Prog 1693 - Aces High

[Batman's Superior Cousin]

Cover- I like it. Who is the manga girl on the left though? (Quite unusual considering the realism employed in depicting the other characters.)

Carrie Hosanna's robotic (à la the T-1000 from Terminator 2: Judgement Day(I forgotten her name)) partner/friend/bodyguard/surrogate daughter who likes ice-cream.

EDIT

She's a Mangapore robot bodyguard/assassin thing, and thus she's meant to look like that.  I'm sure she'll be along next week.

Oh bugger, too slow!!! Damn my slowness!!!!

[radiator]

I was perfectly happy with the flashbacks - theres a lot of character developemnt you can do within these - i think Traitor to his kind in particular hit a rich thread of what you can do to show your flashback hero in a different/interesting light.

I just read Traitor... for the first time the other day, and while I enjoyed it, I don't agree.

It doesn't really do anything with the characters that we haven't seen before, but what irks me is that despite all the goings on with the government and Kreelers, we already know how that turns out so there's never any sense of drama. The kidnap of Clarkie and the situation with Billy Glum has little tension because we know how and when they both ultimately die...

It's like when another writer is on Dredd - as good as the stories can be, we know nothing too big or dramatic is going to happen so the scope for stories is a bit limited.

[Van Dom]

Only read Dredd, Stront and Sin/Dex so far. Nothing to do with not liking Savage or Red Seas, I do, but the former three are the only ones I'm up to date on.

Dredd was great but it was a bit too neat of an ending, and a bit too sudden as well. I was kind of expecting it to run just a little bit longer. But no harm done, it was still a great story and I'm hoping there will be some epilogues to it that will run for quite some time.

Sin/Dex -- yay!!! I'm in the "love it" camp for this strip and this looks great so far, loving the set up. I just hope hope HOPE we get some actual forward momentum on the main story arc this time --- and more than 8 or 9 consecutive episodes before another 6 month break would be nice as well....


Stront - God. I find it really hard to write this but I am not enjoying this at all. None of it makes sense to me. I really cant see the point of this story at all. Don't like them rewriting history, dont like them changing Feral, dont like the possibility that Johnny is alive and hiding out somewhere. What was so wrong with the "lost tales" anyway. I was really enjoying them. But, yes, this is Wagner, and he seldom, if ever, disappoints, so I guess...just hang in there and maybe I will end up pleasantly surprised. As it stands right now though.....don't like.

[DrJomster]

For someone like me who was "taking a break" from the comic for a decade or two this has been a very interesting thread on the whole Ho Gan situation.

The prog has just been great of late and makes me a happy subscriber indeed! Dredd and SD are superb, and even Savage and SinDex are winning me over more and more as time goes by. 2000AD is a national treasure and one I'm glad to support.

Liked the SinDex cover too. Thought that worked really well. More please!

[TordelBack]

Oh bugger, too slow!!! Damn my slowness!!!!

Nah, your answer was better.

[Robin Low]

The kidnap of Clarkie and the situation with Billy Glum has little tension because we know how and when they both ultimately die...

When did Clarkie die? My last memory of him is being forced to abdicate after marrying the duck.

Regards

Robin

[Leigh S]

I was perfectly happy with the flashbacks - theres a lot of character developemnt you can do within these - i think Traitor to his kind in particular hit a rich thread of what you can do to show your flashback hero in a different/interesting light.

I just read Traitor... for the first time the other day, and while I enjoyed it, I don't agree.

It doesn't really do anything with the characters that we haven't seen before, but what irks me is that despite all the goings on with the government and Kreelers, we already know how that turns out so there's never any sense of drama. The kidnap of Clarkie and the situation with Billy Glum has little tension because we know how and when they both ultimately die...

It's like when another writer is on Dredd - as good as the stories can be, we know nothing too big or dramatic is going to happen so the scope for stories is a bit limited.

