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I believe c.1992 GM said he liked the idea of revisiting Zenith in a couple of decades time and doing him as an obese washed-up Elvis-like character.

Which never persuaded me because tbh Zenith is the least interesting in 'Zenith' by a country mile.

Or did he?

We see the main overarching story principles from the very start - the Lloigor are putting the pieces of their plan in place to invade our multiverse from WWII onwards, through the creation of the first superhumans (who would themselves eventually become the Lloigor, as they exist at all points in time) but they can only do so by possessing people. The old switcheroo with Chimera comes before their incubation, presumably around the time Ruby thinks she has destroyed Chimera, so the Horus Foundation become Lloigor and ascend to their final transdimensional form within Chimera. It is from within Chimera, presumably existing at all points in time simultaneously but in parallel and separate from the main multiverse, that they launch their plan to invade out multiverse from WWII onwards, through the creation of the first superhumans (who would themselves eventually become the Lloigor, as they exist at all points in time).

So you have two overlapping and interlocking set of paradoxes based on what is essentially predestination - the Lloigor will always win and ascend, but they will also always lose and be trapped in Chimera (because they are always trapped in Chimera for eternity once they ascend). It is one of the various ways the Zenith is fractal and self-repeating in nature.

This implies a recursive structure (and possibly also a cosmic determinism) that I don't think is in evidence in the strip proper. It's an explanation, but possibly not one that Morrison had in mind, not least because he seems to have certain set ideas about nested and transcendent realities that don't do anything like this.

Also, there's the problem that it takes just one pseudo-Peter St John (or, more likely, one pseudo-Zenith) to mess up with their pseudo-Chimera and the whole thing falls apart.

I was looking for something else (whether Morrison invented Iok Sotot as he apparently did the with many Angled Ones)

"Iok Sotot" = "Yog Sothoth", so therefore nicked from the Cthulhu Mythos of H.P. Lovecraft. Though the name 'Lloigor' is from (I think) Colin Wilson rather than Lovecraft directly.

I've just read 'The Complete Ro-Busters', which I've been a bit wary of getting before because the series seems to have a reputation for being a bit juvenile. So I was pleasantly surprised to find how good it is, at its best a delight, at its worst still delirious fun.

Admittedly the plots are a bit routine, but you read for the characters and the detail rather than for the stories. Hammerstein, Howard Quartz and MekQuake are all marvellous comic creations, and Ro-Jaws even more so. He's the imp in Pat Mills, the voice that you know is shouting "Knickers!" in the background of the most po-faced Slaine. He - and the strip in general - seem to arrive fully-formed from the first episode. Dredd, Robo-Hunter and Strontium Dog all take time to find their groove, so this might be the first 'classic' Tooth/Starlord strip that's classic from the very start.

I prefer it to 'The ABC Warriors', especially as pompous blimpish Hammerstein is much more fun than the surly "war is heck" Hammerstein from the original ABC run. Weirdly the standout weak links are the fill-ins by Alan Moore - not the magnificent 'Old Red Eyes Is Back' but 'Bax the Burner' suffers from the kind of ploddy hard-boiled prose he was over-writing at this point in his career, and 'Stormeagles Are Go!' is a brilliant premise that struggles to find a story to go with it.

Plus, is 'The Terra-Meks' the last ever sighting of a wholly sympathetic Christian character in a Pat Mills strip? We need to be told!

IIRC, the Dredd story in Prog 8 was scripted to have the villains gazing in awe at Dredd's unmasked visage with dialogue along the lines of "truly this is the face of justice". But then... well, I'm sure we can all acknowledge that Belardinelli was a great artist with some unfortunate weak areas... and so the censored sign was added along with new dialogue along the lines of "aaargh! kill it! kill it!" which is somehow so much in the spirit of the Dredd strip we've since come to know and love.

Dredd and Walter?

Nah, Walter's clearly far too infatuwated with Joe to be getting any. Though clearly there was a love that dared not speak its name in play in the early Dredd domestic setup. Mean and Fink Angel were onto something when they saw through that whole "housekeeper" front.

First Maria, then DeMarco, what is it with Joe and "nominally Italian" chicks?

and fun with 2000AD's first gay couple, the bodylooters, Bland and Brass.

Still in denial about Johnny and Wulf?

Rogue Trooper has its moments and its fans. Try it, but if your initial reaction is "this is a bit meh" then the chances are it will never click with you. Caveat emptor: make sure your first taste isn't 'Cinnabar' (which is the Rogue Trooper story for people who don't like Rogue Trooper, but wildly unrepresentative of what the series is like as a whole) or anything involving Friday (as it may compel you to burn your entire Tooth collection out of shame).

I always wondered how the Justice Department handled Judges with the same surname. They don't seem to have put much thought into it, as it takes over 50 years before anyone points out that having two identical Judges both called "Dredd" might get a bit confusing.

Also, do they still employ the Badge-Maker?

I know the Necropolis saga is a Dredd classic but £200 for Case files 14!

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Judge-Dredd-Complete-Case-Files-14-John-Wagner-/130379698457?pt=Fiction&hash=item1e5b3c5119

I've been assuming they put the decimal point in the wrong place and no one's had the heart to tell them.

I'm bewildered by people who try to ebay books that are readily available and cheaper on Amazon. Dudettes, you may get lucky with a bidding war, but at least make sure your starter price is competitive!

I admire the chutzpah of anyone who thinks they can flog 'Necropolis' to a passing lunatic at 20 times the Amazon asking price, but at least make sure you put it up on a free listing day.

I never had a problem with Dredd taking off his helmet. What bothered me was how quickly he loses the entire Judge's uniform. He spends most of the second half of the film running round in Generic Action Hero clothes.

I can pinpoint the exact moment that the movie stops being a worthwhile attempt at Dredd; it's when Fergee is told that he's being taken to a place called (something like) Paradise Towers. Sod that. If this was proper Dredd it'd be 'Pamela Anderson Block'.

The question must also be asked: why base a film on the Judge Cal arc and then not actually have Judge Cal in it? Why, in fact, base it around Judge Cal but only around the first three 'prologue' episodes? (I can see the suggestion about a bit of it coming from Oz, which makes me imagine a much better film where Cal is the villain, he's been cloning up Judda in secret [as a back-up force in place of Kleggs], and Movie Dredd gets to wrestle with the question of whether the Law he's devoted to might actually have a totalitarian downside in the space of 90 cinema-friendly minutes.)

But it has Ian Dury in it, and while it doesn't give anything interesting to say or do, and little time to say or do it in, there is something quintessentially right about having Dury in a Tooth-based film.

"Aaah! How come YOU ain't got the Rad-Fleas, Judge Dredd?"

"I got 'em, I just ain't scratching."

Classic Dredd.

I think it says great deal about Dredd's (and Tooth's) worldview that one of the classic "Judge Dredd is the hardest bastard you'll ever meet" lines is from a story about ultra-itchy fleas.

Weird coincidence that - Prog 266 was the first time I'd "got" Dredd in a regular Prog. I'd seen two issues of Tooth before that: 207 and 214, but Judge Dredd just confused me. They were just about ugly people and no kind of judge that I recognised.

But I think I would have had the 1982 Sci-Fi Special first, making 'The Tower of Babbil' my first "proper" Dredd strip.

I'm fairly sure that 'Bathing with the Corpses of Enemy Combatants You've Just Killed' is outlawed by the Geneva Convention.

There's a brief bit about the terraforming of the Radlands of Ji in a recent-ish Shimura story.