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Prog 2196 - Regened: High Speed Thrills

Started by JimmyNailz, 22 August, 2020, 01:26:36 PM

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MumboJimbo

Maybe my brain hasn't kicked in yet (it's early-ish Sunday) but there is a serious narrative weakness with the Cadet Dredd story

The part where it falls apart for me is on page 10 when Duval says to Chaplin, "Oh, sweet grudd, the site is under attack by academy cadets". Now, we've hitherto seen Chaplin and Duval working together very closely on the hostage siege and it seem unlikely to me that she would not already know about Dredd and Rico's infiltration.

I think the strip tries to set this up earlier when Chaplin orders Duval to analyse the holotape. The intention here, I think, is that Duval is off doing this while Chaplin and Zand hatch the plan to send in Dredd and Rico, and when she says what she says on page 10 she's just returned and hasn't been briefed on recent events. Fair enough but I think on a first read it's unlikely the the reader would have picked up on it, particularly as she actually returns on Page 9 and overhears Chaplin say "Cadets you have the green light take them down." but for some reason it's still a surprise to her Dredd and Rico are in there a page later.

It's not even established it is Duval until the last page when Chaplin says she will be reprimanded for failing to inform him the Wally Squad were involved. We see no badge, her name is not used, we only know it to be a helmeted female judge. It's also never established why Duval never tells Chaplin about the Wally Squad involvement at the start. As the story begins we see them leading the operation and discussing what to do, so it seems inconceivable  she would not share this very important detail.

Unless I'm missing something very major, the story just doesn't work. It's not sufficiently established that Duval is unaware of the Cadets' mission, it's not obvious it's Duval who tells Chaplin about the Wally Squad involvement and its not explained why she chose to keep this from him in the first place. You can kind of just about fill in some of those gaps in a second read through, but that's about it, I think. Hope I'm wrong though and I've just missed something glaring or got the wrong end of the stick.

IndigoPrime

I had the same problem with it. On a re-read, it did have enough logic behind it, but the pacing/script/art weren't clear enough.

MumboJimbo

Not just me then!

Enjoyed the rest of the prog though - the best Regened so far for me. Just a shame it starts with a hard to follow story whose purpose (Megacity law does bad things to get the job done, causing Rico to become more cynical and foretelling the seeds of a rift with Joe) gets buried a bit.

sixmo

Regarding the Cadet Dredd story, although I like the art generally, I thought the Dredd brothers were portrayed a bit on the big size for lads who should physically be about 12-13 years old sized. The cover image is closer to what I was imagining. On the cover they're clearly kids, but really focused, determined, and very intimidating because of that. Other than that the art had a really good Colin Wilson-esque detailed linework vibe to it as has been pointed out already.

Pandora Perfect and Department K are cracking reads and I look forward to seeing more of these. Finder Keeper is still a decent caper. I quite liked the Future Shock to be honest. So overall a definite winner for me and my comic reading young fella. 

norton canes

As above, very much enjoyed the Dredd story despite some unclear plotting and occasional errant artwork. Apart from that though I think I'll gracefully bow out of this week's prog review as none of the other stories really clicked at all for me. I'm not part of the Regened target audience and despite all four of the remaining strips being perfectly laudable efforts, they didn't hold my attention.

Sorry! That seems like a really grumpy addendum to what's been a generally positive thread.

DrJomster

Playing catch up. Best regened so far for me. This is really starting to work well. Credit to everyone involved.

I wonder what the future state for this is though? Once per month? It's own spin off comic? Who knows but we're definitely on a good path here to my mind.

The hippo has wisdom, respect the hippo.