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While going through some old 2000ads lately I was literally floored by how much shit the Chinese get - it's in Stront, Dredd, Dante... there's even "next prog" boxes that get the boot in.

It's a little bit too prevalent to ignore.

Are Simon Harrison and Alan Grant going to get a chance to reclaim Feral?

They'll probably just let it go and move on.

Just like John and Carlos, right?

I'm not mad about this, just interested. And otherwise deadly bored until the end of the month.

Regarding the idea that work for hire creators have the right to "reclaim" a character:

They don't. Well, in this case they can, but they have an editorial mandate to do so. But Stan Lee doesn't get to reclaim the X-Men any time he likes (nor does Chris Claremont who defined the second wave of the team, even if he didn't create them). Well, Chris Claremont has, kind of, but it has impressed nobody much (the book I'm talking about is X-Men Forever which is alternate continuity, just like Life and Death). Characters grow beyond their creators in a work for hire universe and Grant, Ennis, Dobyn, Hogan, Harrison, Harrison and Abnett all took their shot at the character and the universe around him (and I suppose David Bishop buggered up the last story in that timeline too). It grew beyond the initial remit, the universe gained a rare sense of loss that made Alpha about three million times more interesting dead than he ever was alive (King Arthur does not resonate across myth and history because he's still running around doing people in with Excalibur). 2000ad used to be a magazine of rare storytelling integrity - you kill the character, the character's dead. It's what made me interested in it as a kid, and realising that US comics didn't play by the same rules was gutting.

Are Simon Harrison and Alan Grant going to get a chance to reclaim Feral?

Touche.

The mutant Fargos aren't quite the same though, nor was bringing back Chief Fargo...

And I again say that I would have expected better of Mr Wagner, who could have done a more epic and interesting reboot than a 3 breasted woman and drunk lumpy man wonder about a bit, find bloke no one likes, who dies in a hideous manner, much to every ones satisfaction and its OK because the main guy is not really dead.

I'd be more inclined to agree with you if this was the story I'd actually read.

What did you think of, say Origins, for example? Or was that 'Old guy sits at campfire and talks about when he were a nipper then meets some of his cousins'?

If Origins had solely consisted of Dredd going around the Cursed Earth a bit without much happening followed by a trip to the planet of people with no bums! (it's a hilarious joke! ha ha!) to watch Janus: PSI get broiled alive then sold as fucking pies before going to another weird planet and digging up the original Judge Giant (who was in a magic space judge coma all this time) you might have the point. It wasn't. It was an actual story.

It's a comic.

This is a message board to discuss that comic. People do it all over the internet. Funny thing, that.

Why I think it's fanfiction, in case you're interested:

1) It's wish fulfilment - the character we like gets lionised, the character we don't like gets a series of increasingly non-sequiter punishments designed to degrade him.

2) Threetits Nopersonality is a typical "Mary Sue" figure - new character, gets to talk down to the old character, good looking, respected and successful. Precious is a character with no faults which is very dull and very very fanfictiony.

3) Feral's character assassination ticks all the boxes - doesn't actually act like the character in question, is captured and subjected to a weird force-feeding thing which is unexpectedly fetishy and then mutilated and burnt alive in grotesque detail. This happens in fanfiction rather more than I think anyone would ever like. It's not a natural, logical or thematically appropriate death, bolted into the story with a weird dream logic.

4) There's absolutely no connective tissue between this story and the one it follows on from - it's published in the tenth year of a fairly inconsequential reboot/revival which was begun ten years after the death of the character. Nothing in the Final Solution is addressed beyond the death of the main character and a new Doghouse (which is as far from iconic as can be). Alpha had an ending - a bit off-beat and maybe not drawn to some people's tastes - but it was a definite and genuinely iconic ending. You can't really get past that unless you disavow it (which has been done before, by things like Battle Angel or Evangelion). Since it's a story that comes past the ending, it feels like fanfiction.

I think Alan Grant was probably a more important element in S/D than Wagner, even if the reverse is horribly, horribly true for Dredd...

tearful words

1) I'm free to self-identify as a SD fan on whatever basis I want to, just like I'm a Wolverine fan even though I wouldn't read some Wolverine stories or even touch them with a shitty stick and

2) I'm not going to "report you" since we are not five and this is not a classroom, OK?

The Mega History calls 2000AD "a spent force", which - 15 years on - was clearly a bit premature. Reading between the lines I think it's referring to market research from this period that indicated that Tooth would cease to be profitable before 2000, which may also have been a bit wide of the mark (as Egmont clearly kept it going beyond that date before the Rebellion deal was in place).

In terms of the context, it implied that the weekly would stop attracting new readers to any new degree. The remainder of the chapter is about new 2000ad projects - the DC stuff, LotF, the movie.

Pretty much any comic largely survives by trying to keep the existing fanbase happy and buying these days.

There is some where a thread where I did a similar thing to Rogue Trooper "Rouge Trooper" which caused some amusement I believe.

I did that too! I'm not dyslexic, I'm just awful at spelling though.

Did you know some of the weirder 2000ad slang words were from Gerry Finley Day scripts?

Shit, I just realised he was dyslexic and now feel like a complete wanker for bringing that up again... the guy who coined that one should feel proud though, it's amazing!

Would you like to join my fan club, brendan1?

I bet you any money I could make Pat Mills explode himself to death.

I wonder, would james prefer Hogan/ Ennis was still knocking out Feral-led SD stories rather than Wagner?

I'd have chosen the third option - creative team change. Ennis was good but seems to have low self esteem when it comes to 2000ad, Hogan... was not terrible but he was a regressive writer. Imagine a world in which the reins had been turned over to Henry Flint and like, uhm, Robbie Morrison?

The new stories are mostly competent at best. I did like the pilot brain and the singing aliens.

You should probably count to ten, brendan1. I'm no threat to your Wanger shrine.

Yeah, but Pat Mills wouldn't have been able to cower me...