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Prog 1985

Started by Eamonn Clarke, 11 June, 2016, 11:59:25 AM

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Eamonn Clarke



Quality work by Simon Davis as always

Nice little Droid Life.

Dredd delivers a fake out, with a star turn by Armitage and Joyce.

Slaine is fantastic with the blue and the gold pages showing up as Sinead meets her mum.

Brink. I'm just starting a read through of the whole thing so can't comment yet, Wonder whether Mr Abnett will be able to finish this now he's DC exclusive.?

Black Shuck looks great. The Yeowell and Blythe combination works well. Really enjoying the story as well.

Grey Area pull their asses out of the fire only for ...

Excellent proggage with four good stories and one that I need to get to grips with. Top work

Steve Green

Apparently the exclusive doesn't apply to the prog.


Dark Jimbo

'DC exclusive' basically just means 'can't work for Marvel' and vice versa.
@jamesfeistdraws

A.Cow

Dredd: I like Michael Carroll's work and accept that his finishes are often a bit of an anti-climax, but for me this particular one was undermined by the fumbled scene where [spoiler]Armitage grabs(?) the gun from Joyce[/spoiler]  WTF?  [spoiler]Why didn't Joyce shoot instead?  Or simply pass the gun?[/spoiler]  And what the hell's happened to Beeny's hair?  Her sleek bob has been replaced with a Bay City Rollers special.

Slaine: Snore.

Brink: Going to try re-reading this in one go when it's finished, because I'm just not getting it.

Aw Shucks: Yet another interminable saga of historical posturing and aimless plot (c.f. Black Seas, Aquila, The Order).  At least Pat Mills has the decency to embellish Slaine with annoying political ranting.

Grey Area: Now that's how to do a big ending!  (And throw in an unexpected cliffhanger too.)

Colin YNWA

Behind the glorious, glorious cover is a slightly underwhelming Prog.

I kinda agree with A.Cow Carroll and Holden's Dredd story has been top notch up to now but the end was a little fumbled. The pacing felt a little off to me. The reveal of the alarm then the censequence was two guards arriving quite slowly. Hiding Dredd's face using shadow seemed a little easy and the gun handover as discussed. Details I know but when a stories been this good details like this at the death can be a little disappointing. Still Hershey's realisation is a good save and a nice set up. So very much looking forward to next week.

Slaine slumped again and was very poor this week.

As opposed to Brink which was just supreme. The fact that Brink was dead just hadn't clicked with me last week. Someone being smacked in the head to fight on is such a 2000ad trope that its consequence just hadn't hit home. But Brink is a magnificently different beast and its down to earth grit is what makes it. That and its Blade Runner lighting so standout this week, just brilliant stuff.

Black Shuck holds steady but I'm not getting a sense of it moving forward - sure it probably is but week to week it feels a bit static.

Grey Areas is great as ever, if a little Millsesque with the heavy handed way it S.P.E.L.T. out it message. Seriously we'd got it already, it was better left without the conversation just to underline it. Dan Abnet is better than that. Still good stuff BUT am I meant to recognise those ships at the end I'm old and forget stuff?

Tjm86

I've got to agree, the balance is a bit out of kilter.  Slaine and Black Shuck are similar beasts, right down to the anti Christian posturing.  Yeowell's art is definitely the saving grace but I'm finding as with the first series I'm losing the thread and any connection with any of the characters.

Brink has clearly found a new gear which really helps.  I'm also in the 'why did he do that' camp with some of the events in Dredd.

Grey Area is a nice wrap up from last week.  As always Harrison's art is sublime.  I don't get how he manages to create such 'readable' work when Langley's seems to hurt the eyes at times.  Yet both of them work digitally.  Maybe it's just me.

Overall this is a 3/5 prog for me.  Sorry guys.

Richard

To answer A. Cow's question, [spoiler]wasn't it Armitage's gun, so only he could fire it?[/spoiler] I thought that was a pretty good turn of events anyway. And I quite liked PJ Holden's art in the panel where [spoiler]Armitage blows everyone away.[/spoiler]

This week's Dredd was a great episode. I especially liked to see [spoiler]Dredd and Armitage come face to face again[/spoiler]. And the Texas sub-plot sees to be heading somewhere now.

Brink is really good. I wasn't sure about this series when it started, but I like it now. And following the events of last week, it's very interesting to see the death of a character having consequences for the other characters, instead of what normally happens in comics, where deaths typically have no consequences at all.

A decent Slaine episode this week, and a fun Droid Life.

Eamonn Clarke

It was either [spoiler] Armitage's gun or the one that Joyce disabled the palm reader on last week (or week before[/spoiler]

Richard

If it was Joyce's gun, then [spoiler]that wouldn't explain why Joyce didn't shoot them.[/spoiler]

A.Cow

Quote from: Richard on 11 June, 2016, 10:51:55 PM
If it was Joyce's gun, then [spoiler]that wouldn't explain why Joyce didn't shoot them.[/spoiler]

I suspect that the Carroll droid had painted himself into a corner, and needed Armitage to play a major part in the finish to justify his presence in the story (otherwise he'd just be a five-second cameo helping connect plot threads).

Frank

Quote from: A.Cow on 11 June, 2016, 11:17:58 PM
Quote from: Richard on 11 June, 2016, 10:51:55 PM
If it was Joyce's gun, then that wouldn't explain why Joyce didn't shoot them.

I suspect that the Carroll droid had painted himself into a corner, and needed Armitage to play a major part in the finish to justify his presence in the story

It's the gun Carroll and PJ spent three panels carefully signposting last episode, so nobody could possibly forget it ...

A Brit about to shoot Future Morse, who turns out to be handing him a gun, was clearly a bit of business Carroll fell in love with.

If it didn't work for you, rationalise Joyce pretending to shoot Armitage as a way of making sure nobody else tried to do it first.

If we're picking at threads, I would have gone for our pals covering the 300 miles between London and Cumbria in a page of A4 paper.

Ellipsis is a well understood narrative device, but it would have felt less jarring for them to have left London last week and turn up at Sellafield* as Peter Mayhew triggers the alarm.


* Presumably, Sellafield's proximity to the Isle of Man is significant

Magnetica

Good Prog this week.

Not much to say about it really other than:

it was fairly clear the disabling of the palm print sensor on the  Lawgiver was going to feature at some point, otherwise why bother setting it up?

like Colin I hadn't twigged Brinkmann was actually dead at the end of last week. Injured - sure, but dead - no chance. (Almost) titular character in a new series - no way is he going to die. In hindsight I can see now why Kurtis featured more. So I guess the title Brink refers more to humanity "living on the brink" than "Brinkmann".


Anyway all stories are good this week (yes even Slaine).

Ghost MacRoth

Cover: Bit plain, but nice enough.

Dredd:  I would agree that it was a bit oif an anti climax if it weren't for the feeling it's not actually even close to over.  Think perhaps the panel layout was more at fault than the scripting for the gun issue, but like others, I don't quite get why Joyce didn't shoot them himself.

Slaine:  Dull.

Brink:  Meh.

Black Shuck:  Better than Slaine, but too early to tell if it's building slow or just a bit tired.

Grey Area: We're saved!  Oh wait...mibbe not....

I don't have a drinking problem.  I drink, I get drunk, I fall over.  No problem!

James Stacey

Quote from: Butch on 15 June, 2016, 09:08:45 PM

It's the gun Carroll and PJ spent three panels carefully signposting last episode, so nobody could possibly forget it ...

A Brit about to shoot Future Morse, who turns out to be handing him a gun, was clearly a bit of business Carroll fell in love with.

If it didn't work for you, rationalise Joyce pretending to shoot Armitage as a way of making sure nobody else tried to do it first.
Also looking at the political stink kicked up the last time Meg judges shot at Brit Cit judges, which partly caused all this, a Brit Cit detective doing the shooting makes it a lot less of an international situation