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PJ Primate

I nearly used this exact phrase. Definite similarity imo (but nicer, of course)

Bit late to the party on this one, but I've finished Spacewarp and I was impressed.

I've struggled with a lot of Pat Mills' recent Prog output but this all felt a lot fresher. Pat is one of the all time greats when it comes to ideas and this is bursting with them. Keeping all the stories tied to a central concept is ambitious and as some have said possibly limiting, but I'm impressed with the audacity of it.
Highlights for me were Jurassic Punx and Hellbreaker but I enjoyed the bulk of it.. SF1 I felt was the weak strip within - the latter has a great idea but the ensemble cast seemed lacking, that may just need time.

I'm not sure it achieves a lot of the goals it set when conceived - I can't see the mooted target teen market paying that much for a b&w comic, regardless of the quality - but I'm guessing that this was the only realistic option. Tbh I think for the younger market Regend does it better. But I'd definitely like to see more Spacewarp and I think teenage me would have loved it.

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.

Nostalgia is even better than it used to be.

I usually find showing these films to my wife is a good indicator of how rose tinted my view is. She watched Krull once but never again: she didn't even finish Ladyhawke. She liked Beastmaster though.

Another rubbish one that I like, because it's a bit self referential, is Deathstalker II.

"Deathstalker? Is that your first name or your last name?"

I've definitely not voted for some stuff because it didn't feel epic enough - and having looked back at Alex's list there's some good stories coming up but (assuming they stay in the running) I'm not sure I can see my votes changing until we get to The Pit.

It's an interesting exercise nonetheless!

[KRULL]

We're into some of my most beloved films here!

KRULL is a mainly bad film with some really cool bits. I really like the scifi / fantasy mashup The scene where the Slayers rise up out of the swamp is one of my favourites of all time, Ergo is brilliant and it's great for a game of 'spot the actor' (Tucker from Grange Hill!) but the film kind of drops off a cliff after they get into the fortress and the bit with the beast is terrible so it always kind of ends on a bum note when I watch it.

BEASTMASTER is also technically a dreadful film that's hugely enjoyable. The fight choreography is dreadful and the plot is stupid but the core concept is brilliant. The panther is a spray painted tiger and there's obviosuly multiple ferrets playing the two ferrets but this sort of ineptitude just adds to it's charm imo. I won't enthuse more about this yet.

HAWK THE SLAYER is the like the BBC home-made version of these films. On one level, absolutely laughable with it's synthy soundtrack and 'special effects' that include obvious swords on strings, silly string and coloured pingpong balls. It's a bit like a fantasy magnificent seven though and I really, really like it. It's got some really quotable dialogue. I suspect it's one of those films that's beloved if you saw it at the right time and awful otherwise, but it's just so great.

I've watched all three of these recently, but not THE SWORD AND THE SORCERER which I haven't seen since I was a teenager and I need to watch again. I think I often get it mixed up with Deathstalker, a horrible film that suffers from the absolute scourge of 80s sword and sorcery which is masses of rape scenes. A skim of Wikipedia tells me that's not the case, so i should get on it.

Oh that sucks.

[Dredd]

Lockdown ennui stopped me reviewing the last prog, but I'm catching up. Also my Prog arrived on Saturday! Wooo!
Lovely cover this week, simple and effective design.

Dredd - The little speech at the start about ideas.. are we building towards a Dredd / Chimpsky confrontation? I enjoy a Dredd where Dredd isn't the central character and I enjoy Chimpsky's more hopeful take on Dredd's world. That said, this is my least favourite Chimpsky outing to date - too much too soon, or just him being a little too good at everything? - so like a few others have said if Dredd doesn't kill him here then I'd prefer to see him move onto his own series. Lovely design on young Chimpsky btw.

NAKKA of the S.T.A.R.S. - Digging this 3riller. I appreciate the gentler pace and the 'Englishness' of it all. It's amusing without being too slapstick or cynical, great characters, cool designs, lovely art and colours. I think stuff like this has a real place in the prog and providing it sticks it's ending I'd like to see more of this.

Thistlebone - Moving at a glacial pace but enjoying this. Less creepy factor in this episode but the flashback nicely done with the art switch - this story is very welcome in my prog.

Proteus Vex - Superb conclusion to what has been an excellent run. Last week had all the action, this week has all the talking with a bit of a cliffhanger ending. Vex himself remains a bit of an enigma but that's not an issue - despite being mainly small scale shootouts, the series has a weighty feel with events seeming very significant because of the way they're framed in the context of a more realised universe. Art-wise I think Jake Lynch has more than stepped up. I really like this and I hope it's coming back.

Durham Red - Wraps up. I'm still not sold on 'regrettable-uncontrollable-bloodlust' Red - the concept works, but not the setup for me, because I can't understand why she'd put herself in situation where she can do such things unless she's a complete idiot. That said her actions at the end of this episode DO work in the context and things wrap up very nicely. On the flipside, not sure why the sherrif acted as he did because until she refuses his offer all I've mainly seen is a badass saving her own bacon, so he comes across as a bit of a bellend.
It might sound like I didn't like this, but I think this reboot is the best take on Durham Red since the original and overall it's been a great read. Full marks to Ben Willsher for his designs in this run which have been great and I loved floating brain lady. I hope this does come back, because for the first time I'd like to see what happens to the character next.

An old one that I'm sure we've all sen before, but one of my all time favourites.

It's a thumbs down from me for both Space Hunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone (looks great, is awful) and I suspect controversially also Galaxy Quest, which I tried this weekend and couldn't even get halfway through.

Blade II I could watch again and again however. All the best bits in Blade (original) are in the first 15minutes. Any Blade film following is dire. But Blade II hits the spot. It's a very comicbook movie imo - shallow, brash, exciting - the bit where the Bloodpack are introduced could be straight out of something like early X-Force.

I've used Heroforge in the past (for models for this very game, actually). If you 3D print and paint them yourself they're reasonably decent.
Last time I finished a campaign we just had a barbeque.

No change for me:

1. Tour of Duty
2. Trifecta
3. Mechanismo

Only Beyond the Call of Duty comes close to getting into the top three here but I wouldn't have said it was an epic, personally.

1. Wilderlands
2. Sin City
3. The Chief Judge's Man

I'm actually fast approaching the end of a 4 year campaign with my group. Assuming nothing goes wrong they'll beat the big baddie and then retire the characters, as they'll all be pretty high levelled by then.

It's weird to have played the last year or so of the game online rather than in person. It's the second longest campaign I've run that's had a definitive beginning and end, and I'd like to mark the end of the game in some way, but online (and I assume we'll still be online by then, anyway) is tricky. My best idea atm is getting some custom character art comissions done to remember the characters but I'd welcome any cool ideas.

That videos a prequel and yeah, it is a bit of a spoiler!