Multiver-City One: 2000 AD Prog 1967

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. And if you’re new to the Thrill-verse, make sure to check out our helpful “Earthlet’s Guide to 2000 AD” at the end of the column to help you get up to speed!

I. THIS WEEK IN PROG 1967

Cover by Patrick Goddard and Dylan Teague

Judge Dredd: Ghosts, Part 5

And there it is! Carroll just tied this story to his last big run of strips, and he did it with one name: Gideon Dallas.

Spoilers follow!

Now, remember back when I first pondered whether or not Dallas had psi abilities? And then it turned out that he wasn’t really a psi, so much as an empath? Now we know where he came from. And what’s interesting is that it is said that he ‘attempted to complete the mission on his own.’ If memory serves, his mission was to overthrow the Justice department. He even went so far as to invite the Law Lords to our planet to do so! If that’s what Dallas attempted on his own, and it’s described as ‘the mission’, then what do Cheyenne and her people have planned? Could they really be the remnants of Sector Zero? She did say they were Judges, didn’t she?

Credits: Michael Carroll (script), Mark Sexton (art), Len O’Grady (colors), Annie Parkhouse (letters)

Kingdom: Beast of Eden, Part 7

Gene the Hackman, tougher than tough, defending The Kingdom, his pup, and his life. The horde of bug monsters attacked for two days, and were held at bay. But now they’ve retreaded some, just enough, and look as if they’re… waiting.

If I were wearing a hat, I’d tip it to artist Richard Elson. The guy’s been doing awesome work on this series for a while now, but this week he seems to have really poured himself into these pages, particularly the first one. I can’t imagine what it must be like to get these scripts from Abnett, with all the hordes and tech and whatnot. But Elson handles it all expertly. And to top it all off, he’s coloring this strip himself!

Credits: Dan Abnett (script), Richard Elson (art), Ellie de Ville (letters)

The Order: In The Court Of The Wyrmqueen, Part 7

Kek-W has been seeding this round of “Order” installments with a bunch of different gardens at once, each growing at its own pace. But with this week’s issue, and certainly next week’s, the fruit of all that setup is about to come to harvest. Calhoun, Bacon, & Iztaccihuatl…Browne & Kohl…there are a bounty of characters for readers, old & new, to latch onto. I will say that it has been a little…I don’t know if ‘confusing’ would be the right word…challenging at times to keep the characters straight. It might be plot bleedover from having the memories of Ritterstahl downloaded into Calhoun’s brain, but I’ve kept thinking of Iztaccihuatl as being Anna Kohl downloaded into a newer body. After last week that has been proved as completely not the case, so the fault most likely lies in ye olde reviewer. But next week looks like it’s going to be a nice slice of catch-up/exposition for me to get back on track with!

Credits: Kek-W (script), John M. Burns (art), Ellie de Ville (letters)

A.B.C. Warriors: Return to Ro-Busters, Part 7

It seems everything was coming up Quartz for a while there, but with this week’s strip that trend looks like it’s turning. First off we have the robo-duo of Ro-Jaws and Hammerstein not blown to bits (as seen above, although each wearing the other’s head for reasons not entirely apparent) despite Quartz’s best effort. The two have been trying to expose Quartz’s scheme to profit from manufacturing ‘disasters’ that he then sends the Ro-Busters in to fix and then charge out the sparkplugs for. Or rather, they have and Quartz has been able to deflect concerns like he’s wearing a teflon coating on that robo-body of his. But maybe some of that slickness is wearing off, as Scotland Yard is starting to look at the cyborg Quartz as more machine than man, and possibly in league with the robots. Crazy, I know.

Continued below

Mills makes a specific call-back to not only an earlier strip, but one from a different series, when he has Quartz mention the reason he’s a brain in a robot body. One of the apparent reasons for this trip down memory lane in ‘Return to Ro-Busters’ has been in reestablishing and possibly smoothing out all the connections Mills & company laid out with the original stories in “Starlord” and early “2000 AD”. I’m not sure if we ever saw Quartz’s maiming on-panel before Prog 1920, but even if we did it would have been decades ago. With this strip, everything and everyone is being brought up to speed, which is fantastic. But at some point things are going to have to actually move forward again. Right, Pat?

Langley looks like he’s going almost primitive at times this week, and I mean that in a good way. When Hammerstein and Ro-Jaws head over to Greasy Gracies to get their coils oiled (not THAT type of oiled — the Progs are PG-13), Langley’s linework really takes on a flatter pen&ink look to it. I get a Bissette/Totleben vibe from it, which is A-OK by me. Oh, and if you weren’t sure Langley is a Kirby fan, I submit this latest piece into evidence:

The image on the left is by Jack Kirby from “The Eternals” #1, while the right is Led Belly, one of the ‘all-time greats’ singing the robo-blues. I could be reading a little too much into it, but I think the pose, the shape of the face and the slant of the nose is a clear homage. What do you think?

Credits: Pat Mills (script), Clint Langley (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)

Strontium Dog: Repo Men, Part 7

Awwwww poor Shaggy; not the sharpest knife in the drawer, and that’s saying something for this crowd. The man only wanted to show a couple of ladies that he was someone special. But he REALLY picked the wrong damsel duo to go bragging around, because they turned out to be The Twister Sisters! I’m pretty sure their plans for The Brain don’t involve a mat-based party game from Milton Bradley, so it’s time to start putting the ‘search’ in ‘search/destroy’ to good use and find those girls!

After more than a few weeks of seeing the Dogs as thieves and second-story men, it’s nice to see them back in their element as bounty-hunters. But now things are getting even more convoluted than before, and I wasn’t sure that was possible. Johnny and crew better start simplifying things pretty quick; they’re running out of weeks of Prog left to work with!

Credits: John Wagner (script), Carlos Ezquerra (art), Simon Bowland (letters)

II. 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.

That’s gonna do it for us this week! “2000 AD” Prog 1967 is on sale today and available from: