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 brand-new Prog AND Megazine, so let’s jump right in!
I. THIS WEEK IN PROG 1994
Judge Dredd: Ladykiller, Part 4
Credits: John Wagner (script), Carlos Ezquerra (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Mike Romeo: Woof, things are getting brutal! Serial killer PJ Maybe is feeling the pressure, so it’s high time he reminds Judge Dredd exactly what it is he’s capable of!
It appears that Maybe is becoming more comfortable in his adaptation of female identities, evidenced by his appearance as an elderly lady this week. To top it off, it seems as if he was able to shift between the two personas with ease, as there doesn’t seem to have been much time between his getaway and appearance at the church. Despite all of the new facets of Maybe’s murderous ways, he’s still a traditionalist, as evidenced by his poorly spelled letter to Dredd.
Artist Carlos Ezquerra seems to be stretching out a little this week. The title page for the strip is an excellent example of the type of energy he’s able to put down on the page. The first thing we see is Maybe striding across the page amidst the confusion he’s responsible for. Panel borders can’t hold this murder hostage, as he breaks through a number of them in a single motion. It’s like he can’s be contained by the law of conventional comic storytelling. There’s also a bit of narrative work in this page’s art, as Maybe makes an escape right before us while no one seems to notice. To me, this captures Judge Dredd’s experience nicely. How many times has Maybe been able to elude capture despite being an arm’s length from the old lawman?
In addition to his storytelling trickery, Ezquerra is as solid as ever. His characters and environments have such a worn feeling to them, like everything passed through a tumbler before being placed on the page. Shoulder pads and helmets are dinged up, walls have scuffs and pock marks, faces are creased and lumpy. This approach is not only stylistic, it’s also practical. Readers, through seeing the distress of every physical object on the page, get a sense that this has all been here a very long time.
Just like PJ Maybe, I suppose.
Scarlet Traces: Cold War, Part 7
Credits: Ian Edginton (script), D’Israeli (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Greg Matiasevich: Our hero, Ahron, has landed on Venus…and seems to have landed himself in a spot of trouble!
Stuck on the fourth planet from the sun with Martian/human hybrid Iykarus, Ahron has to try and help the renegade stop the Makers from completing their plan of destroying Mercury and wiping out all life in the solar system. Not quite what one would expect from a continuation of H.G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds”!
Our mysterious benefactor gets a name this week; or rather, we learn what his name is from someone else this week. And I can’t help but think that Edginton is foreshadowing with that pick. Iykarus’ namesake had the best of intentions, but not the best of endings. My only question is how obvious is he being? Is there a fake-out in the future, or a double fake-out (a fake-in?)? I did get a chuckle (probably unintended) with the shoe gag you see above; as a reader, I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop with Iykarus and see him do a heel turn. Well, the shoe drops this week…only to be used for the forces of good. Well played, sir. Well played indeed!
D’Israeli continues to mix line & design with color & shade in a way that makes this strip pop unlike anything else in the Progs or Megs. Don’t let the humanoids we tend to show here fool you; the man otherwise known as Matt Brooker is more than capable of coming up with some really out there aliens. I’m still searching for something that he can’t do! So far, the only thing I’ve come up with…is disappoint me. Maybe I should just leave it at that!
Continued below
Tharg’s 3rillers: Mindmine, Part 3
Credits: Rory McConville (script), Colin MacNeil (art), Simon Bowland (letters)
GM: The middle part of these three-part 3rillers are where the tension really starts to ratchet up. With all the setup out of the way, it’s time to get things ready for the big explosive finish. And even though the pyrotechnics in this story seem to be trending in the psychic direction, I highly doubt Tharg will let us finish ‘Mindmine’ without some real-world explosions or laserplay of some sort.
Caxon survived the mindmine explosion from last Prog, but even though he kept all his limbs and extremities intact, to say he made it through unscathed would be incorrect. McConville lays out the protocol for mind-shrapnel and its workings is something he’s clearly put some thought into (no pun intended). From having part of someone else’s personality lodged inside you to having the shards visible only to the bomb’s maker, the road to recovery for Caxon is just as arduous a one as if he’d been physically injured.
