The nastiest, goriest, most horribile EVER aka Ban this sick filth

[Greg M.]

To be fair to him, that was kind of the point of the Summer Offensive where Maniac 5 started.

The more distance I get from Millar's 2000AD work, the more I appreciate elements of it. Most of the time I'm not a fan of decompressed storytelling (there are exceptions) and Millar's stories had plenty of action and immediacy, despite their frequently nonsensical content. A lot of modern 2000AD stories are very literate and... well, grown-up, I suppose. In retrospect, there's something to be said for Millar's spiteful high-octane trashiness. Doesn't mean I'd want to let him near Dredd or Robo-Hunter, but his own vile spawn - specifically Maniac 5 and Canon Fodder - have some merits.

[norton canes]

Patrick's demise in End Of Days

[Link Prime]

John Smith really can do body horror, eh?

Yeah.

Some of the violence dealt out to the Gennyan's in Firekind was pretty brutal stuff too.
Not to mention the unborn Gennyan fetuses.

[Richard]

Steve Dillon drew it, can't remember the writer offhand.

That was Alan Grant and Barry Kitson.

I'm not much of a Millar fan, but I quite enjoyed Maniac 5 at the time, and Red Son is actually superb. If you're not familiar with it, the story is "what would have happened if the spaceship which took Superman to Earth had landed in Stalin's Russia instead of the USA?" and you should read it even if Superman isn't usually your cup of tea. It's just a shame he never did anything as good as that for Tharg.

John Smith's Slaughterbowl was great fun, but was very badly let down by some truly awful art and will probably never be reprinted for that reason. It should be made into a film.

[The Monarch]

if you want some good old smith and weston gore filled fun how about Enfleshlings from the 1993 yearbook. Friday stumbles upon a killing time monster in a haunted house and it goes about as well as you'll expect from a killing time monster 

[Barrington Boots]

That was Alan Grant and Barry Kitson.

You are correct, apologies to Mr. Kitson there!

[credo]

John Smith's Slaughterbowl was great fun, but was very badly let down by some truly awful art and will probably never be reprinted for that reason. It should be made into a film.

I still want a collection of all Smith's assorted one and done stories - Firekind, Slaughterbowl, etc.

[I, Cosh]

I was looking at bits of Maniac 5 recently - it's spectacularly mean-spirited and vicious, but Millar is successful in creating a memorably unpleasant atmosphere.

You can take the boy out of Coatbridge...

[sintec]

I still want a collection of all Smith's assorted one and done stories - Firekind, Slaughterbowl, etc.

Firekind is getting collected in HB by Hachette as part of the Ultimate Collection - preorder is available on Forbidden Planet.

[GoGilesGo]

The first time Ratfink turned up was unremittingly awful. Each individual act plumbed new levels of nastiness and the whole story was wrapped in a bleakness that is still difficult for me to shake off after so much time.

But even worse is Dirty Postcards, the one-off Absalom story from the Christmas 2013 Prog.

"How's about a picture for your old Uncle Charley?"

Not particularly blood-soaked but properly distressing.

[AlexF]

That Rennie's got form in this area. Even those visual side jokes about Solomon Ravne always having a couple of spare night-ladies (and lads) in his boudoir, usually bleeding, made me wince.

[Richard]

It's 2000AD, it's supposed to be distressing.

[JayzusB.Christ]

It's 2000AD, it's supposed to be distressing.

Goes without saying! 

I was just thinking today about a scene that wasn't the goriest by any standards, but was one of the most disturbing, and that was when the female Button Man (Button Woman, I suppose) was [spoiler] shot by Harry in the alleyway, leaving her blood on the photo of her kids she'd used to try to find some compassion in him[/spoiler].  Some chance.  For all his Mel Gibson good looks, Harry truly was a miserable, soulless scumbag who should have been locked up forever, and yet I found myself rooting for him all the way.  Such is the skill of John Wagner, I suppose.

Another scene that very much disturbed me, albeit from a far lesser story, was when the vegetarian hippy in Purgatory was [spoiler]forced to eat his pet rat.[/spoiler]  Nasty.

[Greg M.]

For all his Mel Gibson good looks, Harry truly was a miserable, soulless scumbag

No-one who looks like Mel Gibson could be a scumbag...

[JayzusB.Christ]

For all his Mel Gibson good looks, Harry truly was a miserable, soulless scumbag

No-one who looks like Mel Gibson could be a scumbag...

Point.  I was just watching Mad Max 2 last weekend and had shut the older, awfuller Mel out of my mind.