Dredd: Felt quite old-school in nature. Suited the ‘Cadet’ setting, but with a few very minor tweaks would have worked fine as a 400-era Dredd. Enjoyable. Nicely illustrated. Good to see one of the senior judges was a woman (something that is still bafflingly rare in the Prog). Good also that it got room to breathe.
Finder & Keeper: Aside from the cement incident, fine. Wouldn’t feel out of place in the standard Prog if the protagonists were aged up a little.
Future Shock: Not terribly shocking, but a nice enough yarn. Could easily have run in the Prog as-is, rather than here.
The Gronk: I had no idea what to expect from this. I despised the Gronk solo strip back in the day, but this was great. Amusingly stupid throughout, with a nice nod to Dobbyn, and great dialogue. Best thing in the Prog for me. Again, I’d have been happy to have seen this one-shot in a standard Prog or special.
Rogue Trooper: I’m not a big fan of the strip in general, bar Smith-penned weirdness, The War Machine, and Jaegir. So this felt a bit by-the-numbers, but it was nice enough with decent art. It felt sanitised over the RT that the current Prog might have, but again had a kind of classic vibe.
Again, I don’t like the scheduling, but I find it odd how much pushback there is against these ‘regened’ Progs, especially from people who mostly spend their time bellyaching about how 2000 AD isn’t as good as it was in the old days. To a great extent – with the exception of some mildly sanitised art, and the sheer amount of colour – this kind of felt like a Prog beamed in from the old days.
Frankly, The Gronk alone was worth the price of admission. But I certainly don’t feel short-changed by how the entire issue turned out.
