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Prog 2199 - Death Becomes Him!

Started by Magnetica, 14 September, 2020, 11:29:12 AM

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AlexF

Being a massive contrarian, I feel moved to defend End of Days.
(but to be honest I didn't think it was great)

I will say that I don't entirely understand how the ending works, but I also have learned not to mind that sort of thing much. As anyone who goes to see Tenet can attest.

Williams had basically painted himself into a corner where his story reveolves around Dredd and Co having to hunt for and then fight four different villains. So each encounter has to be different from the last, and the fights have to be resolved in a different way each time, ideally ramping up the tension and saving the most dramatic / extreme solution for last.

People have already sacrificed their lives to defeat earlier horsemen, so Giant CAN'T do the same here. Azrael was always set up to be the person who could kill death - so drama rules dictsate that he HAS to fail (to make it more exciting), leaving the solution to be that it's the gun not the man that matters.
But that's not enough to defeat the final ultimate baddie, so Williams is obliged to come up with some crazy Bill & Ted time shenanigans that you really can't see coming. And as such it IS a little unsatisfying, but there's still fun to be had in there.

Plus, when the overt theme of the story is 'inevitability', it does make sense that the ending will be just as arbitrary and predetermined as the beginning. The horsemen appear beause they just DO; and Anderson saves the day by setting things up so she always was going to win.

I'd say that as an epic based around supernatural whatnots it is definitely better than City of the Damned (my own fondness for Steve Dillon's work aside). But yeah, it's not as good as almost all other epics!

Rest of the Prog: pretty great.

broodblik

Quote from: AlexF on 17 September, 2020, 11:13:32 AM
I'd say that as an epic based around supernatural whatnots it is definitely better than City of the Damned (my own fondness for Steve Dillon's work aside). But yeah, it's not as good as almost all other epics!

I will also rate End of Days higher than City of the Damned. Another epic which I never understood why people rate it so high was The Pit.
When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.

Old age is the Lord's way of telling us to step aside for something new. Death's in case we didn't take the hint.

Rately

Quote from: broodblik on 17 September, 2020, 11:36:53 AM
Quote from: AlexF on 17 September, 2020, 11:13:32 AM
I'd say that as an epic based around supernatural whatnots it is definitely better than City of the Damned (my own fondness for Steve Dillon's work aside). But yeah, it's not as good as almost all other epics!

I will also rate End of Days higher than City of the Damned. Another epic which I never understood why people rate it so high was The Pit.

I think in my older age, and as my tastes for comics have changed, that i now appreciate an Epic like The Pit more, because it was sprawling, developed so many good characters and set-ups, and felt, and still feels, like it will echo long into Dredd's future in terms of story, and how other writers write the character.

I loved it at the initial time of rereading and all subsequent re-readings, and it really is inching towards replacing Curses Earth and Necropolis as my favourite epics. My interest in the more supernatural tales of Dredd have definitely waned, not to say i wouldn't enjoy a one-off or two, just not more long form, sprawling series.

Greg M.

Quote from: broodblik on 17 September, 2020, 11:36:53 AM
Another epic which I never understood why people rate it so high was The Pit.
The Pit is a spectacular return to form for a series that had finally found its feet again after a long time in on the ground. Obviously there'd been good-to-great Wagner stories in the interim - The Cal Files and Bad Frendz are both superb and very much part of the run-up to what The Pit achieved - but here was 'Judge Dredd' reinvented - a new template for the the series going forward. I remember reading Dredd's first line - "My name is Dredd. You may have heard of me. I'm a stickler." - and being immediately blown away by how much characterisation Wagner packed in there. It's still one of the best openings to any series. If the back half of The Pit isn't quite as strong as the front (needs more Carlos!) there's still some great pay-offs, like the return of Greel.

Jim_Campbell

Quote from: Greg M. on 17 September, 2020, 12:07:38 PM
but here was 'Judge Dredd' reinvented

This was very much John's intent, IIRC. Practically a manifesto for the strip going forward, which he described* as "less of a hero, more of a cop".


*Actual words may vary due to failing memory circuits, but that was definitely the gist.
Stupidly Busy Letterer: Samples. | Blog
Less-Awesome-Artist: Scribbles.

JayzusB.Christ

Quote from: Greg M. on 17 September, 2020, 12:07:38 PM
Quote from: broodblik on 17 September, 2020, 11:36:53 AM
Another epic which I never understood why people rate it so high was The Pit.
I remember reading Dredd's first line - "My name is Dredd. You may have heard of me. I'm a stickler." - and being immediately blown away by how much characterisation Wagner packed in there. It's still one of the best openings to any series. If the back half of The Pit isn't quite as strong as the front (needs more Carlos!) there's still some great pay-offs, like the return of Greel.

Yep - though I do have a bit of nostalgia for the more Old-Testamenty aspects of Dredd lore, and the citizen-heavy stories, The Pit was incredible.

Judges had lots of personality for the first time (in the past, if it wasn't batshit crazy, it was varying degrees of Dredd and Anderson; with Hershey sometimes a bit Dredd and sometimes a bit Anderson) - Buell, for example, showed that a judge could be hard as nails but watch a few old cowboy movies when he got a spare hour.

