Prog 2286 City Heat!

[Magnetica]

An Honest Man wraps up well. I won’t say anymore to avoid spoilers.

Hope has become something I read but don’t take in.

Skip Tracer is back. And I’m actually ok with that. Nolan is looking older but it has a similar feel to before. For those that aren’t keen on it, the good news is, it’s the last series.

There is another Terror Tale, and as with last week’s and the Future Shock the week before, it does nothing for me.

Brink is the best thing in the Prog. And the moment I have been waiting for, for a few weeks has arrived: we get a glimpse of Kurtis. Hopefully she will be properly in next week’s episode.

[IndigoPrime]

A really striking Dredd cover and an amusingly silly Droid Life, and then we’re into Dredd. This is tier-one Dredd, in every sense. Tension and acting. Dredd sounding and acting like Dredd. Intrigue. Superb art. And it ends well and suitably. I’d happily see Niemend/Foster on a much longer Dredd run to see what they can do, because this was superb.

Hope is weird and very much NSFW (nor kids) and very creepy. Skip Tracer starts well and I hope it manages to sustain this quality. (I actually care about the protagonists. Possible ‘father of young daughter’ thing creeping in here.)

Terror Tales… well. After weeks of grumbling about Tomlinson, this one did hit home. It’s nothing supremely original, but it had character and pace, a creepy vibe and a solid internal logic. And then Brink gets nasty for a bit while having another intriguing reveal (in terms of plot lines coming together) on the final page.

An uptick on last week, then, but I’m sad to see that Dredd run end.

Dredd > Brink > Terror Tales > Skip Tracer > Hope

[Richard]

I thought Hope was very good this week. What's not to understand in this episode?

Dredd ended very well. Normally I wouldn't like a cliffhanger ending but it works really well here and is possibly the best way it could have ended.

Really liked this week's Droid Life.

[broodblik]

Cover by Steven Austin:

[broodblik]

Cover and Logo:

[Colin YNWA]

Well the cover is decent, but that tagline is a bit random isn't it... unless I'm missing something?

Anyway Dredd itself remains and ends magnificently. Its tense and sharp and leaves us hanging a little. Someone said we were expecting three Asher stories and so it seems. Wonderful, just wonderful. Just don't make the mistake I did and flick through your Prog. Dive straight in.

Hope is so dark and grim, but no less wonderful. Creepy as chuff this one.

Skip Tracer I mean its done this before, its lulled me into hope, but this is a decent start. We'll see.

Terror Tales. I mean ... well... the art is nice.

I wonder how many stories John Tomlinson has in... we need something different in the one-offs as these are grinding now. It feels like an age ago we had that astonish mouse tale. Come on Tharg make me excited to see these again.

Then we have Brink and all is well with the world. Exciting cameo at the end, but this has developed into so much more in building on what's gone before. Just love it.

So this is actually a decent Prog. 3 great thrills, one decent and one clunker. Its only the quality of late that makes this one feel below par. In many an era this would have been a fine Prog.

[JayzusB.Christ]

Well the cover is decent, but that tagline is a bit random isn't it... unless I'm missing something?

Well, it's a picture of a city and a cop, so it makes sense to me. Haven't read the prog yet but I've been absorbed by that cover.  It's incredible in its detail, and makes me realise just how much work artists put into their prog material.

[Richard]

My wife, who has less than zero interest in comics as a medium, actually commented on that very cover to say how weathered Dredd looks and that it suits him (she's seen the 2012 film).

It's quite a striking image, and I'm glad Tharg resisted his customary inclination to clutter up the cover with too much text.

[broodblik]

Another not too bad prog with a few thrills that stutters and 3 excellent stories.

Dredd – Good ending to the story. We can have another arc if the creative team feels like it, but it ended in a satisfactory way. The whole arc read like an old Wagner classic. Top notch.

Hope – The creepy and macabre continues. Where will the next twist of horror come from? I am enjoying this arc although it feels a tad bit stretched out.

Skipper – A solid start to the last or grand finale of the series. Will have to see how the team finish of the long running story of the forums most “eligible bachelor”.

Terror – Another tale which frankly just felt average. A short in the prog is more than just a filler it is the arena to display new talent and give them an opportunity to grow. If we can have these shorts is the idea not to have new talent on display.

