Main Menu

Prog 2206: Regened - Five Roarsome Thrills

Started by JimmyNailz, 03 November, 2020, 09:10:21 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

JimmyNailz

Gotta say, were it not for the branding, I would've mistaken this for a normal prog. I think it's the first time we haven't had kid characters (other than Joe and Rico but they are both older than their years).

Cadet Dredd: A fun tale with Cadets' Dredd, Rico and Vella in Cursed Earth with muties and dinosaurs and mech suits. What's not to like?

Abelard Snazz: Fun colourful Futureshocky weirdness

Venus Bluegenes: Venus emancipates some enslaved Southers and destroys a big weapon. Loved the art in this and the action rollocked along. My only complaint was the robot guards lacked a bit of character.

Futureshock: Timey wimey paradoxy fun. Felt like a classic shock of auld.

Anderson Psi Division: Highlight of the prog for me. Loved the art and colours and the story had plenty action and punch. Much prefer these Anderson stories to the ones on the regular prog.

Another great Regened. I just with Pandora Perfect had made a return.

broodblik

When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.

Old age is the Lord's way of telling us to step aside for something new. Death's in case we didn't take the hint.

broodblik

When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.

Old age is the Lord's way of telling us to step aside for something new. Death's in case we didn't take the hint.

TordelBack

Quote from: JimmyNailz on 03 November, 2020, 09:10:21 AMI just with Pandora Perfect had made a return.

Ooh, that seems like a misstep. Would be great to see successful strips like this, and Full Tilt Boogie for that matter,  stick around to give the Regened progs a more consistent identity as an anthology. I'd enthusiastically buy a comic that offered FTB, Pandora Perfect and Finder & Keeper as anchors, mixed in with different stories.

Not that I'm not looking forward to reading the actual issue tomorrow!

IndigoPrime

I guess they're still figuring out what works and commissioning way in advance. I'd like to see more Pandora Perfect and Department K over and above reworked existing characters. (Abelard Snazz is a very odd choice, given that the entire original run was pure Alan Moore.)

broodblik

I going to read the regen like I will read any special. I will judge the issue on the content and stories displayed. If you decide before-hand that you will not like it you are 100% correct.
When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.

Old age is the Lord's way of telling us to step aside for something new. Death's in case we didn't take the hint.

Tjm86

Still mulling over it but I'd have to give it a cautious welcome.  Having two future shocks (let's face it, that's Snazz all over ...) wasn't the worst that could have happened.  Snazz captured the old ineptitude well.

Cadet Dredd continues to work nicely and walk its way towards Rico's fall from grace.  Nods towards Origins as well.  Not a bad effort.

Venus Bluegenes?  Well, it worked better than the previous Rogue offering we've had.  Would have worked just as well in the prog in general.

Anderson ... yep, I'd agree with this as one of the highlights too.  Also with the comment comparing it favourably with some of the Anderson strips we've had of late.

More of an 'all ages' offering this time round.  Building up to some consistency and we've definitely had some winners from the different offerings so far.  Department K could do with a longer outing in the meg for my money. 

Pandora Perfect may well turn out to be harder to strike gold twice but I'd like to see it try.  Full Tilt has shown its potential even if it takes a bit of getting used to compared to other modern strips.

Still not a massive fan but this is slowly winning me over.

DrRocka

I rolled my eyes at the thought of yet ANOTHER regened prog, but d'you know what? I enjoyed every single story in this prog, and got a feeling of a "classic" prog from it (you know, those ones you read as a kid, between, say prog 180 - 370 or so), and that's not something I can say for my usual weekly prog.
Even Anderson was a straight read, mercifully bullshit free.
Cheers, Joko. I'm actually looking forward to the next one.
Never ever bloody anything ever

broodblik

A very enjoyable regen prog with a very "classic" feel to it.

Cadet Dredd:  This is the one I like the most from all the previous Cadet stories. A good solid story with refreshing art by Assirelli.

Abelard Snazz: An interesting choice to bring back from the year of 83 (the time when nuclear holocaust was looming over our heads). This felt and read like a Future Shock, readable but not the best

Venus Bluegenes: To put it bluntly this was a much better Rogue-verse story than the previous Rogue stories in the regen. I enjoyed this and the art was quite good.

Future Shock: As we all know Future Shocks can be a hit-and-miss scenario. This was one for me was a hit and would fit into the regular prog quite easily. A good build-up with a nice twist at the end.

Anderson: The highlight of the regen prog. A good Anderson story with some good visuals by Davidson. [spoiler]The story ends in a way that implies to us that we will see more regen progs.[/spoiler]
When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.

Old age is the Lord's way of telling us to step aside for something new. Death's in case we didn't take the hint.

IndigoPrime

As others have said, bar baby Dredd this felt like a normal Prog for the most part. Dredd was the best one of these so far for me. Coherent art and storytelling, nicely executed, and using its extra space well. Snazz was, I'll admit, a nice surprise. The script did feel very in keeping with the Moore stories.

Venus Bluegenes was a bit knowingly right-on, but worked well enough, and I was happy to see the dismissal of the "doll" tag by the protagonist. The references to very old events will likely have baffled new readers, mind.

The FS was solid. Anderson... yep, this works. Better than Anderson elsewhere in 2000 AD/Meg of late too. The gaps between episodes might prove trying for younglings Rebellion's trying to snare, mind.

In all, a good Prog for me regardless of the Regened branding. That said, last time there were two outstanding strips and I missed both of them this time.

TordelBack

Best thing this time out undoubtedly Ronald's superb cover.

Cadet Dredd was one of the stronger outings for this strip, with an interesting first-person story from Carroll and assured dino art from Assirello. I was wrongfooted by Vella being a mutant,  however - that browridge was a bit too subtle when we had no baseline character faces to compare it with.  I also couldn't help missing the more hard-hitting dinosaur/mecha carnage of strips past. It's definitely a good call to have
the current main scribe of Dredd prehistory writing the Cadet strips.

I didn't care much for the Snazz story, it felt like the pastiche it was, and even the comedy science didn't make any internal sense (a normal finger squashing a sub-molecular civilisation - surely a tiny finger on a stick would be better? Edwin asking what "we" are breathing?). I'd expect better from Cornell. The art started out well with an appropriately Bradbury feel but became uneven, and colours were unnecessarily dark.

Venus was a decent story,  with a bit of riff on Riddick. I'd personally have preferred to see the title page held back until after the reveal for a bit of twist-value. I don't remember GIs or Dolls having superior intellects, seems like a bad design decision by the Genies. Enjoyed the nod to both the unloved Karvanu era, and War Machine.  Aneke's art is really nice and clean, but for some reason the Norts appeared to be the Time Bandits in cunning disguises. Probably the better of the Regened Rogueverses.

The Future Shock was fine, lots of strong designs from Newell, and it did its predictable thing very neatly in 5 pages.

Anderson was the best of the strips for me, Scott and Davidson deliver an eventful and progworthy story that feels like its set in MC-1. Even if the Lawlords Jnr don't fill me with excitement,  I like that an ongoing story is being developed.

As expected,  I sorely missed any of Regened's "own" strips, even with largely better outings  for the usual suspects thus time, it would be a shame if the experiment reverted to using mainly duller versions of 2000AD characters. Even accepting that FTB has jumped ship, autochthonous strips like Finder & Keeper,  Department K and Pandora Perfect need to be in regular rotation alongside more new contenders if this is going to work (for me)

Still,  reckon I got more than my €2.28's worth.

Colin YNWA

Finally my sub copy arrive and once again this is what we come for in the Regened Prog. A second triumphant issue, which after the first two is a real relief. All packed behind a lovely cover.

While I get the desire to have more Pandora Perfect and Department K - I'd have welcomed both - I assume there wasn't time to commission more for this one and after all these seem to be a lot about experimentation and seeing what works. After the last two and some of the content in other specials I think Joko and co are getting a pretty good idea and hopefully, hopefully they are building towards something.

I'm also not sure why folks feel this reads like a regular Prog - there were all sorts of playful moments in all the stories. Though maybe they where after a feeling of interchangability. To stop folks who get ratty about these things being so annoyed? Who knows? But while I accept that any one  of these stories would have worked in a regular Prog - some moments aside - I think all together it does read wonderfully playful and all ages.

Anyway enough blather and onto the content.

Cadet Dredd - Judges, mutants, Dinosaurs and action. I mean this just ticks the boxes doen't it and builds nicely on difference between Rico and Dredd. Nicolo Assirella knocks it out the park on art as well.

Abelard Snazz - I didn't know I needed or wanted more Snazz but this really worked, caught the tone of the old stories perfectly, which work perfectly in an all ages comics and this one nailed it. Genuinely good fun. Art took a little getting used to but served the story fine by the end.

Venus Bluegenes - Well it wasn't subtle in its gammon baiting was it. But this one did a really good job of mixing action with a message targeted precisely at a younger audience - that us older folks could do well the remind ourselves of - and a certain playfulness that made the violence okay - especially the Nort surrender, which I felt was perfectly paced.

Love the Future Shock, great fun, except the end could have been better. The breaking gun blowing up time was fine(ish) if a little clumsy, but would it not have been better if the T-gun was designed to remove the Prof from the time stream, thus remove his application of Charles Smart's discovery and hence paradox time collapse back on itself... or something? Still enjoyed this one. And more lovely art.

Speaking of lovely art Paul Davidson does possibly the best work I've seen from him with a great Anderson story. Again the aliens aren't all bad ending is a well served all ages theme which sets the tone and removes the cynical edge from the regular Prog and it leaves the door open for a continuation...

...which I hope we get in some for of regular Regened product. Tharg's played with this enough now and there's surely enough potential to think about what to do with this. I hope he has plans and the trades coming next year are a success and we see this project go places.


TordelBack

My only real beef with this week's comic isn't so much that PP, F&K and DeptK aren't present, it's more that what is there are all just spins on established properties.

As Colin observes, the present crop are definitely more successful at filing down the cynical, violent, nihilist edges, while still being entertaining stories, than when we started out.  However, being purely selfish, I still find that approach a bit boring, especially the L'il Joe/L'il Johnny type (even while conceding that this week's Cadet Dredd strip is not at all bad). It doesn't help that Anderson is the best strip this time, and the version that has the most potential as a regular fixture, even as my enthusiasm for new Anderson stories is at an all-time low.

I'm happy to support Regened as an important project regardless, but I get my own personal thrills out of the new strips - both here and in Misty etc. There's now enough of these to almost fill an issue, so I'd prefer to see at least half of each comic taken up with the successes. I hope that we haven't fallen into the trap (again) of compulsory Dredd and compulsory '80s nostalgia strip taking up the slots.

Given that there are good-sized gaps between issues, I'd have hoped commissioning single episodes of what has been shown to work would create identity and momentum, and wouldn't have been a big logistical problem - but I suppose given the state of the outside world I should really just continue to be grateful that Tharg hasn't missed a beat this whole long, awful year.


ADDENDUM: Re-reading it this afternoon, I find I was unduly hard on the Snazz story earlier: it's actually a decent bit of fun, and it was a bit rich calling a plausible continuation of what was always a thematically-repetitive strip a pastiche. I didn't manage any sleep last night, and my humour-circuits may have been depleted for several not unrelated reasons.


norton canes

The lack of Regened-specific strips like F&K, Pandora Perfect and Dept K was a big plus for me because to be honest, I'm not keen on any of 'em. In their place we got a crop of stories where, mercifully, the level of writing was above that tailored for younger-age juves. The Dredd story would have made a decent two-parter in the regular prog and Anderson was, by virtue of its directness and clarity, a great improvement on her recent 'mainstream' escapade. OK so Venus Bluegenes was so painfully on-the-nose it gave me a nosebleed but it was a solid story and I did love the sly premise of it being based around a huge cannon pointing upright into a... yes, well. The two Future Shocks were OK and ensured the strike rate remained above average.

Sadly I don't think I'll ever be fully on board with the Regened progs and I still hope Tharg manages to hive off his cousin's project into its own publication but this time round it was far more bearable than usual.


broodblik

In the nerve centre the last statement was "I'll be back in 2021". In what form still needs to be revealed. I still believe that most of us that post here would rather have a regen publication than having the regular prog interrupted.
When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.

Old age is the Lord's way of telling us to step aside for something new. Death's in case we didn't take the hint.