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!
I. THIS WEEK IN PROG 1852
Judge Dredd: New Tricks, Part 3
This is a story that, in its first chapter, seemed like another look at Judge Dredd putting some of Mega-City One’s newer Judges through the wringer. This type of framing is interesting and can give some real depth to Dredd’s character, so I was good with another trip around the carousel. But then, in a turn that I don’t think anyone could see coming, a Judge returns from The Long Walk. What, you ask, is The Long Walk? It’s what happens when a Judge is no longer able to meet the demands of the city; they head out into The Cursed Earth to dispense justice in a land without law. Well, usually it’s The Cursed Earth. In this case, the newly returned Judge Kilgore had decided to live out her days in The Meg’s Undercity. But there’s something big brewing down there, and it’s why she’s back topside!
This week’s installment sees Dredd leading the Judges he’s tasked with mentoring deeper into the under city. They’re hunting a gentleman who was previously thought to be an urban legend: The Goblin King. It seems he came into quite a fair bit of Justice Department equipment after Chaos Day and has been using it to grow an underground army. Clearly, this does not sit well with our merry band of Judges, so they will go to any length to find The Goblin King and put an end to his plans!
Credits: Michael Carroll (script), Paul Davidson (art), Chris Blythe (colors), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Flesh: Badlanders, Part 3
What do you do when you live in a world where everything you eat is synthetic and you’ve got a customer base hankering for some honest-to-goodness real meat? If you’re Trans-Time, you send your employees back to the time of the dinosaurs and harvest yourself some Tyrannosaurus steaks. Kinda like cowboys and cattle rustling from the Old West…if the cattle was a couple of stories tall and had scales and razor-sharp teeth. But not everybody is happy with Trans-Time, which brings us to this week’s Badlanders.
Vegas Carver, daughter of dinosaur hunter “Claw” Carver, has brought a team of transdimensional beings, genetically caught halfway between being human and dinosaur, back to the Cretaceous period to put a stop to the corporation’s treatment of that era’s animals. The story, this prog’s only black & white tale, gives off a serious Bissette/Totleben vibe but could have used a splash of color to help differentiate some of the cast a little better. A solid getting-the-pieces-in-place story.
Credits: Pat Mills (script), James Mckay (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
II. IN RECENT NEWS
Last month saw the release of the Judge Dredd: Trifecta hardcover. If you’re unfamiliar, Trifecta was an unannounced crossover that took place last year following the events of the Day of Chaos storyline. What’s that? You’ve never heard of an ‘unannounced crossover’? I hadn’t either. No one had, and that’s why the 2000 AD folks deserve major propers for pulling this thing off. Progs 1803-1812 each had a new Mega-City One story begin in their pages: Judge Dredd: Bullet to King Four, The Simping Detective, Low Life, and Judge Dredd: The Cold Deck, respectively. Now all of this was business as usual; an anthology magazine running a bunch of stories with various start points. Then, without warning, they all converged into one huge narrative that engulfed the entire magazine. And it was awesome.
All the masterful coordination and storytelling aside, Trifecta is a nice little piece of Dredd lore to have sitting on your bookshelf. This new hardcover collection is beautifully bound and its almost-180 pages lay nicely flat when opened. The paper stock chosen for it is lightweight without feeling flimsy, while drinking in enough of the ink to make the colors sing and the blacks to look rich and delicious. The whole thing really is a pleasure to read. And then there’s the cover. Oh man, the cover. It features a lenticular image that reveals each of the stories’ main characters as you move it about. From top to bottom, this whole book is an accomplishment of story and presentation, and is absolutely not one to be missed.
Continued belowIII. FUTURE PERP FILES
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! Prog 1852 is on sale today and is 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!”
