I’ve been reading and loving these Case Files books, or as the fans affectionately call them “the phone books”, for the last few months and have now got myself quite a cool little collection. But this Dredd volume was a first for me.
You see all the others I have, the earlier Dredd’s, the Strontium Dogs, Nemesis the Warlock etc, I could clearly remember reading in the past. This was the first of the Dredd books where I wasnt able to definately say I had read them all in single issues as a kid, so the big question was would they hold up without the rosy glow of nostalgia?
Obviously the answer was a resounding yes.
As with the later of the previous volumes, what you get here is a mix of shorter stories thrown in with one or two of the epic 20 or so part stories Wagner and Grant were so fond of doing at the time. As you would expect with a collection spanning 62 issues of 2000AD the odd short story falls a little flat but overall the quality is very high.
The only story I out and out didnt like was Assault on Block 4, based purely on the horrible design of the mutated assasins in there, but as this only covered 2 of the 62 strips reprinted this soon came and went. The standout of the shorter runs is probably Judge Death Lives which gives us the return of Judge Death and the introduction of his three accomplaces, Judges Fire, Fear and Mortis, all rendered beautifully by Brian Bolland and which contains what is possibly the most well known single panel of any Dredd strip, the “Gaze into the Fist of Dredd” classic.
The second half of this 384 page monster is taken up by two of the epic tales I mentioned earlier. First is Block Mania which details a kind of civil war between residential blocks in the city and the second is The Apocalypse War in which Mega City One is attacked by East Meg forces. Both these were excellent but I must admit I was a little surprised at the brutality shown by Dredd in the second arc. Even though it is a full war situation it his “Take No Prisoners, Kill them All” mentality and disregard for the East Meg civilians safety was a little shocking. When about to launch a nuclear strike on the enemy a soldier pleads with Dredd to think of the “half a billion people in my city”, a request he flatly denies. While he was at war his lack of compassion for the civilians even after discovering they were held in fear by a ruthless War Marshall seemed a little hard nosed… even for Dredd!
Despite that minor niggle though, this was another cool volume to read and stick up on the shelf and as soon as I work through the Nemesis the Warlock collection I’ll be back for volume 6.
For a few months, a while back, “City Of Heroes” was a bit of an obsession for me. An MMORPG with super-heroes and super-villains? The ability to earn upgrades and develop powers with experience points? Flying? Fighting? Leaping? Teleporting?
I’m there…!
(It’s pertinent to point out at this point that I didn’t have a girlfriend back then, and as such had loads of time to play a game like COH.)
There were only a couple of problems with the game, and in some ways they were problems with this whole area of gaming: The majority of missions that you fought started to get pretty repetitious, and as such, you didn’t feel like battles you were fighting or stories you were playing through really made a persistent difference in the world of the game.
There wasn’t really any character progression, and by extension any real continuous role-playing, in the game.
NCSOFT went some way to fixing the former problem with a previous expansion – “Issue 14 – Architect” – giving players a chance to write their own missions and storylines themselves. Now, with the first major expansion for the game since 2005′s “City Of Villains”, “Going Rogue”, they may be addressing some of the more shallow elements of the role-playing.
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Introducing a new, parallel universe version of the “City Of Heroes” universe, Praetoria, where heroes are villains are heroes, bad equals good, cats chase dogs. So basically DC’s Earth 2, but for the City Of Heroes universe…
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, how much you like a movie greatly depends on your expectations. I expected Terminator Salvation to be amazing, so when it was just okay I was really disappointed. I expected Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen to suck ass, so when it was just okay I was pleasantly surprised.
I went and saw Transformers 2 a few days after the opening so I heard a lot criticisms before hand: it was too long, it was cheesy, the plot made no sense. I have to say all of these were pretty much true. But as long as you can deal with its issues Transformers wasn’t all that bad. Worth seeing in the theaters? Sure, if only for that the action sequences are amazing to see on the big screen. Worth seeing a second time? Definitely not, once was enough for me. Overall, what else do you expect from Michael Bay?
In a desperate attempt to catch up the guys review three of the latest progs, 1638, 1639 and 1640. A tearful farewell is said to Zombo, everyone gets a little over excited at the prospect of Ro-Busters action, and they decide that Cradlegrave is probably really good and they are just too dumb to get it.
Prog 6 from 1977 and its deceptive cover are also looked at as is the graphic novel Kingdom : The Promised Land.
As always, spoilers throughout and language not suitable for the kiddies.
Welcome to a spangly new episode of Comic Racks; insanely rambling just for you since 2007!
In this episode, the ladies attempt to do a shorter episode using alarms which don’t go off properly, get ignored, or aren’t set at all, resulting in this 1 hour and 45 min extravaganza!
Join the Racks as they get over-excited by Deadpool related news items, other exciting new podcasts and comics galore. Spoilertastic reviews include Batman & Robin #1, Terminator Salvation, Eekamoo, Cancertown, Pwanda,Thugs #1, Fear Agent, Chew #1 and a shedload more besides.
In the Ask The Racks section, the girls struggle to cast actors in comic movies, Stacey desperately attempts to explain Deadpool’s name (and probably failed miserably) and Iz explains why superhero comics make her run away in fear. Also discussed are boobtastic manga figures, the comics that made us nerds and what catchphrases the super-awesome Comic Racks figures would have if ever they were made.
Playing out this episode is the worlds most ridiculous, offensive, foul and downright hilarious song, Skeletor VS Beastman by Gnarkill. If you value your childhood, you should probably skip this song…
In the year 2019, a plague has transformed most every human into vampires. Faced with a dwindling blood supply, the fractured dominant race plots their survival; meanwhile, a researcher works with a covert band of vamps on a way to save humankind.
I know a lot of people are getting tired of too many vampires on screen these days but I’ve always thought with the right story you can still do a lot with good old Nosferatu. This film look like it’s giving me the answer to the question I’ve always asked myself.
“What if Vampires ruled the world?”
Well the answer looking from the trailer is a pretty damm scary place. This trailer looks cool as hell. I’m be keeping an eye on this film as after you you can beat some good old fashioned crossbow fun.
Also you got Sam Neil coming back to his Omen days as the chief villain and William Dafoe as what looks to be a bad ass vampire hunter.
Kenneth, played by Primeval’s Andrew Lee Potts, is a socially awkward and pretty messed up morgue worker who has a crush on one of the young trainee doctors at his hospital named Catherine. Seeing her and her friends in a bar he offers to walk her home and is ridiculed by the other medical students who he then threatens to expose having seen them take hospital drugs for recreational use. To deter this they trick him into consuming alcohol mixed with a cocktail of pharmaceuticals, the result of which is that he slips into a deep coma. Feeling guilty about this Catherine sneaks into his hospital ward and gives him a mix of untested “wonder drugs” which instead of waking him trigger out of body experiences which Kenneth then uses to get his own back on the people who wronged him.
Well the film is out now so I’m sure we’ll be hearing what people think soon enough. I’m kinda interested in this film not sure If I’ll taker the trip to the cinema yet but I’ll definately be checking out the Blu-Ray as it looks very stylish. I may see if I can pick up the manga it’s based on as well.
Anyway check out this featurette on one of the action scenes. I’ve also stuck some clips below.
I have a review copy of Razorjack which, to my shame, I’ve not got round to reading it. I’ve been hearing good things about the comic so I’m definitely hoping to read it before the next podcast to give it a full review.
To help pass the time while your waiting for a review check out this press release on a soon to be released and very pretty Razorback limited special editions.
Ausiello from EW confirmed in this article, that Mark Pellegrino has been cast as the Prince of Darkness himself in Supernatural‘s upcoming season. Lucifer was released from hell in Supernatural‘s season finale but we never got a glimpse of him.
You might recognize Pellegrino from Lost, where he played the mysterious Jacob in the season finale. As for conflicting schedules the only clue is that Pellegrino has not been scheduled as a full time regular on Supernatural but instead is listed as ‘recurring’.
Welcome to another 55 minutes of Geek Entertainment with Dave and Barry!
News: Smallville casting news and Buzz Aldin and the Rocket Experience
Week that was: MSG 4 touch on the iphone(reviewed by Dave!!!!), Chuck, Robin Hood, The Fixer, Dick Turpin and the Restless Dead, Sisterhood, Dark Reign: Agents of Atlas and Doctor Who: Autopia
Main: We tackle the thorny subject of the rising levels of negativity in Geekdom
One of the greatest entertainers of all time has died at the age of 50 of heart failure, just on the verge of a big comeback tour in London. If you were to young to be able to experience Michael Jackson in person, on record, or on television, I would just hope that someone will turn you onto him.
I’m not going to gloss over the controversy surrounding Jackson’s later years, or the tons of talk about his plastic surgery, but for now let’s just focus on the good times, on the King of Pop.
A Green Lantern movie is in the works and due to be released in 2011. Still in way pre-production rumors, theories, and wish lists have been flying on the internets about who should play the main man, Hal Jordan. One awesome dude Jaron Pitts decided that Nathan Fillion (Firefly, Castle) should take up the role, more then that he created one of the most awesome fan made trailers ever! On first glance the trailer fooled a lot of people into thinking it was real but more than that impressed the hell out of anyone who watched it.
I am way excited for the Green Lantern film and to see who will actually get the role. Sadly and awesomely actually I feel like who ever they pick and what ever kind of trailer they release it can’t compare to the awesomeness that was created by this fan.
