PROG 1416: To die for.....

[Endjinn]

I liked both the Synnamon cover and strip, and am looking forward to the series of shorter Synnamon stories we were told we're getting.

Red Seas is a more than welcome return - I'm liking this more and more with every story.

Everything else carries on much the same as so far - Dredd is awesome, Lobster is cracking, and Faces is nothing to be ashamed of.

[morriford]

I've still no prog, still no meg, still no extreme :'(

[Tiplodocus]

I liked the cover - it's the character that's a bit of a generic action babe that's the problem.

Read DREDD three times. It's brilliant stuff.

s

p

o

i

l

e

r

s

tracking people down by the airline meals they order - funny, logical, stretching believability but not to breaking point.  The Judges may win but they'll have lost another 100000 cits in the process and still have Total War to deal with.  This really is top stuff. And look how much art Flint squeezes in. And the layouts.


Lobster Random is great stuff as well.  Choc full of inventiveness and gags. Even the stories Si writes that I haven't liked are still chock full of great ideas and concepts (with one caveat).

Red Seas is an enjoyable romp type thing - it would probably b a better idea to flesh out Jack Dancer's character before doing the barmaids though (unless this will happen indirectly). (doing barmaids is never a good idea in my experience). Top marks for Yeowell's art - great character in the faces and figures and full of pleasingly full (and inked) backgrounds - some of his previous Red Seas stuff looked a bit bare (a comment that applies to recent Gibson outings as well). But this was great.

Lemongrass was actually enjoyable for what is such a bland and generic concept.  Some nice dynamic art - especially liked the big robot in the snow.

Freaks lost me a little I must confess - I'm not sure I like it now.


My big problem is that I really don't want Total War to end. I honestly can not remember a story that has had me gasping for the next episode as much as this.  

[morriford]

seriously though is anybody else still waiting for there subscription to arrive, especially those who live in dublin

[paulvonscott]

Yup, Dredd is the Rad-Bees Knees.  All 84 of them.

I'm still expecting a nuke to go off, and I am wondering how it's going to end.  I do have my theory, but I won't post it, just in case I'm right.  Then I can say 'oh, I was right' wisely, even if I was wrong.

It could, and should, have been a longer strip, or as has been suggested, carry on the consequences of the strip in future stories.  There should be consequences from this story, and I suppose my franchise fatigue theory will be tested if we just hit re-set with the final episode.

Sadly, Dredd will probably go back to some humdrum, half-arsed satire with a few jokes in it after this and that same old tired feeling that always seems to sink in.  Never mind the lame Dreddworld spin-offs or franchise knock-offs like the Dredd audios.

Until the next time Wagner goes for it again of course.  Highlights this year have been Vienna, the Three Dredds and Total War.  Before that there was Sin City and the Rico stories which gave me new hope for the strip.  All reasons to give a damn about the strip again.

On the whole, Dredd has been in the doldrums for some time.  It's a victim of its own success.  It's the backbone of the comic, and has to be in there, but doesn't always get the treatment it deserves.  Although, don't get me wrong, the Rebellion years have been better than much of the previous ten.  I just think it needs more energy putting in because it's been going for so long.

Anyway, I'll stop ranting before I start posting how I'd change that, and then I'll really be marked as one of the damned ;)  Basically I get quite frustrated with the strip, on the whole I want more from it than I'm getting.  Total War, as well as other strips have delivered this year.  Maybe my expectations are too high.

Other strips:  Ok, I suppose!

[Slippery PD]

I'm still expecting a nuke to go off, and I am wondering how it's going to end. I do have my theory, but I won't post it, just in case I'm right. Then I can say 'oh, I was right' wisely, even if I was wrong.

It could, and should, have been a longer strip, or as has been suggested, carry on the consequences of the strip in future stories. There should be consequences from this story, and I suppose my franchise fatigue theory will be tested if we just hit re-set with the final episode.

Im in agreement with pvs to an extent, but Im not actually sure how the reset button can be pressed.   The judges have publically stepped down and put the cits in charge, not been replaced by sovs, dark judges, corrupt judges (more than once) - no this time its the cits.  The people who actually should be in power.  

Now either were going to get something clever from Wagner to push trhe reset or were going to get the cits co existing with the Judges in power sharing or something.  Both of which may prove to be incredibly interesting, but Im hoping for the second option.  

Slips

[NecroClown]

If Wagner does reset and put the Judges back in charge there are still plenty of avenues to take, a civil uprising of disgruntled cits probably being the most likely.

[Richmond Clements]

I thought that I'd picked up a Marvel comic: isn't that the Black Widow on the front?

Honestly, you young people...http://arakeen.users.netlink.co.uk/emma2.gif">

[Darren Stephens]

Great prog. Like everything except faces. Noy john Higgins best work, is it?
Darren.

[paulvonscott]

"I'm in agreement with pvs to an extent, but I'm not actually sure how the reset button can be pressed."

Well, how about a few jokey one-offs (next week: combustable hotties) and nothing mentioned about all of this until a few months down the line when Wagner picks up where he left off, for another democracy versus the judges story?  Or the really interesting story of Dredd which currently only runs for about 10-20 weeks a year in the comic.

"Dredd is never in any real jeopardy which sucks the drama out of the story"

It's not really a story about whether Dredd's going to die or not, it's a story about whether millions of people will be sacrificed for democracy and how this effects the judges and the city.  

The only way Dredd could feasibly die would be if a nuke went off uner his feet.  If Justice Dept had let him stand on the site where the first one was going off in a hope of stopping the blast with a mean stare, then maybe he would have died.

Also, I may have got this wrong.  Does it end next week on part ten, or is it a 12-parter?

[Leigh S]

12 parts - all the way up to the christmas prog

[Tiplodocus]

If I recall, in the original Mark Millar pitch for TOTAL WAR, Dredd stops the final nuke by punching it.

Robbie Morrison rewrote it so and when Dredd thought about all of the dead children the bombs had caused, his tears fell and fused the bomb's timer and stopped it going off.

Alan Grant was then drafted in and Dredd fascistically removed the bombs right to explode, sent psi-division in and they discovered that the bomb was actually a lame parody of something that had been on TV about five years ago.

Gordon Rennie never got the chance to write the story he wanted.

[Smiley]

(Course, in your ideal pitch Dredd's riot-spunk would sort out those pesky bombs. "It's hardening! Good work, Dredd!" - "About time. Ooh, drokk. Do I need a good sit down...")

Dredd epic carries filler prog, must be getting near xmas. Cover's alright, nice pose even if she does seem a bit narcoleptic. Nothing else to report.

[philt]

Soory when I said Dredd isn't in any really jeopardy I should of course said "judges"

Other than that I agree PVS. I'm already looking forward to the filler Dredd's in the new year...

[philt]

29 replies about this weeks prog. But not 29 different boarders. And it it's always (more or less) the same people

I know that there are things outside 2000ad but you'd think there'd be bit more of a response.

We can hardly complain that 2000ad doesn't get the coverage it deserves when there is seemingly so few interested about it here on the 2000Ad board

*ducks for cover*