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Had been quite enjoying Paul Cornells XTINT up until the recent meg. But this months bitter little bile load really nipped my arse. Cornwell clearly thinks everyones in on the joke. Frankly I just found it distastful.

Not-Us. Some kind of riff on No Logo right? That would be the best selling book which finally brough home how western corporate ethics allow children to work shifts in sweat shops making factories. The anti-globalisers and...I quote..how "their kind killed the world when only the global approach would have saved it."  Yep, there was definitely more "excrement than usual" but it wasn't just the forced dialogue.
 
Id advise cornell to get a fecking clue. As if. Hes probably to busy watching pop idol and pulling the little head off over his hero George Dubbya Bush.

Message Ends.
 

"When you're writing books like The Ultimates, Ultimate X-Men and so on, it's easy to play it safe and just write top five titles all the time, but I think that's slightly immoral when you've come from the small press scene and worked your way up through smaller publishers. What I'm trying to do with the Millarworld line is balance my career in the same way George Clooney did by balancing Ocean's Eleven with his own projects like Confessions of the Dangerous Mind."

"Mark Millar = george clooney. Jeez! The guy thinks he should be running marvel.
MARK MILLAR has lectured and acted as a consultant on a wide variety of interests including the Scottish Education Board and a national chain of restaurants where he is creating a number of new characters for promotional purposes. He is also available to act as a consultant for comic-book publishers, providing new ideas, line restructuring and advice regarding possible creative changes. To arrange an appointment or ask for a quotation, please click on the link below"

Clearly not a man hampered by the fact that his writing is a bit shite.

President Bush advises that the US public prepare them selves for an extended conflict with civilian casualties.

So they're buying extra potato chips and 2 litre bottles of Pepsi to watch it on the telly.

*uck 'em.

They say that history is written by the victor.
This is never more true than in the media age.
2 minute soundbytes , populist reporting, corporate self censorship, editorial agendas and barefaced propoganda mean that the full truths are often hard to find.

Check out the following reports for a glaring example.

http://www.buzzflash.com/analysis/03/02/02_Blix.html
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/020203B.blx.nothing.htm

This has to bring the reliability and morality of the main stream news industry into doubt.

Hey. Just read a ranting review of the Sci-Fi film 'The Core' by some fanboy. Then I read an online response by the films writer which although an equally mad rant is quite lucid and frankly hilarious. Check it out on the links below -

http://www.aintitcoolnews.com/display.cgi?id=14273
http://www.aintitcoolnews.com/display.cgi?id=14288

Its funny stuff.

Some one made the point that the recent short contained stories within 2000AD are a refreshing change from series and characters constantly dragged out for yet another adventure.

I agree. The best thing about The Scrap was that it had a definite beginning, middle and end.
The characters and settings were drastically effected by unfolding events, and were much more entertaining because of it.

One of the best current series in 2000AD is Nikoli Dante. The overreaching plot has been mapped out. Again his world and character have been significantly effected by events. While there are a lot of filler episodes, the story is going somewhere definite. In this case, when it finally does end, we will have to  accept that it is over, and that we enjoyed the ride. This would be preferable to trying to bring him back in an all new direction, or re-imagining the concept.

In any event, how about some more mini/maxi series. Insisting that series come to a natural end will free up writer creativity.

Which judging by the recent input page he is.
The editor has already bought and paid for additional series ,presumably being prepared by the artist right now.

Thats probably why "tharg" is insisting the retro style tales were a success despite the numerous protests of readers in the letters page.

Personally I'll reserve judgement until I read the next Rogue and Strontium Dog strips, in the hope that they will provide something new and interesting rather than old school rewrites.

The biggest criticism that anyone had of Men In Black 2 was that it a lazy reworking of the original, and brought nothing new to the series.  

What about reprinting the strontium dog story 'the final solution' in which Johhny kicks the bucket.

No more reprints of relatively recent things like Preacher or Hellboy. Most comic fans will probably have the originals or collected editions.

How about original stuff from Toxic or Crisis? Both shortlived comic serials put together by creators familiar to 2000AD readers.

At first I was mildly intrigued with the megazine Durham Red tales, Jumping as they did through random times and places. I assumed that Dan Abnett was hinting at the fate of Red following the apocalyptic ending of her last 2000AD story. But last months Manga Style take was so obviously out of whack with any kind of established continuity its become apparent that the whole things some kind of Elseworld's type affair. Which In my book makes it pointless "Sindex" style filler material. Even worse its a multi-parter.


 

Mark Millar has turned into a comic book golden boy in the states. I have to say, I read the first Ultimates collected edition and reckoned it was worth it just for the lines "Hulk Horny" and "Hulk smash you Freddie Prince Junior." I kid you not. But does anyone remember just how danged ropey his stories were while cutting his teeth in 2000AD.

One of the good things about Mr Diggle & Mr Bishop was how they always took an interest and responded to readers queries/concerns. They still make the odd contribution.

