Prog 1331 - 12 March 2003
Cover by Richard Elson

Synopsis and 1st review by Gavin Hanly
2nd opinion by W.R. Logan

Summaries and reviews contain spoilers.

GH: Atavar gets its first cover, and Richard Elson shows off a bit. His Atavar seems a little nastier than the one in the story inside, but it's a dynamic cover with some great colouring, even if it does commit the cardinal sin, in my opinion, of obscuring the logo...

WRL: To come...

Dredd vs Aliens: Incubus - Part 11

Synopsis: The Verminators join the judges in holding the Aliens back, and realise that incendiary is the way to go. Dredd orders the levels above them sealed off - and Sanchez is concerned about being sealed in with the Aliens. Meanwhile Giant is having trouble getting to his position, and heads for the armoury, while Med Bay reports that their creature is dead, but so is Brubaker and a surgeon.

Dredd's team is running low on ammo, but Giant has reached the 4 Mechanismo robots in the armoury. With the Chief Judge's codes, he starts them up. The Verminators are fighting back the Aliens when Marinello's legs are blown off by acid, and he gets dragged into a hole by some Aliens - Sanchez begins to panic.

Giant storms in with the Mechanismo robots - Dredd's willing to forget about his history with them for this time - and the robots battle against the Aliens, as the tide starts to turn...

GH: All hell continues to rage through the Halls of Justice, and the creative team truly manage to convey the almost hopeless fight against the Aliens and the effort to drive them back. More gore, as ever, as Flint makes better use of the acid-for-blood scenario in a way that few other Aliens artists have managed - i.e. that if you're firing away at acid filled "containers" - there are going to be a huge number of unpleasant casualties.

The Sanchez side story may be one too much, as she's really starting to lose it this week, but do we care? Let's see if Wagner/Diggle can manage to make that a compelling thread or not. As for the Mechanismo robots - always nice to see them back in action, even if it seems a little surprising that only 4 of them could turn the tide. After all, they're just as susceptible to the acid. But that's all nitpicking really - it's still a fantastic ride - with only 5 more episodes to go...

WRL: TBC

House of Horror

Synopsis: In 1934 Malcolm Critchley is caught and shot at Exham Priory while performing a sacrifice. As he dies he leaves a blood stained handprint on the wall...

In 2003, the Caballistics are shown their new base of operations, Exham Priory, by Slater. Brand says that apparently there were " number of important people involved with Critchley" before he was killed. Rayne takes the west wing with his "assistants" the young Gustav & Gretchen. Chapter says she remembers Exham from Lovecraft, to which Rayne tells her he must tell her an "amusing story about him, Harry Houdini and one or two others" (See Necronauts - also written by Rennie). Slater tells them they'll soon prepare for the press conferences.

As the group retires for the night, watches by cameras, the bloody handprint in the basement begins to smoke...

GH: The Caballistics return, and we're still in the process of setting them up. However, I enjoyed this a lot more than their last episode. Putting the team in a more confined situation should let their characters breathe more, and could be what the series needs to get a good grounding. It's the kind of story that needs a while to bed in, so it's promising to see that Tharg's giving this one time to settle. It could well turn into a fan-favourite, but I think it'll still be a few series sown the line before things cohere enough to help achieve that. I liked the Necronauts aside, however.

Dom Reardon's art has certainly improved since the last series, with everything from his backgrounds to his characters starting to flesh out nicely. A few dodgy parts, but if he's kept as the main artist, we should continue to see a major improvement from him as the series progresses. He only starts to fall apart a little on the last scene, as the black & white art makes it a little difficult to see if the handprint is smoking or on fire - although that could be due to the limitations of the black & white medium.

WRL: TBC

Bystander - Part 2

Synopsis: The V.C.s try to hail the huge ship. No response, but Diderot thinks they're being listened to. Lin Fu thinks it may be a Polity vessel - a federation of "superior" races to which man was about to join until the new war broke out. (see prog 2003 for their first mention). They watch - but never interfere for ethical reasons. Meanwhile Spense appears, chased by dozens of Geek ships. Smith puts in a call to the Polity vessel, asking for help in scaring the Geeks off, but there's no answer. Spense's ship is destroyed and the Geeks head off. The Polity vessel warps out too - as Smith muses how ethical it is to let sentients die under your nose when you can do something to prevent it.

GH: A much more satisfying turn from the V.C.s, but there's still an overall feeling that nothing really happens. The emergence of the Polity vessel hints at a larger storyline bubbling underneath, and the tension is handled quite well. However, we learn relatively little about the Polity that we didn't already know from Prog 2003. I feel that this series of the V.C.s could just be so much better if Abnett stopped arsing around with these short stories. There's too much of a stop-start feel at the moment, and I need a little more from it. It's still enjoyable - just a little empty. Let's hope the underlying plot set down here is run with for a while now.

Williams art is still overwhelmed by computer graphics. He does a very good job of these - but as said before, the time would be better spent on choreographing his space battles with more ingenuity. His interior character scenes are showing improvement, though.

WRL: TBC

Pagrok The Infallible - Part 2

Synopsis: Pagrok and Fenko kill some prison guards and take their clothes. They rescue the princess, but Pagrok knocks out Fenko and dresses him in the princess' clothes - so he is sacrificed to Klarvor instead. Pagrok tells Pellotia about his vision, and reveals how she is going to steal King Ennios of Eraldor's legendary golden statues, and the rest of his wealth. They finally reach the treasury - but King Ennios is waiting inside. They are captured, and king Ennios reveals that the statues are those of the thieves who had broken in before. As he's thrown into the molten gold - he will indeed be surrounded by gold forever...

GH: Despite sinking into the usual "surprise" ending formula, this has been a very entertaining Telguuth tale - made much more enjoyable by Moore's flights of fancy, "Great is Klarvor and his transsexual lightning!" being a particularly good example. If this lightness of touch is kept through the rest of the Telguuth tales, I'll begin to look forward to them much more. It'd just be much better if he didn't feel the need to always give us a twist at the end. It must be said, however, that the twist wan't half as telegraphed as the similar one the recent Tales of Terror.

I'm also starting to warm to Haward's art, and am beginning to think that he may be the perfect partner for Moore on this title.

WRL: TBC

Part 3

Synopsis: The Kalens learn of the Atavar, which is en route with Voidshaker. Decider Jad does not trust the Atavar, and knocks his aide down when he says "perhaps...we should never have made him..."

Voidshaker, meanwhile is puzzled by the Atavar, who explains he is the last human, a clone made by the Kalen. He was supposed to infiltrate and destroy the UOs, a "mechanical sentience" originally created by humans, which outlived its makers and became a "force of destruction." However it backfired when the Atavar refused, and the Kalens were nearly totally annihilated as a result. Now the Atavar, as he's human, is using the UO technology to slow it down, but he needs help...

Meanwhile Jad is trying to persuade the Binods that Atavar is an enemy. The Binods pause, an then "send the signal". Voidshaker and the Atavar emerge from void slide, as the Atavar is suddenly shot at. Voidshaker is told to move aside for Worldbreaker - the second Binod champion construct...

GH: Pretty much a "here's what happened last time" episode, so things don't actually move on much. Quite a difference from the last Atavar series, where we were kept in the dark for most of the run, but there's still some way to go. I'll be surprised if Jad doesn't become the big baddie of the series before too long - and I hope the Atavar isn't stuck in his ship all the time - as that's only going to make the story a little more restricting. More should happen next week - as we'll see if Worldbreaker is a match for Atavar, and indeed if Voidshaker's just going to stand by...

Great art by Richard Elson again graces this story, making it the best reason to stick with. There's a great deal of ingenuity in the creation of Voidshaker and Worldbreaker that's missing from the art of some other series, and he manages to create fantastic computer effects, which don't overwhelm, unlike with Williams' work on the V.C.s..

WRL: TBC