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Multiver-City One: 2000 AD Prog 1882 and Judge Dredd Megazine 348

By and | May 21st, 2014
Posted in Columns | % Comments

MVC1 TItle

Welcome, citizens, to this week’s installment of Multiver-City One! Each and every Wednesday we will be examining the latest Prog from Tharg and the droids over at 2000 AD, and giving you all the pertinent information you’ll need headed into this week’s Thrill-Zine! It’s a double-header this week, as we’ve got both a new Prog and a new Judge Dredd Megazine, so let’s get right to it!

This week’s cover is by Simon Davis.

I. THIS WEEK IN PROG 1882

Judge Dredd: Shooter’s Night, Part 4

Last week saw the Judges racing the clock to track down all the accomplices of Jimmy Zane’s teen kill spree plan. Dredd acted on a hunch, did some detective work, caught a glimpse of the scope of Zane’s plan, and put out the call to his fellow Judges. Being The Meg’s finest, they whittled that number all the way down to the last two, including Zane himself. And there’s no surprise in me telling you two armed punks versus Dredd is no contest. The only question that should come to your mind is if the perps are going to the Cubes or Re-Syk.

But what if Dredd didn’t find out about all of them?

Chaos Day killed not only 85% of the Mega-City One population, but also the ability of the Justice Department to respond quickly to these types of things. Given enough warning they can meet the challenge, but they just don’t have the boots on the street to blanket-police at the drop of a helmet like they used to.

Dredd may have taken the last shot, but it looks like Zane might have the last laugh.

Credits: John Wagner (script), John McCrea (art), Chris Blythe (colors), Annie Parkhouse (letters)

 

Indigo Prime: Perfect Day, Part 3

Finally! Someone else is wondering why Danny and Unthur are bending over backwards for this old Nazi. I’d have brought it up sooner, I just didn’t want to sound rude or anything. But really, between the luxury cars and the weird polymorph daughter they made him, this Schroder guy is being treated like royalty. Well, maybe not royalty. It seems royalty gets stuffed and put on a mantle in the parallel reality where he’s from, but you know what I mean.

The giant monster sex (pictured above) is not a part of Schroder’s wishes. Though it probably would be if he knew it was available. The guy’s a creep.

Credits: John Davis (script), Lee Carter (art), Simon Bowland (letters)

 

Tharg’s 3rillers: Colony, Part 3

Oh man, this strip got gross! The spores are everywhere and it seems that humanity’s only got one last chance at not being turned into some kinda space-spore-bug monster things. I’m sure this’ll all work out just fine. If there’s one thing Tharg loves, it’s a happy ending.

Credits: Kek-W (script), Vince Locke (art), Adam Brown (colors), Ellie De Ville (letters)

 

Outlier, Part 9

We’re in the endgame here, folks. As we’ve seen Caul make his way through every conceivable obstacle with little to no fuss, what does it look like his chances are when these three Armoragami droids show up on the scene? Pretty good, I’d say. Yeah, they outnumber him, but what could they possibly–

They can adapt to his fighting style? Well, that’s going to make things awkward, but his suit–

Has finally been decoded by the Falcorp research group and can be hacked like the Reliant in Star Trek II?

Oh. Oh, bother.

But Carcer is still the independent operator in all this. Will he side with Ramona his employer, or the side of justice?

Credits: T.C. Eglington (script), Karl Richardson (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)

 

Slaine: A Simple Killing, Part 9

They say that taking the high ground is one of the key maneuvers when engaging your opponent in battle. I’m not entirely sure what they say when you tell them that your opponent IS the high ground. Looks like Slaine is going to have to figure out a Plan B pretty quickly. If only he were wearing the Salmon of Knowledge…

Continued below

And yes, the Salmon of Knowledge is an actual thing and it does show up in this Prog, as two of the Sloughs debate on our titular hero via a scrying pool as he fights for his life. The Salmon-chapeau’d Slough seeing the courage Slaine displays in taking on an opponent more than twice his size as an admirable quality, while the bird-adorned Slough sees it as a disease. One they feel their duty to cure Slaine of. They’d better hurry if they want a crack at him before the giant beats them to the punch.