I do kind of miss scenes, though, of Judge Solomon being a kind of semi-mythical figure rather than a desk-bound bureaucrat, and can't imagine someone like Dan Francisco divorcing a married couple against their will.

Back to End of Days - the ending did a good job of wrapping up, and the whole thing was pretty enjoyable as a summer mega-epic, but it wasn't very memorable sadly.
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

TordelBack

Tharg could start running a 100-part epic Pit 2: Harrier & Smellier next week and I wouldn't object. Graveyard Shift and Sunday Night Fever were my favourite '80s Dredds (along with Midnight Surfer) and the more of these types of loca proceduram plus ensemble cast is right up my street. Give it to Mike Carroll and Ken Niemand to alternate arcs, they've both made successful moves in this direction with the Kindred, Patsy and Chimpsky stories.  Drool.

SmallBlueThing(Reborn)

End of Days was distracting enough, but too reminiscent of the Bad Old Days (Crusade, Judgement Day etc) for me to be anything other than glad it's over.

One good thing has been that even the usual "2000AD is entirely about Dredd" lot over on that there Facebook have been forced to look elsewhere for their thrills, and more light has been shone on The Out than perhaps would otherwise have been, in the endless debate about minutiae of Mega City Lore. The Out has been the absolute highlight of the prog this year so far- and hopefully just the first book of many. Anyone know whether Harrison is a "quick" artist, because this needs to return as fast as is humanly possible.

The obvious question about Slaine remains- I was expecting a Manco cover on 2200, and not the image we were presented with in 2199. But something about that- which is undeniably a pretty spectacular piece of art- shouts "placeholder" to me. Maybe because it's not seemingly relevant to any strip as far as I can tell.

SBT

Magnetica

I wasn't expecting Bagman to reappear in the Prog, so that was a surprise.

broodblik

SBT it is a new story that was foretold in September solicitation. I think it is also the cover for prog 2200
When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.

Old age is the Lord's way of telling us to step aside for something new. Death's in case we didn't take the hint.

matty_ae

it's speculation to a point but maybe End of Days was the victim of being reduced in weeks but not being able to reduce the plot.

Maybe the filthy Sov's capturing the third Horseman was meant to be shown. Maybe there was less exposition. So perhaps not being able to cut down Four individually shown Horsemen was the problem and led to talky-talky episodes.

Maybe the big beats and reveals would have come in a story that just breathed a bit more.

JayzusB.Christ

Quote from: TordelBack on 17 September, 2020, 02:08:52 PMGraveyard Shift and Sunday Night Fever were my favourite '80s Dredds

The Graveyard Shift was a little bit further back than I remember (I've re-read it since, of course) but I remember reading Sunday Night Fever and it was perfect - Dredd and Mega City 1, distilled and bottled.  Those leapers with the bystanders egging them on were simultaneously funny and chilling.  Can't really imagine anyone other than Cam Kennedy on art duty either.

"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

judgeurko

Quote from: broodblik on 17 September, 2020, 06:29:51 AM
"End of Days" was for me like a Michael Bay summer blockbuster popcorn movie. It was never about the substance and deep character build up but more about the over the top plot unrealistic action-fest. I have read it in that fashion. I do not want all my comics to be the deeper meaning of life and why do we exist stuff. Fluff is fine. That is why stories like "The Out" gets published.  Not everything can be the next "Watchmen". I enjoyed "End of Days".
That's probably a fair comparison. & I hate Michael Bay.

Jacqusie

Quote from: broodblik on 16 September, 2020, 05:19:13 AM

Dredd – ...the whole art team and not only Colin and Henry but also the colourists Chris Blythe should get some credit for some awesome imagery thoroughly the series. One thing that I felt could benefit the story was maybe an additional 3 parts and something like a 6-part prologue.


I agree, it looked fantastic throughout, although I'm glad it wasn't just me that thought there could have been a better build up crafting plot threads and characters into setting the scene for the big bonzo off round the world.

So many small interludes could have seen the whole thing knit together more and make it feel less rushed and wham bam off we go again man. Although the ending was a longer page count, it still felt quickened and I think for me, it was just a bit too much to cram in one summer like it did.

I'm thinking of the Titan plot line... if Rob had condensed that into one big storyline, it would have probably felt the same, a great premise, but rushed. As it was there was time and space (pun intended) to let the story gain momentum and let the characters breathe and build stories.

The End of Days, A good mega-epic that COULD have been an Epic mega-epic, but still head and shoulders above Every Empire Falls...

Proudhuff

Quote from: TordelBack on 17 September, 2020, 08:06:41 AM
It certainly wrong-footed me going into it,  I was very grumpy indeed when I thought we were getting 4 months of Titan-meets-Judgement-Day, but when it turned out that there would be polar bears, psychic baboushka dolls and world-engines I relaxed and started enjoying it as an over-stuffed Dredd-does-Sirius-Rising.

To be clear though, this is not what I want from Dredd every week, but it's definitely the end of Williams' writing that I prefer.

This^^^^

DDT did a job on me