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.
There’s a brand-new Prog out this week, so after a quick public service announcement we’ll jump right into the Thrills!
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 1957
Judge Dredd: That Extra Mile
Have we seen Runners before? Or is this a new development? Whatever the case, it makes perfect sense that there’d be an opposite extreme to the Mega-City Fatties.
In case you’ve yet to read it, Alec Worley and Karl Richardson have spun a tale centered on marathon runners in Mega-City One. But unlike the runners of today, these future athletes enter races that last for months and may end up costing them their lives. Their training and dieting in the lead-up to a race is extreme, as is the monetary cost of entry. And for the most devoted of the extreme athletes? Well, it turns out that short of leg poachers, there is very little that anyone can do to stop them. And that anyone includes Dredd!
This was an extremely enjoyable one-off strip. Worley turned the satire and dark comedy up to a level that approaches the bite John Wagner himself is so known for. Plus, we get to see Dredd wear a man as if he were a backpack. Which is awesome.
Credits: Alec Worley (script), Karl Richardson (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Defoe: The Hanged, Part 8
Pacing is a difficult thing, especially for stories told in as short of installments as the ones found in “2000 AD”. The weekly publication schedule basically forces writers to be on the narrative equivalent of the bus from Speed, where slowing down past a certain point just isn’t an option. So it’s always fun to see where they get as close to that ‘point of no return’ as possible and why.
Case in point: this week’s ‘Defoe’. Out of the six pages the strip gets this week, almost half of them show a group of reeks taking down one of the Vizards. In detail. Great, glorious, visceral detail. Why sacrifice the story real estate for that?
One: because it is a zombie strip and you’ve got Leigh Gallagher drawing it. You just don’t put an artist that in love with making the reader feel every flesh rip, sinew tear, and brain chomp on a zed-word strip and NOT them cut loose occasionally.
Two: the last few weeks had been focusing on other plot & setting aspects. Reintroducing the Vizards, re-establishing Defoe’s loathing of such, reminding of Defoe’s stature among his old reek-hunting group and how their internal politics have made them ineffective against this new reek threat without him, and so on. Again, while it makes sense to keep the monsters from getting too much page time and becoming a known (and therefore less scary) quantity, we do need to see them every once in awhile.
Three: Mills sets up this display as a nice cathartic moment for the reader, but then flips it on its head on the last page. So it ends being an artist showcase, genre requirement, AND a plot point.
Continued belowThat’s how you do it, folks.
Credits: Pat Mills (script), Leigh Gallagher (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Brass Sun: Motor Head, Part 8
Oh hell. That’s not good. That’s not good at all. The whole benefit for Wren & Septimus in having Arthur in the mix is that, despite his power, he would be a way to keep the Sisters occupied while they figured out how to escape and get back to their mission of using the Key in Wren’s head to restart the sun (or find another host for the Key and then do that, as it has now become). Arthur & the Sisters on the same side? NOT PART OF THE PLAN!
I love Culbard’s color choices in general, but specifically his earlier use of that neon blue for things like the energy bolts. It cuts against the brassy palette of the Node so well, even more so than that aqua-green that he uses for the Tick faces, that you just need to see the merest hint of it and you know something is immediately out of place. Some other bits I enjoyed were not only the asymmetrical circle-face now attached to Arthur, signaling his conversion to the will of the Sisters, but that last panel with the side angle and Arthur’s head in shadow. That choice feels like Culbard & Edginton are letting us know that while Arthur’s personality may be eclipsed by this electro blue Sun and satellites, it’s still there in the shadows, waiting to come back. It feels like too specific an image to just point out that the Sisters didn’t just chop off his head and stick the eye-cameras on it.
Speaking of personalities, Septimus is certainly asserting himself more and more, but we’re starting to see what’s been running deep under those still waters for so long…
Credits: Ian Edginton (script), INJ Culbard (art), Ellie de Ville (letters)
Terror Tales: Night Shifts
Man hears noise. Man investigates. Man is ambushed by monster. Begin chase scene.
This was ok for a one-and-done, I suppose. There was some action, a monster, and a twist; all the things that Tharg likes. But that aside, the dialog was clunky and the end was… something.
Credits: John Smith (script), Peter Doherty (art & letters)
Bad Company: First Casualties, Part 7
Things just keep getting worse. Not for the mission, necessarily. On that front, Bad Company is well on their way to finding the answers they’ve set out in search of. Instead, the members of Bad Company are becoming worse. All of their mania and psychoses are bubbling up to the surface faster than any of them can handle. Their actions in battle, the memories, Min Town, all of it contributed to their becoming monsters. Horrible, cold-blooded monsters.
So now what happens? If they find their answers, and their memories, will it actually fix anything? Will what they learn help heal them, or rid them of their baggage? Or will it all just push them clear over the edge, damning their very existences?
Credits: Peter Milligan (script), Rufus Dayglo & Jim McCarthy (art), Simon Bowland (letters)
III. THIS MONTH IN JUDGE DREDD MEGAZINE 366
NOW DEPARTING
Storm Warning: The Relic, Part 6
So, did we already know that cryptids exist in Brit-Cit? I guess it’s not too wild of a stretch to imaging that gnomes could exist in the same world as mutants, extra-dimensional baddies, is it?
This week sees the inaugural run of “Storm Warning” come to a close. It’s a strip that has its pluses and minuses, which sort of cancel each other out and leave me feeling indifferent. Which is a shame, because right off the bat the series has two hooks for me: it’s set in a foreign Mega-City (the supposition here is that we’re all citizens of Mega-City One) and it focuses on Psi Judges. Not only that, but it appears that the Brits will send a whole squad of Psi Judges into the field when the need arises.
Continued belowIn terms of minuses, and this is something I’ve mentioned before, there were a lot of names thrown around early in the story. When you’re only getting 8-10 pages every four weeks, it can be kind of tough to have to keep track of a large cast. Especially when these characters exist entirely off-panel. There are also a few spots where the sequentials hold up the narrative. For example: in this month’s strip, after the armor piercing round breaks the glass, who’s arm is that? What glass is it? I don’t think that we were ever given a good sense of who and what was in the room, so when you couple that with weird color choices (why was the arm the same color as a Judge’s glove?) things got a little muddy.
In the end I’d be curious to see how another Judge Storm adventure would shape up.
Credits: Leah Moore & John Reppion (script), Tom Foster (art), Kirsty Swan (colors), Simon Bowland (letters)
Lawless: Between Bad Rock & A Hard Place, Part 6
So Marshall Lawson decided to take that trip to the badlands. So who else knew where she was going? And, maybe more importantly, who would tell her enemies? I mean, sure, those Pinkertons could simply have been tailing her, waiting for an opportunity. But to me it seems more likely that they were tipped off. Think about it: they ambushed her someplace where they could get as loud and messy as they need to. Hell, there’s not even any need to clean up after yourself out there. They had to know, right?
I love that Abnett is given the room he needs to write these Warhammer-esque Judge stories. Whether it’s a colonial revolution or the politics of a frontier town, he just does it so well. The scenarios and environments he chooses feel like they’ve existed long before he found them, which immediately creates a sense of lore. Then, with the illusion of a long history firmly in place, he add characters that seem to have no sense of the immense scope of their situation. These are people (and robots and gorillas) that are living hard lives in an unforgiving place. Before you even really get to know them, you’re ready to forgive their petty squabbling and lost sense of the improbability that led human existence to this point. The wars, the imperialism, the nigh-impossible science, in Abnett’s hands these are all background for the personal conflicts in his stories.
And as far as Phil Winslade? That guy can do no wrong in my eyes. We’ve been enthralled by his work on this strip since the beginning, but each installment somehow always manages to out do the one before it. His imagination, sense of design, attention to detain, and raw talent truly makes this series special. For all the incredible work Abnett is putting in, without a talent like Winslade at his side, I can’t imagine this strip being half of what it is.
This is the last “Lawless” strip for a little while, and we’re left with a hell of a cliffhanger. I can’t wait to see this one return!
Credits: Dan Abnett (script), Phil Winslade (art), Ellie de Ville (letters)
Judge Dredd: Terror Rising, Part 2
The next Judge to end up in Terrorist group Total War’s crosshairs is Dredd himself. And just case you think that them having the element of surprise and superior numbers gives them an advantage, let’s just look at one of the above captions that I think sums this up best: “They should have made sure of him. Now they’ve got trouble –”.
The narration itself interests me this week because it does this really interesting dance between third and first person. Or third person with occasional first person tendencies. Such as:
He hadn’t reckoned on bringing Beeny in so soon. What is she — twenty-three? Twenty-four? Been on the streets since her teens. Already a veteran. He can trust her to handle it.
Obviously a Dredd-centric narration. But then a few pages later to this caption while Beeny is heading out on her Lawmaster:
Continued belowHow were they recruited? Who recruited them? Who was directing operations? A lot of questions to answer. But one thing is sure… with the Old Man sitting on her tail she better not screw this up.
Clearly that’s coming from Beeny, or at least not Dredd. It’s this interesting hybrid voice that keeps the reader just far enough removed from being a direct look into the characters’ heads as to make us too comfortable with them, but not removed enough that we can’t get insight into them. While it’s extremely common, maybe the fact it switches POV characters made it jump out for me this month. That it could voice disparate personalities like Beeny and Dredd in enough of a similar tone that their similarities are highlighted without obliterating the differences is just the type of command Wagner brings to this strip and universe.
Speaking of command, Blythe and MacNeil are in complete sync on this one. Where MacNeil leaves detail and focuses on solid shapes & bold blacks, Blythe brings the digital palette to augment and support those decisions with complementary eye-enticing color schemes. I also like the little squares MacNeil places to show wear & tear. I remember Judges uniforms being crisp and new (except for Dredd the warhorse), but now everything with the Justice Department, from the settings go the Judges’ uniforms, have one if not more layers of use. This subconsciously reinforces the post-Chaos Day status quo of resources being strained past to their limits, and is really effective.
Total War is back and confounding the Justice Department. But with Dredd and Beeny in the case, his long do you think that will continue?
Credits: John Wagner (script), Colin MacNeil (art), Chris Blythe (colors), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Demon Nic, Part 6
“Have fun storming the cathedral!”
Doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, but that’s essentially what everyone’s other favorite demon Nicodemus is up to. His reluctant partner Mercy has been captured by the Assassin Apostles and is now barricaded inside the stone fortress of worship. So it’s a true Mercy mission this month.
Grist & Elliot do their usual to keep things lively. There’s a nice little overlapping lettering balloon trick Grist uses here that I like seeing: a comics-centric approximation of the kind of audio clutter you might hear in a Robert Altman film. Not done to quite that scale, but a neat trick nonetheless.
Credits: Paul Grist (script/art/letters), Phil Elliot (colors)
IV. MEGAZINE FEATURES
New Comics: Johnny Red by Karl Stock
Saying that Garth Ennis likes writing war comics is an understatement. Not even counting the times the themes and textures of those stories bleed into his other work, it feels like at least half his bibliography is dedicated to telling WWII stories at an increasingly long list of publishers. Well, you can add Titan Comics to that list with his new “Johnny Red” comic illustrated by Keith Burns. Burns is just as much a student of the period as Ennis, and having read the first issue, I can honestly say the duo really pull off something special with their revival of the old “Battle” character. Find out some history about everyone involved, including Johnny, in this piece!
Interrogation: Mike Carey – Long Road to Ruin by Stephen Jewell
Mike Carey may be done with “The Unwritten” but according to this interrogation, the man has plenty more pages left to write. From prose in “The Girl With All The Gifts” to comics with long-time collaborator Mike Perkins on “Rowans Ruin” and also-long-time collaborator Peter Gross on “La Haut Palais”. Stephen Jewell sits down with Carey and gets all the inside dope these projects, including how Carey adapted the “Girl” book into the screenplay for She Who Brings Gifts with Gemma Arterton, Glenn Close, and Paddy Considine.
New Films: Future Shock by Matt Smith
We’ve heard the rave reviews. We’ve seen the trailer. But before you go get the DVD on December 7th, check out this article from Tharg’s own Earth agent himself to find out the backstory behind the documentary Future Shock! The Story Of 2000 AD. Smith talks with filmmakers Sean Hogan, Paul Goodwin, and Helen Mullane about what went in to bringing Thrill-Power to the screen, who they talked to, who they DIDN’T talk to, and so much more!
Continued below
That’s gonna do it for us this week! “2000 AD” Prog 1957 and “Judge Dredd Megazine” 366 are 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!”