I dunno - having Alpha on the "wrong side" of the mutant cause seemed pretty new - him having to juggle teh various factions wasnt anything that I can recall from "classic Stront. Just knowing if a character is going to die is only a tiny little option shut off for me.  An option that I barely think is going to be an option anyway.  When we saw Alpha's falling out with Glum,  I "knew" that he must make up with him at some point, but for a brief period, the question was how are we going to get there. Sadly, the thread was immediately resolved in the next tale, but the ability to put a fresh twist on things, to create conflicts that, while you might know ultimately the outcome its how how that outcome ever came to be, is I think a perfectly legitimate way to develop character after the event. You could say that will only appeal to the die hard fan, but then, its only the die hard fan that knows about Glum and Alphas relationship in the first place.  Plus theres Johnnys (other?) half brother stalking about - whatever happened to him.
Theres a rich seam of things hardly touched upon in the original run - for example Alphas sister Ruth - theres a tale there either set pre 2180, or post 2185 that could tug the heart strings.  AS I say, if you create interesting characters we've never seen before, or put Alpha into character building dilemmas, its going to be more rewarding than a shoot em up where the tension is all about the fight and the pretend threat to their person.  If anyhting, it should lead to more interesting stories where that old chestnut isnt much worth botheirng with.

[I, Cosh]

What Leigh said about the flashbacks and what Tordelback said originally about the current story. I didn't like the distancing narration in The Kreeler Conspiracy and I don't like it here. However, I'm surprised none of you boys (or girls) have twigged that the reason Feral looks nothing like Feral is because he's actually Johnny, occupying Feral's old body like Xen the Brainwraith.

Failing that, a good ending would be for them to find Johnny still alive and then see him die for real.

Tour of Duty wrapped up very well I thought. Plenty more to come, but time for a few weeks of Big Meg madness now.

[maryanddavid]

One of my favourite Dredd arcs ever, only quibble is that PJ is still alive, sill Id be dissapointed if he was bumped off too.
Stronty is running out of steam a little, but I have faith in Wagner, its going to be grrreat!

Din/Dex, im in the liking it camp, and this is solid and enjoyable, Williams was not an artist I liked, I associated him with a lot of bad strips, but he is coming into his own on this, the art and colouring is great.

Red Seas and Savage are ticking along nicely, great art on both too. Another good Prog.

David

[Richmond Clements]

Then Ennis fecked it up.

Not really fair- Wagner asked Ennis to bring the character back from the (then) new Megazine, so it'd be more accurate to blame Wagner for Chopper's return.

[TordelBack]

In this week's Sin Dex, the Reef is described as "adrift 200 kloms off the eastern limits of Downlode".  Does this place it somewhere in the Black Sea?

[radiator]

When did Clarkie die? My last memory of him is being forced to abdicate after marrying the duck.

Having looked it up, it seems I was thinking of King Knobby, who was gunned down by Sagan's men in The Final Solution.

When we saw Alpha's falling out with Glum,  I "knew" that he must make up with him at some point

Exactly my point - all the major events (and not just character's deaths) are already set in stone. Wagner either has to keep hitting the reset button at the end of big storylines, or he has to keep creating new characters that were conveniently never mentioned in the original run (Nelson Bunker). The flashback stories are fine for a while, but I feel they're constricted and I find it hard to get really involved in them. Obviously it bothers me a lot more than others. 

[Dark Jimbo]

Personally I'm finding Stront one of the most interesting (if not necessarily exciting) outings in a loooooong while, just because the events actually seem to matter for once. Johnny dead, Johnny alive, whatever happens I'm much preferring a narrative that's not 'flashback' or ill-defined 'retcon' for once. I think it'd be a criminal shame if we went back to those vague, fun but mildly pointless flashbacks after bringing events up to speed again.

[radiator]

It seems that McMulty's excessive drinking has been focused on a lot so far in this story, and I'm wondering if Wagner is going to use this unreliability to cast doubt over some of Middenface's memories of earlier events so he can rewrite things....?

[Colin YNWA]

It seems that McMulty's excessive drinking has been focused on a lot so far in this story, and I'm wondering if Wagner is going to use this unreliability to cast doubt over some of Middenface's memories of earlier events so he can rewrite things....?

I think (though based on nowt) its just that McNulty has always been portrayed as a drinker and now he's at a loose end and wallowing its that much worse.