Prog 2294: East Wired

[IndigoPrime]

A suitably grim cover by Alex Ronald and the promise of more Dept. X and we hit the Dredd finale. It all feels a bit muddled to me, to be honest. The final page is a bit of blunt commentary on the present day. Fine.

An Alan Grant obit wisely sits in the Prog rather than the Meg, before Brink ramps up considerably. (Also: part 23? Wow. Nice to see Tharg agreeing to play the long game with this. It’s going to be a chunky collection when reprinted!) Twisty McTwisterson, too.

Skip Tracer is… quite good this week, when taken on its own merits. Sure, it’s cliched, but it’s at least barrelling forward, looks good, and has some solid plotting. My guess, though, is it’s heading towards Blake’s great escape and he ends up going off with his kid. If not, fair enough, but enough with the parent killings, yeah?

Dexter ends well, although AI-Sinister looks deeply weird in the final frame. And then there’s Jaegir, which is also really good, with an interesting last page in all sorts of ways.

Brink > Jaegir > Dexter > Dredd = Skip Tracer

[Barrington Boots]

 I thought this was a great Prog. Saturday prog too!

[oshii]

Twisty mctwist in Brink indeed.  Hope thats not a bluff from Nolan, but genuine.  I've loved this run, loved the space its been givento breathe and to let its nuances slowly emerge.    Why there isnt a nice big hardbacks of Brink baffles me.\

[broodblik]

Cover by Alex Ronald:

[broodblik]

Cover and Logo:

[The Corinthian]

Also: part 23? Wow. Nice to see Tharg agreeing to play the long game with this. It’s going to be a chunky collection when reprinted!)

Dan Abnett is the new Tom Tully.

I don't really find Brink that agreeable in episodic chunks and enjoy it more when I can read a whole series in one go. This one's a long time coming!

[Richard]

This has been a very good Dexter though.

[Colin YNWA]

Another Saturday Prog when I've not had time to read damn YOUUUU! Still read now in a nice cottage in The Lakes so I shouldn't complain.

Dredd now has its own Brexit and it will be interesting if we get to see more self-harm and folly. Has been pretty good with glorious art. And at least Dredd just walked out

Brink

Twisty mctwist in Brink indeed.  Hope thats not a bluff from Nolan, but genuine.  I've loved this run, loved the space its been givento breathe and to let its nuances slowly emerge.    Why there isnt a nice big hardbacks of Brink baffles me.\

Yep

Skip Tracer - I mean that feels like it should have been a massive ending. I had to think 'hold on a suicide run into who what why' instead as its all such a shoulder shrug.

Dexter - nice ending and always good to see Billi playing a hand in things and living up to her place in Downlode and the legacy of her sister. So is like the next story rilly going to be the last of Bulletopia. Seems... well whomever said Bulletopia will be the journey will be right as you have to see a story starting in 2297 ending in 2299 - with maybe a double part or two. Looking forward to a Dexter Sinister showdown of some form or other.

Jaegir continues to grimmy drive on. its good stuff.

A promise of more Department K - all be it a one off in the Regened (I assume) is good news. All topped of with some nice tributes to Alan Grant, he really was a wonder.

Good Prog.

[JudgeJudi]

The Brexit stuff is fine in Dredd but I don't find as a concept Mega-City 1 as this small sad-sack place that interesting.

[IndigoPrime]

It’s inconsistent. Outwardly, nothing really changed much after Chaos in MC-1. We got the odd story in bits of the city that were in a state of disrepair, but it didn’t have anything like the impact of The Apocalypse War. But it has in some writers’ output driven more political stories.

I’m not sure it really hits the mark, but what’s done is done. MC-1 from a numbers standpoint was always absurd – a real child of the 1970s and plucking big-sounding numbers out of the sky. Even post-Apocalypse War, a city of that size with 400 million people would have been sparse (not least given how many are packed into huge tower blocks). Now, most of the city should be empty.

[broodblik]

A good prog. Dredd/Brink/Dex/Jaegir fighting for the top stop for me.

Dredd – Interesting story comes to an end, and I am sure that we will get more from this. It story feels like what is happening in politics as well where suddenly decisions are made which suites no one but a few and just does not make sense.

Brink – Well cannot wait for the last episode as the last panel turns everything on its head. Dan and Culbard has kept us in suspension for the last few months. This will even read better in its collected state.

Skip – A better episode than the last few weeks. The more interesting part of the story is the afterlife sections.

Sin/Dex – The last part work out quite well but the cost might be high for Dexter as Sinister closes on him. Hopefully Dan has a great wrap-up for us planned.

Jaegir – Another great visual treat as Atalia fights for survival. A like the last panel planting the seed for getting what she wants.

[norton canes]

A couple of wonderful tribute pages to the much-missed Alan Grant. 

So Mega-City One is now involved in a hostile stand-off with Brit-Cit? Okay, interesting twist, I'm sure we'll get to see how that plays out. Have to say that as a precursor, 'Special Relationship' didn't quite have the impact of a Block Mania, but I guess the ensuing dispute is going to be a bit more dirty and low-key.

Fantastic denouement to 'Malice in Plunderland', one of the best Sin-Dex stories in a long while. 'Ferox' adds some interesting revelations to the history of Nu-Earth - thematically this might be a Heart of Darkness re-tread but it's throwing plenty of other things into the mix. Loved the panels where the bio-wire is probing Atalia's, um, orifices - very creepy, shame there couldn't have been a bit of it on the slightly tame-by-comparison cover. 'Valhalla' takes a welcome opportunity to not feature much Nolan Blake. And 'Mercury Retrograde' has been great overall, no doubts at all it will stick the landing.

[Bad City Blue]

Dredd was confusing and mostly uninteresting though it had some good bits. A long wallow through politics and time jumping that just didn't float.

Dexter has been good though

Everything else skipped, especially Skip Tracer

[Tjm86]

So Mega-City One is now involved in a hostile stand-off with Brit-Cit? Okay, interesting twist, I'm sure we'll get to see how that plays out. Have to say that as a precursor, 'Special Relationship' didn't quite have the impact of a Block Mania, but I guess the ensuing dispute is going to be a bit more dirty and low-key.

Having gone back to re-read the previous tale that is supposed to lay the foundations for Special Relationship and re-read the tale again now that it is over I still find myself with plenty of questions. 

Certainly the time-jumping makes a bit more sense when it is all pulled together and read as a whole.  As individual episodes it didn't always work as well as perhaps Mr Williams hoped for from a readers' point of view.

I'm still trying to get my head around the 'hack' incident that is repeatedly referenced.  Is it in reference to the Mechanismo hack from the Hard Way tale?  Or in reference to the hacker farm of the opening episode that accessed footage showing the assassination of Brit-cit judges during that tale?  I feel like I've missed something else somewhere along the line.  :-/

Either way the narrative structure seems an awful lot of work for little payoff.  It doesn't really add to the overall experience.  If anything it detracts, adding complexity where it is not really needed.  Bit of a shame in some respects.

[broodblik]

It feels very much like the story is also more for a setup off what is to come and for future stories. We already know that Rob like's to play the long game as well.