Prog 1446: Anyone else got a complaint?

[Dudley]

http://www.2000adonline.com/covers/2000ad/mediumres/1446.jpg">

In order, "meh" to Shakara:

Dredd: Starts with Vienna's arse and continues to just be arse in general.  What a disappointing turn Rennie's given the Vienna character - dull, lazy, pointless.  Clooney become Vin Diesel again.  Ho hum.

Sin/Dex: Actually, it's pretty good.  But something had to come fourth.  Belgian detective now comprehensible, thanks to the Amstor Computer's superior linguistic programme.

Atavar: Great stuff.  Nothing else in 2000AD has ever worked on this kind of scale.  Well, Soul gun Warrior did.  But that was a bit rubbish.  Whereas this is great stuff.  Liking the strong primaries more and more each week.

Cabbielistics:  Superb.  Great to see that Demon Jen's going up against a bigger foe - even though she'll probably make mincemeat of them.

Shakara: Shakara!

[Funt Solo]

Summary:  

There's nothing new in the prog at the moment: in terms of characters, that is.  The most original thing is Shakara, just by dint of it being a totally new approach to the story.  Atavar's wandering about tackling ultimate threats to the Universe, Dredd is fighting the Sov menace, Caballistics are shooting demons in short, easy-to-digest story arcs that lead nowhere and Sin Dex are (shock horror) in a spot of bother again.

Nothing to see here!  Move along!

In order, least thrillworthy to most zarjaz:

Atavar XV:  Revenge Of The Characterless Enigma Bio-Mech-Robo-Zombies From Alternity 27
Who cares who wins, despite how well it's presented?

Paganillistics
Giant spear through the unfortunate policeman only good thing about this samey samey strip.  Why don't Chapter, Verse & Rupert The Bear just shoot Ravne:  he's got no redeeming features.

Judge Dredd
Some frames stunning, most frames dull.  I do not want to see contemporary film and television stars populating MC-1.  It's a cheap trick, and it's distracting.  The plot I'm finding really exciting, but the art is so distracting that it's sucking the thrill from the strip.

Sinister Dexter
It's a good laugh:  and that train with the funny little gun-pods on the mechano extendo-arms is great fun.

Shakara
I just love this:  favourite bit is the frame of the Blitzspear [ahem] ramming into that fisty-dude and de-fleshing him.  Very O'Neill.

[GermanAndy]

Dredd: Poor Vienna, we knew her only so short a time :-) (She is toast, or?)

Sin/Dex: I know I am in minority here, but there is something about Davis? art in general which doesn?t appeal to me. Ah, well, can?t love them all.

Shakara: Flint on the other hand ... ;-)))

Avatar: I read it when it is complete. I have absolutly forgotten the content of the first episodes and have to re-read them first. But the art sure is great.

Cabs: Broadsword to Danny Boy ... Lol. you gotta love Rennie. Okay, this installment isn?t particulary deep, but it is fun nonetheless. Oh, and anyone else thought that Absolam is a fun take on Warren Ellis? trademark disgruntled cops with an attitude? Nice bloke. I?d rather had a date with Jenny :-))

[judge dreddd]

overall, i liked it, the 'i totally love myself' intro by tharg made me grin, thought all stories ok,except the one i skipped...shakara or whatever it is called is difficult to understand sometimes, the other story i skipped

ok prog i thought..though bemused that the front cover wasnt a panel in a story

[Artificial Idiot]

Atavar, not reading it any more. Skim over the gorgeous Richard Elson art, then leave it be. Story isn't worth while... That might just be because I haven't read the other two, but somehow I doubt that.

I've been on and off with Dredd, I'll admit. But now I'm only just really starting to get into the story and enjoying it, but I'm finding I have to ignore the art for the most part. I am glad Pasha is back to being Vin Diesel though... Any more Clooney and I'd have had to resort to vandalising my progs with a pair of scissors...

Cabs is great! Really enjoying it! I've never noticed this before, but Dom's page layouts are just excellent! Very inventive Definatly a very inventive use of layout, and i'm loving the scipt and art in general too. Anybody who doesn't like this doesn't know they've been born!

Shakara! About sums my feeling up for that strip too! The ship running into Fist and deboning him? Gorgeous! Can't wait for the infinate killing spree of the dimension women!

[Dudley]

Forgot to say, the cover is one of the best for a while.

[Carlsborg Expert]

The only way an epic is interesting to you lot seems to be where we have this consistant Cursed Earth scenario, where its;Different Town/different story,style.So the charactors are changing each week and is infact different Dreddtales tied together to make one huge story with a bit of clever editing.

Other than mewling for long war epics, you get bored when the scene changes too slow.But Im yet to read this weeks.So dont take me to be a pedant.Please.

[Funt Solo]

Now that's a shiny bit of bait.  I can't be arsed biting and chewing so I'll just take a nibble:  you're way off target.

[JTurner]

I'm glad I renewed my subscription, I'm starting to enjoy things again.

Dredd isn't bad, and it's nice to things taking a new direction. This story seems to be gearing up to being important in the whole  scheme of things all things Dredd, and to be honest this whole celebrity thing went totally past me without registering.

