2000 AD - The Ultimate Collection

[Dark Jimbo]

That's great to hear! What a way to get introduced to 2000AD.

[Tomontherun94]

New issues are up on Hachette’s site, 130 is Devlin Waugh, 131 is Blunt and 132 is ABC Warriors: Return to Ro-Busters

[Dark Jimbo]

Updated list -

111 - Strontium Dog: Repo Men
112 - ABC Warriors 7
113 - ABC Warriors 8
114 - Strontium Dogs 1
115 - Strontium Dogs 2
116 - Strontium Dogs 3
117 -
118 - Mean Arena 1
119 - Mean Arena 2
120 -
121 - Cradlegrave
122 - Brass Sun 1
123 - Brass Sun 2
124 - The Returners
125 - Devlin Waugh
126 - Finn 1
127 - Finn 2
128 -
129 -
130 - Ro-Busters 1
131 - Ro-Busters 2
132 - Rogue Trooper: War Machine
133 - Blunt
134 - Revere
135 - Samantha Slade
136 - The Fall of Deadworld
137 - Sin/Dex 4
138 - Sin/Dex 5
139 - Sin/Dex 6
140 - Sin/Dex 7

A mere 4 gaps left now(!), and we know that the following are coming:

Dredd
Necronauts
Blackhawk
Leviathan

So with Necronauts almost certainly twinned with Leviathan (but not confirmed), does that leave us with one final unknown? Or perhaps two Dredd books?

[Anthony Garnon]

Have we had any indication of what's in the Dredd book? I'd assume that a "Best of John Wagner" book is out of the question thanks to the recent hardcover - but maybe a mash-up volume of outstanding Wagner & Grant stories, or even more recent stories like Guatemala / End of Days?

I'd predict that the last unknown is a 2nd Lawless volume, especially after the UC is now giving us a Waugh volume not published in the MC.

[sintec]

The fact it's a new authors revival of the character makes it feel like the Devlin book will stand alone from the MC vols fairly well. A Lawless book dropping into the story after the end of the MC book might be tougher. Still holding out for a 2nd Stickleback vol here

[Tomwe]

What about a Chimpsky or just Ken N book? His recent stories would make a great collection.

[sintec]

A book of Niemand Dredd would be awesome

[IndigoPrime]

I wonder how much of the Kot Devlin we get in that book. Curious they go all-in on the lesser run by McConville and don’t even mention Kot in the write-up but perhaps it’s more palatable to the masses.

[sintec]

Books arrived yesterday and I've been off work sick today. As a consequence I've been tearing through vol5 of Sinister Dexter. It really is superb stuff. Malone is very well played and I can imagine the reveal was quite the twist when it originally ran. It still works well even published as part of the collection (although clearly the twist is a bit of a foregone conclusion). Then that's followed up with some gritty prison drama and a top notch prison break. It's top shelf thrills all the way. This would make a great Netflix series.

I've been interspersing episodes of Samantha Slade to try and keep thrillpower levels in check.  I'm hating it less than I expected. The art is great so far (although from the intro I'm expecting that to drop off soonish). Some of the gags aren't all that funny but the story moves at a pace is isn't boring. It's not as good as Robo-hunter at it's best (Verdus, Farewell) but it's way better than Robo-hunter at it's worst (Football Crazy).

[Tomontherun94]

How is Blunt overall? Skipped over the 2nd and 3rd series as the first had already finished by the time I started picking up the meg. I’ve really enjoyed Eglington’s work on other series but a fairly recent Dredd-verse meg series feels like a weird inclusion for the collection.

[sintec]

How is Blunt overall? Skipped over the 2nd and 3rd series as the first had already finished by the time I started picking up the meg. I’ve really enjoyed Eglington’s work on other series but a fairly recent Dredd-verse meg series feels like a weird inclusion for the collection.

Like you I missed series one but I did read 2 and 3 when they were in the Meg. From what I've read it seemed fine if not mind blowing. I suspect, much like Returners, it'll read better collected than it did serialised monthly. I suspect the reason for inclusion might be more down to wanting to get a series illustrated by Boo Cook into the collection. His art adorns the spines of every volume but up til now has rarely been on the pages (from my notes looks like just a single ABC Warriors story). Harry Kipling would be too short for a volume so I guess Blunt was the obvious choice.

Just finished both this months books. Samantha Slade really does fall off the rails in the last story. Sinister Dexter on the other hand nicely resets the status quo ready to head into the next arc. Can't wait for the next volume, looking at Barney looks like that's going to be mostly Anthony Williams on art duties which is fine with me.

[Bad Andy]

Yeah. Love Boo Cook's work when he burst onto the scene. Have we really not had Asylum?

[cropsy13]

I'm loving this collection but lord above I get annoyed when certain stories are just left hanging like
- Brass Sun
- Grey Area
- Kingdom

I know it's not the fault of the collection but damn just when I'm really getting into something *boom* End.

I'd love to see Mambo in the collection, I saw her in the 1994 2000 AD advert (On youtube) and she looks cool

[Dark Jimbo]

I'm loving this collection but lord above I get annoyed when certain stories are just left hanging like
- Brass Sun
- Grey Area
- Kingdom

I totally agree, but I would say that Grey Area does have a (soft) ending*. Abnett's very good at giving his strips these soft endings before he moves on to something else so that, even if he doesn't go back, the strip does have some measure of ending - it hasn't just stopped dead, or been left on a cliffhanger. I wish he would teach Ian Edginton!

*Kingdom too, but we didn't get that far in the UC.

[IndigoPrime]

The nature of the beast, I guess. We had the same with the Dredd collection and Lawless. But it is a pity that Kingdom at least wasn’t taken through to the current final strip. I’ve since bought the relevant trade. Did the same with Lawless, which was even more frustrating, since the Dredd collection contains the first 1.5 books, and I’m not keen on double dipping.

Hmm. Now wondering about Spink & Thackray again, and if they can ‘match up’ to the UC sizes…