Welcome, Earthlets, to Multiver-City One, the oh-so-cleverly named “2000 AD” weekly review column! Every Wednesday we examine the latest offerings from Tharg and the droids over at Rebellion/2000 AD, the galaxy’s leading producers of Thrill-Power entertainment! This week brings us a new Prog wrapping up the most recent batch of strips. Let’s dive right in!
THIS WEEK IN 2000 AD
NOW DEPARTING!
Sinister Dexter: A Rocky Start
Credits: Dan Abnett (script), Steve Yeowell (art), Gary Caldwell (colors), Simon Bowland (letters)
Ryan Perry: Funt! It’s hard to present an enjoyable reading experience when the story’s main characters are unlikeable. From being unintelligible to downright annoying Sinister and Dexter run the gamut of bad character traits this week. The made up language really goes above just being something of an irritant this week to actually hindering the comprehensibility of the story. Dan Abnett lacks any form of subtlety in this story either as every time a joke or pun is made it has to be pointed out or explained. I can’t tell if it’s bad writing or condescending writing. The dialogue is also just bad. There’s a point where Dexter talks multiple times on a page but all he ever says is “not his real name.” No one talks like that and Abnett is unconvincing in the idea that someone from this world he made up would. It’s also strange that the issue opens and closes on the same image. Traditionally you might think this is to set something up in the future but so far nothing in this series has really set anything up.
Steve Yeowell’s design for the outside of Downlode looks like a cross between Neo-Gotham from Batman Beyond and Whoville. It’s weird but it’s one of the coolest visuals in the series to date. It’s a shame that setting isn’t made use of and that the story is taken to what looks like a modern day house. There’s a few little nitpicks with Yeowell’s art that you can make, such as his proportions being off or his boring backgrounds, but generally it’s good work that holds the book together. The art throughout most of the book is dynamic and keeps the story flowing. They introduce a new character named The Devil this issue who was written quite boring, but had a strong visual style. You knew you were dealing with a sleazy, snake charmer as soon as you saw him and that’s mostly what his character amounted to.
Kingmaker, Part 12
Credits: Ian Edginton (script), Leigh Gallagher (art), Ellie de Ville (letters)
Rowan Grover: Edginton manages to keep the pace high and the readers on the edge of their seats even with the last chapter of book one. Most of the issue is the supposed Ichnar the Wraith King raining havoc upon the invaders, in a twist that makes Crixus pretty much in control of a God. It’s entertaining, and is a great way to ensure constant readership as Edginton deepens his character development. I’m not entirely sold on Adlard’s character however – he seems to jump from sympathetic wisdom to outbursts of rage and subtle racism, but he’s only one low point in a diverse cast of great characters.
I’m generally a sucker for Gallagher’s art but most of this issue is devoted to rendering Ichnar the Wraith King – who honestly looks like he was ripped from the frameworks of an early PS2 game with the weird gradient effects. That, and I feel he would just look so much better if his linework wasn’t inverted in color. But if you look past all this, “Kingmaker” Chapter 12 does give you a pretty fun dogfight with Ichnar trapped in the middle.
What I am enjoying is Gallagher’s character work, especially on Crixus who is such a core part of this chapter. Edginton pens the ork as at the end of his rope and basically willing to sacrifice his life for the right cause. In one small sequence with Adlard and the Princess trying to stop him, Gallagher renders him truly desperate and full of rage. It’s subtly done, but very moving.
Continued belowThe Order: Wyrm War, Part 12
Credits: Kek-W (script), John Burns (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Greg Matiasevich: Remember how I said last week that a sternly worded monologue was all that stood between reality as we know it and the nasty repercussions of the wyrm incursions? (And if you don’t, just trust me that I did) Although it ended up being more friendly than stern, Browne’s words were, in fact, key to wrapping up this last installment of the latest arc of this strip. Words and a particular smell, cleverly chosen by Kek-W. I kid you not.
I will also not kid you that I have been able to go back and catch up on ‘Wyrm War’ before getting to the conclusion; they keep us busy here at Multiver-City One between Tharg and his American droid adjunct Sal-V-Tor. But I was able to not only pick up things pretty quickly in what amounted to the last act of the movie, but also felt very comfortable that the story Kek-W and Burns were telling was still an ‘Order’ story. And it’s that last feeling I want to expand on a bit: what could they have done that would have broken my personal continuity with the story? When would a Kek-W/Burns ‘Order’ story NOT be an ‘Order’ story?
Because it’s not like there haven’t been changes in the strip since Prog 2015 (the first one back in December 2014); there certainly have been as characters have come and gone (sometimes cleanly, sometimes grisly). But I think it’s interesting that this strip has hit upon an agreed set of characters that HAVE to be there (at least so far) for this to feel like the same book. There has to be some combination of Kohl, Ritterstahl, Browne, or Calhoun, right? But if the strip depends TOO much on certain characters, then the reader clues in to the script immunity that need gives them, and that can be death to a strip (or comic overall) where the thrills and unexpected are its stock and trade. So the dilemma for stories in general but mid-season finales like this one is how far to push things without breaking the whole endeavor.
One of those characters I mentioned doesn’t make it out of the Prog. Their sendoff was well done, because Kek-W and Burns know what they’re doing. But when you have a good thing like ‘The Order’ going, any change has to be a little scary. Will it work? I’m looking forward to finding out (hopefully from the beginning next time!)!
Kingdom: As It Is In Heaven, Part 12
Credits: Dan Abnett (script), Richard Elson (art), Ellie de Ville (letters)
Bobby D.: Dan Abnett starts off just after a confrontation between Gene, the human masters and a tick human who his best friend Leezee was cloned from. Following this, the comic mostly consists of the human masters scrambling to figure out what to do next while Gene searches for his Leezee so they can escape.
It’s a tense story as it seems to be the penultimate prog for this arc. Abnett successfully creates a good end with a heroes escaping immediate danger to head to the planet below them. Each of the leads gets to shine. Gene gets down the business and goes on the offensive, Leezee saves herself from the clutches of an Aux soldier with some quick thinking, and Pause manages to screw with the masters’ computer system to allow the group to escape.
Richard Elson’s art is wonderful in this issue. I was really a fan of the shift in panel arrangement. At one point in the prog, a fight breaks out between Gene and another Aux. As soon as the first punch is thrown, Elson starts using a series of skewed, slanted panels to illustrate the intensity of the action at hand. It’s my favorite moment in the prog and ends with an absolutely brutal takedown by Gene.
Overall, this is probably my favorite part of the As It Is In Heaven arc that I’ve read and I highly recommend reading the whole thing before the next part starts.
Continued below
Judge Dredd: The Grundy Bunch
Credits: Arthur Wyatt (script), Tom Foster (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
GM: One of the tricks in keeping an anthology like “2000AD” from falling into too much of a rut is to vary up the size of the stories inside. Some run the length of the cycle (12 installments or so), some run shorter than that, some go three Progs then out (the Tharg’s 3rillers, for example), and some are one-and-done’s. Those one-shots could wind up either standalone (like the Future Shocks) or inside ongoing strips, like ‘Sinister Dexter’ or ‘Judge Dredd’ this week. While the ‘SinDex’ story isn’t necessarily part X of X out of an ongoing story, it does have a certain place in Abnett’s overall story; you can’t really put it anywhere than where it shows up this week.
Wyatt and Foster’s ‘The Grundy Bunch’, on the other hand, could be a one-off Dredd story from any of the character’s previous 40 years. It hits on everything that makes Dredd . . . Dredd: the satire, the commentary, the punch, and the art. Oh boy, the art. But before we gush about Foster, Wyatt does a good job with the other three props to juggle. The aspects Wyatt satirizes are barely veiled, if you even want to call it that (Grundy, Bundy…), but it speaks to how he handles them that it didn’t take me out of the story. Even the last panel’s stinger pun induced as much of a chuckle as a groan. Unsubtle doesn’t have to be a daystick to the noggin, it turns out.
Even if it was, Foster’s art would be a velvet sheath for that daystick to be wrapped up in. As the find of 2013’s ThoughtBubble talent search, Foster continues to impress in every Prog or Megazine appearance. with ‘The Grundy Bunch’ he’s handling line and colors like someone with more years under his belt than you would suspect, given his short employ with Tharg to date. His Bolland influence is obvious and welcome, thankfully schewing to earlier (and less rigid) Bolland than some of the artist’s more calcified aspects. But I swear I can see a hint of Corben seeping in here and there; possibly in some of the animal fur detail? Maybe his color choices are skewing closer to ‘Den’-era Corben (or just late 70’s/early 80’s in general)? Or I might be completely off-base. But the takeaway here, for me at least, is Foster’s style arc looks like it’s not just locking on to a Bolland flight path and hitting autopilot. I can’t wait to see where it leads him next.
That’s gonna do it for us this week! “2000 AD” Prog 2022 and “Judge Dredd Megazine” 382 are both on sale this week 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, and
- Finer comic shops everywhere
So as Tharg the Mighty himself would say, “Splundig vur thrigg!”
