Dragons."

Prog 447 says "they'll be back in the spring [of '86]", but they don't return until the summer of 1987, 78 progs later.

Rogue Trooper, [Return to Milli-Com]
Rogue found a cure for his bio-chipped buddies on Horst and returns to base. A firing squad pretend to shoot him (for a joke) and then the highest ranking Souther general punches him in the face. 

Peace between the Norts and Southers beckons but is sabotaged by mysterious aliens who teleport troops in on targeted assassination missions.  Of course, this means the bio-chips don't get re-gened, the peace process is spoiled and ends with Rogue going ... rogue ... again.  (This time, though, he seems to be leading a rag-tag mixed group of Norts and Southers: like he has a rogue gang.)

More in the next stage after a 45-prog break...

Strontium Dog
Key here is The Ragnarok Job, a 21-prog epic that contains Wulf's origin story whilst also setting up Max Bubba as a plastic-wrapped nemesis. By the end of the tale, both Wulf and Johnny have died...

...except [SPOILER ALERT] Alpha wasn't really dead, just playing possum. The two-part coda (sometimes known as Smiley's World) see's Alpha regain his health.
 
Johnny returns seeking vengeance in the next stage...

Slaine, Tomb of Terror
The mid-80s were the heyday of choose-your-own-adventure game books, with The Warlock of Firetop Mountain having really kicked things off in 1982. Whilst the Fighting Fantasy series was probably the most well known, there were also great serial publications such as Lone Wolf (starting in '84), Way of the Tiger ('85) and Falcon (also '85), where you could maintain your character from book to book.

Here, Slaine joins in with a choose-your-own-adventure comic running alongside the strip for fifteen issues. Slaine (and YOU!) must stop the dark god Grimnismal from awakening from the ... Tomb of Terror!

Returns after a 31-prog break in the next stage...

The Ballad of Halo Jones, Book Three
Halo's always had tragedy in her life, but here it reaches new heights and almost drives her mad. A war foreshadowed in earlier books becomes central and ideas of time and gravity play with perspective as Halo struggles to escape a dark web threatening to engulf her.
Not only the last of Halo Jones, but also the last of Alan Moore in the prog.

Ace Trucking Co.
So Ace, who died by flying into the sun, actually instead traveled to a different dimension, where he meets up with another Ace (& crew) and together they adventure in The Doppelgarp. There's definitely been a shift in this story from being inventive and fresh, to just being punny (e.g. The Dave Cluck Five).
Continues in the next stage...

---

There's a great celebration of the Dreddverse with the eleven History of Justice posters spread throughout progs 436-452. They don't show up in Barney, but you get seven by Brian Bolland and four by Mike McMahon. Here's an example from prog 441:




We also get The New Masters, a seven-poster series celebrating Ian Gibson (454), Robin Smith (457), Brett Ewins (458), Cam Kennedy (460), Cliff Robinson (465), Massimo Belardinelli (466) and Carlos Ezquerra (467).  Here's Cam's:




Tying in thematically with Slaine's Tomb of Terror foray into choose-your-own-adventure, the first two issues of Diceman were released during this stage and contained two more Slaine adventures (Cauldron of Blood and Dragoncorpse), Dice Man (an occult private eye), Hammerstein (vs. Volgo the Ultimate Death Machine), Judge Dredd (in the House of Death) and Nemesis (in Torture Tube).

---

References:
- Barney
- Nemesis the Warlock: A Potted History
- Strontium Dog : A Potted History
- The 2000 AD ABC
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

JayzusB.Christ

Was just reading those first two Dicemen this morning.  They were, for the most part, incredibly well written and illustrated.  The Ronnie Reagan one from a later issue remains a personal favourite.
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

Funt Solo

Stage #12: Rage (progs 468-499)

Covering a large chunk of 1986, this stage is most renowned for its relentless response to Wulf's death at the end of The Ragnarok Job.  For Strontium Dog, which had spent much of its time hopping from one bounty job to another, this powerful sequence altered the make up of the strip and ran for over a year with just a single gap.

Whilst established thrills hold court or pop up briefly (Dredd, Ace, Anderson, Nemesis, Rogue and Slaine), there are also experimental new properties such as Sooner or Later, Metalzoic and Bad City Blue.



Sooner or Later
This acid-laced, Ken Loach-ish Time Machine ran for 32 progs, often as single-page back covers (except for the 6-page opener). Micky Swift gets whisked off into the future and in a surreal, post-modern commentary on eighties Britain, must somehow find his way home. "You know it mock's sense."
We get Swifty's Return in progs 416-617, but that's three years away in 1989.

Anderson, Psi-Division, The Possessed
Anderson's second solo series sees her team up with the Exorcists (a new Psi-Div sub-div) to tackle a case of demonic possession [see title]. A fairly pedestrian adventure that re-uses Brett Ewins' amazing designs for twisty-ghost-people from The Haunting of Sector House 9 (progs 359-358).

