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Am I the first then?? Or just the first to get to the board?

Thought I wouldn't get to read this for a while cos of Easter and Oxford, but here it is!

Only scanned so far, but here's first thoughts:

Cover - Nice, though I'm not sure about Karyn's hair on it... Oh well, nice pose, and the hair does add a hint of colour at least. Stands out, though the logo is SLIGHTLY obscured. Can live with it though, it's still mostly visible.

Droid Life - Genius. P14 got a Future Shock commisioned..... Woo!

Ok, this may contain SOME

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Dredd - Very nice indeed. Violent battle, much damage done (Ocks goes down, several injuries) and the art is absolutely fantastic. It's nice to see KAryn making use of herself in such a destructive way. I was a bit worried she's just sit aside and pout while posing seductively if they got into a fight like this, but nope. She holds her own. Thinking, however, that even once they've got out, they're in a lot of trouble... I mean, it looks like an invasion from the Sov perspective doesn't it?

Sin/Dex - Very nice. I've been enjoying this run, and this story is just as good. The end was the best part (I liked the battle in the middle) but I had a problem with one line: 'Making the world an asshole free place, nine millimetres at a time...'
Haven't we already established that they don't just kill assholes? They kill whoever they're PAID to kill. Hm, careful there Dan...

Rogue Trooper - Very nice, very nice. I'm assuming this feeds into the old stories somehow, but I got most of it. It seemed very... .complete. And it was certainly enjoyable. Art was just... .Mwah!

Bec and Kawl - Nice, different stuff. Makes me giggle occasionally. Can't complain really.

Durham Red - Almost over now. I liked it (thought her going into Strontium Dog mode was pretty nice) and I'm looking forward toi the final conclusion, just to watch it all get destroyed...

Nerve Centre - More Chopper details here, sounds good! And a mention of that BBC Cult 'Vampires' thingy.

Input - Noticed that it revels that Robo-Hunter is back in prog 1406! From Grant and Gibson again. Huzzah! Unless it isn't your thing...
Oh, and is that a letter from Dudley I spy? Why yes, it might just be!

That's funny, she seems to have lost her helmet...

Another okay prog. Cover's a bit bland but at least it represents an image from inside instead of a stock pose thing.

Dredd - battle action, fun. Conclusion looming, interesting.

Sin Dex - finale of new style stories ends run on good note. Loose end - stolen disc.

Rogue Trooper - oddly quiet ending. Expecting big battle, gun fight. Expectations subverted.

Bec and Kawl - Enjoying it, but I always do. Don't think it'll convert doubters.

Durham Red - bring on the grand finale please. 'Last ever' next week according to Tharg.

Cover: Could have been a bit more dynamic, but it's a nice group pose.

Dredd: Enjoying this more action-filled Dredd, although I'm not keen on some of the dialogue. Still, a prog highlight.

Sin/Dex: A solid conclusion to an OK tale from the gunsharks. The introduction of Kal Cutter has livened things up a little, and the return of Andy Clarke to art duties has given that side of the strip a boost. It's filler, but a step above Dan Abnett's run on The VCs and Durham Red.

Rogue Trooper: Although the art hasn't hit the peaks it did in the first two episodes, it's still the best thing about this - apparently final - Rogue tale. It does seem to have been an oddly pointless return to this character, despite Gordon Rennie's best efforts - part of the problem with writing stories about a character that, by the guidelines in which the strip has been set, cannot actually do anything significant to the character or his world.

If Tharg wants to bring back Rogue, I'd advise him to follow John Wagner's example with Strontium Dog: a one-off story once or twice a year, set in original Rogue continuity. The longer runs, along with the attempt to give Rogue new ongoing "quests" aren't doing the character any favours.

Bec and Kawl: DXB's right - this isn't converting doubters. There's nothing in it for people who don't already like it, but I'm sure there's plenty for those that do. Don't like the art, don't like the humour.

Durham Red: "Last ever"? Hopefully, as this is WELL past sell-by. The art is slightly better than last week, but it's still looking scrappy & rushed, and well below what Mark Harrison is capable of.

Overall, this wasn't a great prog, but it hasn't been a great run of stories. I'm looking forward to the new clutch of thrills, but I hope we can move away from the Assault format soon, and into something that can bring a bit more balance to the prog, rather than just rebooting the lineup every couple of months.

what i only just got my meg today and u have the next prog?? Whaaaaa?

Heh - I reckon it's something to do with the Easter weekend. Either Rebellion sent the progs early, or the Post Office have been speedy delivering them.

That's a Saturday delivery two weeks running! Good work posties!

Droid Life - best Future Shock possibly ever (not counting Past Imperfects, Arthur).  A call again to Tharg to relent from his MUST BE FIVE PAGES rule - sometimes less is more.

