Will you buy the revamped Megazine? I already buy it - and will carry on doing so. It's a bit too pricey, no more Meg for me Yes, I'll start picking it up again I'll try one issue and see if it's improved. Nope, it's still not for me

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Home ¦ Features ¦ Countdown to Origins

30th July 06

As I write this, the countdown to Origins continues. Or should that be ‘As I write this, the countdown to Origins continues to be one of the biggest wasted opportunities Rebellion has ever had? I mean, correct me if I’m wrong, but considering Rebellion are usually the masters of self promotion, things have been a little quiet of late.

While in the DC universe recently we’ve had all Identity Crisis, Countdown to Infinite Crisis, Infinite Crisis, 52, One Year Later and all sorts of spin off/tie in books linked to the big push of the organisation. I don’t have any numbers to hand to say ‘this works’, but I know that if something has enough hype, it’ll at least be more well known, if not actually a bigger seller. I mean, Playboy ran an article on Infinite Crisis, for Grud’s sake. This is without discussing all the Spiderman related fuss made about Marvel’s Civil War strip…

Which brings me back to Origins. First I heard about this was in prog 2006, and even a teaser poster had me salivating all over my desk at work. Since then, there’s been… not a hell of a lot, really. And this is what I want to talk about today – continuity. The odd strip leading up to Origins over the past 6 months wouldn’t have killed 2000AD, or even the Megazine. It wouldn’t have been impossible to schedule convincingly. It wouldn’t even have required John Wagner to write it. Instead, we’ve been ‘treated’ to a row of stand alone Dredds that have tried desperately to shoe horn in some minor Dredd continuity (Return to Planet Gary, Jumped, The new nemesis introduced in House of Pain) but, overall, Dredd doesn’t seem to have progressed since last year. To my reckoning, the last really good Dredd story was in prog 2006, over 6 months ago.

Looking over my 2000AD graphic novel collection, identifying my favourite strips, one thing becomes clear – I like strips with continuity, not strips with an episodic nature. It’s been alluded to on the boards, but Sinister Dexter works better during the strips that make up the over-arcing narrative than when it’s concerned with two part strips commenting on Starbucks, or when the guys drive off the motorway and end up in a rubbish Road Warrior pastiche.

The problem with Nikolai Dante nowadays is that we had years of build up to the Tsar Wars, where stories from years before set the course for later events. The best example I can find of this would be Dante’s relationship with Konstantin, set up during Tour of Duty, and allowed to boil under till the end of the Tsar Wars, now long forgotten. An avenue not explored, simply ignored, as was Arkady’s ‘adoption’ by the Tsar’. Instead, five years later, we’ve got Dante fighting characters introduced the week before, or being retconned into having childhood sweethearts that didn’t exist before.

Caballistics inc. is another strip that the ‘fans’ (i.e. the vocal Internet minority) absolutely love, and one which has developed its own rich history, with intense characterisation and a notable lack of status quo. Things change. Events happen, and the story shifts accordingly. There’s no ‘reset’ button that gets pressed after every episode, Star Trek style.

I guess what I’m getting at here is that, yes, the stories have to be accessible to new readers, but I for one think that the ongoing series that work best are those which aren’t afraid to require investment. There’s nothing worse than knowing how a strip will end. That’s what made Total War so special (that and the wealth of strips that were impacted by it in the months afterwards). It's what elevated Blood Trails above most of Gordon Rennie’s Dredd work. I also think that as long as the immutable truths of Dredd’s world remain unchanged, new readers will put in the effort required to get the most out of the story.

Take for instance ‘Change of Loyalties’, a fall out strip from Blood Trails. It made no allowances for new readers, and was one of the more important Dredd tails of the last 12 months. Likewise, I’d like to see more of Rico and his new jaw line. I’d like some pay off for the investment I put into Blood Trails. I honestly didn’t expect not to revisit the character in almost a year.

Going back in time somewhat, ask long time readers about the build up to Necropolis, and they’ll tend to go into great detail about the subtle build up, the scheduling of The Dead Man alongside the regular Dredd strip, the moment of revelation that the Dead Man was Dredd, rather than telling you that Necropolis itself was a truly memorable story. Likewise, Judgment Day & Doomsday, while considered failed experiments were worthy attempts at using the unique anthology structure of 2000AD & The Megazine to do interesting things with continuity and with reader’s expectations of the house of Tharg. Judge Dredd, as the comic’s flagship title, is perhaps the only strip that can get away with doing this sort of thing.

I know DC comics are trying to get people to buy as much of their product as possible, and I know the House of Tharg isn’t structured like that, and I also know we’ve got ‘the Connection’ leading into Origins, but wouldn’t it’ve been great to have a ‘countdown to Origins’ strip, appearing maybe every third week in 2000AD, or a back up Dredd story in the Megazine playing the same role? Origins is all about continuity, but at the same time, 2000AD seem to be reluctant to fully commit to this issue on Dredd, and I’m honestly not sure why. I don’t expect everyone to agree with me on this, I just feel like more could’ve been done, be it a press release to the tabloids, a feature in a mainstream magazine (to balance out all the X-Men/Superman stuff we’ve had recently), or more anticipation in the prog itself. Something, anything, would’ve been better than what we’ve had.

We deserve better. And damn it, so does Joe.