Prog 1961 - Welcome to your future!

[IndigoPrime]

I read this today. The cover sadly has a bloody great scratch across it, but it's lovely to see Kennedy back on the Prog and in such fine form. Elsewhere, I was pleasantly surprised by Ro-Busters (despite the OTT leering cartoon driving instructor), thrilled by the return of Kingdom, thrown a bit by Dredd (in that this was a pretty ferocious festive tale), and intruded by Absalom. Those were the highlights for me, although the rest was perfectly readable and suitable fodder to keep me going until the 2016 (unless we have the same weirdness as last year, when the next Prog arrived only a few days later!)

Bad Company, though: I will admit to sitting there after that run and going BWUH? Maybe that's the point.

[Ghost MacRoth]

Cover: Feckin' lovely.

Dredd: Bloody silly, but engaging none the less.  Standard genius art from Flint accompanies a daft but enjoyable tale from Williams.

Absolom: Again, can't quibble on the art.  Minimalist in form, but still manages to conver a shedload of detail into the panels.  Culbard please take note. :p

Kingdom:  Fucking delighted to see this back.  Another artist I love, and a tale |I have yet to find major fault with.  Look forward to see what's the score with the satellite community.

Bad Company:  At the risk of repeating myself, just...meh.  A fizzling end to a disappointing firecracker.   The end lines of 'Maybe someday, we'll even get to retire'', I can only hope that time is NOW.  Sometimes the dead are best left buried, and this exhumation was not worth the effort in my view.  Pissed all over the continuity of it's previous runs, and while that can occasional work well (the new Alien film dismissing the 3rd and 4rth films as a prime example) it did not do this strip any favours at all in my view.

The Order: Good to see it back, but this initial episode gives me nowt to work with really....think I may have to dig out the progs and do a catchup on the first outing to be sure I'm not missing something due to my piss poor memory!

ABC Warriors:  Great to see Langly ditch the camera and be an artist again.  Love his drawn/painted stuff.Had me kinda worried on that initial 2 page spread, as it looked like it was still gonna be pic heavy, but you turn the page and...GLORIOUS!!!  Stunning art.

Sinister Dexter:  Davis back on art, always a good thing.  Nice to see the tale being re-set to a simpler time...hopefully we are done with alt universe carry on, and we go back to grindhouse type murder mahem and cheesy one liners.

Future Shocks: Redondo is back!!  Awesome.  Tale itself is what it is....nowt to shout about, but nothing terrible.

Strontium Dog: YAAAAAAY!!!  Don't really care what's going on, it's Wagner and Ezquerra......YAAAAAAAAAYYY!!!!!

[Dark Jimbo]

Just read Bad Company for now, as an end to the 2015 run of stories. This was exactly what I was afraid of when it started, despite being frequently told 'stick with it,' wait and see', all will become clear'. Four dead characters are alive again and only one ressurection had anything like an attempt at an explanation; meanwhile planet Earth has blinked back into existence and the human race, last seen tottering on the brink of extinction, are numerous and prosperous. Why? How? It feels as though this was supposed to be a tribute to past glories, but all it did was trample on whatever legacy BC had left after the (truly awful) 2002 series.

I'm so excited that Pete Milligan's back in the prog, but for the love of Grud get him to write something new and leave BC alone while it has a shred of credibility. So that's the 'Bah humbug' bit out of the way. Looking forward to devouring the other goodies imminently!

[Richard]

Bad Company was a total waste of time. Good prog otherwise though. I'm going to have to dig out prog 371 now and see what story the Future Shock was a sequel to...

[Skullmo]

CW: Opinion, War, Art.

I read Bad Company every week as the first story and was just shocked. I know it's a marketing dream as the characters are amazing designs, and it was sort of a tribute to Brett, but it just seemed so tragically plotted and filed with political tubthumping that it just made me cringe. I thought the art was far too cartoony to suit the tone of the story and I had issues with the storytelling. The best thing about it for me was getting Jim McCarthy back in 2000ad and I hope he will do some full art duties soon.

I see it has its fans but I am not one. In fact I would go so far as to say it has tainted the original series in my mind.

[Proudhuff]

Cover: Great (younger, wider) Dredd. Could have done with some Messerschmitts in the sky!

Dredd: Irn -Bru advertising comes to MC1, good Xmas tale, great art.

Absolom:  Best bit of the Prog, luverly set up for the year to come, can't wait for Harry's Game to start. 

Kingdom:  Gene the Hackman meets The 100, looking forward to this Getting Whet!.

Bad Company:  ends as it began, a charming diversion, not quite sure what the point was.

The Order: sword and sandals, just not my bag of xmas gruel.

ABC Warriors:  The rehashings and floggings of hearses will continue until the quality improves.

Sinister Dexter:  Is that The End? really? please say its not yet another yawn reboot, pleeeeease.

Future Shocks: Redondo is back!!  Treat for the xmas mince pies so it is.

Strontium Dog: Seems fairly armless  hoping for great things here, but expecting another Korean debacle.

When deciding between this month's Meg and this Mega-Prog, The Megazine wins hands down.

Over at the Megazine THAT change to the Council of Five and the Dredd movie tale lift the whole thing head and shoulders over the Prog.

[IndigoPrime]

I can't imagine that's the end of Sin-Dex, but just the reset for another run. If so, bit crap on the women that got left behind though.

[ZenArcade]

Oh please, please, please end Sin Dex (sorry Colin). Z

[Darren Stephens]

The Ian kennedy cover is all kinds of gorgeous! Only read Dredd so far. Loved it. Truly bizarre, as some of the best Dredds are, quite disturbing on some levels. Flints art is the ice-ing on the cake. Sorry. That gag was awful. 

[Richard]

That would be quite a good way to end Sinister Dexter.

[wedgeski]

Typically merry Dredd Christmas tale. Loved it.

This is an amazing prog all around. That Ro-Busters art. Holy crap.

[robert_ellis]

Great Prog - but can anyone help me out with Bad Company? I'm with Dark Jimbo, how did Earth re-exist? How does Kano walk round with holes in him? Does Danny remember being the Krool Heart - and if so wouldn't he have learned the truth then?
I loved the energy of the art but this would have been better as an 8 page one-off. The rest of the prog was amazing but this really was a Phantom Menace.

[Link Prime]

That Ro-Busters art. Holy crap.

I'm really looking forward to picking this Prog up, having seen some glimpses of Clint's original art for this series already via Ebay. It does look great.

Any Prog featuring artwork by both of my current favorite 2000AD artists (Langley and Flint) is always welcome.

[Dark Jimbo]

Great Prog - but can anyone help me out with Bad Company? ...Does Danny remember being the Krool Heart - and if so wouldn't he have learned the truth then?

Huh. Hadn't even thought of that. It's a fairly huge plot-hole!

I genuinely think that Pete Milligan must have been working off his memories of the older strips without actually going back and reading them.

[Frank]

Does Danny remember being the Krool Heart - and if so wouldn't he have learned the truth then?

Huh. Hadn't even thought of that. It's a fairly huge plot-hole! I genuinely think that Pete Milligan must have been working off his memories of the older strips without actually going back and reading them

Or he's acknowledging that nothing much since the first series lingers long in anyone's memory. The story was about the flawed and partial nature of reconstructed memory, so I suppose the form reflects the theme.

I can't decide whether the holes in Kano are a visual metaphor for the narrative aporia or whether the unexplained gaps in the story are a textual metaphor for the bits missing out of Kano and the memories of his men ...