This was more of a mixed bag than last time. Well put together, very pretty, but uneven and repeating the weaker elements of its predecessors.
Aside from the terrific Cover, the stand-out for me was (again) Finder & Keeper. This is a lovely strip, taking an interesting direction within its urban folklore theme, delivered through Tinto's bright and distinctive art. Unfortunately Reppion doesn't do much to define the main characters this time, unless there's a hint of revelation in Meera initially seeing the ghost without her goggles, and the trend of characters somehow not getting chemical burns continues. But I like this, it's quite a complete tale, it feels like there are lots more stories to tell, and I hope that happens.
Above all F&K feels like it knows what it's doing and that it belongs in this comic, as does the Anderson. Helped along by Davidson's excellent art this has the feel of Casefiles Vol 1 Dredd, with a fun DC Thomson school angle, a Nu-Whoish premise and a believably adult Anderson. The only thing that hampered my enjoyment was mentally screaming 'Leg shot!' at Anderson. Twice. Don't set these things in MC-1 if you don't want juve perps to at least lose their kneecaps, all-ages or no. But this story was an interesting use of the concept that didn't rely on sticking "Young" in front of the title.
The Future Shock was okay, art a bit vague in places, and it went on a bit long - but the ending was good. This could have been where the comic developed a bit of satirical bite ('at least she's cheaper than the last lot', or 'after all, we've been picking unqualified gobby nobodies as PM for years') but it never did. Still, it held my attention.
The Dredd and the Strontium Dog, though, I don't know what to tell you, except that we've seen both stories before, and done far better.
The art from Assirelli on the Dredd was really nice, (more please) but the story was so bland I had to read it twice on the assumption i'd missed a page. Dredd does well in a test, another judge not so well, Dredd blasts a robot and there's some heavyhanded foreshadowing of a robot uprising that's what, 20 years in the future. Sorry Tharg, but I think all the thrills leaked out of this one.
Then there's a Strontium Dog apparently starring Young Nolan Blake in an unconvincing story that just drags on, and some quite flat art that in its favour looks a bit like early Alex Ronald, which augurs well for Brokenshire, but is not helped by it being the first time I've ever seen the great John Charles deliver boring colours. I did like General Conda though, he can stay.
There is just no point in putting these young versions of well-known characters into boring stories. Please stop it. What works in this prog are the strips that know they're all-ages and try to do fun things with that, not just 'here's a younger version doing things you've seen before'.
All that said, I got my money's worth (it's ridiculously cheap on the App) and I welcome more of these - they just need to do more of the good stuff, and ditch the bad stuff. Simple!
