2000 ad prog 1947 feature Columns 

Multiver-City One: 2000 AD Prog 1947

By and | September 9th, 2015
Posted in Columns | % Comments

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Welcome, citizens, to this week’s installment of Multiver-City One! Every Wednesday we examine the latest offerings from Tharg and the droids over at 2000 AD, the galaxy’s leading producers of Thrill-Power entertainment! Between the weekly “2000 AD” itself, the monthly “Judge Dredd Megazine”, an extensive library of graphic novel collections, and new US-format one-shots and mini-series, they have decades of zarjaz comics for you to enjoy.

We’ve got a brand-new Prog this week, so we’ll jump right in after a quick public service announcement!

I. AN EARTHLET’S GUIDE TO 2000 AD

We understand that having such a large selection of comics to choose from can make knowing where to start with 2000 AD seem daunting. What do they publish? Where can I get it? What’s up with Judge Dredd? Can I still read “2000 AD” if I don’t like Judge Dredd?

So to help new & potential readers, we’ve put together An Earthlet’s Guide to 2000 AD. This FAQ collects everything you need to make your initial foray into the 2000 AD Thrill-verse as simple as possible.

II. THIS WEEK IN PROG 1947

Cover by Henry Flint

 

Judge Dredd: Enceladus – Old Life, Part 8

A couple of weeks ago I pondered whether or not Williams and Flint could be setting up some sort of ‘Day of Chaos’-esque storyline with the events of ‘Enceladus.’ Well, I may have aimed a little high on that one, as this week’s issue sees the strip, and the overarching story that led to it, come to a close. Now, anyone who’s got any sort of familiarity with Williams’ work should know that this doesn’t mean we’ll see other storylines picking up themes, ideas, and story beats that we’ve seen played out here, we just won’t see that stuff in some sort of event. The issue’s letter from Tharg lets us know that we will next see Flint and Williams together in this year’s Christmas issue, which is a mere 12 weeks away.

This final chapter was a weird one, and I mean that in the most intriguing way possible. Let’s get down to brass tacks and spoilers!

I don’t even know where to begin with this one! I mean, these eight pages were packed as tightly as one could imagine. Let’s start with Dirty Frank. The strip opens with Frank and Dredd rushing towards an H-Wagon in order to save Chief Judge Hershey. To add complication to the mix, a storm is raging and monsters are charging, so it’s impossible for the Wagon to land. Frank, on a Lawmaster with Hershey slumped behind him, manages to ride up into the moving Wagon and turns around to pull Judge Dredd up after him. This is where things get interesting. Seeing that the Chief Judge has made it to safety, Dredd decides to fall back, as opposed to riding up into the moving H-Wagon with his fellow Judges. It’s in this moment that Frank seems to calmly plead with Dredd not to do whatever it is he’s planning. It’s just three words, ‘Don’t, Joe. Please.” but damn if that wasn’t a solid moment for the character. I read it as a steady moment for Frank; no shouting or exclaiming, just a reasoned plea. And the fact that he calls him ‘Joe’ cemented the whole thing for me. It left me feeling like this wasn’t something Frank was doing because of duty or protocol, instead it was a moment of compassionate concern, and maybe even a little friendship. I mean, really, how many other characters would call him ‘Joe’ at a time like this?

“The job was done.” That’s what Dredd thought as he pulled his steed away from Frank’s outstretched hand and towards the legion of Judges-turned-prisoners-turned-monsters that followed Aimee Nixon back to Earth for revenge. The last command Judge Dredd had received was from Judge Maitland, and it was to ensure that the Chief Judge survived. Well, he did it. And now? Now the city was being destroyed and the man had no standing orders. At this moment, it was possible that, no matter what Dredd did, he would never receive another order. So he could have rode up into the H-Wagon with Frank and Hershey, and watched the death of his city from above, or he could turn and fight. He could unleash his righteous anger upon the one who had possibly taken everything from him. Aimee Nixon had tempted his conscious, beaten him mercilessly, stolen his dignity, altered his judgement, and was now destroying his city. For all of that, he was going to kill her.

Continued below

This is where things start getting weird. When Dredd declares that he is going to kill Nixon, Flint presents him in the panel with a white and pink glow around him. He’s hunched and badly burned, but he’s also glowing. Is he, in this moment, to be considered a saint? Some holy savior? Or has Flint decided that he was really going to comic book it up right there? You’d probably be able to say that I’m looking way too hard at this, if it weren’t for what happened next. While laughing at the futility of Dredd’s declaration and beginning her physical transformation from hume-shaped to space monster, Nixon says to Dredd, “I know what you really are! I know what you really are! And so do you.” I can’t even begin to speculate on what this could possibly mean. Is she referring to his character? What he stands for? Or something… else?

And what was with that horse?!

Just when things couldn’t be worse for Dredd, we cut away to Enceladus where a young Judge by the name of Edward Sam is waiting to unload a hefty bit of exposition and pull the plug on this modern-day Judge Dredd epic. This part of the story feels maybe a little too convenient, as Sam just kind of has all of the answers and knows just what to do. You can argue that this sort of thing is going to happen when a team only has eight pages a week, for a finite number of weeks, to tell a story. If the tale has enough sprawl to it, then some part of it is probably going to need to be truncated in order to leave readers with a tidy package. In the grand scheme of things, this isn’t something that I think hinders the overall story. It fits and it works, with it’s only fault that maybe it didn’t have enough room to breathe as much as some would like.

At the end of things, Judge Dredd stands tall over the rubble of his enemies. And they’re literally rubble; whatever Sam did out there in space turned everyone into chalky snow corpses. From the Low Life to Hondo City, Titan to The Hall of Justice, years of William’s Judge Dredd writing has led to this story’s conclusion. But that’s not to say that this is the end by any means. Like the conclusions to those other story blocks that make up the whole, this is more of a mile marker than a definitive ending. Sure, we’re saying goodbye to familiar faces, but we’re also left with a plethora of news seeds that have been planted. Some may seem small, others large, but they will grow. So before we know it, we may be reading about Judge Sam’s return to Earth, or see another black horse present itself to Judge Dredd.

Credits: Rob Williams (script), Henry Flint (art), Ellie de Ville (letters)

 

Grey Area: Feeding Frenzy

This week’s strip sees The Harmonious Free make contact with the God-Star drone crash-landed on their planet’s surface. An unarmed ‘Human’ Bulliet is part of the scouting party sent to investigate, as well as discuss the finer points of sarcasm. As can be expected, writer Dan Abnett uses a part of this strip to play with the ideas of language mechanics as Bulliet engages the locals.

Mark Harrison’s art really shines this week. His linework has a way of gliding from minimal and suggestive to deeply rendered, and he uses this technique to push the reader’s eye around the page. As impressive as his mark-making is, I think I have to give all praise to what he’s doing with color here. Not only does he use his palette to give this comic an eerie otherness, but he’s got this uncanny approach to presenting strong light sources. These pages seem to glow as energy and electricity dance across his alien landscapes. Reading these strips digitally is a real treat, as the backlight of a screen only serves to enhance his dramatic approach to illumination. Don’t get me wrong, this stuff looks fantastic in print, but looking at this stuff on a tablet is really impressive.

Continued below

In terms of narrative, I’m excited to see that we’re finally entering the conflict stage of things. To speak honestly, I felt myself starting to get a little fatigued watching Bulliet spinning his tires trying to convince the planet’s inhabitants that they were in danger. The breakthrough he won last week, as well as this week’s action scene, makes the story feel like it’s been shoved forward into something new. We’ve seen enough of The Harmonious Free in heavy denial about their external threat, so watching them confront the danger head-on is certainly proving to be interesting.

Credits: Dan Abnett (script), Mark Harrison (art), Ellie de Ville (letters)

 

Tharg’s 3rillers: Apocalypse Anonymous, Part 3

Quickest recap: Third of 3-part standalone story about supernatural incursion in a modern-day Syrian warzone.

Not going to spoil how this one ends, but I will take a moment to say how satisfying it is to see creators meld old-world mysticism with modern technology (or in this case, firepower). We see it in the Mignolaverse, we see it in “Department of Monsterology” by 2000 AD alums Gordon Rennie & PJ Holden, we see it on screen in places like Ultraviolet (preferably the Idris Elba vampire hunter BBC show over the Mila Jovovich film series)… we see it all over the place. But there is just something cool about seeing humanity blazing away on supernatural horrors using shotguns equipped with a small crossbar across the barrel near the business end; “putting the bloodsuckers down for Jesus,” one might say.

Or the Bloody Mary, the 21st-century equivalent of the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch from the Bible’s Book of Armaments, Chapter 4, Verses 16 to 20. Which is not only a funny bit from Holy Grail, but the best choice when you absolutely positively got to kill every demon hellspawn or Rabbit of Caerbannog in the room (provided you’ve got a sweet hookshot to lob the grenade at the foe you are trying to blow to bits in your Lord’s infinite mercy).

I will say that the Bloody Mary is not quite as successful as the Holy Hand Grenade in snuffing the beast in this 3riller, but then McManus would be crawling his way through heavy gunfire to shut down the dimensional portal for nothing, and we can’t have that, can we?

Credits: Robert Murphy (script), Sean O’Conner & Jake Lynch (art), Abigail Ryder (colors), Annie Parkhouse (letters)

 

The Alienist: The Haunting of Hex House, Part 4

That turn of events, of course, is not good. Because if anyone in Exley Priory is NOT a charlatan, it’s Madelyn Vespertine. She is, as they say, the goods. I wouldn’t even consider her actor-manservant-cover Sebastian a charlatan either, even though he possess about as much supernatural or arcane abilities as I do. While a charlatan is someone proclaiming to be something they’re not, it’s generally accepted that they’re doing so in order to scam or injure the other party. These two are trying to save everyone, so if their lying lets them cut through the inevitable disbelief and social awkwardness of their flock having a woman in charge of saving your hash from various boogeymen, then so be it. But given the body count this strip is racking up, they might need to rethink this whole thing.

Beeby & Rennie had me sold from the get-go on this setup, but one of the things I’m continually interested in is how they’ll have Sebastian react to all this occult stuff he’s finding himself in the middle of. Madelyn can’t be paying him enough for repeatedly putting his life on the line like this, and yet there doesn’t seem to be any pushback from him at being in these situations. Yes, we see him unsure at times about how in control of things she is, but he’s not breaking character to do it. So somewhere between their first meeting and now, the two have come to an understanding, and Sebastian has sobered up to be an actual asset instead of a liability (one of the other characters recognizes Sebastian as a notoriously drunk actor). How that happened is a story I’m hoping we get to see from this team next, maybe a flashback tale framed with a present-day (or present-as-of-1908 England) story.

Continued below

Provided they make it out of the house alive. Not a sure thing for a “2000 AD” strip, in which case it might just be a straight-up flashback tale…

Credits: Gordon Rennie & Emmy Beeby (script), Eoin Coveney (art), Simon Bowland (letters)

 

Dreams of Deadworld: Mortis

Oh man, I really liked this one. Who’d have thought that Judge Mortis would be such a proper gentleman? With a pocket watch and everything!

Two installments in, and I’m getting the impression that loss may be the thread that runs through all of them. We previously saw Fire grappling with the loss of a love (of sorts,) as he recounted his last meeting with Sister Despair. This week, it’s Mortis’ turn in the spotlight as he wanders a lonely landscape in search of something to kill. He’s so bored he’s even taken up gardening, though I’d assume he’s got his own lifeless version of a ‘garden.’ If Fire lost a love, I’d say that Mortis lost his joy (although there is a slight hint at a lost loved one for Mortis, too.) Lost in the endless tedium of immortality without purpose, something catches his eye. A spacecraft? Full of living things? Praise be!

We’ve never seen Mortis presented in this way, both visually and in terms of characterization. The most iconic imagery of him to date makes this Dark Judge look more like a man with a cattle skull for a mask than anything else. Kendall’s version, though? This iteration of Mortis is monstrous, with a severe hunch and bony protrusions from his back. His head is equine-esque, with a thick neck and trunkish body that actually looks like it could support a skull that large. These larger features are juxtaposed with the type of thin, bony limbs you’d see on a more conventional Mortis design. This reimagining of the character is physically horrific, but his distinguished personality makes him somehow seem even more terrible. There’s something unsettling about a necrotic monster who’s also a wine connoisseur, right?

The next two strips have had a really high bar set for them, but I’m eager to see if they can exceed what we’ve already seen. Next week is my favorite of the Fearsome Foursome, Judge Fear, so I’m hopeful!

Credits: Kek-W (script), Dave Kendall (art), Ellie de Ville (letters)

 

III. JUDGE DREDD CLASSICS: THE DARK JUDGES

And if getting a month’s worth of Progs featuring the Dark Judges wasn’t enough for you, IDW is taking advantage of this extra exposure to put out “Judge Dredd Classics: The Dark Judges” this week. Clocking in at over 120 pages for 25 bucks, this oversized hardcover brings you those appearances in glorious full color!

