Multiver-City One: 2000 AD Prog 1946

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 1946

Cover by Dave Kendall

NOW ARRIVING

Dreams of Deadworld: Fire

This week sees the launch of a new four-part series that focuses on (presumably) everyone’s favorite ghastly ghouls: The Dark Judges! The last time we saw this motley crew, they found themselves in the unfortunate position of being lost in space. With “2000 AD” being such a patient publication, that means it could be a good long while before we see the return of Judge Death and company for another in-continuity story. But does that mean readers will be denied the chance to see the crime of life and its sentence of death? Not if artist Dave Kendall’s dreams have anything to say about it!

You see, Kendall had a dream about Judge Death, and I don’t mean he had lofty hopes for the character. His dream must have been something closer to a nightmare, because it inspired a series of portraits depicting each of the four Dark Judges, each of which will serve as the title page for this series. After seeing the portraits, Tharg the Mighty (or 2000 AD EiC Matt Smith) paired the artist with writer Kek-W to create a series of strips. Each strip would focus on one of the Fearsome Four, taking place in their native Deadworld in the aftermath of its decimation.

Kendall’s art on this strip is not unlike what we saw when Greg Staples helped to tell the story “Dark Justice” a few months back. That is to say, the pages are all painted in a dark and earthy color palette with eerie secondary colors used to create an otherworldly feeling. But Kendall’s work, unlike Staples’, feels less referenced and more expressive. There aren’t panels with poses feeling as if pulled directly from still photos, which is something that can happen to Staples from time to time. If I had to venture a guess, I’d say that Kendall probably spends an extraordinary about of time sketching and designing before he begins work on a page.

Not only are his interpretations of the Dark Judges unlike anything we’ve seen before, but we’re also introduced to a pair of other Deadworld Judges: Judge Reaper and Sister Despair. I was all-in for new Dark Judges back when IDW played with the idea, so maybe I’m an easy mark for this stuff, but Kendall really delivered here. These designs would feel right at home in a Guillermo del Toro film, but never lose sight of that Judge-specific iconography. The variations of helmets and shoulder pads play nicely with the horror-rich elements of the characters. Reaper uses a rusted blade and has a void for a face, while Despair looks to be wearing someone else’s skin.

I can’t think of a time before this strip when we’ve gotten an insight into what the character of Judge Fire is really like. But here, in just a few pages, we see him angry and jealous, possibly a scorned lover. This has all seemingly driven him to seek brutal revenge against Reaper and Despair, who have tried to avoid confrontation by hiding in an underwater citadel. So we get to see a man that’s made of fire swim, which earns the story extra points. All in all, I really enjoyed this and cannot wait to see what the next three stories have in store.

Continued below

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

Judge Dredd: Enceladus – Old Life, Part 8

And there they are, Judges Frank and Hershey alive and well…-ish. That is to say, if we’re awarding the status of ‘well’ to those who are alive, Hershey seems to be alive-ish.

This week’s strip is another view of the post-napalm landscape. Dirty Frank is desperate for help, as we see him slip right back into Judge mode. As Nixon helps to remind us, Frank is far from a dummy. Despite his third-person narrating, disheveled appearance, and unique odor, he’s a brilliant Judge, more than capable of handling his duty. If anything, he’s just a little looney. Which, given his role in the Justice Department, is more of a job requirement than a personality flaw. What we see Williams doing here is something he’s done before: after setting up Frank as a cryptic, babbling crazy person, he’ll snap the character into shape the moment it’s needed. Like seeing Frank with a trimmed beard and a Judge’s uniform, watching him on a Lawmaster barking for an H-Wagon is a little disorienting. Not because his actions are out of character, but rather that it is so easy to lose sight of the fact that he’s a good Judge more capable than most of his peers.

The real meat of this week’s strip comes from Frank’s run in with Nixon. These two have a long history that stretches from the Low Life to Hondo-City and back. It was Frank who was there for Nixon when she was a Wally Squad rookie, teaching her about what it means to have the most dangerous job in The Meg. He was with her every step of the way, going so far as to make sure he was the arresting officer when it was time for Nixon to be brought in.

This story has had me wondering about how Judge Dredd deals with guilt, as it’s been made plain that he feels responsible for the events unfolding since ‘Titan.’ But now we’re presented with Dirty Frank, a character who could easily feel he shares the blame for what’s happening. He brought Nixon back from Hondo-City, which ultimately committed her to a term on Titan. Frank could have let her go, or left her to Hondo Judges, or who knows what else, but he didn’t. And that decision ultimately cost his friend her life.

