Prog 33

 I should really spend more time with my wife. That's what she tells me anyway, but sometimes a man just needs to be alone with his comics for a few hours. I can see my wife anytime, but these comics won't last forever. Tatty and dog-eared, faded newsprint, who knows how long I've got. Maybe one year, maybe ten, why take the chance, I'm reading them now while I can.

Prog 33

8 October 1977 

Invasion takes an unexpected turn this week and the darkness of the last issue evaporates in the face of new developments. However, the grotesque faces remain to keep the real-life aspect of the strip intact. Elsewhere, things get weird.  With the nerve poison taking effect on Bill Savage he becomes a gibbering madman, continually yelling for Nessie to come to save him. The Volgan propaganda team take advantage of this and beam the gibbering Savage around the country as he continues this call for Nessie. On the banks of Loch Ness they take him for further propaganda opportunities, but at this point, the story takes a twist as a large woman wrestler emerges from the water. This is the Nessie that Savage has been calling for, and with a stout band of resistance men behind her, she brings the fight to the Volgans. With the cameras still rolling, Nessie takes on Volgaska in a wrestling match, eventually defeating her live on TV. I had not expected this and it felt weird as I read it. I did enjoy it, but only when I stopped thinking of it as a normal Invasion story, and instead treated it as a once-off. The artwork continues to be the star of the show, and as I alluded to earlier, the faces looked fantastic. So too did the wrestling action, each panel looking dynamic and exciting. The twist to the story was fun, but I came away from the story unsatisfied. Maybe I'm just at that age where two large women wrestling just isn't as much fun as when I was younger. 

Rating 6/10

Best line "Big Nessie rules, O.K.? You got Rosa beat for all Scotland to see!"

Judge Dredd is hilarious. I am laughing all the way from the first panel of the story, as he relaxes in the evening with Walter, until the final panel of the story as he breaks the third wall to speak to the reader. Of course, Walter's lisp makes everything funnier, and the story is sprinkled with lines that bring a smile to my face. We begin with Judge Dredd relaxing at home, reading Crime and Punishment, naturally (Judge Dredd, a  Dostoevsky fan. I would have never guessed) before Walter leaves for the evening with Dredd secretly following him. In a flashback we see Walter presenting gifts to Dredd, firstly a horrid pair of pyjamas, and then a week later some equally hideous socks. Dredd is determined to find out where Walter is getting his money from and we find out soon enough as Walter pulls out in a car, only for Dredd to call him to a halt. Walter has been moonlighting as a taxi driver, but there is no time to immediately resolve this as an emergency call comes across the airwaves.  With a taxi driver taken hostage, it is time for Dredd to do what Dredd does best, and soon enough he's kicking ass and taking names. With justice duly dispensed, his thoughts return to Walter who is suitably admonished. In the final scene, we have Dredd wondering who could have hired Walter for such a job, and we find that the human that has hired Walter has a similar speaking impediment, leaving Dredd to look at us and muse "ask a silly question" This isn't the futuristic dystopian future we have become accustomed to, and the story is considerably lighter than previous issues. In this case, that's a good thing and this story shines all the brighter for its grim past. I smiled my way through every single panel, and even as it ended on a high I was still disappointed that it ended. Superb stuff, this is highly recommended. 

Rating 8/10

Best Line "Can I take you somewhere, buddy..Oh, cwipes! Judge Dwedd!"

Shako feels much shorter this week, and it is shorter with four pages to tell its tale. The first page is dedicated to Shako fighting a large Walrus, a battle that he wins as he drags it out of the water before the story settles into the usual man verse beast. Falmuth is again on his trail, this time supported by the ambitious Dobie. Finding Shako's dead walrus, Falmuth persuades Dobie to hide in its carcass, a fatal mistake as Shako arrives on the scene and promptly kills him. This wraps up the story with Falmuth satisfied that his opponent has been killed off and an injured Shako in his future. This is a clean-cut story, there are no diversions and everything we are presented with on the first page and a half are dealt with by the end of the story. I appreciate that Shako eating people is put in the background for this issue. Sure, he kills one man, but apart from that, it's all just the dead walrus and Falmuths machinations that drive the story. It's not quite as good as the previous Judge Dredd, but it's close enough and this issue of 2000AD is off to a very strong start indeed. 

Rating 7.5/10

Best Line  "Falmuth knows what kind of killer Shako is. Did he leave Dobie behind because Dobie wanted his job? Is Falmuth that evil?"

It's a pirate story for this week's Dan Dare. After receiving a distress signal, Dare finds a large freighter has been robbed by pirates. Returning the vessel to its home planet they find a fearful population. Thinking of a plan, Dan leaves the planet and not long after the pirates discover another large freighter. Expecting easy pickings, they approach, only for the ship to suddenly reveal its true nature, its Dares warship and they are ready for a fight. After fighting and defeating the pirates over a couple of pages, we end with the crew happy that they have finally found a friendly planet and Dare in possession of charts of other friendly planets. A simple enough story, there wasn't much here that I was drawn to. The pirates didn't come across as the most dangerous of villains and one always felt that Dan Dare had it under control. Likewise, the reward of charts of other friendly planets failed to excite me, and my overall impression was that this story stayed firmly in the middle of the road. Nice to look at, but no real memory of it lingered once I put the comic down.  

Rating 5.5/10

Best Line "Wha..? She ain't a freighter! She's a warship!"

There's nothing like an alien invasion to bring out the worst in people, and that's certainly the case in MACH 1 as the residents of Pine City turn on each other in the face of the U.F.O. attack. John Probe is preoccupied with the two aliens attacking him in the police car, and the plight of Pine City plays out without his intervention. Managing to beat off the two aliens, he is unable to prevent the UFOs from flooding Pine city and killing all its inhabitants. It is a nice parallel to the Bible story of the great flood as the sinful citizens meet their end in the water, with John Probe himself narrowly avoiding the flood and making his way to safety. As with any good comic/movie/TV show, the government cover it all up, feeding propaganda to the media that the flood was a natural cause while knowing all along of the existence of UFOs. It ticks all the boxes for a later 70s UFO story, but that doesn't lessen my enjoyment of it at all, in fact, I like it even more as a period piece. I am pleased that the story finishes here, four issues feel about right for this plot, and everything that needs to be addressed has been done so throughout the story. This is the issue where we finally saw John Probe put his special abilities to good use, and it was well balanced seeing that even he with his abilities couldn't prevent disaster, or even the larger government cover-up. I perhaps enjoyed this even more for having grown up in the X-files era and the continual conspiracy theories that are dialled up on social media. A well-told story and this final episode was the best. 

Rating 8/10

Best Line "Mach Men don't run! I'm going to settle this for once and for all!"

Sad to say, I predicted the outcome of the second part of Tharg's Future Shocks after reading last week's issue. The story for Excursion was well laid out, two bloodthirsty time-travelling tourists decide to witness the witch hunts in England. After using the tractor beam to scare the locals, they find themselves suddenly trapped due to a power failure, and they are burnt at the stake. Highly satisfying, but also what I expected after thinking about last week's issue. It is short (as they all are, it's all in the title!) and as such, there is no time for me to harbour any ill thoughts towards it. A short, sharp shock, once again this is the perfect exclamation point on this week's issue. 

Rating 7/10

Best line "Hear their screams-it is the devil's spirit howling!"

Prog 33 final ratings:

Overall: 7/10

Best Story: Judge Dredd

Best Line: "Hooway! He's awwested them all! Judge Dwedd always gets his man!"

Best Panel: