2000-AD-Prog-2039 Featured Columns 

Multiver-City One: 2000 AD Prog 2039 – Eye In The Sky!

By , , , and | July 12th, 2017
Posted in Columns | % Comments

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

NOW DEPARTING

Defoe: Diehards, Part 14
Credits: Pat Mills (script), Colin MacNeil (art), Ellie de Ville (letters)

Ryan Perry: I’m genuinely confused by this story and the random threads of narrative it throws at you in the last chapter. Daniel has decided he’s going to become a writer after he’s just witnessed a writer summon an army of zombies that murdered his parents. There’s a thing called “superior heroes” that sounds like a reference to superheroes that’s never really addressed. We hear more about Defoe’s history in “politics,” whatever that means. We also see a famous writer’s assistants all disappear for some reason. This is a conclusion and should wrap things up in a nice clean bow, however, the only thing that was wrapped up here that wasn’t solved the last installment was the matter of all the reeks running around. The problem here is that they solve that in one page, and the rest of the story is meaningless essentially.

Thank goodness for that one page where they kill the reeks though because it gives Colin MacNeil his one chance to draw something dynamic and exciting in this issue. It’s a fun full page spread of gore and carnage. The rest of the issue is standard, static talking heads pages in which nothing special happens. I’m really convinced at this point that this story does a real disservice to MacNeil’s artistic abilities and the things he could do, action wise.

THIS WEEK IN 2000 AD

Judge Dredd: Box Office Bomb
Credits: Rory McConville (script), Ben Willsher (art), Chris Blythe (colors), Annie Parkhouse (letters)

Greg Matiasevich: McConville is in the spotlight again this week, co-starring with Ben Willsher in this one-off look at the perils of film-making in Mega-City One. While he hasn’t yet been tapped to handle one of the longer Dredd pieces, it’s still nice to see him getting more and more starts out of the writer’s bullpen to work with Dredd proper (if I can mangle a baseball analogy. Sorry, Brian!). Willsher is the more seasoned creator of the two, having made his “2000 AD” debut in a ‘Pulp Sci-Fi’ short January 1999’s Prog 1128. Fun fact: also debuting that Prog was Wagner & Walker’s ‘The Balls Brothers’! How can anyone forget the tagline of the Superheroes to the Public? “No job too big, no job too small, ‘cos we got BALLS!”

(They can’t all be winners, folks . . . )

That said, this week’s installment is a nifty one that, like most successful Dredd strips, gives us a Mega-City One twist on current events. McConville looks at the growing trend of having deceased actors making appearances years (or even decades) after their death through digital recreation. Since this is the future, one would think Dredd would be up against more digital wizardry, but McConville takes a different approach. Getting human representations that clear the uncanny valley is incredibly difficult; even with all the labor put into bringing Peter Cushing & Carrie Fisher to the screen in Rogue One, they still didn’t look *quite* right. But what if you skipped over digital and went straight to cloning? Solves the problem of the actors not looking real if they ARE real, right? Too bad cloning is illegal in Mega-City One. But when has something being illegal ever stopped anybody in THIS comic?

Brink: Skeleton Life, Part 17
Credits: Dan Abnett (script), INJ Culbard (art), Simon Bowland (letters)

Alice W. Castle: Holy shit, things pop off in this chapter of “Brink: Skeleton Life.” It’s a real weird one because nearly every chapter before this has effectively operated as one overarching scene within the narrative. There is a clear beginning, middle, and end to the structure of the chapter that picks up where the last left off and ends on a cliffhanger for the next to pick up on. Here, though, we get a chapter that is distinctly in two halves.

Continued below

The first half closes out the showdown between Kurtis, Otis, and Styles while the second half skips ahead recap a major plot element and end with the story in an entirely new place. It’s the largest jump the series has taken so far and it comes after opening with the trippy scene in which Kurtis is confronted with a vision of what looks like an Old One. It seems to tie back into the original idea of the haunted house in space, bringing a Lovecraftian element as well and lets INJ Culbard’s art get real weird with it.

After last week’s chapter, this was not the direction I was expecting the story to take and that’s perhaps the greatest asset to this week’s chapter. It ends on a surprising note, even outside of the whole vision of the Old One things, and makes me really interested in what’s coming next.