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

Grey Area: First Bite

So it seems that Bulliet and his crew are just about off to the races. He’s successfully shown one of the Elite of the Harmonious Free that there is, in fact, an extraterrestrial threat about to bear down on the planet, and the gears of action are slowly beginning to turn.

Abnett is really hammering down on some of the difficulties in communication inherent in intergalactic travel, something he’s got a real knack for. We saw Bulliet struggle a little with naming conventions last week, unintentionally teetering on the edge of being disrespectful towards one of his hosts. This week, there’s a little bit of play with ‘converter rings,’ which is not a new concept by any measure. But what is unique is the implication that, for one of these converter rings to really work, you need something called a ‘subtext amp.’ This is just another one of those seemingly simple idea Abnett loves to play with. Of course a literal translation of an alien language would lead to confusion. We’ve been seeing that happen from the beginning of this strip. But if there was a device you could pair with a translator that’d localize subtext? Well, then you’d really be able to break down the language barrier.

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

Tharg’s 3rillers: Apocalypse Anonymous, Part 2

Quick recap: Tharg 3riller, 3-part self-contained story, this one centered of supernatural incursion in a modern-day Syrian war zone.

There’s an idea given a one-off line in this week’s strip that I find fascinating whenever it shows up in fiction: the premise that our actions affect the world we live in on a metaphysical level. Murphy has this creature the mystical strike team faces be the result of a weakening in the barrier between our world and its own. That barrier gave way because of our own inhumanity to each other, which draws the attention of evil creatures “like sharks to blood.” So not only do we have to watch out for crazy cultists looking to call up one of these things directly, we also have to keep on the lookout for them showing up out of curiousity from the hate party we throw for ourselves on a daily basis. With space being at a premium in a 3riller (and in “2000 AD” in general) we don’t get to see Murphy go into too much more detail about that, but it’s an interesting concept none the less.

Continued below

The other bit of interest this week is that O’Conner is joined by Jake Lynch on art. We’re I to hazard a guess, I’d peg O’Conner on pencils and Lynch on inks, as the line work got noticeably scratchier in this installment. This isn’t a bad thing; with things going pear-shaped as soon as the team encounters the creature, the extra grit lends a little ‘shaky-cam’ feel to things.

Why is that interesting? Because I can’t remember the last time I saw an art change in a “2000 AD” strip mid-story. Due to their production model I’m sure it works out that most of a strip is completed before it starts running, so strips would tend to just be pushed back in the production schedule until they are finished rather than bring in an additional artist to help out. This helps give the strips a cohesion that helps keep quality up. And again, adding Lynch is NOT a bad thing and I mean this line of thought as no slight to anyone. It’s just not something you see every day.

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

The Alienist: The Haunting of Hex House, Part 3

More shenanigans at Hex House this week, as cover stories (and people) start to come crumbling down…

Part 1 showed us that strange things were, in fact, afoot at Everly Priory with the death of the first of the invited guests. Part 2 showed us the arrival of Vespertine & Sebastian under the cover story that he is the master & she the apprentice, when in fact she is the master & he the actor providing cover for her actions.

The difference with this setup and the one in Without A Clue that I mentioned before is that since they are dealing with supernatural forces, it’s going to be evident a whole lot quicker who has the real power in that duo. Beeby & Rennie have set up Sebastian as a capable man and one that can certainly SOUND like you would want your sorcerer supreme or consulting detective to sound (especially if they happen to be the same guy) but it is just an act, and one that can falter when confronted with the real thing. If he’s lucky, anyone suspicious will be too busy freaked out by the same ghost giving him stage fright to hear the extra tremble or stutter in his voice. But the writers do stick those little bits in there this week.

And the opposite of that can also be true. Remember, we’re dealing with early 20th century England here; women in supporting roles were to be maybe seen and rarely heard. If one of them was conspicuously competent at their jobs? A shock to the sense of social order on par with the shock of realizing ghosts exist. Actually, believing in ghosts was probably more accepted than believing in women’s competency at that time, sadly.

Beeby & Rennie have a good setup for this series, but I hope they don’t forget to keep flavoring the spook story with some period-appropriate gender drama to help ground things.

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

III. OF INTEREST

We mentioned it up at the top of the column, but if you haven’t already, you should definitely go back and check out the Earthlet’s Guide! We’ve been having the droids work behind the scenes to update links and build out our archive of previous strip coverage. Go and take a look!

That’s gonna do it for us this week! “2000 AD” Prog 1946 is on sale today and available from: