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.
Last week’s Prog was a PERFECT jumping-on point for new readers because every strip inside started a new storyline! And to make it even easier, Tharg commissioned a background page for each strip to bring new readers completely up to speed before reading. It has literally never been easier to start reading “2000 AD”! But if you weren’t able to get Prog 1924, don’t worry! You can still follow along here and grab it with this week’s issue from any of the vendors we list down at the end of the column! We’ll jump right in to the goodies after a quick public service announcement!
I. AN EARTHLET’S GUIDE TO 2000 AD
Prog 1924 was an excellent place to start your 2000 AD adventure. But what do you do after that? We understand 2000 AD’s huge back catalog can make knowing which Thrills are right for you out of over 38 years of continuous publishing daunting, to say the least. 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 even like Judge Dredd? (Absolutely!)
To help new & potential readers make an informed decision on the best way they can partake of the Thrills, we’ve put together An Earthlet’s Guide to 2000 AD. A regularly updated FAQ, The Guide will collect everything you need to make your initial foray into the 2000 AD Thrill-verse as simple as possible.
II. THIS WEEK IN PROG 1925
Judge Dredd: Enceladus – New Life, Part 2
“It’s Nixon.”
Having read this story’s precursor, ‘Titan’, I knew that ex-Judge Aimee Nixon is in play, but seeing those words delivered so plainly and in their own panel felt a little chilling. That moment made the weight of what was unfolding on the page hit home. There is a real danger hurtling towards Mega-City One that can only end somewhere between cataclysm and decimation.
Enter Judge Dredd.
Williams is doing something quite interesting here. The climax of ‘Titan’ put Dredd in an awfully similar situation. He was left holding a detonator rigged to blow a transport ship carrying Nixon and an untold number of other former Judges out of the sky. It was a set-up designed to break Dredd, a measure of his conviction. In the end, the button went unpushed and Nixon made her escape from Titan.
The writers who spend the most time with Judge Dredd all seem to have their different facets of the character they like exploring, and that type of exploration causes these writers to develop their own personal history for Dredd. Each stint with the character pushes specific ideas and angles to the fore that are less present when others are at the helm. Rob Williams is no exception to this type of stewardship. His Judge Dredd is an angry old man that’s seen far more that any one person should. He’s not only beginning to slip, but Williams has him read as a man who’s begun to notice that loss. Of course, no one around Dredd has really caught on to this yet, but the readers keep getting a first-hand view of a legend staring the back nine in the face. A line or two here, a well-timed beat there; the way Williams conveys all of this is surprisingly subtle. But over a number of his stories (like ‘Titan’, Prog 1873’s ‘Fit’, or “Judge Dredd Megazine” #344’s ‘The Man Comes Around’) you realize that there is a lot going on under the surface.
Here’s where I’ll be getting into spoiler territory. If you want to avoid such things, scroll down to “Sláine.”
It really feels like so much of Williams’ path for Dredd has been leading to this strip. As we said earlier, the scenario playing out is quite familiar. A ship that most likely only carries destruction and future woe is within striking distance; what do you do? Well, Dredd passed on blowing it out of the sky last time. For a guy with arguably the highest civilian body count in all of comics, that was a little surprising. This time around Dredd seems a bit more sure of his course of action.
Continued belowDredd begins this week’s installment completely silent. Artist Henry Flint presents Judge Dredd as something like a slab of granite: no movement, sound, or emotion coming from him even as the turmoil blossoms around him.
Then it happens. A tiny tic in the corner of his mouth. The crack in the dam. That’s when the burst happens: “BLOW IT TO HELL!” That line is the entirety of dialogue we get from Dredd this week, but damn me if they don’t carry more weight that anything else on these pages. Flint has the stoic lawman bellow that command, hailing a twisted paw to emphasize the command. He’s boiled over.
From the moment he got the call about an unexpected ship from Titan making its way towards the city, Dredd must have had a lot to think about. The Titan mission must have been an unbelievably traumatic experience, even for him: the constant threat of a hostile environment, the physical torture, the anguish of seeing so many corpses, and, possibly the most damaging of all, the repeated drug-induced memory wiping. Pile that on top of the questions of his age and capability and you’ve got a Judge who clearly is not thinking straight.
The fallout from Dredd’s outburst is, I think, two-fold. First is the obvious ire he’s drawn from Chief Judge Hershey. Although he carries an enormous amount of clout for someone technically still a street Judge, Dredd clearly overstepped himself here, figuratively stepping on Hershey to give the order before she could. Not that I think it was intentional; he was probably just as surprised an anyone in the room by what happened, but that doesn’t mean that it’d make Hershey any less angry.
Second, and here’s where I put on my speculation cap, I think that this was probably a test from Nixon. Dredd decided against destroying this very ship once before, would he do the same again? When the ship was recovered there were no bodies on board and no cargo. Just an empty ship. To me, this is Nixon playing mindgames with Dredd, reminding him of where they left things and taunting him because he didn’t kill her when he had the chance.
Credits: Rob Williams (script), Henry Flint (art), Ellie de Ville (letters)
Sláine: Primordial, Part 2
The Sacrament of Division does not, at least on the surface, necessarily sound like a bad thing. Wouldn’t go so far as to call it something I’d race to line up for, but division could mean a lot of things. But when that sacrament is performed by someone wearing a bird’s skull as a mask, wielding a sharp blade, and asking you to kneel with your hands behind your back and your head thrust forward? That the universal sign to get the hell out of there because division, in this case, means dividing your head from your neck.
The Sacrament of Division is what Sinead has in store for her if Slaine fails to get her away from there.
The Sacrament of Division is what’s empowering the creature the Sloughs are looking to turn Albion (i.e. the good lands) into Brutania (i.e. the waste lands).
The Sacrament of Division is probably not going to be brought up as one of those ways you use school-taught math in later life, unless your later life involves tons and tons of villainy.
Let’s hope Slaine gets a chance to deliver the Blessing of Multiplication with his axe and turn each of the men standing between him & Sinead and freedom into many smaller partial versions of those same men.
Credits: Pat Mills (script), Simon Davis (art), Ellie de Ville (letters)
Grey Area: Another Day On The Job, Part 2
We’ve said it a number of times, but it’s worth repeating: one of Dan Abnett’s greatest strengths as a writer is his ability to couple life’s mundanity with extraordinarily big ideas. This week he set about the task of explaining how a team of intergalactic customs agents made their way to an alien planet. I won’t spoil it, but I will say that it was partly possible thanks to ‘wormhole nourishment.’
As wonderful as Abnett’s ideas are, Mark Harrison’s art really makes them sing. I touched on it last week, but his coloring is superb and worth a bit of examination. Looking at these pages, I don’t know if the art would be as successful as it is if Harrison weren’t doing his own colors. Looking at his linework I get the impression that, if you were able to drop out the color, the pages would be surprisingly bare. He gives himself a lot of room to finish his ideas and solidify the storytelling through the use of his palettes. Of particular note is the way he’s able to illuminate his scenes. His light sources seem to glow, giving elements in each scene an eerie incandescence that uniquely and concisely conveys the alien-ness of the world our characters find themselves in. I feel that I can say, without hyperbole, that this is some of the strongest coloring you’ll find on the stands today.
Continued belowCredits: Dan Abnett (script), Mark Harrison (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Orlok, Agent of East-Meg One: The Rasputin Caper, Part 2
I swear Jake Lynch’s art gets better every time I see it. Not only is he fearless with page composition, but his line seems to become bolder with each passing week. Not only that, but this installment of “The Rasputin Caper” is some of the best character design we’ve seem from him yet.
There is a lot of pastiche and parody going on in this strip, and I cannot even pretend that I’m catching all of it. Some instances are clearer than others, like the guy named Hogan who rides a crocodile (‘ceci n’est pas un couteau’ translates to ‘this is not a knife’) and the bandaged Australian anarchist named Tanka. And let us not forget East-Meg Two’s greatest spy: The Black Widower! This comic leaves me with the impression that for every subtle joke or homage I pick up on, there are two that fly right over my head. Obviously the more Easter Eggs you find the bigger the kick you’ll get out of this installment of “Orlok.” That said, not getting all of the jokes serves to make this story feel exactly how it should: like it’s taking place in a much larger world with a lot of simultaneously moving parts. I think it’s this type of subtle suggestion that makes Arthur Wyatt’s writing so enjoyable. He’s able to tell a self-contained story that is laser focused while simultaneously letting you know that what you’re reading is one part of a larger tapestry.
