2000 AD - The Ultimate Collection

[Tomwe]

Just got my delivery.  I didn't opt out of the covers gallery so naturally I only received it after chasing them on facebook several times and unsurprisingly I haven't received the letter about volume 2.....

it's totally possible the letter comes with 27 & 28 rather than with the August delivery.

[Nellgrove]

I only subscribed in July and would have expected the cover issues to be mentioned upfront now they are a known thing, but nope... will still have to go through the same pain. What was the general opinion on the first volume of covers, seems really expensive compared to the rebellion dredd covers hardback.

[Arkady]

25 & 26 came for me to. No mention of the second covers volume.

That Slaine cover is incredible.

[Woolly]

I never opted out of anything, this is the one thing that I want to have complete, dammit!
I'm also currently a month behind newstand schedule (having only just recieved Slaine & Meltdown Man), so let's see what happens... 

[athorist]

Just got my delivery.  I didn't opt out of the covers gallery so naturally I only received it after chasing them on facebook several times and unsurprisingly I haven't received the letter about volume 2.....

I got the covers issue and I didn't have a letter about the next one, they're probably assuming that if you got the first one, you're going to get the others. Or maybe they'll tell us next month, who knows. (My reasoning for getting them was I'm more likely to keep 4 slim covers volumes than 80 full-size ones)

Maybe they're touting the second one because they've got a lot of copies of the first one and they're expecting people to change their mind and order both?


Read the first 4 parts of Meltdown Man, I like it so far. Looks a bit classic Doctor Who.

[abelardsnazz]

They're not doing themselves any favours with the website (the specific collection one) either, as it still only shows the first five issues. The Dredd site at least got updated every fortnight with the next issue.

[IndigoPrime]

They're not doing themselves any favours in general. Every thread on that Facebook page now has someone griping about subscriptions, including a one-liner on the latest Sin Dex one, asking for captions on a pic of Sex shooting. (One wag: "Take that, subscribers".)

[sintec]

Thanks to a couple of long train journeys I've hammered through Meltdown Man. It's an enjoyable romp. Bellardinelli's world is beautiful and awesome, as anticipated.  The story hurtles along at a cracking pace but never feels overly rushed.  Nick Stone and Leeshar are maybe a bit wooden but the yujees more than make up for that.  Overall I enjoyed it although I'm not sure how often it'll get a re-read compared to some of the other volumes.

Started Slaine last night. Dragonheist is excellent stuff, Bellardinelli and dragons was a perfect pairing. The Knuckler looks great and Slaine is on top form, not quite the best Slaine yet but certainly in the running.  Then along comes The Time Killer with it's Leysers and... sigh... really, leysers.  You've got a plentiful supply of far future sci-fi stories and you crowbar leyser pistols into a fantasy story about a barbarian and his dwarf, meh. And no explanation of where they came or how Slain suddenly came to own one just that they're powered by ley lines (in case the pun didn't make that obvious).  Ugh. I hope this nonsense doesn't run for too long. I mean I knew this was coming from comments earlier in this discussion but it still feels like a kick in the teeth.

[Dark Jimbo]

Started Slaine last night. Dragonheist is excellent stuff, Bellardinelli and dragons was a perfect pairing. The Knuckler looks great and Slaine is on top form, not quite the best Slaine yet but certainly in the running.  Then along comes The Time Killer with it's Leysers and... sigh... really, leysers.  You've got a plentiful supply of far future sci-fi stories and you crowbar leyser pistols into a fantasy story about a barbarian and his dwarf, meh.

Editorial mandated that Slaine was to stop cutting people up with axes, which is why the leysers appear. But yeah, still not great (though the pun itself is Abnett-worthy).

[TordelBack]

Thanks to a couple of long train journeys I've hammered through Meltdown Man. It's an enjoyable romp. Bellardinelli's world is beautiful and . And no explanation of where they came or how Slain suddenly came to own one just that they're powered by ley lines (in case the pun didn't make that obvious). 

The answers to your questions are all in there: Slaine takes the one he uses from a dead Atlantean (very early Fabry storytelling not the best here). He knows how to use it because they are one of his tribe's sacred/forbidden weapons left over from the fall of Atlantis, and as one of the Red Branch it was part of his training. They work by focusing earth power,  which is concentrated along ley lines, and warped through the user's body in the same way Slaine does in a warp-spasm.

And yes, they are a truly awful idea in this context,  especially coming straight after the frosty low-key fantasy highs of Dragonheist.   My young heart physically sagged when I read the line "I take my power straight from the grid!" all those years ago.  Don't worry though  after the next few stories we never really see them (and their variants,  like Bloodprow) again,  they really only exist 'out of time', in places like Dinas Emrys and Cythrawl.

While Time Killer is quite fun if you relax and go with it,  it's such a jarring change that it feels like a different strip: but it does introduce a new and important layer beneath Slaine's world.

[IndigoPrime]

Ugh. I hope this nonsense doesn't run for too long.

It looks like the book runs through to the end of Time Killer. So you've another 90 pages of weirdness (121 if they include You Are Slaine: Tomb of Terror). After that, we're on to the superb Spoils of Annwn, and Sláine The King, along with a few bits and bobs that dovetail into The Horned God.

[sintec]

The answers to your questions are all in there: Slaine takes the one he uses from a dead Atlantean (very early Fabry storytelling not the best here). He knows how to use it because they are one of his tribe's sacred/forbidden weapons left over from the fall of Atlantis, and as one of the Red Branch it was part of his training. They work by focusing earth power,  which is concentrated along ley lines, and warped through the user's body in the same way Slaine does in a warp-spasm.

I got the how it worked and how Slaine knew how to use it (although it felt pretty lame tbh).  Must have missed the panel where he took it from the dead Atlantean.

Editorial mandated that Slaine was to stop cutting people up with axes, which is why the leysers appear. But yeah, still not great (though the pun itself is Abnett-worthy).

The pun is literally the best thing about them at the moment. 

I'd have loved to have been a fly on the wall when editorial told Pat that his barbarian needed to stop cutting people in half with an axe, I can't imagine that went down well. He's a barbarian whose favourite weapon is an axe called Brainbiter ffs, chopping things up with an axe is pretty much his raison d'être.  Although I guess I can see how that might have caused a few issues given the target audience of the time.  I guess this was this roughly contemporary with all the video nasty nonsense as well so there was plenty of moral outrage at entertainment media going around (thanks Mary Whitehouse and co).

I'll give Time Killer another go tonight, maybe it'll be less jarring not reading it back to back with the Dragonheist.

[Tjm86]

TBH Spoils of Annwn was probably the last decent Slaine story for me.  Slaine the King wasn't bad but it started, for me, the slow decline.  We get the bizarre 'past lives' stuff though the nineties which had to be the absolute nadir.  I'm just waiting now for Ro-busters to turn up in the next series ...

[Dark Jimbo]

TBH Spoils of Annwn was probably the last decent Slaine story for me.  Slaine the King wasn't bad but it started, for me, the slow decline.  We get the bizarre 'past lives' stuff though the nineties which had to be the absolute nadir.  I'm just waiting now for Ro-busters to turn up in the next series ...

Oh, I love Slaine the King. Utterly gorgeous to look at, a kick-arse introduction to Niamh and it's the story that finally returns the character to his millieu after the baffling sci-fi shenanigans of Time Killer and navel-gazing of Spoils of Annwn.

I do detest characters who go time-travelling, though, and Slaine's a great example of why. When you've constructed a whole culture, history and world around your hero, why wrench him out of that? Drunes, dragons, cloud curragh, dwarfs and fomorians - there's your stories. That's what I want to read about. It's a bit like when Dredd (rarely, mercifully) goes on a space adventure. Can't stand it - get him back to Mega-City One!

[IndigoPrime]

Annwn is a real high point, and a kind of missed opportunity for a different kind of Sláine that could have been a bit Hellboy in nature, exploring old myths and fables, in a contained manner. (The Swan Children works in a similar fashion.) I've not read Horned God in a long time, but I recall that being eye-popping on its original release, and still a decent read years back. It all felt a bit 'diminishing returns' after then, though, until the Books of Invasions, which – bar the odd really bad bit – felt like a return to form. (As I've said elsewhere, I also really rated The Brutania Chronicles: A Simple Killing, but the rest of Brutania bored me senseless.)

As I've already got the full-size HBs of BOI, I think I'm going to go with the classic run here and leave it at that.