Potential Portrait Of A Mutant Glitch

[Funt Solo]

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In Portrait Of A Mutant, part 2, it says that a global atomic war starts up in 2140.  That same year Johnny Alpha is born, a mutant because of radioactive fallout from the bombs.

Now, I had always assumed that all the mutants in the story were mutated for the same reason.  Only, if that was the case, there would be no mutants older than Johnny Alpha, and his father wouldn't be head of the anti-mutant brigade, because the only mutants would be toddlers.

So, there must have been mutants around prior to the 2140 war - which is nice, because that would tie in neatly with the Dreddverse, which is already heavily populated my muties, and already had a nuclear war.

*phew*

[McNulty]

I see what you are saying, but it also says in Portrait of a Mutant, that there had been earlier atomic conflicts which had resulted in mutated humans, just not nearly on the same scale as global atomic war of 2140.

[Byron Virgo]

No, because not all mutants were mutated from birth - some were mutated at a later stage of development (rather than simply dying of radiation poisoning as you or I would).

[Funt Solo]

I'm not listening to you, Byron - McNulty is a mutant - he should know.

Damn though:  you're right - does that mean Clacton Fuzz once wasn't, and that General Armz once didn't?

[Trout]

Um, surely that's a mad idea?

I always read it as all mutants having been so from birth.

I know that comics aren't exactly based on hard science, but it's pretty difficult to suspend disbelief for someone growing extra arms in later life...

- Trout

[Byron Virgo]

Well, it's only just slightly more unlikely than someone developing the weird mutations that we see in the strip from birth.

Of course the strip was never written to any hard and fast chronology - in fact both Wagner and Grant have since admitted that they didn't really give a shit how all this made sense in terms of when events happened. But you can read it whatever way you want to - Johnny Alpha is born in the same year as the nuclear war in Portrait of a Mutant, but in Young Middenface, McNulty is a young child (and could possibly have been affected from birth), even though he is clearly shown as being significantly older than Johnny Alpha in Portrait of a Mutant.

[Trout]

Yeah, it's a little muddled.

I don't much care, either. It's best just to enjoy the strips.

- Trout

[Funt Solo]

You can understand Wagner & Grants reluctance to enter into any kind of serious debate on the subject:

Fan:  "Oi, John - that story you wrote 20 odd years ago when I was 12 doesn't quite add up now that I shine the light of ultimate nerdness at it".

John W.:  "Oh, just fuck off and leave me alone you anoraky bastard!"

Still, it's a bit of an easy out for an author to say "well, I don't really give a shit if it makes any kind of sense".  Especially when you consider that the creators make a big deal about Dredd being set 122 years in the future.  So, on the one hand, there's a very hard and fast chronology - and on the other (when it doesn't quite work out) they don't give a shit.

How very cunning...so cunning you could stick a tail on it and call it a weasel.

[Byron Virgo]

Yeah, but when the strip was originally being written there was never any notion of secondary use, no reprints or graphich novels, so it didn't really matter if they didn't keep to a specificly tight chronology - this was simply cheap, fun, disposable entertainment, which was churned out every single week. Standards, and indeed the industry itself and those both working in it and reading it's products.

I'd much rather that they concentrated on writing enjoyable stories than worry about the minutiae of strip chronology.

[McNulty]

From Portrait of a Mutant episode two:http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v102/McNulty/StrontiumDog01.jpg">

[McNulty]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v102/McNulty/StrontiumDog02.jpg">

[Bico]

Good to hear.  Does that mean it doesn't matter where Quatermass and Hammer movies come into Cabalistics continuity?  It's heartening to think that there won't be long, drawn-out posts discussing the subject.
Anymore.

[McNulty]

Oh, and I'm not an anorak. I just have a good memory for storylines...

[Funt Solo]

Cheers McNulty:  message to self - read the little boxes more closely in the future.

Still, it took my mind off marking for half an afternoon.

And you, you cantankerous bear you:  nobody's forcing you to read the threads of a fool.