Can anything stop the march of City of the Damned, though this round can any Epic stop the march of any of the four thril had have come through previous rounds - untouched last round don't forget - well there are some interesting contenders this time, but are they Epic enough? We'll find out Saturday morning...
Look at the list of 8 Dredd stories below and tell me your top three:
1 (your favourite of the 8) will get 3 points
2 (your 2nd fav) will get 2 points
3 (your 3rd fav) will get 1 point
Advanced from the previous rounds:
City of the Damned (https://dreddepicsranked.blogspot.com/2020/08/epics-50-47-dont-bother.html) - Progs 393-406
Mechanismo (https://dreddepicsranked.blogspot.com/2020/07/epics-43-41-these-stories-are-real.html) - Megs 2.12-2.17; 2.22-2.26; 2.37-2.43
Trifecta (https://dreddepicsranked.blogspot.com/2020/12/epics-31-29-reaching-for-heights.html) - Progs 1804-1812
Tour of Duty (https://dreddepicsranked.blogspot.com/2020/12/epics-28-26-sublime-and-ridiculous.html) - Progs 1649-1693
Next four from Dredd Epics Ranked:
Every Empire Falls (https://dreddepicsranked.blogspot.com/2020/12/epics-22-20-have-you-forgotten-about.html) - Progs 1973-1990 and Megs 371-373
Dead Zone (https://dreddepicsranked.blogspot.com/2020/12/epics-19-17-hidden-gems.html) - Megs 350-355
Served Cold/The Cop (https://dreddepicsranked.blogspot.com/2020/12/epics-19-17-hidden-gems.html) - Progs 1718-1725; Megs 356-361
Block Judge (https://dreddepicsranked.blogspot.com/2020/12/epics-19-17-hidden-gems.html) - Progs 1900-1909
Voting will close on the morning of Saturday 20th March and the 4 Epics with the most votes will progress to the next round.
All links go through to AlexF's simply brilliant Dredd Epics Ranked (https://dreddepicsranked.blogspot.com/) blog. You may need to scroll to find his write up of a particular story - but I'd suggest just reading the whole thing anyway - it's fantastic stuff.
Baffled by what's going on here - well we have a a thread for that (https://forums.2000ad.com/index.php?topic=47367.0) - though that might leave you more confused than anything.
Rules (https://forums.2000ad.com/index.php?topic=47367.msg1053448#msg1053448) for what they are worth.
Not sure about anything just ask and I'll blag it.
1. Trifecta
2. Tour of Duty
3. Mechanismo
Still the same clear top two from last time and they're not even close to being challenged:
1 Tour of Duty
2 Trifecta
Of the others I do love Block Judge, which is a great procedural, with great moments like if you can't get them on the big stuff get them on cushion safety labels, but it's not long enough to be an epic, and Served Cold / The Cop. Again not an epic: it's a medium length story and it's sequel.
Only Every Falls is actually an epic, and whilst it is better than Judgement Day or End of Days it's not good enough to get my vote. And that is despite provoking speculation that Dredd might genuinely have been killed off.
I think I'm going to go for 3rd place = Block Judge.
1. City of the Damned
2. Mechanismo
3. Tour of Duty
1. Tour Of Duty
2. Trifecta
3. Dead Zone
1. City of the Damned
2. Mechanismo
3. Tour of Duty
It's still:
1. Tour of Duty
2. Trifecta
3. Mechanismo
Every Empire Falls was good, and it's more of a definition of an 'epic' than Mechanismo, but it's not quite good enough to get my vote over it.
Block Judge is a story I'm really into, but I don't think it ranks as an epic either for length or stakes involved, so again it doesn't get my vote.
1) Every Empire Falls - come on you guys, this story was so exciting and globe-spanning and unpredictable! Plus some cracking Holden art.
2) Tour of Duty - I may be deranged, but I'm not an idiot.
3) Dead Zone - I get that this, even more than, say, Block Judge and The Cop is just 'a Dredd story that happens to have a super long page count' - but it's getting my vote for the art. Henry Flint has done some incredible things with Dredd, but I wonder if this isn't his very finest hour. Those opening episodes in the bnody mines - serious Cursed Earth vibes, you guys.
1. Tour of Duty
2. Every Empire Falls
3. Mechanismo
SBT
- Tour Of Duty
- Every Empire Falls
- Trifecta
1 - city of the dammed
2 - tour of duty
3 - trifecta
Every Empire was tired and full of cultural stereotypes - fat avaricious Texans, duplicitous Brits, stoic righteous Indians.stereotypes just 'acceptable' ones. Meh. The idea of Texas city taking over MC1 was cracking and could have been a really interesting backdrop for something bigger and MC1 focused - or even the template for a few years - but it just faded away.
Deadzone started strong and descended into terrible magic gun tish. Nor do I think it was Flints best work - if anything it's a lesser one as it's the transition from his hyper detailed era -Shakara - to his more manga style of today. He's still my fave artist but this hasn't city imagery like his Total War nukes or the classic Henry Dredd images like Day of Chaos or The Small House.
Having not read Dead Zone or Every Empire Falls, those two are out straight away for me. And I love Block Judge (still no reprint, Tharg?!) but it doesn't feel in any way significant (while again stressing how good it is.) So I think that's out of the running too.
Top spot still Tour of Duty, natch.
Mechanismo still second.
And new contender Served Cold/The Cop nudges out Trifecta. Is it as epic? As memorable? As innovative? Not quite, no - maybe, in terms of the contest, it's just currently newer and shinier. But it was a genuinely excellent cycle that (particularly in The Cop) told us a lot we didn't already know about Dredd's world - loved all thd Euro-Cit stuff.
Hmmm
Surely Flint's best work is Day of Chaos or Total War?
Quote from: Dark Jimbo on 18 March, 2021, 01:21:18 PM
And I love Block Judge (still no reprint, Tharg?!)
It was in a floppy.
1. Tour of Duty
2. Trifecta
3. Every Empire Falls
1. Tour of Duty
2. Trifecta
3. Every Empire Falls
Quote from: Magnetica on 18 March, 2021, 01:26:17 PM
Quote from: Dark Jimbo on 18 March, 2021, 01:21:18 PM
And I love Block Judge (still no reprint, Tharg?!)
It was in a floppy.
Having just re-read this its really weird to think its been 'reduced' to a floppie. Maybe there a plan to package it up later?
1. Mechanismo - I've voted this so often that when I type "M" into my phone the first reccomend word is "Mechanismo".
2. City of the Damned
3. Dead Zone - I read Dead Zone when I was first really getting into 2000AD and loved it...can I be nostalgic for something I only read a few plus years ago? I think so...
Haven't read all the others listed (yet! Keep the Case Files & Essential Dredd trains rolling...)
1st Mechanismo - damn, but this is cool.
2nd City of the Damned - damn, but this is cool.
3rd Tour of Duty - misses out on a higher spot because Dan Francisco is a distracting pun-name.
HM: Trifecta - misses out on the top three because of the flying moon-city. Great crossover idea.
Quote from: Funt Solo on 18 March, 2021, 02:43:08 PM
3rd Tour of Duty - misses out on a higher spot because Dan Francisco is a distracting pun-name.
Damn that's some tough judgement!
I am still confused for the love of City of the Damned. I am sure I am missing something but what?
Quote from: broodblik on 18 March, 2021, 03:14:16 PM
I am still confused for the love of City of the Damned. I am sure I am missing something but what?
- Steve Dillon's art is beautiful.
- It's a grand but flawed experiment.
- The scene where all that gets them through is Dredd's command presence.
- Mutant Owen is a great design.
- Dredd loses his eyes!
- The zombie switch-off moment is genuinely top notch sci-fi madness.
- Context-wise, like the Manta Prowl Tank or the Wally Squad, Dredd's bionic eyes become part of the lore.
I'll think of more later, but that's a quick run-down of why I love it. It's going to fail going up against The Apocalypse War, though. Or The Judge Child Quest. Or The Day The Law Died.
Quote from: Funt Solo on 18 March, 2021, 03:21:58 PM
Quote from: broodblik on 18 March, 2021, 03:14:16 PM
I am still confused for the love of City of the Damned. I am sure I am missing something but what?
- Steve Dillon's art is beautiful.
- It's a grand but flawed experiment.
- The scene where all that gets them through is Dredd's command presence.
- Mutant Owen is a great design.
- Dredd loses his eyes!
- The zombie switch-off moment is genuinely top notch sci-fi madness.
- Context-wise, like the Manta Prowl Tank or the Wally Squad, Dredd's bionic eyes become part of the lore.
I'll think of more later, but that's a quick run-down of why I love it. It's going to fail going up against The Apocalypse War, though. Or The Judge Child Quest. Or The Day The Law Died.
Dredd and Anderson
Amazing splash pages
The mutant is the judge child!
Dredd v Dredd
Dillon art, Gibson art, smith art. Heck I even like Kim's art that everyone needlessly attacks
I honestly don't know what people have against it. It holds up better than TCE and TJCQ for me because it's not so piece-meal and bitty, indeed after TAW it's probably the 2nd of three great epics - TAW, COTD, Oz. I love all those.
One of the biggest issues I had was the switch off artist. It felt very much a stop and go affear.
Déjà Vu:
1) Tour of Duty.
2) City of the Damned.
3) Trifecta.
I'll ditto Funt and BBP's comments about why I enjoy CotD, and it's without a doubt an epic, opposed to some other (great) extended stories on this list.
Additionally, I like Kim's art too, I didn't realize the hate for it until I was some comments on the forum. It's solid art, identifiable, and easy to follow.
Every EMpire Falls might have been a contender if it hadnt ...fallen... at the last hurdle by having Dredd fix it all.
Much better would have been MC1 just about facing down the immediate threat, but with Texas City still retaining an upper hand and showing how far MC1 was diminished
So for me, the song remains the same
1 Mechanismo
2 City of the Damned
3 Tour of Duty
And it's the same again for me too. How long can this hold?!? I'm trying my hardest not to look ahead to maximise the surprise re the new epics each round!
1. Tour of Duty
2. City of the Damned
3. Mechanismo
I have to agree with the "reasons to love CotD" above. Those are very good reasons!
Quote from: BPP on 18 March, 2021, 03:30:06 PM
I honestly don't know what people have against CoTD. It holds up better than TCE and TJCQ for me because it's not so piece-meal and bitty, indeed after TAW it's probably the 2nd of three great epics - TAW, COTD, Oz. I love all those.
I don't understand that....you have TCE and TJCQ below Oz because they are too bitty? Isn't Oz also bitty? It has several episodes of Chopper's adventures as he travels from MC1 to Oz- just like TCE and TJCQ. Then it swaps around between Judda episodes and Supersurf episodes.
No not at all. Indeed Oz will most certainly make my top 5 if not 3 because it's a coherent singular story with some of the best characters and moments and art. There is a difference between TJCQ and TCE where the goal is often ancillary and Oz where two things - winning Sipersurf / defeating Judd - drive everything. To me TJCQ and TCE are really just 'meanderanding around the cursed Earth / space a bit.'
For comparison: Oz is Return of the Jedi (separate strands play alongside each other and come together for the climax) whereas TJCQ is Star Trek (Voyager, because of the overarching quest angle).
1. city of the damned
City of the Damned
Tour of Duty
Every Empire Falls
Well, now Fetish has been knocked out, I think I need to revert to my vote before last. I really liked Every Empire Falls, but, as has been said, the threads of it haven't really been picked up, which is a shame. So...
1. Mechanismo
2. Tour of Duty
3. City of the Damned
1 Tour of Duty
2 Mechanismo
3 City of the Damned
....again
As ever these more quick and fast - so you only have today to add to this fascinating vote. Some epics doing better than I'd expected - which is always nice to see. Counting up in the morning though and we'll know what impact that's actually had.
Losing track of it all. did I already vote?
