The Final Solution V Portrait of a Mutant - Bolt-01 Cup - Qualifying - Epic: Game 03
Some mad tough decisions percolating up ... for some this will be easy, for others... Games 3 and 4 from the Epic Region - these stories in Group 2
All you need do is vote for your favourite between:
The Final Solution - more info (https://www.denofgeek.com/books/strontium-dog-the-final-solution-review/)
Vs
Portrait of a Mutant - more info (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Strontium-Dog-Portrait-Alan-Grant/dp/1781081433)
Just reply in this thread naming your favourite of these two stories at the beginning of your post (or use Bold tags so I can spot it easy) and say what you like about these wonderful stories after that.
Match ends early on the morning of Saturday 31st July and the winner (I'll count up who gets the most votes basically) gets 3 points towards qualifying... huh...
... there's a spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1F3W5KkY37ZcH39J93nq5hR5_RhPIvaOapv7sZ0EmvUQ/edit?usp=sharing) to make following easier... if you fancy. If not, don't worry just VOTE!!!!
What on Earth is all this? (https://forums.2000ad.com/index.php?topic=47697.msg1064493#msg1064493)
Why (https://forums.2000ad.com/index.php?topic=47696.0) on Tharg's Earth head are we doing this?
Any questions, just ask as ever - and have FUN!
Portrait of a Mutant
I struggled to forgave Alan Grant to firstly killing Wulf but killing Alpha was too much...........
Two important Strontium Dog stories. Neither is a typical story. I suspect I like Portrait a lot less than a lot of others, but I'm not going to vote for the Final Solution, so Portrait it is.
Portrait of a Mutant for me too. Final solution is - well - it feels like the story started with the idea of killing Alpha and then worked backwards from there.
Portrait - my first full Stront story in the prog and still one of the best stories in the prgo, let alone Stront itself
Portrait for me
THWUP!
I do love to buck a trend, but that's not going to happen here. Portrait of a Mutant is probably the single best Stront story ever; but it's by some way the better story here specifically.
Final Solution is not the unmitigated disaster some would make it out to be, but boy does it have a lot of problems - foremost among those is sidelining the strip's lead for wannabe-star Feral (I know Grant's denied this was the intention, but when you read FS it's glaringly obvious - Feral gets the first and only splash pages in the strip's history, and they're very much 'How cool is this guy?!', not to mention the only non-Johnny first-person narration). I don't like the Lyrans, I don't like how the story treated Billy Glum, I don't like that it was a nondescript monster that finally killed Johnny, I don't like how rushed (and yet simultaneously long-winded) it feels. And I don't much like Feral.
None of which was helped by it being broken up in the original publishing schedule - with The Ragnarok Job - Smiley's World - Rage saga, it was a 43 episode run over 44 weeks. The Final Solution was a 29 episode run over 88 weeks (with four breaks).
What I did love about TFS was the art: both Simon Harrison and Colin MacNeil's work.
Quote from: Dark Jimbo on 28 July, 2021, 05:24:05 PM
I do love to buck a trend, but that's not going to happen here.
Fear not, Dark Jimbo, your local friendly buck-trender is here. :)
The Final Solution gets my vote, and paradoxically for some of the reasons that you mentioned. I really liked Feral. (I even went through a stage of pinning badges on me jacket like he did, lol.) He remains one of my favourite 'Tooth supporting characters. I also thought that the Lyrans were really creepy and that the monster was scarily horrible as well. And those panels by Colin MacNeil depicting Johnny's blindness and subsequent demise...well...they still make me shudder...
The main downside for me - aside from Johnny's demise, of course! - was the fragmented and stretched out publication of the story.
Portrait of a Mutant, an easy vote for me. I really like Dark Jimbos comments, I'd echo something similar.
The hilight of the final solution is MacNeil's coloured artwork. As I've stated elsewhere, his art is second only to Carlos for me. Don't like the monster that killed Johnny, but those paintings are beautiful!
And I hate Feral. He got his comeuppance in the Life and Death of Johnny Alpha, and thats nothing to thumb your nose at ;)
No fair! I love the Final Solution - well, the first big chunk or so - and would've voted for it against almost any other story. But Portrait is just something else. Boys Own adventures at their finest, and with some searing indictments real world at the same time. Of all potential futures for Britain, this one seems scarily plausible, exotically the bigotry.
Portrait of a Mutant all the way.
In all honesty putting anything up against Portrait of a Mutant was going to be a challenge. Just like with Dredd and the Apocalypse War. Portrait is probably one of the strongest Stront stories going, not to mention being at the height of Ezquerra's Tooth work [consider his epic run on Dredd, Stront work and Stanilus [sic] Steel Rat work.
Harrison's artwork on Final Solution is so stylistically different it is hard to compare. Macneil's coda does help a bit in terms of comparison but they are worlds apart. That is not to decry Harrison's work. Arguably there is some interesting stuff there.
Overall though, arguing that there is just too much in FS is, I think, a valid point. There are so many nods to earlier stories it is hard to keep up even for a seasoned reader. I think Dark Jimbo makes a good point in terms of pacing. Perhaps it is these issues, a bit like a homage to everything that has gone before but in such a way that it doesn't quite hang together properly.
I guess this is kind of a long winded way of stating the obvious: Portrait of a Mutant.
No contest again- Portrait by very many country miles.
I suspect I like Final Solution a whole lot more than most, but up against Portrait of a Mutant? No chance.
Portrait of a Mutant
I am going with Final Solution. What can I say? I liked Feral.
Haha. This should be the final really. Portrait of a Mutant is obviously amazing and will rightly get a lot of votes.
However, for showcasing the best art that has ever appeared in 2000AD, my vote goes to The Final Solution.
And The Final Solution is fighting back and picking up a decent number of votes, can it create another great shock? Well get your votes in today as we'll know by the morning as I count this one up first thing tomorrow.
My vote. Well ask me a few years ago and this might have been closer, I loved The Final Solution and like Cosh adore the art. That said, two things, on my recent re-read I found Final Solution didn't hold up to my memories of it. And second Portrait of a Mutant is in my top three all time Strontium Dog stories so on that basis:
Portrait of a Mutant
I was reading the prog when Portrait of a Mutant came out, but I was way too young to appreciate it. I was just the right age when The Final Solution was published. I liked Simon Harrison's artwork and I liked Feral - the Milton Keynes scenes were amazing. Colin McNeil was, of course, brilliant on it too, and managed to add a very blatant and barely-disguised F-word in the background graffiti. I even loved that Johnny [spoiler]died[/spoiler] and wish they hadn't undone such a powerful scene.
Final Solution for me then.
Quote from: Funt Solo on 28 July, 2021, 04:29:59 PM
THWUP!
Just in case I wasn't being clear - that's me voting for
Portrait of a Mutant, without which ... really, rather a lot of the saga.
Portrait of a Mutant - this pre-dated my first Prog and when I picked up a back Prog containing an episode of this I knew I had to have the lot. Expert world building and lots of people saying 'Sneck'and'sneckers'.
VOTING CLOSED
This one was always going to go one way but it was fascinating to watch the love for Final Solution a thrill that divides fans but has passionate advocates. So it wasn't all one way traffic. That said the winner is one of the most important foundation stones in Strontium Dog so its little surprise that:
Portrait of a Mutant
takes this one.
Portrait of a Mutant 3 10
Max Bubba 0 0
The Bitch 0 0
Final Solution 0 -10