Multiver-City One: 2000 AD Prog 2030 – Fearful Symmetry!

Welcome, Earthlets, to Multiver-City One, our “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. Let’s get right to it!

Cover by INJ Culbard

Judge Dredd: Sons of Booth, Part 1
Credits: T.C. Eglington (script), Nick Dyer (art), Chris Blythe (colors), Annie Parkhouse (letters)

Greg Matiasevich: Mega-City One is a tough place to live, with unsavory types around every corner. Just ask Kelvin Sprayy, the hapless citizen mugged by two separate gangs in the same walk home from work. But that hardly compared to the REAL SoBs he ran into afterward…the Sons of Booth!

Before I get to the elephant in the room, let me just say it’s nice to find Eglington and Dyer working on Dredd. Eglington is one of the newer models of script droids and while this isn’t his first time in Mega-City One, seeing him handling a story with such a Dredd-verse backstory touchstone as Booth feels like he’s graduating from primarily 3rillers and Future Shocks (although he did co-create the ‘Outlier’ serial). Dyer continues to impress, bringing a mad mix of Cam Kennedy and Ian Gibson to his work. More on that next week.

But getting back to that grand ol’ partying elephant, I’m most likely going to run a brief disclaimer touching on this point every week ‘Sons of Booth’ runs for those coming in after the start of the story, but just to make things clear:

Booth is NOT a 2017 creation. A part of Dredd continuity since 1978, John Wagner created Robert L. Booth to be the last President of the United States, the one whose mania and executive overreach forced the Justice Department to take and hold all civil governing authority. So the fact Booth won election through election computer tampering, railed against the rest of the world mooching off the US, sent US troops to seize foreign oil, and tried firing or disbanding any authority that could challenge him nearly forty years before our current leader did or allegedly tried? Completely coincidental (and absolutely terrifying). Given the fact the Cursed Earth-creating Atomic Wars started because Booth’s belligerence escalated to the point every other nation launched nukes against him (and he was stupid enough to think the missile shields in place would repel such a strike), I’m hoping the similarities stop there.

But like I said, “Bad Bob Booth” is NOT a ripped-from-the-2017-headlines reaction to “The Donald”. He’s a (possibly Nixon-inspired) continuity piece being referenced (or maybe more?) to help make this story about how objective truth can still be altered and manipulated, and why different people do it for different reasons, hit that much harder. With 40 years of backstory and concepts to pull from, a good Dredd writer should have no problem finding some old character or idea to build a story around that’s relevant for today. And Eglington is a good writer, so we should be in for a treat in the weeks ahead.

I just wish he hadn’t been able to find one that hit THIS close to home for some of us.

Defoe: Diehards, Part 5
Credits: Pat Mills (script), Colin MacNeil (art), Ellie de Ville (letters)

Ryan Perry: This story confuses me. The issue starts out covering ground we’ve already covered and going over the possible suspects. Then it moves to a scene where our main character is being contracted out to handle what he’s been handling the whole story, which is fine, except it isn’t until this point that it’s made apparent that this installment takes place in the past. The reader is then made privy to this case in which these British people are going around dressed as Native Americans and it doesn’t really make sense due to the time period. Would these people even know what Native Americans are? It’s entirely possible that they would have and this part of the story is logistically possible, but it still feels odds within the story. We do however get a great moment with Defoe’s assistant Gallowgrass in which he’s characterized as cunning and loyal. It’s a moment that endears him to the reader and I’d wager in such a bite-sized story like this, this moment really outways my other complaints from this issue.

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Colin MacNeil is having fun in this issue. From scenes featuring crazy sorcery to ones containing a grizzly murder, this is one of MacNeil’s best issues and it’s because it’s the one of the most over the top. He also fairs well in the quiet moments as they exist in the dark of a dive bar. I’ve said in the past his art works the best when cast in shadow, and that’s never been truer as his cartoony style gives definition in darkness. His exaggerated facial expressions lend to characters whose one-note characteristics are that they’re mean or murderous. I wish at some points he would reign things in a bit and give the reader a more deftly created experience, but I still enjoy most everything he’s putting out here.

Brink: Skeleton Life, Part 8
Credits: Dan Abnett (script), INJ Culbard (art), Simon Bowland (letters)

Alice W. Castle: Things are (finally) starting to pick up for “Brink: Skeleton Life” in a way that harkens back what was a so arresting about the opening chapters. With the attempted suicide of the Habitat’s Chief Architect ending the chapter with an eerie similarity to the end of the first chapter, this chapter sees Kurtis finally start down the rabbit hole of just what’s going on in the Galina Habitat.

This story is beginning to remind me of Event Horizon in a lot of ways. It’s starting to play like a haunted house in space kind of a story and this episode plays up that angle with Abnett and Culbard teasing that the Galina Habitat’s construction has differed from the original plans. Hence the architect’s attempted suicide. Again, though, just Abnett and Culbard introduce these ideas and start to fire the synapses of what this could mean and what kind of a discovery this could lead to, the chapter has to end. It feels almost like teasing at this point, just as things start to get juicy it has to come crashing down in a cliffhanger.

Still, Abnett and Culbard continue to do good work despite my grievances with the format. This is the kind of story I’d love to sit down with a collection of the full story and experience it in one go. The world Abnett and Culbard have built is fascinating, blending sci-fi and a touch of horror with a murder mystery all in a wonderful neon-glow art style that makes INJ Culbard an artist I’ll be keeping an eye on beyond this story. It’s just frustrating to be fed it piecemeal like this.

Scarlet Traces: Cold War – Book Two, Part 8
Credits: Ian Edginton (script), D’Israeli (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)

Rowan Grover: “Scarlet Traces” brings one of its best introspective style chapters this week, with Ahron and Sohna discussing the nature and ethics of the Martian predicament. The two characters have a touching reunion, but fleeting as Sohna is used as more of a prophetic martyr figure. I love the touch Edginton adds by having Sohna note there is life on every planet – it’s such a simple statement but serves to layer and the deepen the “Scarlet Traces” world more. The android’s grand speech in the final sequence also serves as a great punchline to the chapter, juxtaposing the Mentats’ hopeful communication with each other in the opening pages.

I’m loving D’Israeli’s use of blank, colored space for backgrounds here. Normally, I’m all about intense, Moebius level backgrounds in a sci-fi context, but the restraint effectively conveys the mindspace that Ahron and Sohna communicate in, as well as the void room of the android’s speech. It accentuates his figure work too, especially on the final panel of the first page: D’Israeli lays out each Mentat figure in a pseudo 3D environment. On this same sequence, we get a great sense of Ahron’s hesitations and alignment during the war – D’Israeli’s facial work, especially as he draws Ahron turning away from Sohna in doubt, is some of the best in modern comics.

“Scarlet Traces” is one of my favourite high-scale sci-fi comics from 2000AD in some time, and the creative team works hard to deliver a well-paced story with engaging twists week after week. This week’s chapter is no exception, serving as a great mid-point with the protagonists considering the nature of the enemy.

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Cursed: The Fall of Deadworld, Part 8
Credits: Kek-W (script), Dave Kendall (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)

Greg Lincoln: Recall when I mentioned how effective Dave Kendall’s storytelling was beyond the word balloons, this week he gets to fully showcase just that. Chapter eight has exactly two words of dialogue, Kek-W wrote a script that allowed the images to speak for themselves, draw us into the horror of the story. The invasion of the resistance base at the border wall is perfect in its silence. The lack of any words draws us into the panels making us voyeurs as Psiren, the grey Judges, the Deadheads and Judge Fear’s things attack. No comments allow us to fill in the blanks. It’s like in horror suspense films when the camera turns away, what we imagine is always worse them what they could show on screen. Dave Kendall’s pages evoke the sounds of chains rattling as they are pulled, the click of little spiked feet, sprays of red fluids and gasps in terror; no need for sound effects. The words spoken in the last panel are effective as they are and totally superfluous as what Jess says is pretty clear to us.

This issue is a call back to Kendall’s early ‘Deadworld’ stories last year that he said were inspired by a nightmare. They are rich in otherworldly detail: glowing skulls, distorted undead faces, weird bio-mechanics. Those facing the monsters show faces filled with terror and shock. The lack of word balloons invites you to look longer at each panel. If you do you’ll see dead hands holding smoldering cigarettes, tables with abandoned drinks and in the background creatures and leering skulls. Chapter 8 is a real expression of what comics do best, show don’t tell. The deeper you look the more Dave Kendall and this issue tell.

That’s gonna do it for us this week! “2000 AD” Prog 2030 is on sale this week and available from: