Prog 1190 Triumph and tragedy for Nikolai Dante:26/4/00

Man a time when the matrix was still pretty fresh and it hadn’t suffered the matrix reloaded syndrome yet. Its weird blogging about stuff that happened ten years ago sometimes…..

This issue heralds the triumphant return of Thargs future shocks….err sort of space dust doesn’t actually have the banner of Thargs future shocks but it’s pretty much a return to those kind of stories after the dour vector 13 which seemed to infect the middle half of the 90s.

So anyway space dust is a rather insane one off which has the earth bombarded with bizarre space dust (well the clues in the titles friends!) after a meteor is destroyed over the earths atmosphere. The effects of the dust turn the world into one large hippy commune for a few days until it wears off and everyone returns to normal. Blaming one another for using the dust as some kind of chemical agent the world ends up beginning world war 3 and then the aliens show up to fleece the planet of everything they’ve got.

It’s a fun little one off which was according to Grant Goggans Thrill power Thursday site was written by a regular at alt.comics.2000ad (which I think was the precursor of the current message boards which exist today) It’s a shame Andrew Ness never wrote anything else (to my knowledge anyway feel free to challenge me on this commenters!) I think from the strength of this story alone he had potential. Sikus art (which usually bugs me) is quite good in this too.



Meanwhile Mother Russia begins to bleed as the epic Tsar Wars reaches the end of its first act. Nikolai is now fighting on the front lines of the war alongside his new regiment nicknamed the RUDINSHTEIN IRREGULARS. In this first story the Irregulars and Dante go on a treacherous mission to destroy the tsar’s conqueror cannons. One of the most dangerous weapons the tsar has. Dante hears that Ingrid Wagner (The Romanov spy Dante himself had created and who was partially responsible for the war starting) is being held in the same fortress as the cannons And breaks off the mission in an attempt to save her. The mission is a success and Ingrid and the irregulars return victoriously.

But there is no happy ending in this story as the guilt Ingrid feels is too much….



and on that slight downer of a note the slog ends for today....

Next prog slog: The rather unfortunate nickname an american friend of mine had for Steve Moores Tales of Telguuth....

10 Progs till the rebellion begins....