This weak’s installment left me with the impression that Wyatt and Lynch have decided to cut loose and tell an off-the-wall story. Once The Black Widower revealed himself and attempted to intervene the story went from being humorous to laugh out loud funny. “Orlok” has easily become one of my favorite reoccurring in the magazine.
Credits: Arthur Wyatt (script), Jake Lynch (art), Ellie de Ville (letters)
Strontium Dog: The Stix Fix, Part 2
I mentioned in last week’s column that I’m feeling this new ‘Strontium Dog’ story is trying to get the strip back to some of its early vibe, before lead character Johnny Alpha was killed and brought back. The work Wagner & Ezquerra felt they needed to do to get ‘Dog’ free & clear of tying up or responding to loose ends probably finished a few pages into this week’s installment, because by the end of it, we’re in a story that feels completely different than the more…burdened ‘Life of Johnny Alpha’.
They go to a space station (basically) named XL5, for Pete’s sake! Lit up like a Christmas tree! I’m not quite up enough on my Gerry & Sylvia Anderson’s Supermarionation oeuvre to know if the ship Alpha is riding in is a take on one of the ships from those shows, but it feels like it should be.
Not all of the humor in this Prog is so benign. Wagner really gives North Korea and its ruling family both barrels of disdain in this story. I was looking through old Progs from over a year ago that first announced this strip, and the title they gave for the strip was “The Jing Jong Job” referring to, as we found out last week, the identity of the man Alpha has been hired to find. Mr. Jong is, in fact, the leader of a totalitarian nation with an population resembling a certain Asian nation whose name rhymes with “North Korea”. Rhymes exactly with it, in face. Mr. Jong’s son, Jim Jong Jing, is now in command and in addition to being completely out of touch with any kind of reality, he’s also saddled Alpha with a ‘partner’ who it would be charitable to call a ‘major pain in the ass’ for Alpha.
Surely there’s no way THIS won’t end well…
Credits: John Wagner (script), Carlos Ezquerra (art), Simon Bowland (letters)
III. OF INTEREST
In case you missed it, we think you’d definitely be interested in reading my talk with writer Arthur Wyatt on the return of Orlok in ‘The Rasputin Caper’ as well has his work on the DREDD movie sequel comics!
Continued belowI would almost call this an ‘interrogation’ in the spirit of the interviews run in “Judge Dredd Megazine” that we preview every month. But when you read the interview and get to the true-life interrogation story that Wyatt had to endure, not once but TWICE, in order to get to receive the honor of being one of Tharg’s script droids, you’ll understand why I left that term for the truly frightening experiences.
Also? It’s got fishmen.
And Magritte.
Sort of.
IV. RECOGNIZE THE LAW
It’s no secret that there are a great many flavors of Judges from a great deal of Mega-Cities, so we’re aiming to use this space as a way of exploring as many types of Judges as we can. Did you know that in Mega-City One there are Accounting Judges? And Exorcist Judges?
Up to this point we’ve been focusing primarily on what Judges wear. But, just like us, Judges need to bathe. So what can you expect when you see a Judge in the buff?
Features of an Au Naturale Mega-City One Judge:
- Helmet
Other common features:
- Book of law (for bath-time studies)
- Lawgiver
- Justice Department issued back scrubber
- Monogramed towel
Don’t be fooled, even though the Judge you encounter may be nude or even slippery from bathwater, they are still extremely capable of dispensing justice!
That’s gonna do it for us this week! “2000 AD” Prog 1925 is on sale today and available from:
- The 2000 AD Newsstand app for iPad and iPhone,
- The 2000 AD app for Android devices,
- 2000ADonline.com in print or DRM-free PDF and CBZ formats,
- Select US newsstands, and
- Finer comic shops everywhere
So as Tharg the Mighty himself would say, “Splundig vur thrigg!”
