Synopsis by David Knight
Review by Hugh Platt
3rd Opinion by WR Logan

Summaries and reviews contain spoilers for this issue.

HP: It’s all a bit lacklustre, isn’t it? For something intended to represent a nuclear firestorm, it seems to have been coloured with pastel shades. I’m sure I’d like it a lot more if it was more vibrantly coloured. Not an ugly cover per se, but one that’s definitely lacking a knock-out punch.

WRL: I’m torn by this weeks cover. For one, I really like it but there’s something missing that on closer inspection makes me think it could have been so much better. Whether it’s due to Simon’s lack of detail in certain areas of Len’s muted colours on what is an explosive cover means that it’s a good cover but you feel that it could have been a great cover with some more work.

Total War - Part 10

Time runs out...

Synopsis: The eleventh nuclear bomb planted by Total War is discovered and removed to the Cursed Earth dump, while plain clothes judges continue to look for the twelfth, suspected to be on board a mopad (mobile apartment) touring round Sector Two on auto-pilot. Vienna calls Dredd to say she is on her way to the Applied Genetics Facility in Sector Two to sign Nimrod’s euthanasia papers. Dredd warns her to turn around immediately, and judges at the AGF inform her that they are evacuating the facility. Judges Royce and Clinger find the twelfth nuke.

In Texas City, a gun battle breaks out between judges and Total War’s high command. Miah Daller, known as Frank, shoots Charlie the doubter, before being hit in a hail of gunfire by Texas City judges. Frank triggers the countdown to detonation on the remaining nuclear devices, and Texas City transmits an alert to Mega-city One.

In the Cursed Earth, the hoverporter carrying the eleventh bomb aborts its mission, but releases the bomb too late to clear the blast zone. The bomb dump explodes, obliterating the Cursed Earth scavengers investigating its contents. The twelfth device goes off in Sector Two, causing widespread devastation. Vienna, in a borrowed car, is caught in the shockwave, and her vehicle collides with a fallen bridge. Dredd, on the periphery of the blast zone, fears the worst for his niece.

HP: Even as Total War approaches its end, Wagner and Flint show no signs of letting up. It’s also nice to see they haven’t lost the neat little visual jokes: the broken sign for Dine At The Roof was something I missed first time around, and the wide-eyed “Oh Grud – ” of Royce and Clinger when faced with imminent immolation both give sly winks in an otherwise stern script.

Last time I reviewed Total War I had the first nuke to rave about, and now I’ve got what appears to be the last. Although this doesn’t have the page-burning power of the early cataclysms, the final page has the total force of a nuclear wind at a scale closer than anything else we’ve seen so far. In my opinion at least, Blythe and Flint have raised their reputation as the premier Dredd art team even higher over the last ten weeks.

Wagner threw us a real curve ball with Nimrod. After 10 weeks speculating he was going to save the city from the nukes, it now seems certain that he’s going to be the one to save Vienna. By sidestepping the obvious, Wagner’s kept an air of unpredictability going throughout the entire series.

Dredd’s mask has slipped somewhat with the danger to Vienna. In the hands of any other writer, this would probably swing too near “crying baby story” syndrome, but Wagner keeps most of Dredd’s icy comportment intact, allowing only what little concern he can muster to break through.

Total War’s not just the highlight of Dredd this year, but the highlight of the prog.

WRL: The Dredd story of the year, the thrill of the year even. Wagner & Flint have produced a classic I have loved every episode, every page and panel and can’t wax lyrical enough about it. From the episode where Dredd & Roffman just talk and we see the various camera shots of Roffman tracking down the suspect to this week’s episode and the twelfth nuke going off. This has made me feel like when we old gits go on about 2000’s previous golden era’s when you just wished the next 7 days would pass by so that you could read the next part. Total War, Total Thrill Power.

Part 6

The plan revealed...

Synopsis: The secret service have been expecting Kilquo to return to the facility where they trained her, but they are surprised to learn that she is accompanied by agent Corsino, and furthermore that he is also a Kakkakian, a fact of which they were previously unaware. Corsino (an alien named Kolquak) leads Kilquo down through the facility to a vault containing ‘Operation: Jonah’, where a trans-dimensional ship disguised as a Route Master bus lies at the centre of a maze for security.

The intelligence chief orders his geneticist Dr. Ellis to mobilise an army of cloned Kakkakian assassins against Kilquo and Kolquak, despite the doctor’s protestations that the clones are emotionally unstable, which explains the suicide of one after carrying out an assassination mission in Paris. Kilquo and Kolquak arrive at the centre of the maze to find they have been headed off by the intelligence chief and his clone assassin army.

HP: I never read the original Freaks, but I was always willing to give Faces a chance. But it’s just trying to pack too many ideas into too little space, and it suffers as a result. Earth seems to want to invade Kakkak, Kakkak is about to invade Earth, Carl’s still in jail, there’s an army of clone assassins stalking the corridors of the secret service, and it still doesn’t seem to know which idea it wants to focus on. Maybe it’ll all come together in spectacular fashion, but right now it’s descended into a big confusing mess.

It’s not helped by art that really rubs my thrill-receptors the wrong way. The two uninspired, and if I’m honest, ugly splash pages don’t help. Or the page of Kilquo and Kolqak arguing their way through the maze. In fact, the whole of this episode looks muddy and flat, even compared to earlier episodes. The grimy-looking greyscale looks even worse when you hold it up to the more “traditional” black and whites of Steve Yeowell at the back of the prog. It’s not helped by the fact that almost every human in the whole story looks near-identical.

WRL: Faces seems to be a story that has split some of the readership, love or loath it type comments abound but even without digging out the old progs for a recap I’m on the side that’s enjoying it. There’s something about John Higgins’ artwork that I’ve always liked but I’ve always found it hard to say why. This may be a story that in years to come people may have trouble remembering but whilst it’s appearing in the Prog it’s keeping me entertained.

Tooth & Claw - part 7

Random starts to come apart...

Synopsis: Lobster Random is chained to a sacrificial altar dedicated to the omnidevil Warathaal by Professor Cadmium Redd and his wife. The widow reanimated Redd’s remains in a chemgrade golemsuit, and Redd formulated a plan to get back to planet N-19 with the help of a lobster trooper. Cadmium Redd explains to Lobster Random that his lobster claws were not a genetic modification, but limb grafts delivered from another dimension by Warathaal, who promised Redd immortality in exchange for his obedience. The lobster troopers’ imperviousness to pain and inability to sleep were also granted by Warathaal, a fact that the professor covered up by performing unnecessary brain surgery on his lobster troopers for show.

Redd chops off one of Random’s claws as an offering to Warathaal, and is seemingly obliterated by lightning from the wormhole over Nixx. Redd’s widow, full of remorse, rushes to rescue Random, but leaves him to the mercy of the bounty hunters Hogg and Pin when they appear. Pin proceeds to punch Random in the face repeatedly. Just as things are looking bad for Lobster Random, Professor Cadmium Redd returns in the shape of a giant crustacean, granted immortality by Warathaal.

HP: So we finally get an explanation behind those claws – as well as the reveal as to where this series has really been heading. And it hasn’t been a disappointed.

Carl Critchlow’s unique palate of colours has been up to the task of handling the greyed-out flashbacks to Lobster’s past, and have maintained the right level of mentalism the whole way through. It’s a shame that some panels are half obscured by vast swathes of Simon Spurrier’s expositional boxes, but if he’s going to reward us with nuggets like “alpha-level screaming mentalist aresgike with metaphysical psychodelia and delusions of grandeur” then I’m more than happy to indulge him with the boxes.

To complain that Lobster isn’t as funny this week as it has been previously would be like finding a £5 on the floor and not picking it up because it’s not £10.

The return of Hogg and Pin (and an unfeasibly large gun) will hopefully not herald their terminal exit from Random’s universe. If they can somehow escape from a giant demonic lobster beast of Cadmium Redd, then it’d be nice to see them on Random’s tail again sometime.

WRL: Lobster random is another strip that I find it difficult to put into words why I like it. I may not clamour for its return when it’s out of the Prog but whilst it is it gets my vote as one of the stories that I’m enjoying reading. Maybe I’m mellowing with age and instead of trying to deconstruct the reasons why I like or dislike something I just go with what my Thrill Receptors tell me as I’m reading it.

Recalibration Part 2

Synnamon under the knife

Synopsis: Marshal Cromwell and Dr. Banks monitor Synnamon’s vital signs in a medical lab while her unconscious mind goes over her memories. She is dreaming about leading the Nottingham Dominion in New Nottingham City in 2113. Synnamon, under the name of Jahanara Kirmani, appears to have been the leader of a band of rebel fighters seeking freedom from the U.S.E.

A Dominion mole named Reisenbeck, inside The Castle, informs the Dominion that Major Arthur Cromwell of the Earth Security Directorate will be present at the target during that night’s Dominion raid. Synnamon leads a raid aimed at planting mines under The Castle and capturing Cromwell alive. Entering the building, Jahanara and her squad discover they have been duped, and the security forces have them surrounded.

HP: It’s all a bit confusing really. There are a lot more questions than there are answers. Why does everyone call Synnamon “Jahanara? How does Synnamon end up working for the ESD? Maybe Clayton and Dows are trying to make the story enigmatic, but it just has the effect of being frustrating. Hopefully this will all be revealed next week.

David Roach taking over the inks has definitely given the whole franchise a crisper look. The gritty urban warfare look is a great contrast to the slick and shiny wipe-clean surfaces of the ESD.

Another complaint I have is that I had to double check that Synnammon hadn’t gutted David when she slashed off his suicide-bomb rig. And as a way of showing Synnamon wasn’t a mad-bomber of a freedom fighter it seems a little heavy handed.

But part of me is looking forward to seeing how it all comes together. Like several of the thrills in this week’s prog, it’s a back-story builder that will hopefully lead on to bigger and better things.

WRL: OK, maybe I’m not mellowing that much as I really don’t get Synnamon. Maybe it's because I don’t like that artwork or is it that a female kick ass character in a tight cat suit just doest get my Thrill Receptors buzzing. Which ever one it is, this gets my vote for the story I’ll be glad to see finished and would be in no rush to read anymore.

Meanwhile... - Part 2

Meryl cuts things short...

Synopsis: Mariah picks Meryl up off the tavern floor after her brush with the masked stranger who stole Erebus. Cora finds that the thieves went without the bar’s takings. Mariah suggests visiting a new fortune teller in the old town for clues to the identity of the mystery villain. In the fortune teller’s parlour, Meryl unmasks Old Mother Delfi as a charlatan. Mother Delfi is given away by her wooden finger, and is revealed to be none other than Meryl’s fugitive husband Jimmy, whose finger Meryl cut off for the wedding ring she gave him, in revenge for stealing her family’s fortune.

Meanwhile, the villain who stole Erebus identifies himself as Professor Karel Toten of Leipzig University, who offers the severed double dog’s head an intricately built automaton dog’s body with which Erebus can be mobile again, in exchange for the secret of how a living man may safely enter Hades.

HP: The Red Seas has grown on me with each passing instalment. But as an alternative to the prog’s regular sci-fi content, it’s gradually got better and better. “Meanwhile…” has given The Red Seas more colour (‘scuse the pun) in two weeks than another 8 weeks of Jack Dancer and co.’s exploits could.

Ian Edginton’s dialogue is simply sparkling. When Erebus barks “I shall glare at you uncompromisingly! And sing off-key for hours!” at the Professor, you can hear the pure snootiness of him coming through. Characterising a decapitated two-headed dog’s head shouldn’t seem this easy.

And on top of all that we’ve got spooky villains, clockwork dogs, and a midget threatening to castrate her cross-dressing con-man of an errant husband – and what’s there to complain about that? The only thing not to like about The Red Seas at the moment is that it’s all going to come to end too quickly.

WRL: Red Seas really doesn’t get my Thrill Receptors buzzing, and as with previous stories this one isn’t either. Don’t get me wrong I’ve enjoyed the previous stories but not in a weekly episodic chunks but when read in one sitting and I have no doubt that Ian & Steve’s latest Red Seas story will be the same. So if I’m passing by this way when ‘Meanwhile…’ comes to an end I’ll pass a more critical eye over the story as a whole.