Orlok was meant to be painting the roof today but rain+Prog= review…
COVER:
Well that’s quite nice. There’s some decent colours and posing with a slightly old school feel about it that makes one feel that it could easily have slotted into the shelves at my local newsagent back in 1978. Although you could have bought that newsagent’s for the cover price.
Disturbingly the gaping chest cavity of Ro-Jaws reminded me of the post defibrillator chest maw of Norris in The Thing. But that’s just the way my mind works and is something that doesn’t do me any favours during sex.
The cover reference to all things scatalogical is a dark turn for the prog and I’ve not seen so many references to shit on the front page of the Galaxy’s Greatest since the last run of Jaegir was contained within.
Inside, Operation YewTharg continues with the green one informing us about the new Meg which has hit the shelves and features a whopping 128 pages.
Of which only 29 actually feature Dredd world stories. That’s pretty much like the last Star Wars movie being called “The Luke Film”, innit?
There’s also the new 3A figure to be pimped out and the damage report is a counter moan about the case files debacle. This is doubtless to do with the recent Cursed Earth shenanigans where many rightly questioned how a “never to be reprinted” directive suddenly turned into an opportunity to rip into the reversal.
DREDD:
Brilliant! Carroll has anticipated the question I posed last time and gone right for the surveillance footage revealing the same Judge picking up the kids.
Carroll also picks up some lovely Mega City One quirks here with the “phlegm purger’s” store.
Dredd’s life is once again saved when Matthews shoves him aside. Despite that the old man still takes a couple of brutal shots and that’s going to smart some since one of them appears to smash right through his humerus. Interesting side note…when I typed “humerus” my spellchecker offered the word “hummer”, which would have been an entirely more painful injury.
Grayden turns out to be a stone cold killer and guns down the rest of the room including the aforementioned Matthews.
Dredd’s still alive and (literally) kicking though and tries to take his assailant alive, knowing that he needs the info. Sadly he gets his craggy ass handed to him and it doesn’t really make a lot of sense that Grayden would take that risk of trying to pop him then leaving him to bleed out. She had a boot knife there so could have sliced Joe’s throat and made sure.
Her leap out of the window onto the satellat like drone reminded me a little of the Obi Wan dive onto the droid in Attack Of The Clones. But in a good way.
The art’s great with the reflection on the helmets being superb and the beautiful use of shadows throughout.
Best of all was the panel with Grayden’s eyes the only visible part of her shadowed visage.
KINGDOM:
So the depot contains some dead auxs and a clue that some others have been thawed out and left. The presence of the dead ticks (how long have they been there since they don’t seem decayed?) indicates either a struggle or occupation by the parasites. Both don’t bode well.
It also seems that the computer is tracking one of the local auxs. Oh, as well as the huge fucking swarm that is headed right to the Kingdom.
The depot contains some nice wheels including some wagons that wouldn’t look out of place in the Cursed Earth. This is building nicely and it looks like we’re set for a mercy dash.
Elson’s at is great and ideal for the strip. It’s hard to imagine anyone else having a pop at this now.
ABC WARRIORS:
Pat makes a funny.
Ro-Jaws goes into Roy Batty mode and co-opts that speech for comedic effect, which works to a degree. It’s probably no coincidence that we have just passed Batty’s incept date, either, so hats off to Uncle Pat there.
Luckily there is a cop (Sir James) on standby to explain everything that has been going on, Robin style. This pleases Quartz since he can concentrate on watching Mek-Quake get torn a new one in a bit of robot on robot action.
The question remains…if Quartz is now sure this is the Hammerstein that killed his brother, what will he do now?
The art is pretty damned cool even if we do get some photoshoppery in there. The smashed up sewer robot is a standout as is the rumble between Hammerstein and Mek Quartz which just screams 80s Action. I also loved the panel with Hammerstein cradling Ro-Jaws and it brought to mind the Dredd/Rico panel with the “he ain’t heavy” line.
That said I think it is DISGUSTING that Hammerstein has a massive robot Johnson swinging away on the last panel of page 5. Even the spot colouring can’t make up for that filth.
THE ORDER:
Well this is romping along but is leaving me strangely unfulfilled at present and it just needs to get going. Alright we have some action, including a superbly executed velocimount jump into a handily placed barge and an explosion at the end but the pacing of this seems sedate and lacking in suspense
The ginner is questioned and the biker chick is revealed to be Anna Koh-, oh hang on…she’s not. She’s called Itza and is a dusky maiden that the foul ginner immediately tries to hit on by mentioning his “golden seed” (a chat up I have tried many times) and that she looks “Spanish”. With Adam Brass (the rotting man) dead, Calhoun is the only link so Itza and her partner decide not to cut his throat and instead take him along for the ride.
Character wise, I really like Intuitor Browne and his critical thinking skills as well as his distrust of horses- they’re assholes.
The art’s lovely and Burns is much better suited to the period work than drawing far flung future worlds. Maybe the nature of his art is slowing the pace, though.
STRONTIUM DOG:
I was expecting action this week and got a crawl.
Luckily Stretch and Pikey get to use their particular talents (almost like Johnny knew the script) but I’m not sure what Middenface is bringing to the party. Unless the next episode requires a one armed alcoholic maniac with borderline homoerotic longing, in which case- kerching!
It’s also a massive plot convenience that the ritual is taking place (since they could not have known this) and that they happen upon it exactly at that time.
The art is great but Johnny still looks a bit funny in some panels.
TOP THRILL:
I’m really enjoying Dredd, even though we have been down the Justice Department conspiracy road before. Maybe it’s the art, maybe it’s the intelligence of the writing that I’m taking to. All good, though.
It’s rare to see John Wagner being beaten off by Michael Carroll.
And there’s a lovely image for you.
