Multiver-City One: 2000 AD Prog 1985 and Judge Dredd Megazine 373

Welcome, Earthlets, to 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 British sci-fi comic “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 worth of zarjaz comics waiting for you to discover and enjoy.

This special week brings us a new Prog AND a new Megazine, so let’s get right to it!

Cover by Simon Davis

I. THIS WEEK IN PROG 1985

NOW DEPARTING

Judge Dredd: The Lion’s Den, Part 8
Credits: Michael Carroll (script), PJ Holden (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)

Mike Romeo: This week sees the end of “The Lion’s Den, signaling the close of PJ Holden’s latest run with ol’ Joe Dredd. I gushed a little about Holden’s work a few weeks back, as I reflected on his Dredd work over the years. After spending the last two months with this art, I gotta say that this is some of Holden’s best work to date. And, to extend that out just a bit, this strip in particular has got to be the highlight of the serial. In the grand scheme of things, “Judge Dredd” is a comic that works best when it balances its drama and action with utter absurdity. Holden’s been doing that in spades through out this story, see his storefronts, monuments, book covers etc., but really got to lay it all out this week.

To get to my point, I’m going to have to rely on various degrees of spoilage, so be warned!

When Dredd springs back to life, he’s naked as a jaybird. These Brit-Cit conspiracists have stripped him nude, down to his helmet. So how does Holden handle the action, without revealing Dredd’s face? Well with shadow, of course! Perfectly cast shadows help keep the lawman’s noggin shrouded in secrecy. And when we’re about to get a panel of full frontal, revealing JD’s… daystick? Well, his attacks must be working up a real whirlwind, because a scrap of paper just so happened to be drifting by at that moment. This type of humor is what I love most about this comic. It’s like the absurdist stuff would seem less so if it weren’t for the surface tone of the story. I think Holden’s showing some real finesse with these pages, and it’s a hell of a way for him to punctuate the run.

Meanwhile, in narrative land: Dredd’s back in action and on the loose. All of Brit-Cit’s plans are going to shit, and there’re going to be some real consequences coming down the pike. I mean, this is absolutely the set up to a gigantic storyline, right? A foreign Mega-City kidnapped Dredd with the goal of framing him for a terrorist attack, while also trying to kill to kill Judge Joyce. And they screwed it up. Dredd and Joyce lived and are on their way back to Mega-City One, where I’m sure they will be filing plenty of paperwork about what’s been going on.

That is, if they’ve got the time to!

The Mega-City One that they’re returning to is in a much different state than they left it in. Texas City Judges, under the direction of their Chief Judge Pamelina Oswin. What was once a force of 1,000 loaner Judges from Texas has doubled, with Oswin’s plans calling for an additional 20,000 pairs of boots joining the fray over the next few months. I’ve written a few times already about the situation Chief Judge Hershey has found herself in, and this week she seems to finally admit to herself that she is in a dire situation.

And on top of it all, there’s that business going on in the Cursed Earth. But we’ll get to that down in the Megazine section.

Sláine: Psychpomp, Part 8
Credits: Pat Mills (script), Simon Davis (art), Ellie de Ville (letters)

Adrian Johnson: Sláine concludes his story to Gort about his mother as they bond regarding family and the obligations thereof. Writer Pat Mills has been making Sláine more emotive over the last few installments; which has been a nice change of pace from the strains of lusty battle and barbarian fare. While I definitely wouldn’t call Sláine getting ‘emo’ by any means, I do feel that it deepens the character positively. I also appreciate how Mills bookends Sláine’s memories of his mother with observations about humans and mothers by the villain Lord Weird.

Continued below

Simon Davis delivers his usual stellar painted fare. As there are a few plot threads being advanced this go-around, Davis takes great care to code each scene with its own limited color palette to remarkable effect for the sake of clarity. Also, there is one panel in this installment that I stared at for a long while. It’s a close-up of Sláine’s face relating his memories to Gort. In previous installments, Sláine’s left eye had been blackened and bruised shut from battle. However, in this particular panel, that left side of Sláine’s face is representative of his younger self that ‘saw everything’ and that eye is wide open. It’s probably better seen than described, but nevertheless it’s an excellent moment of Davis and Mills hitting the right note with their collective storytelling.

Brink, Part 8
Credits: Dan Abnett (script), INJ Culbard (art), Simon Bowland (letters)

AJ: Before I get into this week’s strip, please make sure you’ve caught up with the previous installment in Prog 1984. Otherwise, SPOILER WARNING!!!

Investigator Brinkmann (the eponymous lead character) and his suspect were beaten to death last week by a member of one of the cults that he and his partner Kurtis were questioning. The murdering cultist is shot down by Kurtis.

It appears Abnett is finally drawing the strings together with the plot. The fallout of Brinkmann’s murder and unauthorized attempted arrest of the cult member find Kurtis suspended and the cults of the habitat suing the police force. It’s very adroit how Abnett is able to twist this police procedural into much more a fully realized world. And while Brinkmann’s murder was very much unexpected, I think it’s a great twist that gives an opportunity to deepen Kurtis’ character now that she’s solo. There was a risk in the earlier installments that she and Brinkmann seemed to be perhaps somewhat interchangeable personality-wise in terms of both having the same hard-nosed characterization.

