Prog 1585: Falling From Grace

[W. R. Logan]

Another Saturday Prog, so its now outside to sit in the sun, drink a mug of tea, smoke a couple of fags and enjoy that weekend Thrill Power.

Link: http://www.2000adonline.com/?zone=prog&page=profiles&choice=1585" target="_blank">Prog 1585

http://www.2000adonline.com/covers/2000ad/mediumres/1585.jpg">

[W. R. Logan]

A great Saturday, a mug of tea, a couple of fags the sound of my pond in the background and a saturday prog in hand.

Cover Nice design but lack lustre image. So an ok cover but is it down to the artist or Pye-01

Dredd Great art and decent story make this the highlight of the Prog and another Class Of '79 reference to remember

Savage Not really my cup of tea but its the art that keeps me coming back to this or else I'm afraid it'd be another story to skip obver

Dead Eyes Looking forward to this ending so I can go back and read it in one chiunk

Ten Seconders Not sure whether its the story or art that just isn't thrilling me but another for a one off read when its all over

Dead Signal Really liking this tale from All & PJ and after Dredd is the only other must read in the present line up.

[IndigoPrime]

The strap pretty much sums up my feeling about 2000 AD at the moment. After a number of months of utterly sublime output, this feels like a real blip.

Cover: Dull. Some bloke falling wouldn't make me want to pick up the Prog.

Dredd: Great stuff, and the clear highlight of the Prog. Decent art and an amusing and very Dredd-like story from Rennie.

Savage: I've still no idea what the hell's going on. I liked the previous Savage books, but this is leaving me utterly cold.

Dead Eyes: Reminds me of Crisis (art) crossed with the kind of stuff going on in 2000 AD at that time. Still, it's Smith, so there's every chance (like Leatherjack) it'll read better in a single sitting. I'm not keen on the murky art though.

Ten Seconders: Meh. Switching artists every five minutes probably doesn't help, but this feels hollow and empty.

Dead Signal: The artwork again reminds me of the 'bad' period of 2000 AD (Wireheads, etc.), but it's OK and easy to follow. The story is pretty good, although it smacks of Life on Mars.

Overall: 2/5 from me. Here's looking forward to the next jump-on Prog.

[Buttonman]

Cover is OK but nothing on this classic :

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Pretty good letters free Prog with Dredd and Savage leading the way with the other three offering various degrees of confusion. I went though 'Dead Eyes' and into 'The 10 seconders' without realising the strip had changed - pity I sussed too as it was staring to make sense!

Dredd is a lot of fun and I like the overt suggestion that the assassin lady pulled her pistol out of somewhere personal.

[Bad Andy]

I've stopped reading Dead Eyes. It just isn't worth the effort.

Dead Signal has gone all Sam Tyler, but I'm expecting another twist. Life on Mars was a bit too mainstream to blatantly copy, so there's still some good reading to be had here. Liked the full page panels too. Nicely done.

10 Seconders is good, but very disjointed. I think the front cover is ace, so I'm not sure what you lot are complaining about.

Dredd is really good and funny. Rennie's best in a while.

[Roger Godpleton]

Hey, they based the cover on what any sane reader's reaction to the strip would be!

[Mardroid]

Front cover- not bad, but I agree a bit lack lustre.


Dredd- great continuation.

"Dredd is a lot of fun and I like the overt suggestion that the assassin lady pulled her pistol out of somewhere personal."

Thank you. I was thinking... "Wait, didn't Dredd search them?" (Actually it was random searches so he wouldn't have caught everyone.) Then that though occurred to me... and I'm glad it wasn't just my dirty mind.

I didn't expect her being the hit-man(girl in her case) though. Good one. Not sure what that serial killer guy was quite on about "Remember me from class... etc.) I assume it's just his psychosis. Dredd's comeback was cool.

Interesting, I thought the creature was a son, nice twist. Thought it was some kind of mutant too, but all that fire seems rather demonic doesn't it?

Savage: Meh. Ok.

Dead Eyes: I'm actually following this ok. I like the twist that the 'lights' are not evil aliens as we first thought... and I like that they didn't go down the neanderthal=brute route. It really is ok, they need to give the art some clarity though (albeit it is good.)

10 Seconders- liking this too, although I agree it's somewhat disjointed. I can't remember why the guy is falling, but I'm sure I just forgot what happened in the previous episode.  I'm also a bit uncertain what the vampire was referring to when speaking to Root. Definitely warrants a reread.

Dead Signal: Great stuff! Notice the change in art between coma guy and Guile scenes? (Not Guile but I'm sure you know who I m mean...) Definitely Life On Mars spin.

I'd love it if the twist was that the coma stuff wasn't the real world... Also reminds me of an episode of Stargate (not that I'm particularly into that show, but this was an interesting episode) where T'yuk, (probably mis-spelt) wakes up as a fireman. There was an episode of Smallville like that too... seems a staple of sci-fi, so I hope they do something new with it.

Back cover. Same bird from last week if I remember correctly. ;)

[Trout]

From the other thread:

Huzzah! Saturday prog!

Dead Signal is a highlight for me. What a mindfuck. I can't predict what's going to happen next, and that's always a major recommendation.

I enjoyed the rest of the prog, including the cover. The artist on Ten Seconders is a better choice than the last one.

- Trout

[Dark Jimbo]

It's all good.

The only strip I've now given up on is Dead Eyes, which is a dead loss as far as I'm concerned. I was trying to hang in there, but we now seem to be on the brink of that inevitable moment in a John Smith strip where some big deus-ex-machina god-type thing appears at the end and kills all the baddies - see Revere, LeatherJack or Firekind for exactly the same thing.

That makes me sound like a Smith basher, which I'm not - I just wish he wouldn't resort to the same old ending quite so often.

[Banners]

Justice! Blimey - that was the first American series I ever collected. I think there was one good story about a hold up in a fast-food diner, and then it went nuts and turned into something completely different and crap after about a dozen issues. I missed the wonderful mullet of his earlier incarnation.

M@

[The Monarch]

nothing wrong with a little deus ex machina

this post was brought to you by "the one tooth reader who loves john smiths work!" club

[Funt Solo]

::"Life on Mars was a bit too mainstream to blatantly copy"

Yes, because Life on Mars is the first thing ever to feature world-shifting, perception-questioning, time-traveling or coma-fantasy plot points.

Uhm...

Don't get me wrong - I'm hating Dead Signal, mainly because it makes me feel like I'm back in 90s 2000AD land, but I don't think it's ripping off Life on Mars.  Reminds me of Kola Kommandos, for some reason.

[Mardroid]

nothing wrong with a little deus ex machina

this post was brought to you by "the one tooth reader who loves john smiths work!" club

I'm not sure it would really qualify as Deus ex machina anyway since the lights (whatever they're called) that the Neanderthals are using to control Sapien society was something there from the start of the story. Sure they're being used in a less subtle way but it amounts to the same thing: control.

If a mammoth dashed out of the otherworld into the henge and squashed the baddies flat... now that would be deus ex machina.

I first came across that term in the last books in Stephen King's Dark Tower cycle, but since then I've seen it used again, and again on the internet. Trouble is it's often used as a term for something unexpected, which isn't quite what it means (although Deus ex machinas are by their nature unexpected.)

[john_s]

For fuck's sake - it hasn't finished yet!  You see the ending in your crystal ball then?

Quite a stupid and lazy assumption there, no?

[john_s]

That reply to Dark "the Dick" Jimbo, natch!