An Aphorism Encapsulating Brevity
Which means a nice looooong Intro, although we will manage to cram a "One" in there: to wit, Mega-City One.
Yes, we are establishing more background before eventually setting out on the desperate crusade across "The Cursed Earth" as inspired by "Damnation Alley". Art!
If you want to imagine what The Big Meg is like, imagine New York on crystal meth, LSD and bootleg gin by the gallon. It's a gigantic coast-hugging megalopolis that is home to 400 million people, or about 25% more than the current population of the entirety of South Canada. All human life is here, as are mutants in from the Cursed Earth (legally and illegally) plus plentiful aliens, too. With rampant unemployment, overpopulation and endemic crime, daily life in The Big Meg is a struggle at best. Art!
For all that, the Meggers do feel a link, however atrophied, with their fellow South Canadians of Mega-City Two (no imagination, these nomenclature chaps), waaaay over on the East Coast. Thus they feel obliged to intervene when the latter is afflicted with the 2T(fru)T virus. Art!
Mega-City Two: they're done
Here an aside. YES ALREADY! Conrad has not read the comic since issue 1,000 so is not speaking from a position of authority; however - that virus? I find it passing strange that it suddenly breaks out in MC2, from nowhere. The 'official' explanation is that it was a leftover from the "Great Germ War" which is an event mentioned nowhere else ever and is, frankly, reaching as an explanation. Not only that, The Big Meg just so happens to have a vaccine on hand? whilst MC2 hasn't? Reading between the lines, this vaccine takes ages to produce and it can take months for a first batch to be manufactured, which is why MC2 can't create it's own vaccine. Or so we are led to believe. Why does The Big Meg have a vaccine and MC2 doesn't? Hmmmmm <goes down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories>. Art!
Here's a nice pictorial demonstrating just how far Judge Dredd and his party have to travel to deliver the vaccine.; getting on for 3,000 miles*. Note that this is the reverse of Roger Zelazny's novel, where the vaccine-party went from Orange County, California, to Boston, and also the film. But it does chime with the lyrics from Hawkwind's "Damnation Alley".
I've got the serum and I'm going to take it
From the album "Quark, Strangeness And Charm". Art!
We seem to have gotten off-track a tad. Let me get back on it by explaining that the two artists who drew the strip were Brian Bolland and Brendan McCarthy, who had totally contrasting styles. Art!
Bolland McCarthy
And with that we are done. For this Intro, anyway.
The Sadim Touch
Ah yes, remember good old King Midas? Everything he touched turned to gold, in what must have been the shortest tenure of having a wish granted, as his lungs would immediately get a gold-foil lining and he'd asphyxiate in a matter of seconds. The hypothesised 'Sadim' touch is one where everything a certain person touches turns to ash and ordure. Art!
I'm not going to make the mistake of calling Donald Buck "Pumpkinhead" again. It turns out there's a film monster going by the same name, and it threatened to sue, which is a bit pec
ANYWAY one of matey's lawyers is a lady called Alina Habba, and the only reason Trump hired her is because - Art!
She looks good
The truth is, she's not a very good lawyer. And now she's in water so hot it could well be a Yellowstone Park geyser. You see, back in 2019, before she was officially on Agent Orange's payroll, she undertook to sort out a case of sexual harassment at at his Pieminster Golf Club. Whilst pretending to be a neutral, she actually lambasted the unfortunate plaintiff, including a Number One Big No-No - approaching someone who already has legal counsel. YOU DO NOT DO THIS IN SOUTH CANADA! She drew up a ludicrously unenforceable Non-Disclosure Agreement, didn't provide plaintiff with a copy, had them fire their original lawyer, settled for a miserable $15,000 and made false statements. Art!
According to Devin Stone, the Legal Eagle, these charges - which have now been taken to court - are so egregious she could be disbarred. That's career suicide over and done for a South Canadian lawyer.
The feeling is that she did this to get into Trump's good books, as she was a member of the Pieminster Golf Club, and wanted to weasel her way into a job with him.
The Sadim Touch in action, pilgrims.
I Say!
Whilst reading "Official History Military Operations Egypt & Palestine" I have noticed mention of one Lt. Colonel A. P. Wavell, and merely dismissed it as a coincidence, before getting down and doing a little digging. Art!
This is Field Marshal Wavell, about five steps up from a mere Colonel, as he was in 1941. Yes indeed that callow Colonel of 1917 is the same chap who grew up to be the commander of a vast region of the Middle East that coincidentally included Palestine, where he'd been an eager liaison beaver in1917. Art!
I think this is Wavey in 1917
Ol' Wavey was a busy bee in late 1917, because at this point Lloyd George, the Liar-in-Charge, wanted to avoid doing anything on the Western Front and instead concentrate on forcing Turkey out of the war. This was because seizing Damascus and Aleppo would immediately cause the Kaiser to sue for peace, or shizzle like that.
Wavey poured cold water on the fond imaginings of Ol' LLoydy thanks to hard work and diligence. He had seen Turkish prisoners, discussed progress with British commanders about Turkish resistance and had access to the entire gamut of intelligence that Perfidious Albion had across the Middle East. He was not sanguine about a Turkish collapse early in 1918. Oops. Art!
Lloydy with a book he probably stole
"City In The Sky"
Things are not looking at all rosy for our favourite Gallifreyan, not at all.
‘I say we find a twenty foot length of
hemp and stretch his neck,’ said the Assistant Mayor, a wild look in his eyes.
With an uncomfortable feeling in his stomach that made his jaw seem hale
by comparison, the Doctor realised things were seriously awry here.
‘Fold up a few chairs and tenderize him first,’ added another person
from behind, delivering a painful blow to the right kidney, then the left, then
the right again.
The clutching hands grew even tighter, if that was possible. Alarmed cries and calls from those of the
audience still sitting came to the Timelord’s ears.
‘What do you think you’re doing!’
‘You’ll kill him! Pack it in!’
Aggression far in excess of the norm, realised the Doctor. These people were being stoked to levels of
aggression by an external agency – which intelligent insight didn’t help him
out of the jam he was in, as a belt was draped over his neck and tightened with
such speed that it burnt his skin.
Another blow came to his jaw, and that assailant from behind struck
again.
‘Stop it! Stop it!’ came a
woman’s voice, getting closer – only to be punched away by eager fists. A shout of anger came from the hall’s floor,
as the Doctor’s vision began to blur.
O no!
Tik Tok Shock
This hearkens back to a comment John Carpenter made about "Prince Of Darkness" and how he stole an idea from Gregory Benford's sci-fi novel "Timescape". Art!
In the novel, desperate scientists from the year 2020 beam back a tachyon message to 1962, explaining how the environment is going toes-up. The message is in Morse code and manifests as an interruption in a physics lab's experiment.
JC must have read this novel to be able to steal the idea, an indication of his reading choices. In POD, the message is intended to be perceived by individuals not lab equipment - more dramatic! - but the message also cautions that they can't get through 'conscious mental interference' and so their pictorial transmission only comes through in dreams. Art!
It's a creepily ambiguous ending, being sent from the year "One nine nine -"
Finally -
You know, this Sunday's Stew isn't bad, with just the right amount of jalapenos in it to make you feel you've eaten something a tad spicy.
And with that, we are one and done.
* None of that metric rubbish here.
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