Brink – The story continues to start connecting the dots from the previous arcs, but Abnett still like to keep his cards close to his chest. Intriguing story as always.

[Barrington Boots]

I really like the cover.

Excellent Dredd - both not the ending I expected and also sort of is. There's possibility of more but ending this arc here seems apt and as Broodblik says, has a real echo of an old school downer Wagner about it. Superb stuff.

I was unjustly harsh on Hope on last weeks Prog thread so I took the time to re-read the story before this weeks. I still think this is a beautifully drawn tale with some pretty dismal storytelling - the last two episodes have greatly improved things, but the muddled build means this weeks reveal has no impact because even though I just re-read the whole story I still don't really have much idea who these people are. For me it feels all style over substance but would love to be proved wrong!

Skip Tracer Another where I'd like to be proved wrong. It's hard to shake the baggage of all that's come before, but this is an inoffensive start with nice art and an Aliens reference.

Terror Tales didn't really click for me beyond the art. The image of the guy in the duct is excellently grisly.

Brink continues to be Brink. That's a good thing in my book. I think we know what has just happened, but not what will happen next.

For me then, a great start and end with a lull in the middle for this issue but still enjoyable overall.

[Leigh S]

The Dredd is no boubt, well done, but its far from being some lost classic dropped through a wormhole.

Fosters art is a decent Cliff Robinson rather than Bolland -  a copy of a copy.  When the original is so good then you get decent results, but theres still some shonky stuff - the lack of strng design work on clothing and vehicles could be said to mirror Bolland somewhat, but its to another degree(the Lawmasters look very odd).

Similarly, while it resembles a good Wagner strip interms of the broad stroikes, it still has a few indicators that we arent dealing with a perfect reproduction

The plot is made overly convoluted and overly explained.  Asher left the key with the other judge, but if Dredd didnt turn up,the Cartel turning up again to complicate things would have found it, making his plan seem very dumb and unnecessary - Wagner elegance and brevity is not really on show here

The dialogue still remains over written - Dredd in the second panel, saying the same thing three times.  Dredd on 4th page explaining how to do a manhunt to Control.

The bike explaining whats on screen more blatantly than the 13th Doctor.

Don;t get me wrong, I enjoy The Neimand Dredds more than other writers, but I'm not going to ever agree its flawless recreation of bygone times.

Brink is good, the Terror Tale was readable, and always good to see Stewart K Moore in there (shame it isnt Defoe - thanks, Magaverse for that!)

Hope isnt the sort of story I want from the prog and neither is (for precisely the opposte reasons) Skip Tracer.

[Barrington Boots]

Very fair comments Leigh and I agree. I think it's got an echo of old classics, but it's not a long-lost classic. It certainly shows it's influences both in art and story.

[IndigoPrime]

I dunno. You can tear any strip back to its fundamentals and find things wrong with it. Personally, I found this run more Wagner than The Citadel – and that one was written by Wagner.

[norton canes]

'An Honest Man' ends so well - not so much a cliff-hanger as a 'hanging in the air'. I love that sort of finely-poised 'Italian Job' type ending which leaves so much unresolved. Seems like a small thing but props to Tom Foster for not adding a ton of CG blur to the H-vehicle as it plummets into the ground - I hate artificial blur and would rather see the thing drawn properly even though it is a freeze-frame of a split second. Also, from the script side, I have to say the continual omission of short words like pronouns from the start of sentences does, while making the dialogue appropriately terse and grim, does get a bit wearing and sometimes makes those sentences hard to parse...

Though the scene-setting first half dozen or so instalments of Hope did maybe get a bit repetitive it's now totally blossomed and I have to say, I can't think of a single reason not to love this week's episode. The Future Shock is about as good as one could expect, I guess, given the dated formula. Brink just doesn't let up, it's so intense - for the last couple of weeks I've actually read the other four strips and come back to Brink later because I know it's going to take as much time again just to get through its five dialogue-rich pages. Skip Tracer, by comparison, I'm through in a few seconds - there's nothing especially bad about this week's first instalment but there's just no substance to it. Kudos to the Marshall/Teague combo, that's a nice opening page.

[broodblik]

B/W Cover: