I'm currently reading the 900s for the first time. I don't remember reading any of Peter Hogan's previous work and I have only the vaguest recollections of the Millar Robo-Hunter which everyone hates. Although those aren't fond memories.
Metrobolis is a perfectly pleasant little story, elevated substantially by Rian Hughes art (for me, the best thing in the whole story is the page of the city/robot standing up and walking out to see.) There's nothing wrong with it but, art aside, there's nothing I find particularly great about it either.
Just after I read the second Timehouse story: Century Duty. Again no memory of the first and the second was utterly inoffensive and utterly forgettable. Both of these stories are competently plotted and executed, with little hints at future plot developments. Both scripts have a lot of groan-inducing wordplay of the sort I like. Both are perfectly nice.
That's the problem with this stuff really. There's no edge to it and gentle whimsy doesn't sit right. I've never been much of a fan of any incarnation of Robo-Hunter but even I know the Wagner/Grant stuff had a lot more bite. I've not yet read his Strontium Dogs (I'll get round to that this week) but, on this evidence, I'd say Bishop probably made the right decision, however mishandled it might've been. Maybe there is room for a gentler story in the Prog from time to time but, when trying to re-energise the comic, there's no room for the inoffensive.