But from the scraps of pirate brain he has access to, Caxon seems to have figured out where this bombmaker and his partners in crime might be laying low. Is he in his right mind in going after them alone? Only seven days to find out the answer!
Outlier: Survivor Guilt, Part 4
Credits: T.C. Eglington (script), Karl Richardson (art), Ellie de Ville (letters)
Adrian Johnson: The Alliance has extracted key intel from Caul to aid their defense against the invasion of the Hurde. Apparently, it was none too soon as the Hurde have launched a huge organic warhead towards an Alliance colony in order to convert its inhabitants for an advanced base of operations.
I must say that this installment is the most satisfying of the arc yet. For me, this may be due to the fact that Eglington has finally focused on the Alliance headquarters for an extended period of time without cut-aways to other scenes and characters. The plot has been general to me in terms of repeating the threat of the invading Hurde and assembling the means to combat it. However, events in this installment have finally galvanized the plot into something that I expect from these kind of militaristic space stories. I’m glad that the somewhat glacial pacing of the previous installments has paid off and we can finally move into the second act.
Richardson’s artwork has also snapped to attention in a sense. His layouts and storytelling appear more crisper than previous installments like the scripting itself. It also seems like Richardson is devoting greater attention to his figure work with more medium and long shots. His shots and storytelling seemed very closed-in and perhaps somewhat stifled as the script was mostly talking heads. However, I feel like Richardson is finally starting to hit his stride and am looking forward to seeing his art unleashed for the inevitable battle to come.
Anderson, PSI Division: The Candidate, Part 2
Credits: Emma Beeby (script), Nick Dyer (art), Richard Elson (colors), Ellie de Ville (letters)
AJ: Anderson and her rookie partner Flowers must protect the mayoral candidate Carol Smart. The candidate has inexplicably announced that she sympathizes with the terrorist organization, Citizens’ Army.; which has earned Smart the ire of most of the population and made her a prime target for an attempted assassination.
Beeby’s scripting is very solid here. The story is almost topical with her depiction of the mayoral race for Mega-City One even as we are in the midst of a hugely contested (and very strange) Presidential race in the US at present. I enjoyed the fact that she utilizes the opportunity to voice the concerns of the constituency, both spoken and unspoken. For most Dredd and Judge stories, it’s very easy to take for granted that the citizenry of Mega City One are more than lemmings at best or fodder for arrest at worst. Some of the views displayed by the citizens do not stray too far from those espoused in reality. Beeby also does some great work playing with Anderson’s psi-scanning of the crowd to root out the assassin. The convention of seeing the thought or ‘pre-cognitive’ balloons showing one thing and the panel showing another is something unique to comics that I enjoy quite a bit.
Continued belowI’m a huge Mike McMahon fan and couldn’t help to note that Nick Dyer’s art seems to be heavily influenced by him. Dyer seems to reference in particular the artistic period where McMahon was really establishing his look for Dredd with the big boots, big bike and crumpled uniform. I also see some influence from Cam Kennedy, another 2000 AD stalwart that I love. Dyer wears the influences on his sleeve, yet he’s a very good storyteller within his own right. Dyer and Elson are a very good team and give the story a look and feel that it could have easily been in a Prog in the magazine’s heyday of the early 1980s.
II. THIS MONTH IN JUDGE DREDD MEGAZINE 375
Now Departing
Lawless: Of Munce and Men, Part 5
Credits: Dan Abnett (script), Phil Winslade (art), Ellie de Ville (letters)
MR: Well, it’s official: Phil Winslade has secured the status of ‘Legend.’
This month’s strip concludes the latest chapter in Winslade and Abnett’s “Lawless,” and they do it with a bang. Double length with a color cover to boot, this is precisely the type of recognition this story deserves. I’ve been praising the art in this strip since it first launched, and it’s only gotten better since. Winslade is able to balance his pages in a way that I think few are capable of, as he fluctuates between hyper-density and big empty swathes of page. He does this in two ways, with his mark making and composition. I think the excerpt above is a good example of this, as the fight scene near the top is a tangle of figures and hatching with Pettifer in the midst of it getting her bearings. Then, as her footing is found, the space around her opens up calling your eye directly to her moment of heroism. While just moments ago she was just another grouping of lines amidst countless other groupings, she is now the figure to pay attention to. Not only is it brilliant storytelling for the moment, but it’s also a genius way for Winslade to help writer Dan Abnett succinctly convey the growth that the character has seen. While Judge Marshall Metta Lawson was missing in action, Pettifer grew into her own type of Judge. This is something that Lawson missed but now understands, and we see it in a single moment of art. Because Winslade is so good at what he does, Abnett is spared having to wedge in the obligatory, ‘I did x, y and z while you were away’ conversation. This is good because 1) is that sort of comic storytelling ever not clunky? And 2) it’d eat up valuable page space! Despite being ‘double-length,’ at 18 pages, this installment is still shorter than your average comic book.
The art in this strip doesn’t just succeed in the small moments, as Winslade ratchets up the action this month. I can’t even begin to imagine laying out these pages! It’s panel after panel of futuristic guns, an old-timey train, horses, hundreds of people, wild perspectives, a huge gorilla climbing on the side of the aforementioned train. In describing it, I feel like I’m outlining every comic artist’s worst-case scenario, right? But here’s Winslade, not only doing all of it all, but cutting zero corners. Of all the wildness on these pages, not an inch of it is obscured by a shadow, and the only use of gesture he uses is when there’s a distant horizon to be drawn. I’m not lying when I say that this is some unbelievable comic-booking.
In the years we’ve been doing this column, I feel like “Lawless” might just be my favorite non-Dredd series I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing. Abnett and Winslade are without a doubt two of the best storytellers in comics today, and their pairing is a real treasure. Unsurprisingly, we’re left with a big, open ending, so it’ll only be a matter of time before “Lawless” returns.
I’ll be counting the days!
Judge Dredd: The Carousel
Credits: Michael Carroll (script), Ben Willsher (art), Chris Blythe (colors), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
MR: Man this was a good strip. Even though it feels like the final dagger in the heart of something I’ve yammered on and on about, I really enjoyed it. What starts off feeling like a standard heist story quickly turns towards a Jude Dredd’s deeper mythos with an eye squarely on the future.
The set-up is pretty straight forward: a scientist has somehow been coerced into allowing some bad folks into a facility so that they can steal some stuff. So far, we’re on course for another action-oriented Dredd one-shot. If you’ve read either of these magazines with any regularity you know the drill, right? The plan will go awry and Dredd will nab those who survive, with a dry quip at the end to act as our preverbal cherry on top. Given the massive undertaking writer Michael Carroll just wrapped up, I’d have been more than willing to enjoy this as the inconsequential romp I assumed it’d be.
That wasn’t the case, so I’ll give a spoiler warning right about now.
As it turns out this facility houses the ultimate in Justice Department speed healing, and out villains-of-the-week want one specific patient. Things go awry when the target pops out of his ‘rejuve treatment’ a tad… undercooked. This leaves us all to be delighted by Ben Willsher and Chris Blythe’s rendition of a skinless man running amok and killing everyone in sight. He’s a bundle of raw nerves and bare flesh, so the pain must be excruciating! Who could handle such self-inflicted torture?
I think we all know the answer to that!
Of course, it’s our old friend Judge Dredd, though it seems that Carroll is rolling back the ‘old’ part. It seems that this rejuve treatment has given him a new lease on life, in the form of new skin, muscle and vascular system. It could even rejuvenate his bones and organs, but who’s got time for that? Dredd just wants to get back to duty.
So there it is. Yet another reason that Judge Dredd can be around for a long time to come. And not just any Judge Dredd (sorry clones!), but the original. Well, as original as being the first of a series of clones could be, but you all know what I’m saying. Fresh faced and scarless, the law lives on. While I still think that there could have been a number of interesting ways to deal with the age question, I can’t really be mad at this one. It utilizes the future-tech of Mega-City One on a smart and outlandish way, the combination of which is part of the essence of this series. Plus, it gives readers a type of reboot without actually having to jettison any history, which is the one stumbling block to that old storytelling trick.
There is a downside, though, and it’s a pretty significant one: will we ever get to see Henry Flint’s old, weathered version of Dredd again? Time will tell, I suppose. And if this strip is any indication, we’ve got a whole lot of it!
Realm of the Damned: Tenebris Dios, Part 7
Credits: Alec Worley (script), Pye Parr (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
GM: “So this is what the end of the world looks like,” says one of the characters in this month’s ‘Realm of the Damned’. Considering this is the penultimate month of the creator-owned strip, she could very well be right. And considering the mass hysteria Worley & Parr have going on in this strip, said end of the world is anything but a whimper.
One of the things I’ve enjoyed in ‘Realm’ is the mixing of high technology with the supernatural. Maybe it’s the ‘Ultraviolet’ fan in me (the Idris Elba BBC version, BTW), but seeing 21st century technology mixing it up with old-world horrors is something I always get a kick out of. Worley gives us a heady mix of attack helicopters, tactical armor, weapons-hot fighter jets, shock sticks, and more to sprinkle on top of the vampires, werewolves, and just what the hell Balaur actually is. One would say vampire, but is he really a vampire if he’s flying under his own power in broad daylight? Vampire by name, possibly, but not vampire by nature. Good thing Van Helsing is up to the task of taking him down. Or he would be, if he wasn’t shanked while being held prisoner in one of the aforementioned helicopters.
Continued belowUhhhh…end of the world, you say? Given the options left, I think that’s a pretty good assessment of the situation.
Blunt, Part 4
Credits: T.C. Eglington (script), Boo Cook (art), Simon Bowland (letters)
AJ: The rescue mission to save the downed crew continues as Blunt contends with some of the rescuers having ingested a psychedelic fungus from the jungle. Meanwhile, the crew of the downed ship must deal with their captain having turned into a carnivorous creature. Eglington is doing a great job of burning the candle at both ends with the respective rescuers and the downed crew having events to handle. He is reducing the number in each party very methodically through the perils of this environment. Part of the fun is seeing what new creatures or natural calamity will spring forth next. Eglington is also establishing Blunt to be an incredibly pragmatic leader. Case in point: as members of the rescue party are temporarily ‘tripping’ from the effects of the fungus, Blunt makes a rather shocking decision regarding one of the other members who has been bitten by spider creatures in the previous installment. Upon reflection, I can see why Blunt decided what he did. However, I think the tenuous trust with Blunt may be tested once the others come down off their ‘acid trip’ and find out what happened.
This installment also lets Boo Cook cut loose with some pure psychedelic art as a result of some of the rescue party reeling from the effects of an ingested fungus. I get the sense that Cook really relishes this type of work given his usual penchant from fluid linework and almost delectable colors. It’s pure eye candy countered with some smooth storytelling that is a continued joy to read.
III. MEGAZINE FEATURES
Interrogation: Ryan Brown – Better Than Life by Karl Stock
GM: You’ve probably seen Ryan Brown’s name attached with Glenn Fabry’s work as a colorist (most recently on the cover to “Predator vs Judge Dredd vs Aliens”, perhaps). But while the two share a long working relationship, Brown is definitely coming out from behind the Fabry shadow. Brown’s digital covers have been popping up on Progs and Megs recently, and show no sign of stopping. Karl Stock gets into it with Brown on what brought him into Tharg’s orbit and how long we can expect before the man who once worked at a martial arts studio goes from exterior to interior work.
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 1994 and “Judge Dredd Megazine” 375 are 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:
They are available in print in North America next month from your local comic shop.
So as Tharg the Mighty himself would say, “Splundig vur thrigg!”