Credits: Pat Mills (script), Simon Davis (art), Ellie De Ville (letters)

 

II. THIS WEEK IN JUDGE DREDD MEGAZINE 348

This week’s cover is by Glenn Fabry.

Judge Dredd: Rad To The Bone, Part 2

Chaos Day took a lot of people off the board in Mega-City One. Many of them were Judges, and that leaves a little more room than usual for the underworld to organize. What better way can there be to celebrate this moment’s time in history than to have Judge Dredd fight to the death in a gladiator arena? If you said none, then you are correct!

Boo Cook is bringing the ruckus on this strip. He seamlessly blends elements of classic Dredd art together with his own distinct style, bringing it all home with a lush color palette. His page layouts are pretty impressive as well. He uses elements to break panel borders, pushing the reader’s eyes where they need to go. At one point he even uses the sections of a giant Justice Department shield as panels. With this strip wrapping up next issue, here’s hoping Cook is on board for more Dredd after that!

Credits: T.C. Eglington (script), Boo Cook (art), Annie Parkhouse (Letters)

 

Tales From The Black Museum: …And Death Must Die!

Long before Chaos Day, there was Necropolis. Tens of thousands of citizens died, leaving corpses in the streets as far as the eye could see. It was awful, especially for a certain serial killer. His name was Edward Bernardino. He felt it unfair that Judge Death got to kill as many as he pleased, while leaving nothing for anyone else. So Edward decided that he had to kill Judge Death.

The narrative of this story is an interesting one. The whole thing is framed around a knife that is an artifact in this ‘Black Museum.’ This knife has seen a lot of action, but for all its experience, would it be able to kill that which is not living? We, and Edward, find out in this strip!

Credits: David Baillie (script), Jake Lynch (art), Ellie de Ville (letters)

 

The Man From The Ministry: Part 1

Nobody likes paying their taxes. I don’t. You don’t. Your folks don’t. But without them, government services we rely on are curtailed or cut outright because there’s nothing in the budget to fund them with. Bridges collapse because there’s no money for their upkeep. Literacy rates drop because your schools can’t operate on hope alone. And we die from Yuggothoo-infected vegetables because Albert Morningside isn’t there to keep our produce safe from space spores.

Wait! It looks like someone coughed up a finsky so we can eat in peace again, thanks to The Ministry (and Stan’s use of a flamethrower as gardening implement).

But those two are all that’s left of The Ministry keeping Britain safe from all manner of aliens looking to gain a foothold on our planet since becoming aware of us back in the 1950’s. Rennie taps into the “do more with less” climate that we find ourselves in by pushing that as far as it can go. This isn’t Indigo Prime not having the gold it needs for dimension-hopping; this is having to buy dynamite out of the petty cash fund because they took away your grenade allowance. And if I knew Rennie was planning what I’d be up against, I’d make damn sure I had something that went boom when I needed it to.

Kev Hopgood keeps things nice and crisp here, working black & white with a different goal in mind than Jake Lynch’s approach. Much closer to Dave Gibbons. But they both work because the stories have different requirements. For The Man From The Ministry, you want things clean because you want to ooh and ahh over the aliens and technology and space-fitted RAF Lightnings. Yes you do

Continued below

Credits: Gordon Rennie (script), Kev Hopgood (art), Simon Bowland (letters)

 

Anderson, PSI Division: Dead End, Part 6

Thing are coming to a head as Anderson is revealed to have survived her attack and Algol Rey is called out as the force behind the Psi-Division madness that’s been playing out.

It’s interesting how the tone of this strip has shifted. The first half was very introspective and heavy, but as we ramp up to the conclusion it’s taken on a much more action-oriented tone. Grant pulled this off without jarring the reader by using a mid-story climax to turn the narrative and propel us through this second movement. Now we’ve got Dredd and Anderson heading into a battle that’ll be fought both physically and mentally.