Supernatural sexual harassment trivia: the cover of prog 475 has ghostly corridor-hands groping Anderson, with her responding "I said 'Hands UP'!" Twenty-four years later, in 2010's Megazine 303 (The House of Vyle), another corridor of hands gets fresh, with Anderson asking "Don't you know it's an offence to grope a Judge, creep?"

The next series for Anderson starts in prog 520...

Judge Dredd
A mixed period of shorter thrills, with a spate of considerably weaker stories.  Standing out above the rest in terms of quality are 468's It Pays to be Mental, the artistically vibrant Riders on the Storm (472-473), the meta critique of US comics presented as The Art of Kenny Who? (477-479) and the representation of Brit-Cit Judges in Atlantis (485-488).
Dredd continues quite a long-running period of highs and lows in the next stage...

Ace Trucking Co.
The interminable Doppelgarp draws to its 21-prog close but is quickly followed by the 23-prog Garpetbaggers, which stretches terribly thinly the idea that they're adventuring in Movieland. When a strip entirely abandons the central premise (space-trucking), it's a sign that barrel bottoms are being scraped.
Garp crops up briefly next in the 1989 2000 AD Annual, but ultimately it's done.

Bad City Blue
Whilst this shares thematic elements with A Clockwork Orange (brain-washing violent criminals), Logan's Run (the idea of Button Men / Sandmen), Silent Running (domes in space) and Escape From New York (Blue is a tough guy against all the odds in the mould of Snake Plissken) it's also very much its own beast. Blue, programmed to enforce the law, discovers that not is all it seems in the asteroid-set Bader City, and sets out to uncover its fate.
Very much a one and done.

Strontium Dog
In the 21-prog Rage, Johnny Alpha seeks revenge against Max Bubba and his gang for the torture and murder of his long-time partner Wulf. With the murder of Wulf, and the positioning of Alpha as entirely driven by vengeance, there is the question of where the story goes now.

Rage is immediately followed by Incident on Mayger Minor (Alpha, acting solo but otherwise emulating the storyline of The Magnificent Seven) and War Zone (where Johnny teams up with Middenface McNulty). Certainly, Rage is a hard act to follow, but both of these tails manage to hold their own in terms of continuing the strip.

Alpha returns next stage in Bitch (starting in prog 505).

Tharg's Future Shocks
Grant Morrison continues to provide the main portion, writing five of the thirteen new Shocks, but there are some new kids on the block in the shape of John Smith (writing three, starting with prog 473's Time Enough to Tell) and Neil Gaiman (writing two, starting with prog 488's You're Never Alone With a Phone).
More in the next stage...

Tharg the Mighty...
Tharg sends 2000 AD into the past in "2000 BC".
More in the next stage...

[one-offs]
We get Danger: Genius at Work, Blood Sport and the memorably spooky Candy and the Catchman (which would be a Terror Tale if those existed yet).
More one-offs in the next stage...

Nemesis the Warlock, Book VI.I: Torquemurder
Nemesis, the ABC Warriors, Purity Brown and Torquemada travel to Earth's end-times, where the Termites have been mining humanity's ultimate evolutionary form for fuel and shipping it back to their own time. Unfortunately the by-product of the mining is the Monad (a murderous collective spirit), and this first half of the Book leaves everyone under threat from its harmful psychic projections.  (If all that sounds weird, its because it is.)
Returns for the second part in prog 500...

Metalzoic
Actually a reprint of a DC Comics graphic novel (and here limited somewhat by lacking the original's full colour presentation), this is an original piece set on a future Earth where machines have evolved into sentience and are reminsicent of extinct mammalian life. The story is complex but revolves around a conflict between two tribes: the wheeldebeasts led by Amok and the Mekaka led by Armageddon.
It's one and done.

Slaine, The Spoils of Annwn
This seven-parter serves as the opener to what might be considered the third epoch of the Slaine saga. The first few stories introduced us to Slaine and told his back story: effectively he was a warrior in search of a tribe, and we followed his wanderings from The Time-Monster to Dragonheist.

The second epoch introduced the Cythrons, and Slaine's battles against the dark gods took us through Time Killer and the Tomb of Terror (with a marked difference in the design aesthetic as the axe was replaced with a leyser sword and gun).

The Spoils of Annwn take us back to the fantasy aspects of a mythical Albion as Slaine searches for mythical knowledge in the Temple of the Stars, armed with an axe again.

Foreshadowed is the idea of Slaine becoming king, which occurs in the next stage...

Rogue Trooper, [The Hit Man]
Forty-five progs after Rogue teamed up with a gang of Norts and Southers to combat some mysterious aliens who want to propogate the war, we get this follow-up. Rogue abandons his gang, gets teleported to the alien base where they reveal that they're actually trying to enact galactic peace: but they need an assassin to do it (and had to murder a bunch of people first rather than just ask nicely). Rogue is thus employed.
Returns in prog 520...