Hunted: Furies, Part 6
Credits: Gordon Rennie (script), PJ Holden (art), Len O’Grady (colors), Annie Parkhouse (letters)

Greg Lincoln: The propaganda war continues to be waged in this week’s installment delivered at gunpoint by the traitor general himself. The Mexican standoff between him and the female G.I. pushed the plot forward and revealed details of Kobalt’s history. We’re at that part when the villain of the piece explains his devious plot, whether it’s the truth or just more lies and manipulation is up for debate. What is not in question is persuasiveness and charisma in his attempt to turn this particular fury. Gordon Rennie established pretty well the danger of hunting for someone who knows you nearly better than you know yourself and when you’re a genetically modified and programmed soldier that could be a real danger. The psycho-drama does work even if some of the dialogue is doing some pretty clear info-dump.

I will admit to being a bit disappointed with the art from PJ Holden and Len O’Grady in this week’s chapter. The ‘rushed’ look I mentioned in last weeks review continued this week’s pages. Don’t get me wrong I am not saying it’s bad; I did go and check the credits to see if there was a change in creative team. There are a couple of panels again that show where Holden and O’Grady spent their time on. Those are intricate, detailed and tell a lot of story in one frame. They leave a real vivid impression but overall there is a loss of the character and depth that earlier chapters had in spades. The heavy bold use of ink so evident in the opening parts is all but gone in these pages. Lacking those characteristic inks a few characters were only identifiable through their distinguishing marks.

Though leaving me a bit cold art-wise this part did effectively make me wonder about the actual motives of the charismatic traitor general overall plan. I’m still curious how it will all play out.

Grey Area: Life On Earth
Credits: Dan Abnett (script), Mark Harrison (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)

Rowan Grover: I’m liking “Grey Area”’s focus on shorter, contained stories as embodied in last week’s prog and here in ‘Life on Earth’. Again, this is a short study on genre and themes, this time looking at alien culture and racism. Abnett has the character ‘Resting Bitch Face’ take an observative, almost scientific look at the human race, whilst also seeing how another of her own race is mistreated. The two characters are deepened by this exploration, making them more compelling and interesting as we find out about their origins too.

I love when Harrison adopts a cleaner style for his work. The murky inks work well in the settings of previous issues, but we get a nicer look at the cyberpunk aesthetic here due to most things being in focus. The character work is great here, too. Each time ‘Bitch’ gets to experience a distinctly human experience, for instance, giant messy burgers, she pulls a unique reaction face. It’s funny, but telling in that she’s trying to fit in with her cohorts, as opposed to others of her race.

‘Life on Earth’ is a great story not because it exists as part of a sprawling storyline, but because it tells a human tale with alien and SciFi back. I hope that Abnett, Harrison, and Parkhouse can keep telling done-in-ones like this.

Continued below

That’s gonna do it for us this week! “2000 AD” Prog 2039 is on sale this week and available from:

So as Tharg the Mighty himself would say, “Splundig vur thrigg!”

 


//TAGS | Multiver-City One

Greg Matiasevich

Greg Matiasevich has read enough author bios that he should be better at coming up with one for himself, yet surprisingly isn't. However, the years of comic reading his parents said would never pay off obviously have, so we'll cut him some slack on that. He lives in Baltimore, co-hosts (with Mike Romeo) the Robots From Tomorrow podcast, writes Multiversity's monthly Shelf Bound column dedicated to comics binding, and can be followed on Twitter at @GregMatiasevich.

EMAIL | ARTICLES

Alice W. Castle

Sworn to protect a world that hates and fears her, Alice W. Castle is a trans femme writing about comics. All things considered, it’s going surprisingly well. Ask her about the unproduced Superman films of 1990 - 2006. She can be found on various corners of the internet, but most frequently on Twitter: @alicewcastle

EMAIL | ARTICLES

Rowan Grover

Rowan is from Sydney, Australia! Rowan writes about comics and reads the heck out of them, too. Talk to them on Twitter at @rowan_grover. You might just spur an insightful rant on what they're currently reading, but most likely, you'll just be interrupting a heated and intimate eating session.

EMAIL | ARTICLES

Ryan Perry

EMAIL | ARTICLES

Greg Lincoln

EMAIL | ARTICLES


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