Forum’s Favourite Thrill - Pandora Perfect vs Death Planet - Round 1 Heat 32

[BPP]

If the treasury of British comics printed Death Planet you'd all be all over it. It's great.

[sheridan]

If the treasury of British comics printed Death Planet you'd all be all over it. It's great.

Reprinted by Rebellion a year or two before Treasury was launched.

Planet of the Damned / Death Planet double feature

[BPP]

If the treasury of British comics printed Death Planet you'd all be all over it. It's great.

Reprinted by Rebellion a year or two before Treasury was launched.

Planet of the Damned / Death Planet double feature

Entirely missing the point there S-dawg.

[The Mind of Wolfie Smith]

inexplicable happenings here. death planet is a ridiculous early classic.

[Colin YNWA]

Well we might, might, live in a world were one of the most condemned thrills of yesteryear takes out one of the brightesgt thrills of the new era... well I find that fascinating - not quite sure which way this is going but final days votes could swing it so get um in and I'll count um up in the morning.

[sintec]

Couldn't remember if I'd read Death Planet or not. Checked through my digital archives and realised I had it in a floppy with a Meg back issue (I think from that period Tharg was selling discounted bundles). Figured I'd give it a read... well that was a thing... certainly not Thargs finest and feels very of it's time.

While not the biggest Regened fan I'll go for Pandora Perfect. It's light and a bit silly but it does it well and the prog needs a little of that every now and again. I'm not sure we need anymore thrills of the vintage that gave us Death Planet.

[Tjm86]

See this is where I have a personal problem.  Death Planet was my first intro to Tooth.  For me it is the quintessential cover.  It may have its flaws but they are flaws that my 8 year old self recognises.

Pandora Perfect may be an interesting and humorous strip but ....

Sorry, Death Planet gets it any day and twice on sunday!

[Colin YNWA]

VOTING CLOSED

Well actually that was a lot of fuss over nothing as this one wasn't quite as close as it looked from a quick scan. BPP made a good point

If the treasury of British comics printed Death Planet you'd all be all over it. It's great.

But would we a good story is a good story whenever it appear(s). A bad story is a bad story whenever it appears. I think the Treasury and indeed imprints like Hibernia before has selected well and found stories that work. I don't think Death Planet would have found a slot. It makes the fatal error of having a Death Planet that doesn't seem that deadly and indeed the final threat is a bunch of Pirate types. Zombo does a much better job of making the world a threat, while being a very different story. On the other hand PP does a great job of taking the crime caper, doing that 2000ad thing and putting a fresh spin of it and then shoting it out with more energy and verve than examples in other media.

So as you may have guessed from my longwinded blurb I'd have voted for

Pandora Perfect

by a country mile and so did the majority of you lot - so well done.

See ya tomorrow morning and the relentless grind move on...

[sintec]

It makes the fatal error of having a Death Planet that doesn't seem that deadly and indeed the final threat is a bunch of Pirate types.

Yeah I was all up for a Helltrekkers style gradual elimination of the survivors by the deadly planet. I'm not sure why we needed the space priate plot at all. And the ending was pants.

[Dark Jimbo]

It makes the fatal error of having a Death Planet that doesn't seem that deadly and indeed the final threat is a bunch of Pirate types.

Yeah I was all up for a Helltrekkers style gradual elimination of the survivors by the deadly planet. I'm not sure why we needed the space priate plot at all. And the ending was pants.

For my money, Zombo was never quite as good as that first series, because it lost that Death Planet vibe - I loved that each episode ended with a survivor count - 'Four survivors remaining!' Week-on-week that made it a whole lotta fun.

I'm still sad that Tharg never picked up Nigel Dobbyn's '101 Gronks' pitch.

[Colin YNWA]

It makes the fatal error of having a Death Planet that doesn't seem that deadly and indeed the final threat is a bunch of Pirate types.

Yeah I was all up for a Helltrekkers style gradual elimination of the survivors by the deadly planet. I'm not sure why we needed the space priate plot at all. And the ending was pants.

Actually yeah Helltrekkers is an even better example of this type of story done well... even if its not set on an alien world the harsh environment brutally whittling down numbers is done soooo well in the story.

[sheridan]

For my money, Zombo was never quite as good as that first series, because it lost that Death Planet vibe - I loved that each episode ended with a survivor count - 'Four survivors remaining!' Week-on-week that made it a whole lotta fun.

I'm still sad that Tharg never picked up Nigel Dobbyn's '101 Gronks' pitch.

From the context I'm guessing Nigel's pitch was a Lemmings-style whittling away of lots of small fluffy creatures?

[Dark Jimbo]

Yep -

Whilst we're on the subject of rejected proposals, here was my attempt to continue drawing the Gronk after Pete Hogan pretty much gave up on the character: It was to be set in a typical western-style Strontium Dogs environment, with the Gronk on his own, still with his Garth Ennis created agression (gronks normally being timorous beasts, subject to heart attacks from excessive excitement). He discovers a travelling circus which is actually a cover for a gronk breeding programme (for their highly prized fur). Cue plenty of POW/animal rights references as the Gronk breaks them out (think Chicken Run with gronks). Much black humour ensues as, during the escape and flight, many of the 'unchanged' gronks keel over due to the stress. It was to be called '101 Gronks', but as the series progressed, the number in the title was to decrease as the number of rescued gronks grew less and less!
The touching and heartbreaking denoument was to have The Gronk return to his home planet with a few of his rescued captives still alive, only to find he's banned from the planet because he's gone through 'the change' and thus would be too much of a threat to the fragility of the gronk race. Awwww....

[broodblik]

Pity since I think it would have worked and Nigel's art worked for the strip

[O Lucky Stevie!]

Yep -

Whilst we're on the subject of rejected proposals, here was my attempt to continue drawing the Gronk after Pete Hogan pretty much gave up on the character: It was to be set in a typical western-style Strontium Dogs environment, with the Gronk on his own, still with his Garth Ennis created agression (gronks normally being timorous beasts, subject to heart attacks from excessive excitement). He discovers a travelling circus which is actually a cover for a gronk breeding programme (for their highly prized fur). Cue plenty of POW/animal rights references as the Gronk breaks them out (think Chicken Run with gronks). Much black humour ensues as, during the escape and flight, many of the 'unchanged' gronks keel over due to the stress. It was to be called '101 Gronks', but as the series progressed, the number in the title was to decrease as the number of rescued gronks grew less and less!
The touching and heartbreaking denoument was to have The Gronk return to his home planet with a few of his rescued captives still alive, only to find he's banned from the planet because he's gone through 'the change' and thus would be too much of a threat to the fragility of the gronk race. Awwww....

Sounds briliiant! I'd rather read that over Finn or some of the other thrill suckerage that Tharg was filling the prog out with in the Nineties.