The volume collects the five-issue reprint series of the same name IDW ran earlier this year. That series represented the following arcs:

  • ‘Judge Death’ by Wagner, Grant, and Bolland (Progs 149-151)
  • ‘Judge Death Lives’ by Wagner, Grant, and Bolland (Progs 225-228)
  • ‘Four Dark Judges’ by Wagner, Grant, and Ewins/Robinson/Smith (Progs 416-427)

Given that the third story takes up the majority of the book, and is centered on Judge Anderson rather than Dredd, one could argue this collection could be more aptly titled “Judge Anderson Classics.” She makes her first ever appearance in ‘Judge Death’ and is the other through-line in the stories aside from the antagonists themselves. So if you’re looking for some heavy Dredd action, be forewarned that you will be getting mostly Anderson action. But, as long-time readers of either 2000 AD or Multiver-City One already know, that’s just as good.

One of the hallmarks of Dredd as a character is the rock-solid devotion to the law, at the expense of just about everything else a man could want. There’s a reason he’s the Judges’ Judge; Dredd isn’t just a dedicated lawman, he’s THE dedicated lawman. Anderson shows us a Judge who is just as dedicated, but taking a different approach in that duty’s execution. We’ll see her and Dredd get somewhat closer in tactics and temperament as the years go by, but especially here in these early stories, Anderson is shown as much more in touch with her humanity than Dredd is. Anderson isn’t the Robin to Dredd’s Batman, but I can’t help but get the feeling she’s more like Dick Grayson’s Batman to Bruce Wayne’s Batman. They are both capable of doing the job that needs doing, but Anderson can dial the intensity up or down as the situation demands, whereas Dredd (and Bruce in most post-‘Dark Knight Returns’ writer’s hands) is intense all the time, and therefore a little harder to identify with. I can respect Dredd, but I like Anderson. Especially here.

Continued below

The other selling point for this release is the color, done by the same Charlie Kirchoff that handled the colorization of the ‘Apocalypse War’ reprints from a while back.

A scene from Prog 150: Case Files v3 (left) vs Dark Judges HC (right)

So while there are a fair amount of gradients and color sculpting used, the big take away from this representation, for me, is saturation. These pages look good to me on my monitor and iPad from the review PDF I was given, but seeing how these images read on the printed page is another matter entirely. Fortunately, I’ve got some facts on hand to make an educated guess. First, the actual reprint issues themselves used the same coloring (obviously) and were printed on nice, bright paper that puts all my concerns to rest. Second, that ‘Apocalypse War’ hardcover was printed on the same paper, so IDW understands the need to keep continuity in that regard to make sure the final product is as good as it can be. (Just in case you’re thinking that’s a no-brainer, the company didn’t do that with their hardcover collections of the “TMNT Color Classics” series; they used a matte paper similar to the B&W “Ultimate Collections” books and the “Color Classics” colors weren’t nearly as clear as they should have been for a $50 hardcover.)

And third, it looks like the ‘Dark Judges’ hardcover will be printed at the same trim size as the ‘Apocalypse War’ one, so you won’t have those large bars of white above & below the panels snowblinding you like they do on the reprint issues.

So feel free to pick up this beautiful collection with confidence you’ll get some Thrill-powered stories in a Thrill-tastic package!

That’s gonna do it for us this week! “2000 AD” Prog 1947 and the “Judge Dredd Classics: The Dark Judges” hardcover are on sale today and available from:

So as Tharg the Mighty himself would say, “Splundig vur thrigg!”

 


//TAGS | Multiver-City One

Greg Matiasevich

Greg Matiasevich has read enough author bios that he should be better at coming up with one for himself, yet surprisingly isn't. However, the years of comic reading his parents said would never pay off obviously have, so we'll cut him some slack on that. He lives in Baltimore, co-hosts (with Mike Romeo) the Robots From Tomorrow podcast, writes Multiversity's monthly Shelf Bound column dedicated to comics binding, and can be followed on Twitter at @GregMatiasevich.

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Mike Romeo

Mike Romeo started reading comics when splash pages were king and the proper proportions of a human being meant nothing. Part of him will always feel that way. Now he is one of the voices on Robots From Tomorrow. He lives in Philadelphia with two cats. Follow him on Instagram at @YeahMikeRomeo!

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