Thoughts Upon Finding a Bunch of Old 2000ADs in an Antiques' Shop #1

So I've bought a massive pile of old 2000ADs from the antique centre nearby and have been wading through what I will call the wilderness years - 1990 onwards, pretty much when I stopped buying the comic because of stuff like the new Rogue Trooper. It's fascinating to see what I had missed.

1. Mark Millar really is a deeply, deeply untalented man isn't he? Occasionally he can throw something impressive out of the park, but usually it's leaden, heavy, tiresome, violent and pedestrian. A prime example of this is the story handily bagged with the new issue of the Megazine (which is worth buying purely for the interview with the always under rated and always wonderful Steve Parkhouse), "Purgatory". This is basically "Harry Twenty on the High Rock" but with a sadistic, ugly streak. I've always wondered just how bad his "Robo Hunter" stories were - having heard repeatedly the most dread things about them - and here's one handily presented for me. And, yes, it's ugly, pedestrian, boring and unpleasant. How did this man get to the position he is in now? Were the co-writes with Grant Morrison purely as a favour to Millar from his then friend? They have none of the mad inventiveness of Morrison at his best that's for sure.

2. The letters' pages are an absolute hoot. Someone dares mention than Mark Millar's "Robo Hunter" is a bit bad and Tharg writes a decidedly grumpy "that's now what most of the letters we're getting are telling us" response. In the same way, lots of people seem to be really enjoying the woeful Stallone Dredd film. History would rewrite those pretty soon.

3. I may scan in my favourite thing, which is a wonderful letter from a reader who dares suggest that perhaps Pat Mills' pagan wibbling in "Slaine" is just a little over the top and ignores things like plot and dramatic license so that Mills can bang on a bit about how evil Christianity is. It's a decidely thoughtful and even handed letter which is why it's so funny and even Tharg has to sort of admit that this is kind of what Mills does... I haven't read these Slaine stories yet (mainly because they're screamingly ugly - Clint Langley is just as bad with conventional art as he is with digital art, looking like he's on the artistic level of a rather worthy, untalented sixth form art student. And the less said about the even worse art on Mills' "Finn" the better) but this does rather chime with my experience of reading some of the "ABC Warriors" stuff from the same time - this feeling of being lectured by a pedant rather than being told anything approximating a narrative.

4. It's good to be reminded how utterly wonderful "The Journal of Luke Kirby" was and is. Someone needs to reprint this urgently.