Atavar and Shakara are easily the best space fantasy stories in tooth for ages, loving them both, particularly for the art. I wasnt planning on attending Dreddcon again, but I know Mr Flint'll be there and I really must have some of those pages for my wall.

Cabalistics, usually my favourite, feels like it's treading water.

SinDex feels like an mighty thrill packed explosion of new potential waiting to burst that may well just turn into another monumental fart leaving us all feeling a bit sick. Time will tell.

[Carlsborg Expert]

Im sorry, Im only tring to get someone to explain to me the ins and out of a progressive Epics debate so Ill post it on the Epics thread where you may feel inclined to go into more detail.

Er.Yeah for threadspace I am way off target.

[Carlsborg Expert]

By the way,that tha kinda Dwidd dessign im tolkien abaadt!
All pads,less humanity.

Grewthom!

[Keef Monkey]

Great prog I thought, with lots of laugh out loud moments. Weakest thing is Atavar, even though I loved the first two, this one seems like it's all gone a bit mental, but maybe will right itself soon. Droid Life wasn't as funny as usual, but the Poirot dude in Sin/Dex made me laugh heartily this week(last week he just annoyed me),rules that Kal can put his hand on silencer by saying hush. The death of Fist was hilarious, from his trim off the top to being hit by a spaceship. Awesome. Caballistics was oozing atmosphere like usual with a couple of great lines and it was all wrapped in a really really really nice cover. Oh, and this was the first Dredd episode where I didn't think about the fact it was Clooney, and I like the fact every piece of expositional dialogue in this series has taken place during a fight.

[Thursday]

Cover: Very nice.  

Dredd: Well, it's all kicking off now.  Personally I hope Vienna survives whatever unholy fracas is about to break out, 'cos I *really* want to see what her reaction to all this will be. I mean, she already dislikes Dredd, how much worse will it be now?  Her best friends have been killed and she's been betrayed by the bloke she loves, all because of her Uncle Joe.  I'd also like to see how Dredd would deal with the huge Achilles' heel she represents.

That said, I'd also like to see what Dredd's reaction would be if Vienna was killed to get to him, especially given how he reacted to her injury at the end of the Total War arc.

Atavar: The return of the zombified Worldbreaker was cool, so it was a little dissapointing to see him/it dispatched so quickly.  Ah well, maybe he'll be back.  The end was promising; Atavar and the Binod fleet heading off to hijack an army of UOS to fight off galactic zombies... should be good for some serious shootydeathkill action.

I can't help feeling this is all going to end badly, though; last time Atavar was being relied upon to save the galaxy he failed utterly (end of book one) which actually made a nice change from the typical last-ditch attempt, good guys win, home in time for tea and crumpets denouement.  I wouldn't put money on this having a happy ending.

Shakara: Heh heh... lovely.  Laughed out loud at Fist's demise.  Nice.  Can't wait to see where this is going, 'cos I doubt it'll be as straightforward as 'Shakara wins, assassins lose, status quo is returned'.

Sin/Dex: Some nice plot development, less Poirot, possibly cloned hitmen, and it's good to see Kal having the limelight at last.  (One thing though... given how high-tech his gun-hand must be, does anyone else think it's odd that he has to speak to activate it?  What if he's gagged?).  

Caballistics: Nice.  Big demony thingies hacking people to bits is always good for a laugh, but the highlight has to be the detective tracking Jenny.  Does anyone else think he looks like the illegally cloned bastard offspring of Einstein and Columbo?  No?  Just me, then.  I loved the implication that there's a police department that knows about weird crap like that and is fully prepared to deal with it.  Fully expecting big things from this in the future.

A fine prog overall; decent stories that set the stage for even bigger+better things next week.  Bring it on, I say.

[McNulty]

And now to my comments...

Dredd: This is gearing up to a great conclusion. Both sides are being brought together and we know someone is going to die. But the question is who? Rico, Giant, Guthrie, Vienna??? I can't wait for next week's episode. Oh, I did miss something. Who is the third Judge in the first frame of the last page, the one riding with Giant and Guthrie? I first thought it was Rico, but he is taking another route to Tanna.

Sin/Dex: It's been hard to get into reading this story because of the different time frames and the atrocious Belgian accent. I don't know why the time jumping has gone this way, perhaps following Mr Tarrantino's penchant for this in his films? It's just confusing.

Shakara: Brillant again. It really had to be fist that bought the farm first didn't it! He was just the muscle in this assasination. But to be fair, he did last longer than I expected (Most beings would have died after having their heads cut in to, and it did take getting hit by Shakara's ship to finally finish Fist off!)

Avatar III: I never really got into this series of Avatar.

Caballistics Inc: I don't like this story and I don't like this art. That's just how I feel. But that is not to say that other readers don't enjoy it.

Droid Life: I think the Mighty One is going to have to review his policy on allowing long-haired students into the Nerve Centre. It's only going to lead to descent in the ranks of the droids. (and what do droids need a kettle for anyway???)

Anyway, the stand-outs in this week's prog are definately Dredd and Shakara!

[Endjinn]

For record, I know Rennie said he was gonna kill off a significant player in Dredd, and I know it looks like a major face-off is coming, but we're all talking as if it's a given that someone ifs buying the farm in Blood Trails.

Do we actually know for sure someone is getting it in this story?