1) Mechanismo
2) Every Empire Falls
3) Trifecta
Tour of Duty
Trifecta
Every Empire Falls
......
Very recently read Block Judge for the first time ever. Absolutely great but not quite 'epic'.
Quote from: Tomwe on 19 March, 2021, 10:52:54 AM
Losing track of it all. did I already vote?
Nope your all good.
Quote from: BPP on 18 March, 2021, 03:30:06 PM
Quote from: Funt Solo on 18 March, 2021, 03:21:58 PM
Quote from: broodblik on 18 March, 2021, 03:14:16 PM
I am still confused for the love of City of the Damned. I am sure I am missing something but what?
- Steve Dillon's art is beautiful.
- It's a grand but flawed experiment.
- The scene where all that gets them through is Dredd's command presence.
- Mutant Owen is a great design.
- Dredd loses his eyes!
- The zombie switch-off moment is genuinely top notch sci-fi madness.
- Context-wise, like the Manta Prowl Tank or the Wally Squad, Dredd's bionic eyes become part of the lore.
I'll think of more later, but that's a quick run-down of why I love it. It's going to fail going up against The Apocalypse War, though. Or The Judge Child Quest. Or The Day The Law Died.
Dredd and Anderson
Amazing splash pages
The mutant is the judge child!
Dredd v Dredd
Dillon art, Gibson art, smith art. Heck I even like Kim's art that everyone needlessly attacks
I honestly don't know what people have against it. It holds up better than TCE and TJCQ for me because it's not so piece-meal and bitty, indeed after TAW it's probably the 2nd of three great epics - TAW, COTD, Oz. I love all those.
The tragic bit where they meet cits who've been surviving by eating "bags and stuff".
Its post-apocalyptic depiction of the Meg.
The Judge Child revelation - 88.8% accurate isn't good enough
TBH, the nonsense here is having Tour Of Duty, Trifecta, City of the Damned and Mechanismo - which are all fabulous in their own right and ways - ranked so low in the first place. Coming up against Raptaur, for example, there is just no contest. They each have long-lasting impact.
It's like Barcelona or Man U coming up against Sparta Prague. They're a good team but of course the heavy hitter will progress.
If Colin was to maintain the current voting system then you could rank total votes /' rounds to remove the lunacy of sin city being behind krong island but apparently the system is about to change..
It gets a little convulted next week. Then we have a last 16 as traditional head to heads - stay tuned....
1. Tour of Duty
2. Mechanismo
3. Trifecta
Sorry Colin. I promised myself I'd post in all of these and I've already missed a few so here's a rundown of the ones I've missed.
01. Tour of Duty. This is the one that blew my mind on AlexF's original list. There's only two that can conceivably keep it off my top spot overall but we'll come to those in due course.
For me, this is the centrepiece of one of the most incredible long form narratives in comics. It runs back to Origins, to Six, to Damned Ranger, to Chief Judge's Man, to Fog on the Eerie, to The Edgar Case, et cetera. It wraps around so many ongoing strands and pushes into a whole new direction with the Sinfield and the political intrigue, all the while revelling in the daft genius of Mayor Maybe and his role in it all.
Another part of what makes it special is that it's the only epic that really does move the status quo of the strip for a while. Relocating all the everyday stories that run around the main storyline into the Cursed Earth was a great idea and one that makes the conclusion all the more satisfying. There will never be another Dredd story this good.
02. City of the Damned. By default really. It's an actual epic and to answer the question from earlier in thread: the eyes have it.
03. Block Judge seemed like Wagner and Ezquerra having a bit of fun mashing up The Pit and the Graveyard Shift. It's fun.
Runners and riders.
I know Body Count gets over the line on a technicality but Mechanismo isn't an epic and while it's an important building block in the aforementioned long form narrative I don't think any of the individual stories are that great apart from the first one.
Every Empire Falls. The seed of a good idea but not very well executed. To be fair, I've had a Carroll Dredd reread project on the backburner for a while. Maybe I need something to keep me indoors longer.
Dead Zone was a great three part story. One of the few to capitalise on the post Chaos Day potential with that gruesome body-mining premise. The three part follow-up, Invisible, was a bit of a flop. The Chronocops a concept that the writer had already realised wasn't going to work by the time he was halfway through the story. Really, really strong art though. Think it might be the first episode of the sequel which has an utterly stunning page of a mopad/Helltrek wagon/whatever driving through the ruins to the city gate. Beautifully bleak.
Al Ewing's Parker homage Served Cold was a cracking story and while I'm glad he got to give it a big finale I would've loved for it to be a longer running series and The Cop is the lesser part.
Trifecta was a great gimmick once.
Voting Closed
I mean it was a bit closer...
Propressing into the next round:
Tour of Duty - 56 points
City of the Damned - 29 points
Mechanismo - 28 points
Trifecta - 20 points
Going into the 28 - 21 position play off:
Every Empire Falls - 13 points
Dead Zone - 3 points
Block Judge - 2 points
Served Cold/The Cop - 1
Great to see Every Empire get so many votes, looking forward to re-reading this one soon. Interesting to see City of the Damned actually have a bit of a resurgence, but that's in the detail.
Now Round 9 - the last of these progressive rounds - I'll expalin how next week works later... I'd be AMAZED if this happened again - its going to be by far the most interesting round to date.
See you Monday... well actaully a bit later when I'll dig up an open thread to explain how the next bit works...
Quote from: Colin YNWA on 19 March, 2021, 05:27:15 PM
It gets a little convulted next week. Then we have a last 16 as traditional head to heads - stay tuned....
You sure a head to head is the right way to do this? If you have a draw, you run the risk of what would be the top two, if voted for, coming up against each other.
It is of course your shout but it make sense to keep things in groups until the last eight like you're doing, then have a vote for places 4-8 and 1-4?
Quote from: The Enigmatic Dr X on 20 March, 2021, 12:26:13 PM
Quote from: Colin YNWA on 19 March, 2021, 05:27:15 PM
It gets a little convulted next week. Then we have a last 16 as traditional head to heads - stay tuned....
You sure a head to head is the right way to do this? If you have a draw, you run the risk of what would be the top two, if voted for, coming up against each other.
The plan is. Round 9 is the final 'four in - four out'. Then we have a Round 10 BUT that is for seeding 16-9. We use AlexF's seeding for 1 - 8. There isn't a draw its based on seeds. So Seed 16 will meet Seed 1, Seed 15 will meet Seed 2 etc.
We will have 8 going to the next round with the other 8 going into a 'Play for positions 16 -9. That way I hope to avoid the problem you highlight AND make the end a little more fun and a closer examination of the Epics involved.
Quote from: Colin YNWA on 20 March, 2021, 12:46:12 PM
Quote from: The Enigmatic Dr X on 20 March, 2021, 12:26:13 PM
Quote from: Colin YNWA on 19 March, 2021, 05:27:15 PM
It gets a little convulted next week. Then we have a last 16 as traditional head to heads - stay tuned....
You sure a head to head is the right way to do this? If you have a draw, you run the risk of what would be the top two, if voted for, coming up against each other.
The plan is. Round 9 is the final 'four in - four out'. Then we have a Round 10 BUT that is for seeding 16-9. We use AlexF's seeding for 1 - 8. There isn't a draw its based on seeds. So Seed 16 will meet Seed 1, Seed 15 will meet Seed 2 etc.
We will have 8 going to the next round with the other 8 going into a 'Play for positions 16 -9. That way I hope to avoid the problem you highlight AND make the end a little more fun and a closer examination of the Epics involved.
Except those AlexF rankings are.... well, contested let's say.
1st - America
2nd - the dead man
3rd - origins
4th - block mania ' the apocalypse war
5th - day of chaos
6th - terror - total war
7th - mandroid
8th - Titan / encaldus
9th - machine law.
Only 3 of those made the readers top 10 after alexF concluded his list (block mania ' apocalypse war - day of chaos - dead man) so using them to rank a head to head seems very strange.
I mean obviously do it your way - just conversation not criticism! 😉
No its all good.
