Prog 2199 - Death Becomes Him!

[Bolt-01]

And the more I look at it, the more I love the cover.

Paul has knocked it out of the park on this one.

[judgeurko]

So its over at last with exposition! Lots of exposition. I guess the final episode befits the story as a whole, rushed inconsequential & with the feel of a first draft/that'll do approach. Awful. The worst so-called mega epic I can remember having to sit through.

[IndigoPrime]

It’s an odd one. That Dredd run felt quite old-school in the way it worked and rattled along, and I suspect it’s a strip that won’t be referenced a great deal. This is how Dredd feels as a whole these days, though. Without Wagner as a ‘showrunner’, there are a half-dozen competing Mega City Ones, each with their own cast and ideas. Massive things happen, but are then immediately ignored. This has to some extent always been the case—especially once you also consider Anderson stories; but I do wonder whether this strip will have any long-term impact on 2000 AD as a whole.

Elsewhere, Sin/Dex has kind of lost me, but The Out continues to be the best thing in the Prog. I loved the new character, and, hey, Cyd needs someone (something?) to chat to now and again, so she doesn’t go bonkers. Looking forward to whatever’s next from that.

[Judge Olde]

So its over at last with exposition! Lots of exposition. I guess the final episode befits the story as a whole, rushed inconsequential & with the feel of a first draft/that'll do approach. Awful. The worst so-called mega epic I can remember having to sit through.

Totally agree.

[Rately]

I'm usually very happy to see any Dredd by Rob and Henry, but this whole series has been somewhat disappointing. It just has not hung well. I'm sure that in a few weeks i'll take it all on in one sitting, but it has never really held my attention, been tense or seemingly built organically, just lots of exposition at the end to make it all hang, awkwardly, together.

The art has been spectacular all the way through, though.

[norton canes]

I think we will get something like  an epilogue because in next week's jump-on-prog we are getting a story by Rob Williams, Arthur Wyatt and Book Cook "Carry the Nine" dealing with the consequences with the events off "End of Days"

Really? Because that's just what a jumping-on prog needs - a strip referencing the last 16 weeks of story

Should be interesting.

[Leigh S]

Next Prog; Dredd punches Climate Change to death.

I think we will get something like  an epilogue because in next week's jump-on-prog we are getting a story by Rob Williams, Arthur Wyatt and Book Cook "Carry the Nine" dealing with the consequences with the events off "End of Days"

Really? Because that's just what a jumping-on prog needs - a strip referencing the last 16 weeks of story

Should be interesting.

[TordelBack]

I loved the new character, and, hey, Cyd needs someone (something?) to chat to now and again, so she doesn’t go bonkers.

Presuming she hasn't gone bonkers post-resurrection, of course. I'm thinking of Halo talking to Toy's corpse here, and whenbI do all I see is panels of a lady talking to her handbag...

[The Sherman Kid]

Dredd Okay.....can anyone explain what just happened because I must admit I am completely baffled by that ending.
* How did Anderson move through time/go to another realm/dimension whatever she did?
* How did she just shrug off the Angel possession?
* How did Dredd just kill Death with a punch?
* Is Ichabod alive in the present (eyes opened)
* The moon was moved -how did it go back to where it was (the engines were on the dark side) ?

If a story requires so much exposition and still doesn't make sense well...something has gone badly wrong.

An Epic that had its moments but kind of imploded at the end.

PS -Agree that Giant did weirdly act out of character throughout

[The Sherman Kid]

PPS -The Out Can't not mention this. Brilliant. Pure genius with the perfect artwork to match. I doft my cap to both and look forward to Book two.

[TordelBack]

The short answer is that Anderson uses the Angel's power to do all the wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff, which power merged with her own abilities means that Cassandra Blint is more powerful than the Angel itself.

And there is if course no dark side of the moon, but makes for a better lyric than farside, so we're stuck with it. But that doesn't answer your question.

Dredd one-punch-kills death because that's what he does. A better question might be why Scaramanga's gun kills the Famine host, but not Joe.

[Professor Bear]

Because it kills death, of course.  Don't overthink it.

Got to agree this was far and away the best episode of the Dredd story, because now it's over, and that buys a lot of goodwill with me after fifteen weeks of serialised disappointment.  I think the problem is that there's no real way to do an "epic" Dredd that doesn't already get done all the time - judges and citizens get killed by the hundreds in the average Dredd story, city blocks and even countries explode, Dredd gets shot or possessed, a secret conspiracy is exposed, etc.  Where do you go, really?  Williams decided on the "bigger and more gonzo" route beloved of Hollywood, but I wonder if the way to go would have been to make a more episodic, smaller-scale epic that ran through the prog for six months or so (although even that's been done).

The Out felt like the first episode of the second volume.  Still the best thing in the book.
Thrill3rs, Diaboliks and Sin/Dex were fine.

[Bad City Blue]

thank Grud "End Of Days" is over. One of the dullest Dredd epics ever, even the art felt phoned in at times.

[The Enigmatic Dr X]

There are three types of Dredd epic: end of the world (Necropolis, Apocalypse War, Day of Chaos); political chicanery (Chief Judge's Man, Trifecta); and crime procedural (The Pit).

Only the first has been done to death. The last hasn't been done nearly enough.

[BPP]

How grumpy, you sure you’re not all on Facebook.

I enjoyed this Dredd run and Henry’s art is always something else. Hurrah to all involved.

Now can we have a Casandra Azrael series please?