Prog 74

This week's issue reeks of familiarity, with the return of Future Shocks and an old friend from the Flesh strip. Both look great on the page, although the return of one was more pleasing than the other. To find which one disappointed and which one delighted, read on below.     

Prog 74

22nd July 1978

Dan Dare and his ship are amid a mega-storm, while his best pilot, Polanski, has been killed by a meteorite. Then, to top it all off, he is now facing a mutiny led by Haskins. 

In at the deep end, we accelerate quickly through the story. Facing down Haskins, Dare outsmarts him with the oldest trick in the book, turning off the lights, before escaping with Hitman deeper into the ship. 

They make for the main computer room where they hope to control the ship. Unfortunately, when they get there they find they have yet another problem on their hands - Gunnar Johansson has escaped his containment unit and is now loose on the ship somewhere, his tormented mind in a homicidal state.

This is pushed to one side as the mutineers appear and begin shooting at Dare and Hitman. Jumping into a nearby dropshaft, Dare and Hitman make for a lower level, only for Haskins to turn off the anti-gravity and Dare is suddenly facing a deadly drop of fourteen floors. 

Breathless action throughout, this was a fast way to kick off this week's issue. A throwback to a simpler time, Dan Dare faced a mutiny that could have been set in any century. What made this more interesting is how well we already know the characters involved and see how they react in this situation. Last week Dare was short-tempered and added fuel to the fire,  this week we see him acting calmly and dealing with the situation directly in front of him. Polanski is a loss, a fine character gone too soon, but it does give Hitman a chance to step forward, and having him a Dare's side made the strip more well-rounded. With fast action and clean artwork, this is classic Dan Dare, and although it's not Dare at its best, I still read it with a smile on my face.

Rating: 6/10

Best line: "Dare! Look here! We got more problems!"

Future Shocks is back, and I'm pleased to see it as I read quickly through this week's story. 

Red Packer is the greatest hunter on earth, catching rare game for zoos around the world. Arriving home from a successful hunt, he finds an unarmed alien waiting for him. 

The alien explains that they have a problem with a herd of wild beasts at the edge of their cities. Offering Red a handful of diamonds, the alien asks if he will come to their planet to fight off these beasts. 

Red readily agrees, but arriving at the alien planet he finds himself abandoned by the aliens and their ship. The plot reveals its true nature as three apes emerge, ready to hunt this specimen that the alien has left them. The hunter has now become the hunted.

Maybe it's because I haven't read a Future Shocks for a while, but I found I liked this one a lot. I had forgotten how sharply these are written, and there was not a panel wasted here as we raced through the story. A nice idea, and well executed, I enjoyed the various aspects of the story, and even though it was barely two pages I still emerged satisfied and happy at the end. 

Rating: 8/10

Best line: "No, it can't be - I've been tricked! They're hunting me!"

With the ant army approaching, we begin Ant Wars with the men of the De Silva Tobacco plantation preparing for a siege. 

Watched on the ants, they attempt to construct a wall before Captain Villa devises a plan to burn the plantation's tobacco to create a smoke screen that will keep the ants at bay. It is immediately successful, but the weather intervenes and as the rains pour down, dosing the fires, the ants approach and overrun the plantation. 

Captain Villa urges everyone to fight all they can. It's all for nothing, the battle is lost, and Villa himself is knocked out as the ants forage for food. He awakens to find that it is Anteater who has knocked him out and dragged him to the safety of the sewage channel. 

Crawling along the pipe to safety, they eventually emerge on the banks of a river. They have been followed by a couple of ants, but swimming to midstream they are safe and happy to be floating towards the coast and cities that await them.

This episode looked great, my only disappointment was that the story didn't match the art for tense drama. The opening panels promised much, but soon the focus turned towards the men within the plantation, and some of the earlier menace washed away. The first confrontation with the ants was weak, and once the rain struck and the ants attacked the story began to gain some traction again, especially when De Silva came to a sticky end. The relationship between Anteater and Captain Villa wasn't as rough and tumble as previously and again some of the drama was lost here. On the positive side, the ants remain as frightening as ever, and based on the artwork alone I will continue to enjoy this wild ride. 

Rating: 7/10

Best line: "Military strategy? Ha! You cannot organise smoke in a tobacco plantation...now what do we do?" 

Judge Dredd doesn't appear on the first page of his own story as we are instead treated to the sight of the Tyrannosaurus Rex Satanus in a life-or-death struggle with a dinosaur of equal size, a battle in which he is victorious.

Over the page, we do spend several panels with Dredd as he arrives in the town in Repentance. There the people are friendly, but soon enough we learn they have their own motives, and Dredd finds himself drugged out with the townsfolk intending to sacrifice him to the dinosaur the following morning.  

The rest of the story focuses on the backstory of the dinosaur Satanus, as we see his birth and life from the past. We find out that he died young at the hands of a familiar face, Old One-eye from the Flesh story of Prog 1-19. Luckily Satanus got a second chance at life, and thanks to genetic engineering is once again hungry and on the prowl. 

On the final page, we find Dredd and Spikes tied up, with the slobbering Satanus just metres away and ready to feast. 

As much as I love dinosaurs, I found the pages devoted to Satanus' back story to be a distraction from the main event featuring Dredd. It wasn't anything we hadn't seen before, and shoehorning in One-eye was unnecessary and didn't add any real value to the story. Perhaps that will change in future, and One-eye will play a larger part, but for now, I just don't see it. Despite my reservations about the story, I enjoyed the art immensely. The dinosaurs looked monstrous and were everything a young man could wish for. The opening panels were magnificent, and the final panel of the story of Dredd and Spikes awaiting their fate was among the very best in this week's comic. It more than compensated for my complaints about the story straying away from Dredd, and this final panel alone is enough to leave me feeling positive about next week's issue. 

Rating: 7/10

Best line: "Best we better be....uuuuh! What? The food...drugged!"

Mach Zero has entered the grounds of Pemberton Lodge - owned by financier Sir Charles Hilliers - to find a place to rest. Inside the house, laboratory assistant Harry Winthrop is testing out a new project financed by Sir Charles - a suit which can absorb radiation - and now finds that the suit is welded to his body. 

With the experiment deemed a failure, Sir Charles has ordered that all evidence be destroyed, including the suit and Harry inside it. His security forces torch Harry and the suit with flame-throwers but to no avail. The suit simply absorbs the heat, allowing Harry to melt his way through the wall to freedom, but not before he deals with the security men, 

Realising the power he now has, Harry confronts the professor and further security forces on the grounds of the lodge. Harry learns that he's not invincible as a shot fired by one of the men pierces the suit, but the appearance of Zero swings the fight in his favour and soon Harry and Zero have teamed up. 

Seeking the Professor and Sir Charles, they smash through the lodge, but their quarry has already escaped and is hiding in the bushes. It here that the professor gives Sir Charles some bad news - not only does the suit absorb radiation, it also releases it - Harry is now a walking radiation bomb. 

This week's story was fast-moving in both action and plot. After a sedate episode last week, this week the story accelerated and was everything I'd hoped it would be. Once again, Zero is the monster of the piece seeking righteous justice, and paired with Harry makes for a better balance in the story. One senses that of the two, Zero is the sane one, and I look forward to seeing how this plays out in the coming weeks. The art still hasn't reached the expected heights, although the first page looked great, and if it can match the storyline for interest we should have a strong comic going forward. 

Rating: 7/10

Best line: "Yipeee! The suit has protected me from the flames. So I'm no longer weak and helpless...I'm powerful!" 

Playing Inferno against a team of killer androids, the Hellcats are fighting for their very lives, and that of their leader, Giant. 

They manage to destroy two of the androids, but when Giant's life is threatened by a breakaway play, Teejay sacrifices his own life to save him.

It's all downhill from here, and two more of the Hellcats team are killed, leaving only four of them to face the killer androids. 

Another story that is moving quickly, this feels very much like the end of the Hellcats. With several members dead, and Moody Bloo injured, it's hard to see how the team will survive. I have had the same feeling in the past, but this time it feels serious, especially in light of all the deaths in this week's strip. Clocking in at three pages, this was condensed action that perhaps would have carried more weight in a longer issue. The deaths came and went with no deep feeling of consequence or time to mourn those lost. An extra panel here or there could have fleshed out those moments better and raised the stakes that little bit more. Likeable, with the potential to be great, but unfortunately all too fleeting.  

Rating: 6.5/10

Best line: "Us Hellcats never say die!"

Prog 74 final ratings:

Overall: 7/10

Best Story: Future Shocks

Best Line: "What is there to say, Spikes - except...we're dead meat!"   

Best Panel: