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 week brings us a new Prog, so let’s get right to it!
I. THIS WEEK IN PROG 1987
NOW DEPARTING
Grey Area: A Long Way Home
Credits: Dan Abnett (script), Mark Harrison (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Mike Romeo: This week sees Dan Abnett and Mark Harrison close out another chapter of “Grey Area,” with a bit of a reshuffling of the status quo. For the last two cycles of this strip, Bulliet and company have found themselves on the planet of the Harmonious Free, stranded with no hope of returning home. In the course of events, our Earth-born protagonists not only helped a previously isolated people look outward, but helped to save them from extinction when the larger universe cam knocking. Now, with crisis adverted, it’s time for all parties involved to move on to whatever comes next.
This issue’s editor’s note makes reference to this strip’s return, which won’t be happening until sometime in 2017. While I’m a little bummed with such a healthy hiatus, I’m glad to know that Mark Harrison has plenty of room to work on those followup pages. I can’t imagine the way he approaches his coloring is an expedient one, so taking at least six months to get the next series in order seems entirely appropriate.
Abnett’s done well to give ‘Grey Area’ an interesting place to rest, so I’m excited to see what comes next. After a year or so helping the Harmonious Free defend themselves from a God-Star, the expansion and relocation the core cast feels like a reinvigorating direction for the series.
Judge Dredd: Reclamation, Part 2
Credits: Michael Carroll (script), Colin MacNeil (art), Len O’Grady (colors), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
MR: Man, Judge Giant is a bad-ass, huh?
There was a lot to like in this week’s strip, not the least of which being the meeting of Judges Giant and Joyce. I know it was a sliver of this week’s happenings, but I really enjoyed the way it landed, both in terms of art and narrative. The combination of Giant’s stoic dialogue played against Joyce’s seemingly youthful self-satisfaction made me immediately hope for these two to get their own buddy-cop strip. It was a moment that would have easily slid by with little notice were it not for Colin MacNeil’s art bringing it to life. The way he lit the scene was key, with the recesses of Giant’s face casting deep shadows, made Joyce’s appearance feel smooth and baby-like. It would have been easy to labor on the dynamic of this meeting, but Carroll and MacNeil pulled it off like the pros they are, getting it all in with just 3 panels. It’s precisely this type of storytelling that makes “2000 AD” such a treasure.
Meanwhile, things just continue to get worse for Chief Judge Hershey. A few weeks back I speculated over whether of not she was playing opossum in order to lure Texas-City Chief Judge Oswin into a false sense of security. Well, turns out that was just wishful thinking on my part. Hershey had no plan beyond asking TC for assistance, and therefore no course of action for when Oswin made a grab for power and influence within Mega-City One. Now, seeing the error she’s made, Hershey is beginning to seek out a way to right the ship. It won’t be easy, though; not only has Oswin moved even more of her own Judges into the city, but it even seems that members of Mega-City One’s Council of Five has lost the will to support their Chief Judge.
Sláine: Psychpomp, Part 10
Credits: Pat Mills (script), Simon Davis (art), Ellie de Ville (letters)
Adrian Johnson: The mystery of Sláine’s parentage reaches a tipping point as he and Sinead battle the undead Trojan army of Lord Weird for the life of Zana, ‘the mother of all humans’. However, above this plot line, Pat Mills has utilized this arc to explore the heretofore unresolved issues of Sláine’s patriarchal parentage. I’ve thought this very novel and not something you normally see in these type of stories.
Being a long-time Sláine reader personally, I was interested to see if this had ever reared its head in any previous stories. I went to my book shelf and pulled down a couple of my Sláine collections to see. I did not find any stories dealing with Sláine’s father; at least with what I had at hand. Yet, as an interesting correlation, there is an arc back in Prog 582 where Mills and artist Glenn Fabry have Sláine actually meet his own son that he did not know he had. However, the reunion is short-lived as his son’s mother Naimh is rightfully bitter over the transgression of Sláine escaping to traverse the world in adventure; while she and their son had to live alone and shunned in shame by a jealous king. The arc ends with Niamh and their son walking away from Sláine. Thus, there is precedent within the annals of Sláine for this issue to be a pertinent story point. I am very interested to see if Mills will end this aspect of the current arc with a resolution that is consistent with established continuity; although it appears there may be none to fall in line with and becomes a new layer of Sláine’s character.
Artist Simon Davis is doing some interesting compositions with his depiction of Sláine’s inner turmoil. Davis displays the conflict in Sláine’s eyes as Lord Weird and Sláine’s mother Macha are inside of his head. I thought this was very inventive and I don’t recall having ever seen this particular device before. It’s highly effective as Sláine succumbs to this trauma in the midst of the battle.
Brink, Part 10
Credits: Dan Abnett (script), INJ Culbard (art), Simon Bowland (letters)
AJ: Investigator Kurtis comes face to face with the Leper Heart cult after discovering another related murder on the orbiting habitat. This installment essentially is a chase scene as Kurtis tries to escape from the cult members that have shown up. Abnett and Culbard make a taut sequence; particularly with the pacing and rhythm of the panels. When Kurtis enters a ventilation shaft in her escape, the panels become smaller and claustrophobic; yet never losing the rhythm. It’s something you see rarely in comics is the use of multiple panels as opposed to seeking to approximate the aspect ratio and composition of widescreen cinema. I really get off on that type of cartooning and love that Culbard brings it to the fore here. The creepy mood is further enhanced by the palette of a deep blue punctuated by blips of sparse color. It’s beautiful work even while it may proving to be harrowing for Kurtis herself.
Black Shuck: Sins of the Father, Part 5
Credits: Leah Moore & John Reppion (script), Steve Yeowell (art), Chris Blythe (colors), Ellie de Ville (letters)
Greg Matiasevich: I will tip my cap to Moore & Reppion for this second series of ‘Black Shuck’. After setting him up as a king at the end of the last series, it would have been easy to burn through a few cycles of him defending his new 9th century Scandinavian home against various mystical beasts all Thrillpowered-like. But just as soon as establishing Shuck across the North Sea, the writers bring him back home to Dunwich for a personal mission that drops him right in the middle of matters most foul. (And I know Dunwich was/is a real town/village, but every time I see the name my Lovecraft sense starts tingling and I wonder how anything attached to that name could not be screwed up in some kind of eldritch sense. Seriously…)
On the micro level, Queen Freydis is in mortal danger for herself and the unborn twins of Shuck she carries due to the lycanthropic curse he passed on to them. Her plight is the ticking timebomb of ‘Sins of the Father’; the inciting incident bringing Shuck back to East Anglia and in conflict with the local clergy for their help, and with King Coenwulf, the English warlord who annexed Dunwich after the earlier Viking raids left it too weak to defend itself, on a broader level.
Continued belowThere’s also another (maybe?) wolf creature terrorizing the countryside at night, leaving livestock mauled and villagers dead though untouched save for a paw-marked scar. Is it Shuck going out for night snacks? Is it Coenwulf? A third party so-far unseen?
I’ll have to go back and check this last point, as I don’t remember seeing it in the first series, but Moore & Reppion have been seeding a page in each installment of ‘Sins of the Father’ with an academic voiceover written from some point in the strip’s future. I wouldn’t say present day, but the syntax and phrasing has me thinking it’s modern day rather than, say, some 10th century monk’s analysis of local legends, accounts, and folklore.
So, needless to say, a lot going on. Am I enjoying it? Yes, although Shuck himself is hard to sympathize with at times. And that might just be applying modern sensibility to medieval gender roles, but even though there’s nothing Shuck can do to directly help his wife (and the strip would grind to a halt with scene after scene of Shuck by her bedside), I still have trouble feeling for him when he’s out training Anglian locals for a civil uprising when Freydis is having fever dreams of wolves hunting deer in-between ever-increasing agony.
That being said, Yeowell continues to draw the hell out of this strip. And is that Lemmy making an appearance???
II. 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 1987 is on sale today and available digitally worldwide on:
- The 2000 AD Newsstand app for iPad and iPhone,
- The 2000 AD app for Android devices,
- 2000ADonline.com in DRM-free PDF and CBZ formats.
They are available in print today from:
It is also available in print in North America next month from your local comic shop.
So as Tharg the Mighty himself would say, “Splundig vur thrigg!”