Anyone know If Matt Smith & Alan Barnes contribute here?

I just can't understand the suggestion that the new Rogue Trooper has become too mired in continuity to carry on. It?s all in fact fairly straight forward.  

To summarise -

There was the original rogue and his bio-chipped buddies Gunnar, Helm and Bagman. He was an archetypal bare chested bullet proof hero out for revenge who shot stuff up in the war between the 'Norts' and 'Southers' for a long time before finally killing the Traitor general that got all his buddies killed.

An abortive attempt was made to rejuvenate the character during the brief ?Hit? series, but without even his simplistic motivation for revenge Rogue floundered and the storyline was brought to a rapid halt in a one off adventure that concluded with Rogue's bio-chips being re-gened as  blue babies with tiny mohawks.  

Then along came Friday, an attempt to reboot the character with modern sensibilities and minus the stupid punk haircut. Friday quickly discovered his clone brothers were massacred in a 'popstars' style manufactured war engineered as a testing ground for the GI production line. By the end of the introductory story Friday had already killed his own 'Traitor general' the owner of the corporation that created him and sacrificed his 'brothers' in the name of profit.  

A far cry from the bare chested killing machine of yesteryear this GI truly was a 'Rogue' trooper. Through a one off flaw in the cloning process Friday was accidentally given one thing his predecessor lacked - Emotions, and so finding himself with a conscience required better justification than simply being "born to kill" to get involved in the skirmishes that were the legacy of his creator?s manipulations. Often times he fought to protect those left behind on the battle scarred planet. Initially fighting alone, Friday was eventually reunited with Bio-Chipped versions of his long dead brothers in an admittedly contrived storyline.  

At the time few chimp brained readers seemed incapable of grasping the fact that the new and old rogue troopers were two entirely different people. So a decision was made to reunite the main characters of both series in a story arc intended to deal with inane enquiries like "Why is Helm now called Top?" once and for all.  

In short order Friday found him self face to face with the original Rogue and the re-gened bio-chips now all grown up. Rogue and Co found that the re-cloning came at a price, a deteriorative effect that would eventually kill them. They were forced to work as mercenaries for a shadowy corporation that might be able help them. Turns out Rogue was one of the first clunky trial models off the GI production line (explaining why Rogue has no personality to speak of) and that Friday is a much slinkier version 2.0. The reason they've tracked Friday down is that he holds the advanced genetic coding that can cure them. However, the assembled GI's find out that the corporations are fighting over an orbital storage facility containing millions of Bio-chipped souls, the winner getting to exploit the bio-chips as digital slaves. They all find the idea reprehensible and so elect to take a brave stand against the corporation to prevent it happening, sacrificing the potential cure in the process. In the ensuing battle Rogue, Bagman and Helm and Gunnar Die bravely. All except Gunnar made it clear that they would rather stay dead than be returned as Bio-chipped ghosts.

A weary Friday returns to the planet surface with Gunnar newly added to in his armoury. Having lost so many friends Friday goes a bit barmy and it is only with the arrival of a new enemy that he finds a new reason to live and fight once again. The planet is attacked en-mass by an invasion force of murderous religious fanatics. Friday has to fight all out alongside the now united Nort and Souther forces to help the planets innocent civilians. He manages to save many of them, but does so at huge personal cost, losing one of his own bio-chipped buddies (the annoying Eight-Ball) and almost losing his own sanity in the process.

At the end of the story-arc Friday has discovered that the invaders are the puppets of alien creatures mistakenly believed to be gods. Instead of bringing unbelievers to salvation the invaders are instead bringing prisoners to be used as living raw material for a massive biomechanical machine.  A scarred and beaten Friday manages to escape, but knows that he must soon return to battle this monumental threat.

And that?s how the story ended. I?m sorry, but that was some damned imaginative and intelligent storytelling. I for one don't want misplaced nostalgia to cause me to sit through another hundred episodes of the original cardboard cut out Rogue shooting stuff up in retrospective stories that can by default go nowhere new.

The continuity isn't that hard for anyone with half a brain to understand. Besides, there's no real need to get into it. We can enjoy a Judge Dredd story without having to reiterate the entire history of Mega City every week. Why not Rogue trooper.

All we need to know about Friday is this -
He?s a former Genetic Infantryman. He?s accompanied by Bio-Chipped weapons (0ne of them happens to be Gunnar -big deal!) and a female GI. He?s up against a new alien enemy (of which we know next to nothing) and the human forces they control.

I dearly hope the editors give Friday another chance. In return they would find themselves with great potential for some epic tales of future war without having to retread the same old ground to the same extent as shown in recent weeks.

If it?s a more back to basics hero the editor wants, the monumental scale of the new and interesting threat that?s been set up should be more than enough to forge the occasionally introspective Friday into the battle hardened protagonist they seem to crave.