---

References:
- Barney
- Nemesis the Warlock: A Potted History (part 2)
- Strontium Dog : A Potted History (part 2) & (part 3)
- The 2000 AD ABC
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

Richard

Just discovered this thread. Good work!

Frank

Quote from: Richard on 08 September, 2019, 11:43:14 AM
Just discovered this thread. Good work!


Active Topics, Rich. Never miss a post again:






Funt Solo

It's the completely subjective but otherwise unassailable...

Top Ten Stories of the First Five Hundred

In order of publication...


Ro-Busters: The Terra-Meks (98-101)
Script: Pat Mills
Art: Dave Gibbons





Fiends of the Eastern Front (152-161)
Script: Gerry Finley-Day
Art: Carlos Ezquerra





Return To Armageddon (185-218)
Script: Malcolm Shaw
Art: Jesus Redondo





Nemesis the Warlock: The World of Termight (222-233, 238-240, 243-244)
Script: Pat Mills
Art: Kevin O'Neill





Judge Dredd: Judge Death Lives
(224-228)
Script: Alan Grant & John Wagner
Art: Brian Bolland





Ace Trucking Co.: The Great Mush Rush
(251-258)
Script: Alan Grant & John Wagner
Art: Massimo Belardinelli





Skizz
(308-330)
Script: Alan Moore
Art: Jim Baikie





Strontium Dog: The Killing
(350-359)
Script: Alan Grant
Art: Carlos Ezquerra





Slaine: Sky Chariots
(352-360)
Script: Pat Mills
Art: Mike McMahon





The Ballad of Halo Jones
(376-385)
Script: Alan Moore
Art: Ian Gibson


++ A-Z ++  coma ++

Aaron A Aardvark

Good list. Some great stories there.

sheridan

Quote from: Aaron A Aardvark on 09 September, 2019, 07:03:48 PM
Good list. Some great stories there.

Nah, rubbish list - it doesn't include $insert-favourite-here :-)

Colin YNWA

Ohhh lists we love lists. There's some good choices there and some ... interesting ones... as there always should be on such things*

*[Normalfontsize] Except my lists which are always great and right! [\Normalfontsize]

IndigoPrime

Quote from: Funt Solo on 07 September, 2019, 10:20:55 PMMetalzoic
Actually a reprint of a DC Comics graphic novel (and here limited somewhat by lacking the original's full colour presentation)
I actually preferred the B/W version – the art looked sharper than in the colour version I have (a 1986 Titan reprint). I really wish a new version hadn't fallen through. I'd happily buy this as a lush hardback with a bunch of extras (or just printing the B/W and the colour versions, one after another!)

QuoteRogue Trooper, [The Hit Man]
The Hit was bloody awful. Notable that they cut it short, wrapped it up in a Winter Special(!), and then rebooted the strip entirely.

sheridan

Quote from: IndigoPrime on 09 September, 2019, 09:15:15 PM
Quote from: Funt Solo on 07 September, 2019, 10:20:55 PMMetalzoic
Actually a reprint of a DC Comics graphic novel (and here limited somewhat by lacking the original's full colour presentation)
I actually preferred the B/W version – the art looked sharper than in the colour version I have (a 1986 Titan reprint). I really wish a new version hadn't fallen through. I'd happily buy this as a lush hardback with a bunch of extras (or just printing the B/W and the colour versions, one after another!)

I prefer the black and white version too (I have the DC and 2000AD versions) - though do appreciate the Kev O'Neill colours (and I'm sure I've also mentioned before that I'd happily buy reprints of the two versions collected).

Funt Solo

Quote from: sheridan on 10 September, 2019, 12:17:53 AM
Quote from: IndigoPrime on 09 September, 2019, 09:15:15 PM
Quote from: Funt Solo on 07 September, 2019, 10:20:55 PMMetalzoic
Actually a reprint of a DC Comics graphic novel (and here limited somewhat by lacking the original's full colour presentation)
I actually preferred the B/W version – the art looked sharper than in the colour version I have (a 1986 Titan reprint). I really wish a new version hadn't fallen through. I'd happily buy this as a lush hardback with a bunch of extras (or just printing the B/W and the colour versions, one after another!)

I prefer the black and white version too (I have the DC and 2000AD versions) - though do appreciate the Kev O'Neill colours (and I'm sure I've also mentioned before that I'd happily buy reprints of the two versions collected).

Given that feedback and if I were re-writing my summation, I'd change it to point out the difference (from full color to mostly black and white) without positing that one were necessarily considered superior to the other.  Metalzoic is one of those quiet classics from that era that I definitely hold in very high regard.
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

IndigoPrime

Quite bizarre to think that a "Graphic Novel No. 6" is the only print this thing's ever had, as far as I can tell. At 64 pages, it's slim. I do wonder how people would respond to a new hardcover that literally reprinted it in two versions, and then added a bunch of sketches and interviews (if the former exist and the latter are viable). That said, Miracleman HCs sold well enough, and those were quite a lot of not-strip.