Culbard’s artwork continues to be excellent. I’ve grown an admiration for his economical linework in concert with subdued yet evocative coloring. Also, I appreciate the touches of ‘future tech’ that Culbard is able to pepper his work with as background or incidental elements. This is a reason that I’m a huge fan of artists who are able to handle the complete artistic reins when possible. It’s very intensive but the results are usually a purer presentation of the artist’s vision. And it’s a tougher feat even to gel an artistic vision with that of a writing counterpart seamlessly like Culbard and Abnett are doing here.

Black Shuck: Sins of the Father, Part 3
Credits: Leah Moore & John Reppion (script), Steve Yeowell (art), Chris Blythe (colors), Ellie de Ville (letters)

Greg Matiasevich: Just a quick bit of historical context on the state of English/Scandinavian relations in 815 AD: if five Viking longships roll up on your small coastal English abbey/settlement, then the last thing you would expect them to come in would be peace. Something more like this is what they have in mind when those dragon-decorated boats show up on the ocean horizon. In fact, our protagonist was sired by a Viking king having his way with a local lady during just such an incursion to this town of Dunwich. But as we see above, that’s not what’s happening. Black Shuck isn’t returning to loot the abbey or have his way with his former townspeople. He comes seeking their help, not their livelihood. Does he get it?

That would be telling. But what isn’t giving away any secrets is saying Chris Blythe is doing an impressive job on colors. I probably mentioned this on the last ‘Black Shuck’ run but it certainly can be repeated: the texture Blythe adds to the colors helps what would be flat tones seem to be doing some extra duty. I didn’t notice this until just now, but there’s a bit of a parallel between the work this art team is doing and what Simon Davis is handling over on ‘Sláine’. For Davis, as a painter, he’d (presumably) not rendering out full pencils and then painting over that structure; his use of those cross-strokes help give everything a sense of depth and dimensionality, and there’s no way to separate lineart and color. With ‘Black Shuck’, I’d put those brushlines in the category of wanting to give the art a painting-tapestry-period art look without sacrificing the clarity of the bold blacks those colors are working inside. That feels reinforced as well by the fact that texture shows up in the backgrounds and the landscapes, but not on or inside the lines of the figures themselves. The setting may be picturesque but the characters themselves aren’t there to be seen and admired as part of the landscape; they’re there to do.

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Grey Area: Last Call
Credits: Dan Abnett (script), Mark Harrison (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)

MR: This week’s installment was almost like one of those 80s Avengers or X-Men issues that fell between story arcs. You know what I’m talking about, the times when we got to see what a day poolside at the X-Mansion was like, with Wolverine using his claws to barbecue some weenies instead of what they’re usually used for. Everyone had fought hard for something, and we got to have a glimpse of what life must be like the day after you save the world.

Like every comic book pool party, the good times are bound to come to an end, and ‘Grey Area’ is no different. While Bulliet, Birdie, Kymn and the rest of the gang are enjoying a bit of relief and hard-earned self-congratulations, there’s something lingering just out side of the atmosphere. But it can’t be the God-Star, can it?

Cover by Dave Taylor

II. THIS MONTH IN JUDGE DREDD MEGAZINE 373

Judge Dredd: Dust to Dust, Part 3
Credits: Michael Carroll (script), Henry Flint (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)

MR: Man, I’ve really enjoyed reading this trio. I’m sure Henry Flint has something to do with it, being one of the best comics artists around and all, but there’s some real chemistry in the Rico/Koburn/Daniel Crow team. Here’s hoping for a Cursed Earth reunion tour!

I went into spoilers for the Prog half of this review, so let me try and keep this one a little vague. “Dust to Dust” was a solid adventure story, and a hell of a fun read, but I can’t help but feel as if the whole tie-in thing may have been a little overstated. I mean, sure, the story led right out of what happened in Prog 1977, and flows back into that magazine with next week’s Prog 1986, but did readers really need to have read this in order to be ready for whatever’s in store? I guess the answer would have to be ‘possibly?’ It all depends on how much writer Michael Carroll decides he needs to retread the big plot points. This three-parted would become a bit more necessary if, with next week’s Prog, Carroll gives us a strip that assumes we’re all up to speed. But, given his proclivity to pack as much narrative as possible into the starts of his stories, my guess would be that there’d be a summary of crucial information involved. Which is a totally fine and reasonable thing to do, but it’d reenforce the over-stated importance of this story I mentioned.

Regardless of how future strips play out, this one closed with a real bang. We get plenty of wild west-inspired action, which was punctuated my some pretty heavy realizations about Texas City. While Chief Judge Oswin has been flexing her muscle in Mega-City One, it appears that she may have some surrogates out in the world playing for some other gains.

Blunt, Part 2
Credits: T.C. Eglington (script), Boo Cook (art), Simon Bowland (letters)

AJ: A makeshift rescue team traverses the wilds of their planet’s jungle to find a downed supply ship and its crew with the help of the mutant called Blunt. As I stated in my previous review, I’m a sucker for these type of ‘men on a mission’ stories. Writer TC Eglington is delivering a fun script thus far as a portion of Blunt’s origin is detailed. Eglington writes great interaction between Blunt and the other members of the team as some heed his guidance and others do not — and pay for it in a very comical way. Another notion that I’m glad the story seems to be sidestepping is that of Blunt as a ‘noble savage’; an archetype particularly stereotypical of genre stories in jungle and uncivilized settings. Blunt comes across as a capable, laid-back guy – who happens to be a hulking bad-ass

I just can’t get enough of Boo Cook’s artwork here. His colors and fluid linework are a great combination. I mentioned in my previous review of the initial installment about the lushness Cook has imbued this world with. I think his storytelling and staging also help with making his art look great. It can be very difficult to illustrate a scene with several characters interacting at the same time; let alone an entire story of same. But Cook does so pretty effortlessly and devotes space for each character.

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Lawless: Of Munce and Men, Part 3
Credits: Dan Abnett (script), Phil Winslade (art), Ellie de Ville (letters)

MR: Meanwhile, out in The Badlands…

Being a comic book and all, I feel like the return of Judge Marshall Metta Lawson was less of a question than it was a matter of time. I mean, yeah, there was the thought that maybe she really did die off camera, leaving Pettifer to step up in the way she did. But, all along, the expectation was that we’d eventually get to see Lawson burst back onto the scene at just the right time. By my estimation, writer Dan Abnett met us halfway.

Sure, Lawson’s back and it’s not the most revelatory thing in all of comics, but it’s the way she returned that made it feel more like a fulfilling story point than a slick means of moving units. When Lawson reappears on the page it’s not as she kicks her way through a door, or perched upon her trusty insectoid steed, but as the stammer of a person who’s recently emerged from a long hospital stay. Her posture is slumped and strained, her legs move as is atrophy has begun to set in. It’s really anything but heroic, and artist Phil Winslade did a hell of a job selling it.

This installment is packed with revelations and history about Lawson, or at least it seems like it is. Abnett’s got this clever way about him where he writes as if he’s giving you the goods, but is secretly feeding you dialogue that’ll later become even more questions. This is hands down one of my favorite ongoing stokes in the Megazine, and it kills me that I need to wait a month between installments!

Realm of the Damned: Tenebris Dios, Part 5
Credits: Alec Worley (script), Pye Parr (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)

GM: If I’m remembering it correctly, the old saying goes: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”. If you happen to be Alberic Van Helsing, living a nomadic Omega Man-style life of attacks and attrition against the world’s vampire ruling class, there is no love lost between him and his targets (as you can see above). So given that, what kind of man or beast would bring those two sides together in any kind of pact?

Balaur.

Worley & Parr spend a couple of pages setting up this Big Bad as particularly big and exceedingly bad. When your name translates to “Dragon” in Translyvanian Saxon, the chances of you being a cute & fuzzy bunny of an antagonist are slim to none; and even if you were, you’d turn out to be one of those Monty Python vorpal bunnies. Think more like an angrier, death-metal version of Viggo the Carpathian. And it may seem weird to say this, but I’m feeling a kind of symmetry between this strip and the Paul Grist ‘Demon Nic’ story that ‘Tenebris Dios’ replaced in terms of having an all-powerful evil returning from the past to endanger the present. But while Grist took a more seen-but-not-heard approach to setting up his dread, Worley is making sure you know EXACTLY what kind of unholy terror is on its way.

Balaur.

Parr doesn’t do the usual flashback-palette-shift trick here, leaning a little more on giving the setting around Balaur a 15th-century-appropriate veneer. As a fan of such books like “In Search of Dracula” that reprint a lot of those period woodcuts, I noticed Parr styling the faces of Balaur’s victims to match up with those heavily bearded, wide-eyed archetypes. That last bit might not be 100% conscious on Parr’s part, but I wouldn’t rule it out.

So what could be so evil as to bring two hated foes together in a common cause? The man, the beast, the dragon…

Balaur.

III. MEGAZINE FEATURES

Fiction: Tower of Skin by Andrew Hawnt

GM: Every once in a while, Tharg commissions a prose piece for Dredd and his universe, letting us play out one of his stories in the theatre of our minds even more so than usual. This month’s story follows Judge Anderson as she backs up Mega-City One’s top cop on a call to Sandecker Block. Cultists have sacrificed the entire block pop trying to bring the Dark Judges over from Deadworld. Did they succeed? And if so, what kind of backup could the two Judges possibly rely on to help them out of THAT kind of trouble?

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IV. AN EARTHLET’S GUIDE TO 2000 AD

GM: At Multiver-City One, we understand trying to figure out to start with a selection of almost 40 years worth of comics can be 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?

To help all you new & potential readers, we’ve put together something we call 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 easy and simple as possible.

That’s gonna do it for us this week! “2000 AD” Prog 1985 and Judge Dredd Megazine 373 are both on sale today and available digitally worldwide on: