Total War - Total Waste.

Having just finished reading total war (I don’t get down to TM as often as I would like) I would just like to say how thoroughly disappointed I found the whole storyline.

I think I pointed this out in another thread (but was then subsequently dismissed) but it did not follow the logic or the strengths of the dredd universe.

My major gripe with it was that as terrorists Total war are shoddy and unimaginative, I find it hard to believe that in two hundred years they have not thought up of a better way of attacking the city or hiding their identities.

The ending, I think stunk of desperation, oh quick how are we going to get dredd out of this one? I know we will have a terminally ill Total war operative come in and confess all. How likely is that to happen? I mean really? In the decades of modern terrorism, how often has a member of a terrorist inner council sauntered in to a police station because of an attack of guilty? (Which in this case he didn’t feel the need to confess all until near the end of the story). To my knowledge not a single one.

The same thing happened in Sin city, quick this huge killer virus is going to kill every one, dredds infected what are we going to do. The fiction equivalent of bed rest and some soup. I suppose they didn’t travel back in time and Rico didn’t come out of the shower but you know what I mean

And how did it all end? Surprise surprise the bad guys twiddled their moustaches and got shot. As ‘epics’ go it lacked depth, which was further harmed by the lack of continuity in the story line.

Continuity in this case does not mean that the story was harked back to another irrelevant total war story, but something far more fundamental, something that has permeated the Dredd universe since the introduction of Judge Death. Yes you guest it the PSI division were nowhere to be seen, why? Because it was convenient for the storyteller to omit them and padded out an other wise pedestrian story.

Total war could have been ended in two maybe three episodes, No one in PSI division Pre Cogged it and when the guys died at the beginning, get the PSI division to pull the information out of his head, taa daa we know where the bombs are end of threat. But no it was forgotten about because of lazy storytelling and the writer could not be bothered to abide by his own universes rules. (A universe, I might add he himself built)

They are fighting for democracy yadda yadda; it has been covered before and better in America . Why can’t we have something else involved in threat to the city (not the Sovs that is extremely tired) but mega city two, Hondo cit, anywhere, just not the usual suspects.