1338: Sudden Impact

Snow tiger takes the cover with a truly groan inducing pun on the front.

Snow is a cautious british intelligence agency. Tiger is an ex us navy seal who belive in dashing in head first…they fight crime!

They fight to find an ebola virus which has been stolen by neo Nazis…and I don’t really care. Yeah these modern things which became Diggles bread and butter is not really my thing and for this to be his send off of 2000ad is a bit of a shame.

Flashforward to now where Diggle has made a return to 2000ad and the magazine. He wrote a special rogue trooper for the 35 anniversary prog. He is currently writing snapshot with his constant collaborator Jock for the magazine and we are promised more lenny zero finally after a long absence.

Also of note this prog is a hilarious Dredd one off which features the premier of an opera based on the life of Judge Cal. The judges are not happy, Dredd is pissed off and a group called the eurotrash extermination corps are targeting the opera as well.

The terrorist group manage to get the corpulent opera singing star to eat a bomb and the show is brought to its final curtain call as it explodes at the end of the show

A Gordon Rennie classic!

Next: This is the Waugh that never ends…it just goes on and on my friends…

1333: Respect the badge, obey the law, read the comic creep!

Judge dredd pulls the rug out from under us as the true mastermind of the never ending Aliens crossover is revealed to be Mr Bones from Out of the Under city which appeared in prog 1313!

His entire scheme is bluh, bluh I am ugly all the nice looking people must die. Sic them my alien blooded pets! He uses pheromones to keep them off his ugly ass and he has Dredd and Female Fodder Judge all ready to be implanted with Aliens.

Of course things go bad for bones as Dredd smashes the pheromone and its chomping time on the asshole!

More on this story and my final thoughts in a few entries time!

Oh and in Bec and Kawl the villain is revealed to be a thinly veiled Bill Gates Expy and our heroes channel the power of Steve Jobs…

God I hate Bec and Kawl so much…

1322: The enemy within

It’s the most pointless crossover ever and that’s saying something! Yes its judge dredd vs. those acid blooded bastards from those films that people other than me seem to like. Yep its judge dredd vs. aliens. Yep Dredd had already faced those dredd (heh) locked bastard in Dredd vs. predator…it was inevitable that shit like this would happen.

Jointly written by John Wagner and Andy diggle and drawn by the wonderful Henry flint. It has Dredd, new judge Sanchez and a whole gaggle of cannon fod…pest control operatives as they face off against a swarm of aliens.

The next phase of Dantes saga begins proper after the prologue set in the past last prog. After his betrayal by his ongoing rival the countess he is adrift at sea. He comes across a ship under attack by the feared pirate the kraken and pretty much does what he does best.

I love Nikolai Dante but even I felt this saga…dragged a bit during its original publication but it works in trades…it really does.

Next time pat mills unleashes the black siddah on us all!

1244: Dino might!

The nastiest tyrannosaur of Dredds world is back and stalking the deadliest game around. Pissed off creators!

Yes overshadowing the return of Satanus in Satanus unchained was a backstage battle. Each episode of the serial came with an American style tag stating that Satanus was created by Pat Mills and artist Mike McMahon, but that didn't seem to quell Mills' aggravation that the character was used without his permission.

Andy Diggle and Pat Mills failed to find any agreement on the subject, and Mills, who was already unhappy with the current ABC Warriors debacle (see 1240 for vague details or search online), declined to write for the comic again until after Diggle stepped down at the end of the year.

It’s a terrific story and Gordon Rennie got the pure joy of doing an almost affectionate parody of the style of writing done by Mills on the original flesh series.




Next Prog slog: The (very) long game begins in Sin/dex

1240: Meks and violence

1240

All aboard the disaster train woo woo!

So Andy Diggle current editor of the prog (and a really good writer on his own) wanted an old school ABC warrior’s storyline and that’s what Pat Mills gave him reluctantly. You see Mills didn’t like writing this story and Diggle hated editing it and Mills hated Diggle editing it and the vicious carousel just goes round and round…but more on that another day…

So ABC warriors return to mars (or the third element as later gns would call it) is a failure but at least it’s a nice looking failure. Even then most of the artists don’t exactly bring their A game to the strip. So by this point in the story Mick McMahon and his odd art style (at this point his art looks like a mesh of that horrible cubism phase and his great old school style) is drawing a confused story involving “Martians” from war of the worlds blowing up shit on mars. Oh and for some reason steel horn is no longer the mess and back in his old body and is dragon to the main villain…

Ugh all aboard the disaster train…

Next Prog slog: Underworld unleashed…wait wha?

1205: Squids in 9/8/00

You would think a story which involves a double dealing backstabbing crime lord and his attempts to rule all crime in a futuristic city would be interesting wouldn't you?

Unfortunately it really isn't and it sadly is another lemon in Steve Moore’s 2000ad comeback (believe me there’s a fair number of them coming up....)

It is truly sad in Red fangs case. Some of the characters are genuinely interesting and could have worked in stories of their own but they are truly wasted in this story...

As Grant Goggans points out though there is a truly nice table in the story...

The fact that I am talking about another bloggers thoughts on a piece of furniture kind of shows you how much I felt about this story...



Elsewhere inside the prog Steve Moore writes a genuinely cool future shock which involves Jesus crashing onto an alien planet and attempting to get the aliens (which look like the monkeys from 2001....) to be more civilised. There is more to it than that but it’s just too funny to spoil....

The big news on this future shock is a genuine comic superstar artist made his first appearance in the prog with this story and that superstar is the fantastic Frazer Irving...

Just check out his art...


It was clear Dig-L knew he had found talent as he commissioned Frazer to do a second future shock (and a cover for the story, A rarity in the past few years) but more on that next slog.

Next prog slog: Insanity in the quite nice bar and another Steve Moore car crash (literally)