2000 AD - The Ultimate Collection

[Le Fink]

Can I ask where you guys obtained your copies of Wolfie Smith please? It's still listed as 'Coming Soon' on the Hatchette website and therefore can't be added to the basket yet. Thanks

I preordered mine from Forbidden Planet. Postage has gone up a lot, although the parcels tend to be well packaged.

[castle4]

Can I ask where you guys obtained your copies of Wolfie Smith please? It's still listed as 'Coming Soon' on the Hatchette website and therefore can't be added to the basket yet. Thanks

I preordered mine from Forbidden Planet. Postage has gone up a lot, although the parcels tend to be well packaged.

Many thanks. I'm a subscriber, but not expecting my copy until it's bundled with 180 DD v2, which will be about two weeks. At which point, I'm sure Hatchette will finally confirm the extension as only 2000ad have done so thus far!

[Marcus Handford]

Me too, mine was from Forbidden Planet

[Richard]

I don't think Wolfie Smith was good enough to justify its inclusion in a series called "The Ultimate" etc.

[sintec]

Slowly catching up on a pile of Hachette books which has piled up while I've been distracted by life chaos. It's been a real mixed bag at this end of the collection tbh. Got half way through book 2 of Armoured Gideon and while it looks great it's just meh. Decided to switch over to the Anderson volume and enjoyed that a lot more. Does Gideon get better or does it just keep treading very pretty water?

[Barrington Boots]

I really like Gideon but I think if you've not got into it by halfway the latter half probably won't change your mind sadly.

[IndigoPrime]

I think the above is far. To be honest, I approached this with much trepidation, having been banging on about wanting the book for ages, but not really feeling it when a while back I revisited book 1. But I read it all in a couple of sittings last week and found it a lot of fun. I don't think the structure helps (Tomlinson appears to be writing for an older version of 2000 AD that demands a recap at the start of most episodes.) But I enjoyed it.

The real surprise for me, though, was the second book of Scarlet Traces. I didn't recall much about it in the Prog. I loved the artwork, but remember struggling a bit with it as an ongoing. My hope was that when collected it would be another Red Seas. I read through the first volume (much of which I did remember quite well, since I have the Dark Horse HCs) and found that really good. But I was really taken by the second volume when reading it in a single sitting. It looks great and it just barrels along. Superb stuff.

[sintec]

Yeah the constant recaps definitely didn't help in book 2. Going to try dipping in and out of it an episode or 2 at a time and see if that works better.

[Funt Solo]

AG's an interesting beast. Of course, the art is great. When the first series was in the comic, it stood out partly because we were in a weak-ish phase, alongside the incredibly muddled second book of Universal Soldier and the gorgeously flawed opening sequence of The Harlem Heroes (then, later, Chronos Carnival).

By the time the second book rocks up, things have gotten worse - so even though AGII wasn't great, it was better than Muzak Killer, Purgatory, Bad Company's descent into twiddly-dee land with the Kano book and the risible Kelly's Eye. The tent pole holding up the comic was Firekind.

Here are some deliberately brief reviews of the AG sequence:

Book I
A psychic press photographer unwittingly captures images of the titular giant robot who splits his time between wiping out the demonic life of The Edge (a demon-dimension linked to Earth through plot-convenient temporary portals) and chasing down anyone who's taken his photograph. Fun things about Gideon are his emote-screen (an idea stolen from Mek-Quake), the inventive ways in which he eliminates enemies and of course his single catch-phrase ("Annihilate!"), which reminds us (latterly) of Shakara.

Book II
Frank Weitz is on a mission to switch (back) on Armoured Gideon and so save the earth from a demonic tsunami. A tricky second album.

Book III - The Collector
Frank Weitz is dreaming of the good life when Bill Savage blows his door open with his trusty shoota: "Cock-a-doodle bleedin' do!" Thus begins the mother of all crossovers, making Mills' attempts to insert a T-Rex dynasty into every aspect of 2000 AD pale into insignificance.

The backstory is that Armoured Gideon has been chasing and attempting to eliminate Bill Savage (and Blackhawk, Sam Slade, the Neon Knights, Abelard Snazz, the Harlem Heroes & the Helltrekkers) but is being foiled by The Collector, who is "rescuing" them.

An inter-dimensional game of cat and mouse ensues, taking in Shako, Harry Angel, a Geek from The V.C.s, MACH Zero, Wolfie Smith, the Mekon, Harry Twenty, Nick Stone, Max Normal, Artie Gruber, Dan Dare, the ants from Ant Wars, Ace Garp, Matt Tallon, Captain Klep, Tharg, GBH, Agent Rat, Robot Archie, Judge Dredd, Judge Death, Mean Machine Angel and Rick Random. And those are just the ones I recognize.

A lot of these "forgotten" characters have since been picked up. Harry Angel has become a y-fronts sporting darling of Al Ewing as Zombo Prime, Bill Savage returned for multiple, highly-acclaimed series, Blackhawk got reimagined as Aquila, Sam Slade (& his niece) returned & The V.C.s got a retread. There's also been more Harry Twenty (briefly), Max Normal, Ant Wars (sort of) and Ace Trucking.

Book IV - Trading Places
Some evil types murder Frank Weitz and then swap his consciousness with that of Armoured Gideon. So, Frank is a giant stompy robot, and AG becomes zombie Frank. Following the rule that more stompy robots is always better, there's also newcomer Armoured Maximilian to contend with before the plot gets down to trying to set things right again (which includes an extended Vietnam sequence).

[The Monarch]

book 3 also features the only appearance of doomlord in a prog we'll ever get

[Jade Falcon]

My incompetent newsagents has none in on my order. I'm missing three books, this isn't good enough.

[castle4]

Surely can't be long now before the Hatchette website reveals 181 and 182? I wonder if it will be before we subscribers receive 180 and presumably a letter advising those who don't frequent this site or Facebook of the 'great news for all readers'!

[Swerty]

Thought I'd crunch some numbers on the potentials for the 5th extension.

Announced:

• Harlem Heroes - there's 310 pages of Fliesher Heroes which would need 2 volumes. Really hoping they skip some and keep this to 1 books worth
• Friday - there's 282 pages of Fliesher Friday and 325 pages of Steve White. So this could be up to 3 volumes depending on what they include and how they split it up
• The Out
• Thistlebone
• Strontium Dog: Starlord - imagine this will be identical to the recent HB

So that's at least 5 books possibly 8. Really hoping they don't go completionist on Harlem Heroes and Friday, 5 books would be 25% of the extension given over the material which is widely dereided by the fanbase!

Continuations (these all have enough uncollected stories to fill another book):

• Proteus Vex
• The Order
• Brink
• Lawless
• Devlin Waugh
• Fiends Of The Eastern Front
• Bad Company
• Sinister Dexter/Azimuth - there might be enough for 2 volumes depends if they trim it
• Flesh - Shamana and Chronocide

Possible additions:

• Stainless Steel Rat
• Helium
• Hershey
• Feral & Foe
• Dreadnoughts
• The Diaboliks
• Brigand Doom
• Night Zero
• M.A.C.H. 1 - would need 2 volumes

That's more than 20 books there even if they keep HH and Friday trimmed to 1 book each.

I'm kinda hoping we don't see M.A.C.H 1 tbh. While it'd be nice to have all of prog 1 for the sake of completness what I've read of M.A.C.H 1 in the digital collections was not great and it would take up 2 volumes. I could similarly live without more Flesh or Bad Company as these stories don't seem to be highly regarded.

Just thought I'd bump this.Should find out soon

[IndigoPrime]

The Order is confirmed, no? And, yeah, keeping down the amount of 1990s dross would be good, but I can't imagine HH would be in the mix if it wasn't going to be complete. Fr1day has perhaps more leeway for a best-of, given that it doesn't really go anywhere. Or at least, not anywhere that makes a great deal of sense. (Dodder about in a strip that bears almost no relation to War Machine. Lob in terrifying John Smith tales from a seemingly totally different universe. Bring back the bio-chips because people complained. Then shift abruptly to WAR SPEEK MILITARY period. Then mash it and the original continuities together with a fork. Then at some point go "ack, no" and just decide future Rogue Trooper will all be flashbacks.)

[Jade Falcon]

If there was more Rogue Trooper universe, I'd much rather more Jaegir.  If there isn't enough for one book, pair it with the 86ers as I haven't heard much good about the very later stories.