2000AD and Tornado Prog 171: The Stainless Steel Rat Saves the World

Time for King Carlos to draw a wraparound cover, this one for… well, it’s in the title of this post, and shows Slippery Jim and Angelina on the section that appears on the front of the prog, and He on the back cover – between them are various locations from the story so far (and to come, from the looks of a tank and Napoleonic-era soldiers). I’m hoping Angelina’s presence suggests that she’ll be participating in this story soon. I have been liking …Saves the World, but not loving it as much as I did the first series and as much as I remember the third of the 2000AD adaptations (circa prog 400).

Tharg’s Nerve Centre plugs away at Prog 178, though also a teaser for a comics weekend event to be held in August. Tharg reiterates that the golden eagle on the judge uniform’s shoulder is made from fleximetal and is not as heavy as it looks (and does not slow judges down in any way). Simon Pegg from Mansfield has counted the pages of all the stories that have appeared in 2000AD and ranked them by full number of pages – Judge Dredd has had 923 pages, Dan Dare 510 and M.A.C.H.1 346. The famous Simon Pegg was born in Brockworth (Gloucestershire) moved to Stratford-upon-Avon (Warwickshire), studied at Bristol and ended up in London. Mansfield is in Nottinghamshire. While famous Pegg apparently would have been reading 2000AD from 1979 onwards, this is not that Pegg!

The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison, adapted by Kelvin Gosnell and Ezquerra. Slippery Jim finds himself in London in the year 1807. He’s done his research, so knows what to expect there. Unfortunately he doesn’t find what he expected, encountering a tank, then vertical-take-off jets and a plasti-steel wall around St Paul’s Cathedral. Oh, and the French won the Napoleonic Wars. Jim tries to get access to the City disguised as a French soldier, but falls foul of a geiger counter built into the wall (being from the future, his radiation levels will be at least ten times that of 19th century natives), and escapes by pretending to fall over the side of London Bridge (the one with all the buildings on it). No sooner does he drag himself out of the Thames at Wapping than he finds himself at the wrong end of a flintlock.

The Mind of Wolfie Smith by Tom Tully and Redondo has Wolfie lead the police on a chase to Kramer’s mill-house, using judicious use of psychic powers to avoid getting killed in the process. Wolfie bargains without Kramer having a remote detonator for the bomb attached to his neck, which is odd as I’m sure that it was mentioned that Kramer and one of the gang who attacked the military base both had controls. The next prog tag says “Fade out” so almost definitely will feature teleportation.

The next page has an advert for Corgi cars (and helicopters, vans, bikes…) from WHSmith. I only mention it as I still have the 007 Lotus Esprit (the one which turns into a submarine) and the Batmobile (1960s TV series version).

Mek-Quake’s Puzzle Page has a ‘Could You be a V.C.?’ multiple-option quiz, the first few questions of which are easy points for anybody who’s read the attack on Viking City, descent through the gravity shafts and gentle lopes away from the city (that’s the answers to the first two questions). I got 27 out of 35 points (“You almost made it! Redouble your training schedule.”)

Before the centre pages is an advert for a ‘great comics get-together!’. This took place at the Penta Hotel (now the Holiday Inn near Gloucester Road station). For £24 you appear to get overnight accommodation in a 4-star hotel for one child (accompanied by an adult), including full English breakfast and entry to the convention / get-together. There’s also a free gift – an Airfix kit – and the chance to enter a competition (which is a bit weird – so you don’t definitely get entry to the competition?) Present would have been the editors of a number of IPC comics – 2000AD (no pretence that it’s still ‘and Tornado’ in this bit of publicity), Battle, Tiger, Speed and Roy of the Rovers, plus artists and other contributors. The hotel alone would cost around £120 for a room for a single adult and child for a night. It’s an odd advert, and I wonder if there’ll be any photo-story follow-up once it occurs, later in the month.

Judge Dredd: The Judge Child Part 16: Sagbelly by John Howard and Mike McMahon. If you remember, at the end of last prog’s episode, Dredd was stabbed to death by a sword, though no fuss was made about it. This episode opens with a giant toad eating a sacrifice. We cut to the dead Judge Dredd and we only really find out that he’s dead when Murd the Oppressor removes the sword from his body and casually mentions that it’s time to bring him back from the dead. Murd explains that he has been brought back to life in order to be sacrificed to Sagbelly the giant toad. Being magicked down to Sagbelly’s clutches (being clutched by a fat tongue), Dredd uses his knife to buy some time and then a stake from the toad’s pit to buy even more time while radioing his bike outside to set off some flares, blinding the necromancer and his pet necro-toad. Dredd chucks the spike-spear while Murd is blinded, and falls into Sagbelly’s mouth (the giant toad who has been a companion to Murd for 10,000 years

The V.C.s has Finley-Day joined by John Richardson for this episode. I’ve already pointed out that there’s no way that we’ve seen that the geeks would have been able to replicate the V.C.s as they haven’t had close enough contact with them all. Leaving that aside, Smith has no laser as the fake V.C.s head off to a replica ship. Fortunately for him, the fake-geek-Smith is at the rear as they board so, of course, he kills the geek and takes his place. His plan to alert the fleet fails as he sustains an injury as they drop out of hyper-space, revealing that he bleeds like a human. He shouts out that the ship is not the spy ship but apparently gets silenced before the fleet can hear (we’ll find out next prog, eh?)

Sam Slade: Robo-Hunter Day of the Droids! by TB Grover and Ian Gibson. A plan is exposited and put into practice. The East Side Androids (american football team) has a bomb hidden inside the ball and will trick their way close to the God-Droid where Slade can deliver it. This would almost work, except the Andrettes – the East Side cheerleader squad – have come along as well and are none-too-subtle about the murderous plan.

Grailpage: Ezquerra’s full page vista of 19th century London (completely with vertical-take-off jets and a tank).

Grailquote: John Howard, Judge Dredd: “Still – got my knife!” – it might seem quite simple, but it’s a line (and back-up weapon) that gets Dredd out of bad situations pretty often! Though then I came across TB Grover, Hoagy: “Lucky they chose you, huh, Sam? Any human would probably get killed, yup!” Robostogie: “But the great senor Sam Slade – never! Bad droids they tremble before heem! Bullets – pah! They jos’ bounce off his mighty body!” Sam Slade: “Let’s get moving before I start to cry!” – so TB Grover pips John Howard to the post!

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