Dredd, lovely stuff, and a real l-o-l moment with Guthrie's 'why I signed up' line.

SinDex - good ending to a good run.
Rogue - likewise, but I'd add the word 'very' a couple of times to that.

B&K really enjoying this, fun.

Durham Red - getting better, felt like more happened this episode then in the previous three together. Really liked her characterisation this prog, bringing her back to her S/D roots.
Next week: Last EVER Durham Red story, eh Tharg? Looking forward to it (in a +ve way).

Also, big-up to Dudley for his input.

O can I also just say that my back-prog reading has brought me up to the prog (#1287) that was out the week I first joined 2000ADonline.com? Nostalgia-tastic!

And the Dexter 9mm line this week - yeah it was very out-of-place and not-true, but it sounded cool. I reckon that these gunsharks really believe they're doing good, even if *we* know they're emotionless sociopathic serial killing mercenaries.

There probably isn't that great a market for for Hitmen who AREN'T  emotionless sociopathic serial killing mercenaries. Unless its a John Woo film and turning nice can be brought in as a bit of character developmenet miodway through (ooh! a crying child! I bet kill my gangster mates instead now) then pretending otherwise strikes a bit of a false note. And you can only really do that John Woo thing ONCE. Doing it multiple times throughout an ongoing series would just be crap.

That was kind of the problem I always had with Hitman too, despite it being otherwise great.

woo HOO !  got mine earlye too;

droid life great.

Dredd, great, twists , turns & explosions and lots of getting involved with the action.. er... that is i was going "wooo ", "oh shit !" etc through it, whereas with

Rogue, i was like, um... eh?... why? nice art tho.

durham, lovely space, scribbley people, good plot.. bit intreiged that the mind bogglingly powerful offspring is suddenly less of a threat than the cranky wifey tho.

BEC & Kawl, well Si, is still my hero og the week for the spurrious pseudo mention of the other queen Bou, so he can do no wrong... and it makes me giggle.

sin dex ? great art, but puleeeeeeeeeese with the 9mm thing? will they make their minds up? are they cold killers or heros or what?

input; hurrah to dudley ! tho i disagree total & must have a scrap about it....

I won't get my copy until Thursday when I go back to work, so please could someone email me the progs credit details so I can upload the prog to the database. I already have the cover image.

Cheers,

Wake

I think the cover is top notch, quite different for Dredd.

Can anyone spot the mistake on the front cover that DOESN'T appear on the version shown on this thread? (either that or it's only on my copy ...)

Yep - the word "and" printed on Dredd's belt. I'm guessing it was left in when the design droids were setting out the front page. Someone probably decided to try an ampersand instead of text for the tagline, pulled the word out of the way & forgot to delete it before it went to printing.

Give it a week & you'll see a copy on eBay along with a special "staple-free" copy of 1363 ;-)

dammit, there was me thinking I was reeeeally observant ...

Yay!  Go me!




(What did I say?  Can't remember.  Probably something cool, though.  Yes, definitely something cool.)

hey duds, have a good holiday ?


my prog is the same as cover above, no mistakes no 'and'...

I loved the cover and Gulag is increasingly violent and exciting. Good stuff!

Droidlife's great, and my other highlight this week is Tharg's revelation that next week's will be "the last-ever episode of Durham Red."
Hopefully that doesn't mean we'll have the same thing in another guise.

Otherwise, B&K and Rogue Trooper were reasonable stuff, and SinDex was a half-decent ending.

Overall, a ho-hum prog dragged up to proper thrill power levels by the Dredd, which, yet again, is The Best Thing In The Prog, IMO.

- Trout

Longy/Blackblood - could either of you scan your freaky AND prog for the rest of us to see?

"my other highlight this week is Tharg's revelation that next week's will be "the last-ever episode of Durham Red." "

YES!!!

well, so-so prog.

Doid-Life: best Future shock in ages *g

Dredd: nice battle. confess I groaned a little bit at the savior from the sky bit. Rico is there. Or isn?t he? we?ll see.

Sin/Dex: I too am tired of the gunsharks, but the art was great. Liked the last remark though

Rogue: Okay, he had to get free, but I don?t buy this "favour" thing one minute. Put a bullet in him and be rid of him. Would save the life of hundreds of your men, Arkhan :-)

B&K: sorry, hate it. This is unfunny and contrived.

Durham: have to re-read it. Don?t get it. What did what?s her name think Durham would do with the Offspring? Sacrifive thousands of soldieres and your ships just to have a nice chat with him?

No scanner, I'm afraid. It's not really that exciting, but if you want I can try and get to the library to scan my copy in...

Yeah!!! I've got a dogy one:

Limited Edition collectors Items!
Limited Edition collectors Items!
Get yore Limited Edition collectors Items here!
Get 'em while they're dodgy!

Dredd:  Am I the only person not particularly convinced by this story...? Dredd does a lot of tough guy posturing, and he's really just making things worse for MC1 isnt he?  Trespassings one thing, wiping out hundreds of Sovs is another... Presumably Hershey will fire him when he gets back (or are we in Lost in Space/Dr Smith territory, where Hershey will cut his cake ration and tell him not to do it again).  

Anyone else think that the version of Dredd they keep in their head would have surrendered and took the consequences?  Dredds generic tough guy stuff probably isnt helped by everyone else trying to out tough each other - Ocks "I'm hard me", Guthrie "I'm hard too" etc, etc.  The weirdiest example of this is an unlikely Med Judge spending her time in an unlikely fashion making up unlikely exploding blood gadgets (presumably before perfecting the toaster that works on contact with elastoplasts, and the car that runs off the contents of bed pans).  Lots of bang bang shooty to e sure, but all a bit "Dreddless".

sin Dex.  If Abnett hadnt spent 100 of pages showing us that Dexter had some scruples and wrestled with his conscience, this might work.  If we hadnt been sold a hundred different cod philosophies, all of which were contradicted in the next run of stories, this might work.  As it is, theres no tension in Sin Dex, as the rules will almost certainly change with their next outing.  A shame, as the idea of self deluding hit men has a lot of potential either way, but its a strip that has cried wolf once too often for me.

Rogue:  Well, I was enjoying it (despite more "tough guy" dialogue from the Renster), until I was told that this was the last one, and it stops once again in an awkward non-end - poor old Rogue - destined to be fudged and forgotten rather than nurtured... what was the pint of it if you havent got the courage to see it through properly.. more thought from editorial before these relaunches might not be a bad thing (Robo Hunter strikes me as another potential fizzler outer due to lack of planning before the revive button was pressed)

Bec N Kawl - more Random, less of this would be preferable to this reader - I like my humour to flow naturally from the story, rather than gags - while some of the gags work, some are more than a little forced, or just plain go over my head

Red: cant end soon enough.

on the plus side, droid life was fun

I've recently read the first two Bec & Kawl stories - they're *really* good, very enjoyable. More B&K I say. I'd like to see more of them at college though - or have they left college now that Si's graduated? ;)

Having checked my prog, I do have the special AND belt version! Never noticed it first time, until you lot pointed it out.  Freaky!

i realise the next prog is already being reviewed, but what the hell.

Like the Watcher, I don't like this Dredd story much, and was very supprised to see that everyone on the net seemed to like it. Dredd seemed completely out of character, especially in the first part. If Dredd disagrees with other Judges, he usually reasons with them logicaly. he dosent just go into a strop and say "im Dredd, so im right, so there!"
the same applied to Rico, though it has been sugested that this could be showing some inherent flaw in him that we are yet to see. sadly, it just seemed that neither of the Dredds were staying true to character. so far, this story doesn't seem to have amounted to anything. usually when the Sovs turn up, they provide a damn good story (the first pages of the first epesode filled me with such hopes) but here they just feel like a random enemy with scenes straight out of any of the standard "dredd leads group against badguys" mega epic.

this most recent Rouge story disapointed me, up until this last part, which somehow made the entire story a bit better. Ive enjoyed all the new Rouge arc, but how come we didn't get to see more of that venus bluegenes look alike we saw a few christmasses back?

Bec and Kawl i usually love, but with this one i just didnt get the joke. or rather i did, it just wasnt funny. come to think of it, the only other Bec and Kawl story i didn't like was the first one with the weed plant guy in. hmm, a conection possibly?

Im new to Durham Red, having only started following her adventures with the Death Prog. only really started to like her by the end of the vermin stars, at which point she died. oh well i thought, never mind. then came her appearences in the megazine, whcih made me happy to see her return for the new story. book one was great. book 2 lacks something. i think the problem is that the god like badguy thing has been done so many times before (im thinking Kid Marvelman and Jaspers from Captain Britain as well as others) and this story hasn't really shown us enough of the Offspring for us to see how cool and evil and he is. (yes, hes wiped out humanity, but we've all wanted to do that at some point, so it doesn't count)

sin dex have been good recently, but its been as though they have been trying to hold the entire comic together, and though they're good, they arnt that good.

perhaps the main problem is that last year was so rich in thrills, that this recent slip back to the averageness of the pre rebellion era is a little disapointing, especially as the storyies before this crop were damned good (especially the Dredds)  

i had the 'and' too