Credits: Alan Grant (script), Michael Dowling (art), Simon Bowland (letters)

III. MEGAZINE FEATURES

Besides scheduling, there’s a big difference between a Prog and a Megazine. While each weekly 2000 AD Prog acts as a comics anthology, Judge Dredd Megazine is more of a, well, magazine. In addition to all the comics (new and reprints), a variety of contributors write articles focusing on topics that, while usually related to the Dredd-verse in some way, spread the scope of the Megazine beyond the obvious cast of characters and into topics, both Meg-centric and real world, that would be of interest to the readership as a whole.

Interrogation: Mark Buckingham by Matthew Badham

The subject of this month’s creator Interrogation, Mark Buckingham drops a few bombshells that are neither myth nor legend. For one, the artist can crank out an average page in two to three hours. For another, he eats artists. Neil Gaiman mentions this as a way to describe Buckingham’s ability to break down the way an artist will do certain things or achieve certain effects and then incorporate those techniques into his own repertoire. Almost like the way certain primitive cultures believe eating the heart of your prey gives you their power. I’m 99% sure Gaiman meant that metaphorically. But after reading the interview and seeing the different stylistic approaches Buckingham can pull off seemingly effortlessly? Not 100% sure he doesn’t literally eat them to get this good. Check this article out and tell me if I’m wromg.

 

New Comics: 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special 2014 by Karl Stock

For nearly two decades, the 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special laid dormant. From 1978 to 1996, the Sci-Fi Special was a summertime staple, showcasing new talents alongside the familiar stable of script and art droids to deliver an extra issue’s worth of thrills to the newsstand. But even Tharg himself could not hold back the tide of declining sales, and in 1996 the annual was canceled, never to be seen again. Well, that is to say, until today!

Next week sees the return of the Sci-Fi Special, and it has a hell of a line-up! Of course there’ll be a Dredd tale kicking things off. From Emma Beeby and Eoin Coveney comes a tale centered around a strange cursed statue. Also: Fatties! There’ll be two tales set in the Brit-Cit: Robo-Hunter and Orlok – Agent of East-Meg One. Plus Durham Red, a Future Shock, and Rogue Trooper round out the line-up, making this an issue you do not want to miss!

 

Fiction: One-Way Ticket, Part 2 by Johnathan Green

Judge Arnold hooked up with the mob to get a one-way ticket off Earth. But as Dredd shows up at the handoff between Arnold and his crime contact, is Dredd about to punch that ticket ahead of schedule?

 

IV. MEGAZINE REPRINT

Every month, the droids at 2000 AD find a little something from the back catalog to include with the Megazine. This month is a look at another Psi-Judge: Janus, by Grant Morrison, Mark Millar, and Paul Johnson, as well as another tale of the Psi-Division with Judge Karyn in a tale called Skinner, by John Freeman and Adrian Salmon.

These two stories are an interesting pairing. While both telling tales of the Psi-Division, their art styles couldn’t be any more different. Johnson’s Janus pages are painted with fluorescent colors that scream on the page. Meanwhile, Salmon’s Skinner story has an approach that looks like a combination of cut-paper art and Soviet propaganda. It’s all in black & white, with no gradients anywhere; instead, every line is crisp and hard. The end result of all this is something like an ultra-modern noir, dramatically lit with deep shadows and blinding highlights. It’s one of those approaches that reads as simple, but under closer inspection reveals a mastery of craft. I had never read this story before, and found it to be a real treat. Next month we’ll get more from Karyn and her corner of The Meg.

Continued below

 

V. FUTURE PERP FILES

dredd cpu

ATTN: ALL CITIZENS OF THE MEG! Be aware that there is always a Judge watching you. Each sector is equipped with millions of HD-CCTV and bioID units. They are there for your protection. If your intent is upright citizenry, then you have no qualm with our surveillance. And remember: if you see something, you are now an accessory to a crime. That’s six months in an Iso-Cube, creep! Random CPU algorithms has selected this citizen for immediate surveillance and assessment…

 

That’s gonna do it for us this week! Both 2000 AD Prog 1882 and Judge Dredd Megazine 348 are on sale today and available from finer comic shops everywhere, from 2000ADonline.com, and via the 2000 AD Newsstand app for iPad and iPhone. 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.

EMAIL | ARTICLES

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!

EMAIL | ARTICLES


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