Sponsored by 2000ad in Stages (https://2kstages.github.io/index.html) - see links below.
Nemesis the Warlock - more info (https://2kstages.github.io/AtoZ/Nemesis/books.html)
VS
Lawless - more info (https://2kstages.github.io/AtoZ/Lawless/data.html)
3rd place play-off are normally a drab affair tucked anyway shame faced before the final. No one is really caring, no one is really paying attention. Heck many football tournaments have done away with them. This one however is more Olympian in its ambition. This one feels like there is a LOT to play for. Nemesis is bruised after its shock defeat to Dante. Lawless is fighting for the honour of the Meg. This one is hot and both thrills will want that bronze medal badly. After all, they always say 4th is the worst place to come... I mean it's not not, going out in Round 1 is quite clearly worse, but it stokes up the drama!
Form book - Thrills vanquished to date (in order of round met earliest to latest):
Nemesis: Bison; Indigo Prime; Defoe; Insurrection; Zenith; Kingdom; terrible defeat
Lawless: Samizdat Squad; Chimpsky's Law; Mazeworld; Thistlebone; Firekind; Brink; crushed by favourite
3rd place play-off - I'd like to pretend this is to give these epic thrills more space and time to be commented on AND I think we'll allow them an extra day to run as only two ties all week. So to make sure everyone gets the chance we'll wrap up on... well I'll come to that.
To Vote Just reply in this thread naming your favourite thrill of these two series at the beginning of your post (or use Bold tags so I can spot it easily) and say what you like about these wonderful stories after that.
Match ends early on the morning of Friday 16th September and the winner gets a place in the Semi Finals.
What on Earth is ALL of this? (https://forums.2000ad.com/index.php?topic=48011.0)
For those that need 'um and can be bothered to follow 'um there's some simple rules (https://forums.2000ad.com/index.php?topic=48011.msg1070150#msg1070150)
Any questions, just ask as ever - and have FUN!
Lawless
Lawless
Lawless
Early voting, early voting... mustn't get my hopes up...
Quote from: Colin YNWA on 12 September, 2022, 07:35:54 AM
Early voting, early voting... mustn't get my hopes up...
The Nemesis voters like to sleep late and thus only vote quite late
Nemesis.
Quote from: broodblik on 12 September, 2022, 07:43:58 AM
Quote from: Colin YNWA on 12 September, 2022, 07:35:54 AM
Early voting, early voting... mustn't get my hopes up...
The Nemesis voters like to sleep late and thus only vote quite late
Seriously they do. In both the Dante and Zenith votes Nemesis voter held their powder and sent a volley of votes towards the end. it has to be said they know how to play the drama!
Lawless.
Nemesis.
Quote from: Colin YNWA on 12 September, 2022, 08:08:55 AM
Quote from: broodblik on 12 September, 2022, 07:43:58 AM
Quote from: Colin YNWA on 12 September, 2022, 07:35:54 AM
Early voting, early voting... mustn't get my hopes up...
The Nemesis voters like to sleep late and thus only vote quite late
Seriously they do. In both the Dante and Zenith votes Nemesis voter held their powder and sent a volley of votes towards the end. it has to be said they know how to play the drama!
If it is not for the drama everything would have been quite boring
Nemesis is classic and I initially wasn't a fan of Lawless but grew to love it a great deal...
Lawless it is then!
Cheers
On paper this is a toughie. The design of Nemesis vs the cast of Lawless. Lawless is the perfect Dredd spin-off, Nemesis has more ambition than that. Nemesis is a prick, Meta is likeable and her ups and downs genuinely affecting. In the end, I enjoyed Lawless all the way through, Nemesis less so.
Lawless.
Nemesis
I take your point that this 3/4 place play-off is perhaps more fun than most footballing equivalents. But I gotts confess, after the high drama of the last few rounds of awesome debate, I'm not inclined to weigh up the relative merits of these two substantial and fantastic thrills, and will just give my vote, happily, to
Nemesis the Warlock.
I mean, if Nemesis went so close to taking out Dante, it feels like Lawless has no chance when the warlock's fans show up en masse.
Again, I have a lot of time for those early Nemesis strips, which shaped what 2000 AD could be. But I'd also argue Lawless shapes what the Meg is. When it appears, the entire publication gets a lift. And for me it's been consistently great – a rare Dreddworld strip that keeps firing on all cylinders.
I'd vote Nemesis over a lesser thrill, some of the heavy hitters (like Rogue Trooper) and pretty much anything else Mills has written for 2000 AD. But. I mostly veer towards now over then, which is backed up when I read stuff, so it's Lawless for me.
lawless
Nemesis
Nemesis the Warlock
Lawless
Nemesis the Warlock
Nemesis
Maybe I'm feeling nostalgic today, but Nemesis gets my vote. Admittedly it was close, and I veered wildly one way and the other during the course of the morning. But, while I love Lawless and want to see it continue to whatever conclusion is planned with the same creative team attached... Nemesis has been a constant in my life for decades. And here I want to make it very clear that the single greatest book of Nemesis is Book Two . Those spiders, man, they make it the single most frightening comic strip ever to be published.
SBT
Lawless!
Nemesis The Warlock
Nemesis
Nemesis.
Nemesis
As a blindly nostalgic Mills fanboy I can't even engage my prefrontal cortex and my limbic instincts are just forcing me, almost mindlessly, to vote for Nemesis the Warlock. If only I were capable of reason, I might have voted for whoever the opponent is this time.
Nemesis
Nemesis the Warlock
Nemesis
Rereading Lawless at the moment and it's so good. Does anyone else wonder how Lawson and Pettifer keep their belts on when they wear them so low? This genuinely distracts me from the strip on a regular basis!
Anyway, Nemesis gets my vote, because I like it slightly better.
Nemesis the Warlock
Lawless
Nemesis
nemesis
Day to go here and while Lawless has done well its not close and if anything I'd expect more late votes on this final day for Nemesis than anything else. You Nemesis votes like to hold back and spring late in a vote from experience. I'll wrap this one up in the morning.
Lawless.
VOTING CLOSED
Well it went largely as expected. Nemesis dominated this after a brisk start by Lawless. So much has been said about these two and all that has gone on I don't think I've got much to add. Except to congratulate*
Nemesis the Warlock
On its bronze medal and present the bouquet of flowers.
*not sure how you actually congratulate a story!
I make it, on a brief count, 21:12, so 7:4/1.75:1 – better (from Lawless's perspective) than 2:1. That's not bad against Nemesis.
Quote from: IndigoPrime on 16 September, 2022, 08:43:19 AM
I make it, on a brief count, 21:12, so 7:4/1.75:1 – better (from Lawless's perspective) than 2:1. That's not bad against Nemesis.
That's what I got as well. Don't print score as when it clear cut I don't do a detailed recount and often worry that I've got it wrong. Nice to have it confirmed!