The latest Column has some comments on Dredd & Stronty.
Link: Fool Britannia
hes a squaxx then, a regular by all accounts,
you can tell. and he is a lurker here or on one of the other sites i think
note the TOOTH reference, not a word used outside the web very much for 2000ad.
been a reader since the early 80s it would seem if not the begining.
decent column and any publicity is good as they say.
one of us to sum him up i reckon.
I must be missing something. Where are all these 'Ultimate Judge Dredd' stories in the comic that Reg seems to think Rico was created to tell?
Yeah, I thought he'd kind of missed the point there... but it could theoretically happen.
But his main point stands - Dredd's still Dredd, no matter what.
"Yeah, I thought he'd kind of missed the point there... but it could theoretically happen."
Nonsense, man. Everyone knows that Rico will turn evil eventually, and then Dredd will have to hunt him down, and they'll have a big exciting fight together, and then......zzzzzzzzzzzz
Aaagh!
Watch the Spoilers Gordon!
Evil Rico also teams up with Orlok, who's not really dead after all. Then the two of them go after Dredd, and they have a big exciting fight with him.
With big, heavy punches that actually produce very little bodily damage other than torn spandex uniforms?
Don't forget the robots. There must be *hundreds* of robots. All under evil Rico's mental control.
Meanwhile the mad brain of ex-Chief Judge Cal (on display in the 'Black Museum' for many years) makes it's daring escape, aided by Judges still affected by his brainwashing techniques, inside the body of a pirated ape, and begins reclaiming his former position.
Meanwhile, Psi-Division completely fails to predict any of these dastardly events before they happen. Why it still receives Justice Department funding is the a mystery to all.
...and meanwhile Judge Anderson is *still* in an interminable Judge Death induced coma, much like her readership...
Good point and one I've been meaning to raise recently regarding total war, why has Psi Div not been brought in to mentally extract info. from the TW terrorists that have been tortured by Dredd. Surely this would be quicker, and if they die the Psi can go 'in to their heads' and extract the info?
Seems Psi Div is forgotten sometimes?
...dredd's real parent's a revealed. He wasn't a clone after all.
Well...
Total War would be crap if Psi-Div got dragged into it.
What we've had so far is a very cool, very intensive police procedural story with Dredd using all his brains and every Justice Department resource at his disposal to crack the case before the next nuke goes off. Remmeber the episode with Dredd doing the on-street legwork while Roffman's back at PSU operating the tech-stuff, the two of them painstakingly recovering the smallest clues to the links in the chain of Total War's membership. Brilliant stuff, Dredd doing real future cop detective work.
What we could have got instead is a much shorter story, with the Psis coming in at some point, waving their magic wands and telling Dredd where all the nukes are and who the leaders of Total War are.
I know which version of the story I prefer.
I think Gordon has hit on Psi-Divisions very SPECIAL powers...the ability to control funding allocation - hard to see what else they bloody do apart from cause problems.
Actually it makes perfect sense:
Persistant
Spending
nducement.
Division.
Bolt-01
Or, if you want an in-story explanation for Psi-Divion's absence from Total War:
Psi-Division is pretty low in the Justice Department pecking order these days - remember, almost Hershey's first act as Chief Judge was to kick Psi-Div off the Council of Five after their complete failure to predict the Doomsday Scenario - so maybe they don't have the assets to do so much now.
Maybe Total War have their own psi-operatives, who are successfully mentally jamming any psi-searches for the bombs. And maybe Total War members have had psi-blocks placed in their minds, preventing their thoughts from being read if they're captured.
Okay, most of this is bollocks, but if you're looking for a plot-convenient answer, there it is.
He's under THEIR control...it's obvious...fight it Gordon - FIGHT IT!!!
And WHY haven't we yet seen Sewer-Div's contribution to The War Against Terror?
I suppose Psi-Div always have the excuse that theirs is an inexact science. ermmm, maybe they`re all busy trying to stop that monster getting out of Andersen`s brain and destroying the world (never mind that MegaCity 1 is being destroyed around them)
I like Gordon`s explanation better. As he says `if you want an in-story explanation` which I don`t particularly.
As has been hinted above, if Psi Div could do their job perfectly, there wouldn`t be much of interest in MC1
"I suppose Psi-Div always have the excuse that theirs is an inexact science."
Typical shirkers answer that, isn't it? i mean, any other profession, and you'd be drummed out on your ear for that kind of attitude.
I mean, you wouldn't get a surgeon saying:
"Whoops, sorry guvnor, thought it was your appendix. What do ya need a spleen for anyway? Still, inexact science, surgery, innit?"
Or a hitman:
"Cor blimey, you wanted me to shoot General DeGaul? I've only gone an done it to some other twat with a big nose and an almost fanatical hatred of the English instead. Bit inexact, the old political assasination game, dontcha' think?"
In fact there are only two real-world preofessions that I can think of that match this attitude:
mini-cab drivers, and pilots for the American military, who miss their designated targets so often that it makes you wonder exactly how much heroin they ingested in Berlin before the wall came down?