1358: adventures in shameless advertising (and the crap covers they spawn)

Just look at that cover….just let it sink in for a moment. This was during the time the rather lackluster Dredd vs. death was coming out and just like many tie ins its rather awful…to show you the full awfulness (and to pad out a short entry heres some other awful tie ins from 2000ads marketing department.

 (In case you thought even the mighty bolland cannot fail heres proof where you are so wrong!)

                       (You just cannot tell they drew the figures as reference in the past two can you?)

                                                    (No not you too Kev....)

Well enough of that nonsense...Anyway lets ignore those covers now and actively despise tharg for such shameless promotion and look at the judge Dredd episode this prog and just marvel at the insanity within and how ironic it is that I cover it...

This…is a Judge Dredd/Nikolai Dante crossover with a heavy referencing to the apocalypse war and the former Sov bloc as a whole. Drawn by Simon Fraser…

I am not even kidding about that…

I…think my brain has just exploded with awesome

Check out the full story of this bizarre episode in Too cool to kill part 15

207: Femme Fatale

What a lovely pulpy cover for this issue heralding a new story from the wonderful John Wagner in which justice department orders a full shakedown on an entire block. A crime ridden hellhole. The story focuses on various inhabitants of the block trying their hardest to remove incriminating evidence before the judges barge in.

Oh and the angel of death is stalking the same block. Oola blint is a recurring villian who is a nice person who genuinely believes that killing people is a good thing. Allowing them to pass on away from the madness of the mega city. The episode in this issue actually ends with Dredd ending up inside the same elevator as her and her long suffering husband Homer…

Also Ending this issue however is Family a superhero story with no real heroes. Instead its more like the godfather except the two families have powers. It is a fine story when read all in one. However two major issues let this tale down in its original printed run.

The first is the tale is badly wounded due to the monthly run of the meg. If this story ran in the prog it would be much easier to follow weekly instead of monthly. The other problem is Simon Frasers art. No I am not going to rag on him again. I feel bad enough as it is with my first Too cool to kill entry which ragged on him.

No it’s the mash of no colour plus characters wearing similar suits and hats fighting each other is the problem of this story. If this was in colour and in a weekly comic this would be an instant classic. As it is now its just good and that’s a shame…

1287: Nikolai Dante is awesome! (yeah no tag)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4sKPxKIyAM

1215: blood brothers 18/10/00

This Issues Dredd begins an eight part story called Sector house which features the first full length appearance of an character who still appears in the Dredd strip today. That character is Judge rico a younger clone of Dredd himself. Similar in tone to classics like the pit and its sequel beyond the call of duty, Sector house follows the drama of a small group of judges who are not exactly pleased when Dredd the younger joins them....

Elsewhere Family troubles brew in Nikolai Dante when tensions between Dante and his Brother Konstantine finally explode!.

I know I seem to be mentioning Dante nearly every entry at the mo but its been that good!



Next prog slog: It's raining (WO)men halleujah!

1214: Chainsaw biker 11/10/00

Deadlock gets his own series in order for Pat “the overlord” Mills to tie up some final loose ends from the final series of Nemesis and also to set up the Grand wizard of Termights role in a future ABC warriors epic (well epic for the wrong reasons but that’s in the near future). Aiding Mills is Nemesis artist Henry Flint who draws this crazy future earth and the alien inhabitants on it with relish

Deadlock returns to Termight to fulfil the last wishes of his master Nemesis to plunge the planet into chaos and gets sucked into a story involving the new president of the planet Purity Brown and a mysterious killer called the accountant who may or may not have ties to the late Torquemada. Alongside this story is a snapshot into the true weirdness of this future which includes Aliens who eat your toes after sexual intercourse and alien fruit!




Meanwhile the ages old story of the “mutiny on the bounty” is played out on a spaceship in the future in a series called Vanguard. Written by Robbie Morrison and featuring stunning art by Colin MacNeil. Vanguard is about a cruel commander of a space battleship, obsessed with tracking down an enemy ship, He overworks and brutalizes his crew to mutiny. He's cautioned about the crew's growing unrest several times along the way by his new second-in-command, Lt. Elizabeth Vanguard, but ignores her until it is too late.

Watching the unfolding (although slightly unoriginal admittedly) drama is pretty fun and it is tragic that this story is among the elite few 2000ad stories which ends with a cliff-hanger and yet never returns to resolve it.

A shame as it was a nice series




And a bonus image from Nikolai Dante with the Family Romanov posing for what may very well be their final picture as a family...



Next prog slog: There's a new Dredd in the sector house and his name is Rico...

1213: From russia with Lurve 4/10/00

In the year 2010 David page, a 26 year old 2000ad fan took the baton of slogdom from Paul Rainey and ploughed his way through the sum total of his collection of 2000ads and Megazines which marked his own return to the galaxy’s greatest comic. Through hail, shine, problems in real life and brrr BISON this is his journal of the mighty task which faces our Beloved comic book nerd….


The prog is back to its mighty five band gang of stories with Rain dogs and Nikolai Dante joining Dredd, Deadlock and Vanguard. Rain dogs will be covered in a later slog so for now let's turn our gaze towards the cover boy himself...

In battleship Potemkin the war takes a slightly darker turn though you wouldn’t know it by reading its first chapter. In a light-hearted (well for the current war arc anyway) Prelude Nikolai and the Irregulars battle in Britannia to save mad king George from being executed as a Romanov ally. Aside from Gorgous work from series creator Simon Fraser it really is just a light hearted filler episode before the darkness which hung over the rest of this story....

The war and the story took a darker turn after this fun interlude but that’s for another entry entirely….



This chapter of the Tsar wars was hit by a rather unfortunate continuity cock-up which I have to admit I never noticed until it was brought up in the 2000ad lovers holy book known as Thrill power overload. The initial plan of the Tsar was had been to tell the storyline in five series of eight episodes. John Burns was to paint the first, third and fifth series and Simon Fraser was to handle the second and fourth. However, Fraser was in the process of relocating to Africa when the deadlines for his first story came up, and as a result, this adventure, "Battleship Potemkin," had to be postponed and War and Love (the previous story) had to be made the second chapter. Also chapters four and five were meshed together to form one final book four. Due to the switching of books two and three this unfortunately has Nikolai renouncing his old name and referring to himself as “Nikolai Romanov” as a cliff-hanger for the final book. But in this story Nikolai and his group of irregulars always refer to him as “Nikolai Dante” It’s so obvious in hindsight (and with the knowledge from TPO) but I genuinely did not notice on my original reading.

I now await the comments saying “You thicko!” but I genuinely did not know…

Next slog: Deadlock ties up some loose ends from a fallen warlock series…