2000 AD Online Forum

Thought I'd get in first with this for once (just got sent a complimentary copy - cheers btw).

SPOILERS



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Dredd - cracking finale to the story - really enjoyed this installent - plenty of foreshadowing of Cal's fate which  I liked. Love Higgins use of colour too.

Middenface - havent read it yet. I know a lot of people like it but it leaves me stone cold.

Darkies Mob - this is rubbish. ;o)

Slaine - again havent read it yet

Black Siddha - incredibly I loved this episode. After the turgid first 4 or so issues I was hating every minute of it to be frank - but this was hilarious & the story is really picking up. Pat Mills, please forgive this poor weak fools doubts...

Family - I really like this, but the monthly frequency really kills it because I can never remember whats going on by the time it comes around again.

Devlin - par for the course ie brilliant art and a cracking story. Again weakened by being 6 pages a mth but what the heck.

Text story - not read it yet.

Overall the Meg is on top form !



 

I am not Wolverine. I do not have a superfast mutant healing factor wotsit. In future, when out drinking, I am not to offer my hand as an ashtray.

Text story? Blagh! I never seem to read them, as they don't have pictures to help me :-s

I thought the history of British War Comics was meant to start this month?

Bounce !

Hehe. Sorry - just wanted another gratuitous gloat that I've read the Meg and no one else has. Usually I have to suffer listening to subscribers describing each weeks prog in tantalising detail 2 days before I get it from the newsagent, so revenge is sweet...

.....since you got me interested in darkies mob i shall spare you from the encyclopedia davetortica this time...

Of course the question you're angling for us to ask is 'Why the complimentary copy Marbles?'

so its not just me that ain't got it then? thanks for freaking me out there marbles with the early thread. saffin raffin.... etc

Well since you ask DXB ;o)...

Actually tbh all I did was supply a missing issue of 'Battle' which forms the colour page scans in this months 'DM'.

But what about the end of 'Monkey On My Back' eh ? Well I never.

No one likes a gloater....

And let the raving begin...

Dredd - Suddenly filled with fear that the Monkey might have ended up in Cal, which would have been truly awful, but a good ending. Made me keen to reread the whole story again, which is nice.

Apocalypse - I know how much flack I'll get for this but I found the language that was atributed to God quite offensive. There you go. I've said it. That said the story is interesting and the art lovely.

McNulty - This is really picking up steam, liking this a lot, especially the 'flashforward within the flash-back to the flash-back of what was the present future 20 years ago' moment.

Dakies Mob - This really is great stuff. What's a chindit though?

Slaine - This has picked up again but I hope whatever is reprinted next is a shorter tale. Unless they choose 'Verdus'. That'd be aces.

Black Siddhe - Funny, great to look at and interesting. I think the lengthy trial sequance was a mistake but otherwise this is a fine story. It deserves a second series just so we can have a story now the scene setting is coming to a close.

Family - Another one that is getting better as it goes on. Worth a re-read I think, I expect it will read better in one sitting.

Devlin Waugh - On the one hand this looks a treat and is as good as ever, on the other this really should have been told in bigger doses or in the weekly. Landis' return was nicely low-key, I think.

Not had to time to read the short story but Adrian Salmon art is always a treat.

Gordons bit made me laugh in the doctors waiting room, so that's both good and bad.

Don't like knowing how many parts there are to each tale in the listings. Spoils some of the surprise. If only I had the power to avoid things like that.

Overall, really enjoyed this a lot.

Yeah Marbles, what happened with this issue of Black Siddha???!!!

I thought the first episode showed great promise, then weeks of ummmm.... well, not a lot, then I found this snappy, alive, funny, exciting, scary.  What can I say?  Must have been on a slow burn, I can only hope it maintains this new found jazziness.

You've hit the nail on the head yet again PVS :)

The talking dog just cracked me up. Mebbe we misjudged this series in the sense that I read it ( and took it to be) a serious strip - perhaps if I re-read it from the start thinking of it as a comedy it will all slip into place ??

Either way Pat Mills on form is tough to beat.

I very much enjoyed the latest Meg, especially Dredd, Darkie and Devlin.

I'm increasingly less keen on Family, although I like the art. Hopefully my understand of the tale will improve on a full re-read.

I fiercely dislike Black Siddha, because very little seems to happen and the art doesn't work like it did on early SinDex.

I seem to recall saying all this about the last Meg, but what the hell.

Good comic, overall. 2000AD's better right now, but not by huge amounts.

- Trout

2000AD is much better, but that's really down to 2000AD being totally wonderful at the moment...

Anyway, it's the Megazine we're here (on this thread) to discuss:

Dredd:  Ah man this sucked.  I've never had anything against Ennis before.  But in my back-prog reading I'm currently going through Ennis' run & they are good stories (not as good as Wagner) but Dredd's kill-rate is unnatuarally high & his arrest-count is pretty much nil.
Ennis just writes Dredd wrong.  Sorry! I enjoyed ep.s 1 & 2, but Dredd killing that Judge Bleecker was out of order.  Dredd shot him out of anger & vengence at being given away, rather then because he was in danger.  Dredd only going to Chamber's funeral was wrong too - all or nothing Dredd; you owe more to the judges you needlessly killed.
I see no real reason for setting this story in 2099 either.  Hershey could have as easily filled the CJ role, and Cal did effectively nothing, and gave no new insights into his character.
Hey I enjoyed Helter Skelter, but it's Monkey/Back that has turned me into a Ennis-hater.

2000AD book club, 1 a month - wooo!
GR's bit: made me laugh (on the bus).

McNulty: enjoying this quite a bit.  I like Ridgway's art (GLOAT TIME: YAY I've got Dead Man ep2 p3 framed on my wall!)
I like the idea that someone's mutation could be 'too handsome'!

GOLD006:
Odd page-count.  I'm giving up on trying to pull these out to make a seperate collection now.

Darkie's Mob: still good fun, but I'm beginning to tire of this strip (it does get a bit repetative, any idea how long it's still got to run?)
Monkey, but no hat.

Sl?ine: same as it was in 1985.

Black Siddha: Still haven't read ep 2 yet.  I'll do it in one go after it's finished.
Family: confused by this one.  Another one to read in one go later.

Devlin: Fangtastic!

Okay, I've let it digest for a few days and.....

Dredd: I enjoyed this, even though I didn't buy Dredd shooting the Judge though the head, but the H-wagon was cool.

Apocalypse soon, is this re-print? Fun.

Young Middenface: Superb, I love Ridgeways art, and it is suited to this tale really well. Awesome shot of the fute army too.

Darkies mob: chindits, more like S***dits!

Slaine: That shot of Slaine facing off against the Mk3 looked lovely as part of 'O' level portfolio. Especially as it was life size!

Black Siddha: Better, but still not THAT good.

Family: Looking forward to the conclusion, so I cxan read it in one go. Think it will work much more that way.

Devlin: Lovely, but not enough of it.

Overall: 7.5/10

rotts

The Meg is really going downhill IMO. 2000AD is far stronger at the moment.

Dredd: Did not enjoy this story at all, sorry. Hated the re-imaging of the Judges Lawgivers and uniforms. Did not like that Chief Judge Goodman was drawn as a muscle bound freak where he should have been fairly slender and hated that the Cursed Earth seemed no more danfgerous than a trip to a theme park. The Cursed Earth has been getting more and more tame recently, but in this story set pre-Cursed Earth epic it should have been a bit more difficult for Dredd.

Darkies Mob: Grr....I hate this steaming pile of dog turd. Never been interested in WWII stories, even those written by Wagner. How much longer do we have to suffer this?

Family: Ok, but nothing that really grabs my interest.

Black Siddha: Hmm..not my cup of tea. Can't get into it.

Slaine: Not a big Slaine fan, except when it's drawn by Clint Langley. Still, this is better than 90% of the other stuff in the Meg at the moment.

Devlin: Great, but far too short. Think it's going to read better in one sitting once it's completed.

Young Middenface: Never a fan of the character. haven't read it yet, will do so when nothing better to do.

It's a sad day when the best thing in The Meg is a mediocre Slaine reprint.

Ya know as soon as I get my 200AD I read it cover to cover at once. But with the Meg for the past several months, apart from Dredd and Devlin, it usually takes 2-3 weeks to struggle though the rest of the stories. I really hope it's going to get better soon. 2002 was a good year for the Meg, but 2003 is turning out to be real bad so far.

HiEx

I find Family a hard-going read episodically but it works much better reading the whole lot (so far) in one go.

Dredd: Loved it, loved the art, thought the story was great.
Once again the Meg proves that its no longer the poor relation.
Never thought I'd say it ever, but I wouldn't mind another Ennis three parter.

La Placa Rifa,
W. R. Logan.

Was I the only saddo who got the Nighthawks painting reference in Family? Made me laugh.

Info Share!The Chindits were a long range British Battle group that worked in Burma, this is a bit of a slight on them.

Gathered together 'Darkies Mob' stories are very repetitive,very repetitive...

Most of the rest I agree with Oddboy comments

Isn't Devlin just one big long drawn out fight? If pat Mills had done this there would be postings galore...


Proudhuff

Guess who is a tad bored at work today...


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COVER: GAZE INTO THE FIST OF DREDD? or ...ONTO THE FIST OF DEVLIN? - very clever.


DREDD: MONKEY ON MY BACK
I am so disappointed with the ending to this -  I thought the first two parts were excellent. Maybe the fault is mine and I just didn't get the point of this story.  I don't recall early Dredd being as much of a git as this DREDD (shooting an unarmed Judge)  so unless there's another story to come showing how he mellowed slightly I thought this story ended poorly.  

I realise security procedures have to be lax for dramatic purposes but I think we could have come up with something more inventive than the Mega-City equivalent of "crashing a car through the window".  

I also didn't like DREDD shooting that poor Judge that IDd them - there was absolutely NO reason for it.  The guy had already radiod for help so it didn't gain DREDD anything. And reading the alert he broadcasts aloud takes a couple of seconds - plenty of time for DREDD to knock him out/disable without killing.  Again, I realise the point that Ennis was trying to make with this bit of action but it was poorly thought out and just made Dredd look stupid and vicious.

And the "Tough! Get Lost" dialogue rang untrue for me - a golden opportunity for a classy bit of dialogue missed.

On the plus side - Judges selflessly sacrificing themselves for the city they bully always makes for a fun dichotomy. I really liked the art. I loved those GUNBIRDS have we seen them before?) and I really loved the exchange between SLOCUM and CAL and the way it seemed that Slocum was egging on a weak Cal.  Made me kind of revise your thinking about what got CAL started on his path to lunacy and Slocum into his pickle.

I'd like to see another of these just with a better ending.


APOCALYPSE SOON
Didn't think this was going to have a plot - I assumed it was just going to be a series of mildly amusing one-pagers.


MIDDENFACE
Magnificent stuff. I get the impression that this is LOVINGLY written and drawn. I think the humour in this works better because it is a more serious story. The out and out comedy stories are often too broad.  I laughed out loud at SPIDER-DAN followed by "I've got ma lumps. And Gran says I'm a bad wee bastard". (Though I don't think Ridgeways Bonnie Charlie is handsome enough.)


FAMILY
Too late for me on this one. Don't care/know who anyone is.  I think I might reread it in one sitting and so if it improves for me.


DEVLIN
Bizarrelly, I'm enjoyng this extended chase/fight.  I like the fact that the heroes" are a bit crap and keep gettiung stuff wrong. Poor little children are get wholesale slaughter and abuse in 2000AD and the MEG these last few months.


DARKIE'S MOB
Just when I was getting bored with Darkie's mob beating up japanese every week, I thought it got a neat twist with the addition of the Chindit's and a trip to downtown Rangoon.  Sadly, not everyone seemed to think so - maybe nostalgia is a big factor of my enjoyment of this. The action with the tanks was great - if short. But where's the little fella's hat?  


SLAINE
Enjoyable nonsense - have I mentioned that I'm enjoying Pugh's artwork a lot more now than I did when it was first printed (and perversely enjoying Fabry's less).  I'm not sure who was responsible for the design work on the strip (esp. Cythrons and Orgots) but they deserve a big PAT on the back.


TEXT STORY
Sorry to say I didn't enjoy this. It was a great opportunity to take a swipe at favourite targets such as commercialism and consumer culture but I felt it managed to miss them completely (or maybe I was distracted by niggly things I felt were wrong).

The basic premise was too reminiscent of those vampire robots keeping Bad Bob Booth alive in the Cursed Earth episodes.  

I felt that the supermarket trolley dash scene was pointless and lacking tension ("Let's invent some random and illogical peril for our hero!").  

And I thought Dredd's dialogue - oh I know I'll call her FAT ASS - was unforgiveable. Does he go round calling people baldy, beanpole, slaphead, spotty? Probably and I've just missed him doing it but this jarred with me (probably because I've got a fat ass).

Also why make the big pictures that accompany the story all of DREDD -  we know what he looks like - why not use the art to expand upon the things we haven't seen before.


ROGUE TROOPER PROFILE
I found this (apart from that lovely Cam Kennedy picture) a bit pointless. I think I'd have preferred this more if it had some meat to it.  A few more quotes from editors and creators explaining the reasoning behind the different approaches to story would have helped flesh out the bones of prog numbers and shark jumping metaphores.  


BLACK SIDDHA
This was a fun episode and very different from anything else I see in print at the moment.  There's still an awful lot of talking and precious little action but for a change the dialogue is fairly sharp and funny and not just some yawnsome lecture.


Overall I'm  enjoying the MEG. I do like the breadth and depth of the stories and even though they occassionally hit a glitch, there's lots more peak than trough these days. A hearty well done to all droids concerned.

right random pish from me

nercronaughts gn yessssssssss

family: better read together ditto for devlin except i enjoy devlin more.

darkies mob: brilliant

slaine siddah and dredd shite of the highest order

oh odders do i get a point for the bishop text story as it is a story?

No:

Link: Rule 4.

right blah blah...

black siddah, this episode was more enjoyable than previous, i love the art, & want to like it , but so far Mr blokes pathetic sarcasm has been tedious & un-funny to the max. however the talking dog & the plot twists about his female wotsit being less that goodie goodie were funny. The other two are really creepy baddies, however...
can someone please explain to me in a karmic kali worshipping tantric voodoo sort of way why getting groped by the homeless guy, helped raise kundalini? and release them eating demony things. considering how long winded a certain writer usually is in patronising semi-mystical occult matters this does seem to have been rather glossed over or was it just meant to be a bit titillating ..arrff arrfff.

No idea, Bou. The Rakshasa demon thingies were already watching, though. Maybe it's some perverse take on a marriage / sacrifice? Maybe Rita's a Rakshasi who lures men to their doom? And how dare you knock Pat Mills for not lecturing ;)

Proudhuff: Spotted the nod to Edward Hopper too.

Heh! And couldn't read Monkey On My Back without being reminded of this.

Any idea why devlin, family and black siddha have been broken up so much. I really don't like it as it is hard to follow it from month to month. And I think it hurts them. I'd rather see 2 of the strips instead of all 3.

Do you think it was a financial decision? Have they been broken up this much, into 5-6 page strips before?

i enjoyed the meg overall this month.
i skipped slaine. its such dross.this particular tale.

dredd.
ummm ok.it tried to show background to dredd,which was a postive thing.but i dont think ennis should have been the one to decide that. not bad but for the me the art was way off. to childish,the uniforms where wrong. the badges looked naff.a differnt artist may have lent it more wieght for me personally.

family
i enjoy this. the whole mafia gangland style with scifi elements good.i think it fits nicely in the meg. .

Mc nulty
great as good as a potrait of a mutant. depoth and insight into where it all began and why. top stuff.great art and wonderul character build up.EXCELLENT

Black Siddha
very good. storng and with depth,humour and good background.i enjoy this every month.Mr mills good to welcome you back as a great scriptwriter again.

DEVLIN
 the high point of the meg. what standard. the pace awesome.the art outstanding.the whole tail. very enjoyable.

apoclypse
fun.makes me smile a little.good to see a return of a one page nonsense strip.

Darkies mob
its retro but still works.example of great writing and art work.i enjoy it . i never read the orignal comic i was a little to young.so i am enjoying this run.

the other stuff text stories and all good.

overall meg worth its money.i shal be renewing this subscription.

huff, there is at least one other saddo...

though I prefer this version

Tenuous link but anybody read Michael Connelly? he refers to this painting and 'the Garden of earthly delight a fair bit...

no comment...

 Hieronymus  Bosch, what a fantastic nutcase. I've not seen The Garden of Earthly Delight but I've seen some of his other paintings up close and they are absolutely packed with mentalist psychedelic detail. But what realy struck me as odd was his signature, which hes painstakingly painted in incredibly small, neat, tidy gothic script. Weird.

Hmmmmm, donuts....

Not only the painting but also the sparkplugs!
a real renaissance man...

what spark plugs ? what are you on aboot noo ?

>dredd.
ummm ok.it tried to show background to dredd,which was a postive thing.but i dont think ennis should have been the one to decide that. not bad but for the me the art was way off. to childish,the uniforms where wrong. the badges looked naff.a differnt artist may have lent it more wieght for me personally.

Cant please everyone, as for me I thought it was great. Loved the story, the art and the whole thing.

La Placa Rifa,
W. R. Logan.

Sorry, thought he said 'Bosch'

Deafhuff

Link: http://www.balnacra.com/Rally/sparkplug.gif