The main motivation is of course taking AlexF's list and using that as the basis for all this nonsense - well that and a bit of fun. So I've always wanted to respect AlexF's work as the source of all this and this seemed a nice way to do it and also draw closer examination and attention to the top 'Epics' when we got there.
So America vs no. 16 for example, whatever number 16 becomes, will be a very interesting discussion I suspect. America is regarded, in broad terms, as the best Dredd story. So throw in the word Epic and we have a good new discussion about topics and thrills often discussed.
I've been really careful to make sure this isn't seen as a definitive list - its more about the idea that any individual list is never going to work but damn AlexF's was so well presented and considered that it threw so much great conversation - this was a way to keep that going and get all our brain juices going about what makes a good Epic Dredd tale...
... oh and bloody well sort out AlexF's crazy ranking a bit at the same time!...
... I might have over thought this!
Not sure if this thread is the right place to bring it up, but in my defence part of my ranking system was about giving equal props to the art on any given story. And it's here that I think some of the heavy hitters fall down, Tour of Duty being a case in point. I mean, we can talk all day about the brilliance and importance of the story in tying up long, LONG running plot threads - but can anyone call to mind a single arresting panel/page/ sequence in the whole multi-year saga? Sinfield's face covered in buboes, possibly? Mayor Maybe looking annoyed a few times? That crazy Dragon creature from Cliff Robinson?
It's not Bolland gurning with Judge Cal's face or McMahon drawing Satanus jumping onto a tank, is it.
Quote from: AlexF on 22 March, 2021, 10:15:08 AM
... can anyone call to mind a single arresting panel/page/ sequence in the whole multi-year saga? Sinfield's face covered in buboes, possibly? Mayor Maybe looking annoyed a few times? That crazy Dragon creature from Cliff Robinson?
It's not Bolland gurning with Judge Cal's face or McMahon drawing Satanus jumping onto a tank, is it.
Totally get what you mean, but I think nostalgia plays a huge part here. For someone who read the classic epics for the first time only as the Case Files were released, they don't loom any larger in the mind than Tour of Duty, Total War etc.
I
can think of loads of pages and panels I liked from ToD - the twin Macneil splash pages where Dredd cracks heads on the beat for what he thinks is the last time; Inga bursting in on Maybe as dominatrix Hershey; the Judges fighting the giant trapdoor spider; the Ezquerra SJS 'Resevoir Dogs' panel. Maybe because it's in colour, I can actually call to mind more ready images than from the classic black-and-white epics!
Can't beat The Cursed Earth, The Day the Law Died, The Judge Child and Block Mania for memorable panels, as far as epics are concerned anyway.
Context is king. My youthful mind read, absorbed then re-read stuff like The Apocalypse War until the comics were falling apart. Tour of Duty got read once then bagged and boxed.
So, I can't say for certain whether Tour of Duty is intrinsically more memorable - I don't recall it as well, but that's no judgement on the art - it's to do with how I've consumed the material.
Solution: I should re-read ToD. (I don't need to re-read TAW - it's imprinted on my brain cells.)
Jimbo, I bow to your youth! I asked a question, and you skewered me with a clear and concise response! I've read ToD all of twice, but I'm already looking forward to another go around. I will say, for that whole year (and a bit more) of Prog reading, Dredd was absolutely essential, can't-wait-for-next-week stuff. I do think it was the beginning of the end for PJ, though, in terms of any new things Wagner could think of to do with him.
Tod duty does have that great panel gag where Dredd pokes an empty tin of dog food with his daystick, the food being actual dog.
Quote from: BPP on 23 March, 2021, 10:02:58 AM
Tod duty does have that great panel gag where Dredd pokes an empty tin of dog food with his daystick, the food being actual dog.
I forgot that classic bit where Vienna tells him he should consider a career in private security; followed by a wordless panel of Dredd spraying his tea across the room!
Quote from: AlexF on 23 March, 2021, 09:25:33 AM
Jimbo, I bow to your youth!
I'm barrelling ever closer towards 40, but - thanks all the same! :lol: