Multiver-City One: 2000 AD Prog 2036 – Betray The Badge…And Pay The Price!

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 Chris Weston

THIS WEEK IN 2000 AD

Judge Dredd: The Fields, Part 2
Credits: Rob Williams (script), Chris Weston (art), Dylan Teague (colors), Annie Parkhouse (letters)

Greg Matiasevich: SJS Judge Pin has already deemed one Judge unworthy of the badge, and retired him with extreme prejudice. When Dredd comes to his attention, will Pin find our main character worthy . . . or no longer fit for duty?

When it comes to ‘Judge Dredd’ writers, there’s basically John Wagner and everybody else. And that’s not just my opinion — I’m pretty sure every other writer who touches the character would agree. Wagner has set the tone and direction for the Lawman of the Future for 40 years and shows no sign of stopping. But close behind Wagner is a fraternity of writers who get to make real contributions to the character and the strip as a whole. Rob Williams is one of them. His ‘Low Life’ stories built up characters like Dirty Frank and Aimee Nixon over time, with the latter’s arc playing out over a decade’s worth of stories and culminating in the ‘Titan’ epic. When Rob Williams writes a ‘Judge Dredd’ story, you pay attention, especially when the last panel signs off with “THE BEGINNING . . .”

The only downside of these long-game stories is following them as they happen. ‘The Fields’ isn’t particularly eventful from a plot standpoint. The 12 pages of Prog it occupies introduces SJS Judge Pin and squares her agenda off against Dredd. Williams shows us Pin’s actions over the span of a year to make his point in as few pages as possible, though the lack of a solid starting date made following along a tad bit confusing for me.

As stories go, ‘The Fields’ is little more than an establishing shot. Beautifully rendered by Weston and Teague (and expecting to get more than this number of pages out of Weston in one go is probably foolish), but a quick hit nonetheless. Pin might well be a seed that grows into a huge oak, but that end result doesn’t make the long wait en route any easier.

Defoe: Diehards, Part 11
Credits: Pat Mills (script), Colin MacNeil (art), Ellie de Ville (letters)

Ryan Perry: “No, it’s the powder. I told them not to make it from pigeon droppings. Should have used bat shit.” I want you to know that as a reader of this review you have just about as much context for this line as a reader of this story. We have the whole mystery solved and explained to us this week and it’s kind of a dud. The villain of the story is extremely underwhelming. It’s just a boy who’s mad because no one would publish his books. Pat Mills sets things up so that he does “terrible” things such as plagiarize and seek only fame and fortune but he never comes across as detestable, only pitiful. Plus we are eleven installments in and have YET TO LEARN ONE INTERESTING FACT ABOUT OUR MAIN CHARACTER.

Colin MacNeil saves this issue. This may be his best issue and Mills better appreciate that because this is the issue that needed saving. We finally get to see the reeks really be monsters and rip people apart. It’s eleven installments into to this monster story and it’s finally featuring gore for the first time. This is where MacNeil shines. There’s a panel of a man’s head being ripped off his body that’s the best piece of art in this series. This issue also loses some of the cartoonish qualities of previous outings and it’s all the better for it. As a read, it becomes easier to immerse yourself in the idea that these are real monsters, killing real people, and you’re supposed to care if the people look real.

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Grey Area: Back in Black, Part 2
Credits: Dan Abnett (script), Mark Harrison (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)

Rowan Grover: This comic is a real parade of people slinging insults at each, it’s a bit on the nose. I get a real Gears of War vibe from this, only there are interesting female characters on the squadron here. It’s a gritty, overly chauvinistic comic, and it doesn’t care what you think. And for the most part, that makes it enjoyable, a formula that Dan Abnett seems to work to great effect. It’s just that when you here multiple times in the issue people being called ‘Resting Bitch Face’ and ‘Compelling Male Musk Odour’ it starts to get a little juvenile. I guess for some people, this isn’t a bad thing, but I’d prefer more story or world building honestly.

Harrison’s art continues to be high quality, if not more so than the last issue by leaps and bounds. Characters like Bulliet appear natural faced now, and less like constipated action heroes. I’m also loving the use of realistic urban environments in the background, giving it a pseudo-realistic feel even though we’re using a Sci-Fi backdrop. It works great when used subtly, like in the first panel of the third page, you see refugee-like aliens squatting around the squad as they pass through, an eerie mirror image of middle-eastern war images. When contrasted against the story’s content, it makes for an interesting and almost harrowing read.

“Back in Black” is clearly not a comic for everyone, and Abnett, Harrison, and Parkhouse know that. However, it excels at being a loud, grimy, excessive sci-fi comic, and that uncompromising humour seems to keep me interested even at the worst of times.

Brink: Skeleton Life, Part 14
Credits: Dan Abnett (script), INJ Culbard (art), Simon Bowland (letters)

Alice W. Castle:

Things have really started to kick off in “Brink: Skeleton Life” as this chapter basically turns into an action flick. With Mariam Junot on the run in an almost deserted space habitat, a lot of this chapter is dedicated to Kurtis and Gibrani’s gunfights with Otis and Styles. As I remarked last chapter, I’m somewhat disappointed in this story’s turn towards a more action-focused climax, but this chapter was good to showcase of what INJ Culbard can do with a pretty intense chapter.

As always, the colours of the page are the absolute highlight with these pages being awash in monochromatic blue hues. The dark blue that saturates the background and even the shading on the characters brings a heavy drama to the pages that’s offset by the streak of pink that is Mariam Junot. Culbard makes the really interesting choice to not have Mariam’s pink dress or hair affected by the blue lighting which means she stands out in every panel she’s in. It’s a visual representation of just how important she is to either side of the conflict.

However, that’s somewhat offset by a letdown in the writing. Sure, Mariam Junot is important, but I feel this turn towards Die Hard In Space is fairly… normal. This is “2000AD” and the opening chapters of this book hinted at an Event Horizon-style haunted house in space kind of story. For it to descend into fairly generic gunfights, despite the fantastic artwork, feels like it’s undercutting its own potential.

Hunted: Furies, Part 3
Credits: Gordon Rennie (script), PJ Holden (art), Len O’Grady (colors), Annie Parkhouse (letters)

Greg Lincoln: Personally I have been waiting for “Hunted Furies” to deliver on the implied feminine spirits of vengeance and justice to arrive. I was not fully prepared for the brutal way that Gordon Rennie, PJ Holden, Len O’Grady and Ellie de Ville would deliver on that promise. The opening salvo in this story is nothing pretty; torture committed by a doctor on a prisoner of war. If this new addition to the story is Doctor Cochran from the first “Hunted” story, a guess which her dialogue supports, I fully understand her motivation but her actions are no less horrible. The smile with which she leaves the scene is perhaps the most chilling moment of her introduction to this story And that says a lot. If the doctor is vengeance then perhaps Wire, the woman who trapped Brass and Bland in part one, is justice. This week she proves as deadly dangerous as she had claimed. In not explaining his story Gordon Rennie has trapped me in the intricate puzzle he’s slowly revealing.

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The other and equally interesting trap this week has to have been the clever art by Holden and O’Grady. The way that they paced and laid out the sequence played the tension well. PJ Holden used exaggerated perspective and breaking panel borders to emphasize the struggle of the prisoner. He used the same technique with Wire’s appearance to make you look at her and see the clues as to who was in the stylized chem-suit. But looking back it was the strong use of ink on certain panels to draw the eye in that heightened the mood of that page. You can almost hear a Psycho-like grindhouse soundtrack as the tension gets turned up. Though I said it last week I’ll have to say again about how much I appreciate PJ’s attention to facial detail and his very animated expressions. So much emotion is communicated by his eyes and almost comedically stylized mouths whether it be shock terror surprise or malice he’s good at making his intent and the characters emotions known.

Gordon Rennie and his conspirators on this leave the story at a brilliant spot which so clearly foreshadows shenanigans to come. Yes we know the Hunted Traitor General will get away, he has too but it’s the getting to that point that will make a good tale to tell.

That’s gonna do it for us this week! “2000 AD” Prog 2036 is on sale this week and available from: