Not sure if it's me or the prog...

[Smith]

This might sound stupid,but did 2000ad gotten a bit soft?Could it be time for another Summer Offensive?

[Jim_Campbell]

Could it be time for another Summer Offensive?

NO.

[Smith]

Thou,at this point,an average issue of Spideman has worst things then the Summer Offensive could ever hope for.
Anyhow,like somebody mentioned before;we are missing a bit of the punk/counter-culture energy of yesterday.Then again,in a world where counter-culture doesnt exist...

[Richard]

That's no substitute for good stories, told well.

For the most part, we still have that.

[Smith]

Thats a bit subjective.Again,I dont care for Grey Area,Brink,Order or Brass Sun or Counterfit Girl or a lot of newer(ish) stuff.

[Jim_Campbell]

NO.

[Steve Green]

Going to need a larger monitor.

[Smith]

NO.

I wasnt all that serious with that suggestion.Dont take it so personaly,Jim.

[Frank]

I thought it just gave him new skin ... all his internal organs are as old and battle-scarred as ever.

Baby pink pulmonary system too, but your point stands. For me, the significance of Carousel (Meg 375) is conceptual, rather than the specifics of how Dredd's been reupholstered.

Few type the words 'Dredd's ageing' without adding 'and his doubts about the system'. For thirty years, those interrelated issues have formed the most interesting aspects of the strip.

'Solving' one issue without resolving the other felt like a misstep; dismissing it in such a glib fashion misunderstood what a section of the readership* value most about the strip.

Regarding The Adventurer's point about Wagner's contribution to Dredd, if you strip out the anomaly of 2015's Dark Justice (written in 2013) there's a trend:

Wagner 2000ad Dredd stories per annum

2017 - 07  (Meg 0)
2016 - 09  (Meg 0)
2015 - 23  (Meg 3)
2014 - 24  (Meg 6)
2013 - 10  (Meg 0)
2012 - 25  (Meg 0)
2011 - 23  (Meg 2)
2010 - 29  (Meg 2)
2009 - 31  (Meg 3)
2008 - 24  (Meg 8)
2007 - 30  (Meg 5)
2006 - 25  (Meg 7)
2005 - 22  (Meg 7)
2004 - 25  (Meg 9)


* Okay, me. I accept most readers will be fine with it, on the basis that the technology is credible within the fictional reality of the strip and that more unlikely stuff happens to other comic characters all the time. '70 is the new 40' still worked for me, but if it had to happen I'd have preferred the Trigger's Broom approach, swapping out individual parts over decades.

[The Adventurer]

It's also worth remembering that not so long ago there was a thread on this very forum calling for the issue of Dredd's ageing to be resolved somehow. MC was only giving us what we'd been clamouring for for a while.

I was clamouring for Dredd to be gunnned down in the street and replaced with Judge Beeny. Needles to say... I didn't get what I wanted. 

[Frank]

I thought it just gave him new skin ...

Baby pink pulmonary system too ...

Make that vascular system. I flunked Dr Nick Riviera's School Of Medicine And Pet Psychiatry.

'They've completely restructured your entire epidermis, vascular system and muscle tissue at a cellular level'

Carousel, Meg 375

[Jim_Campbell]

I wasnt all that serious with that suggestion.Dont take it so personaly,Jim.

I WASN'T.

[JayzusB.Christ]

Am I the only one that liked the Summer Offensive?*  I thought it was a welcome break from the average prog of the time.

*I anticipate a big YES

[sheridan]

Some form of internal moral debate about a process that the ordinary citizens don't have access to, some way of framing it as a terrible sacrifice rather than a standard medical procedure,

There was a terrible sacrifice.  Old Stoney Face had to stay off the streets for more than ten minutes at a time.

[sheridan]

Am I the only one that liked the Summer Offensive?*  I thought it was a welcome break from the average prog of the time.

*I anticipate a big YES

You are correct in your anticipation.