Welcome, citizens, to this week’s installment of Multiver-City One! Each and every Wednesday we will be examining the latest Prog from Tharg and the droids over at 2000 AD, and giving you all the pertinent information you’ll need headed into this week’s Thrill-Zine!
This week’s cover is by Mark Harrison.
I. THIS WEEK IN PROG 1867
Judge Dredd: Titan, Part 6
I’m just going to put this out there: when you start off a strip with a pile of dead Space Marines, you know you have some huge problems to tend to.
This week we get some quality time with Nixon and a semi-conscious Dredd. It’s through her monologue-ing that a whole bunch of backstory is filled in. Some of it refers back to previous stories, but there’s a big chunk of new information about the timeline gap between Nixon’s return from Hondo City and her appearance in this strip, and I have to say, it is NOT a pleasant story.
Flint’s art is its usual amazing, but this week he gets to stretch out his color palette a bit, illustrating the flashback sequence in a series of monochromatic panels. His choices of bright greens, pinks, and blues just fly right off the page when sandwiched between the earthier, grittier color of present-day Titan. It’s a truly effective contrast and a great choice for this week’s story chunk in particular.
Credits: Rob Williams (script), Henry Flint (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Ulysses Sweet, Maniac for Hire: Centred, Part 7
Ok, let’s get it together. Where were we? Oh yeah, Ulysses has found himself in a state of euphoria unlike anything he’s ever experienced. He’s drooling, wagging his tongue, wetting his pants, and has never felt better!
Marshall’s art gets brazen this week, when in a completely unexpected turn, it switches to a style reminiscent of a children’s storybook tale. Well, except there’s a mole with a gun, which I don’t remember in Beatrix Potter or Winnie the Pooh, but that’s besides the point. The fairy tale then gives way to six panels of breaking fourth walls and gutters as our ‘hero’ tries his damnedest to return to ‘normal’.
It’s really great to see this strip taking visual chances like this, especially as it gears up for its conclusion next week.
Credits: Guy Adams (script), Paul Marshall (art), Chris Blythe (grey tones), Ellie De Ville (letters)
Grey Area: All God’s Children, Part 2
As you can see, the situation has not improved for Anders the Samaritan in the last week, as he’s still having the life choked out of him by a Rookuk. Apparently Anders said something that the Rookuk took deep offense to. But as you’ll remember from last week’s Prog, Anders only said that he was acting as a servant of the same God that sat above all creatures, and only wanted to know if the Rookuk needed any help in His name. So Buillet and company are racking their brain to see where the obvious disconnect happened?
Abnett continues to bring situations and bits of business rooted in our 21st century culture and society into this future context. When you are charged with policing a way-station like the Grey Area, you depend on having someone who can speak all languages, because language barriers are certainly more the rule than the exception. Enter Kymn the linguist. Be it speech from one country over or one light-year away, he’s the guy who can make sense of it. But can he figure out what went wrong?
Credits: Dan Abnett (script), Patrick Goddard (art), Abigail Ryder (colors), Ellie De Ville (letters)
Future Shocks: Family Business
Hypothetical situation: you’re a mercenary from a long family line of mercenaries, but human society has advanced far enough that peace and prosperity are now the constant rather than the anomaly. What do you do when there are no more wars to fight in? You sign up with the arms manufacturer that’s developed time travel, and you go back and fight in the only wars left: the ones in the past.
Continued belowSimpson and Coveney take four pages to work through this little dilemma. Isn’t it dangerous? Oh yeah. Won’t you alter the course of history? Not if you stick to the rules. Or if you do, you’ll be correcting the course of history instead of sending it off-course. What could possibly go wrong?
Credits: Gary Simpson (script), Eoin Coveney (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Strontium Dog: Dogs of War, Part 7
Johnny Alpha’s tactics continue to pay off against Dad Nabbett and the Brotherhood. He takes no prisoners in his leading the charge of mutants fighting back against the oppressing human majority. And the Wagner/Ezquerra team make sure Alpha’s victories here are as loud and bombastic as they can be. Lots of exploded machinery and righteous payback from the mutant side. About as subtle as the electric-colored palette Ezquerra uses for this strip. But do you really expect subtlety in a strip with the name Strontium Dog? Really?
Credits: John Wagner (script), Carlos Ezquerra (art), Simon Bowland (letters)
II. OF INTEREST
Last month we got a look at RM Guera’s take on Dredd in the awesome “The Man Comes Around” by him and Rob Williams. The only downside to that story is that we didn’t get to see Guera tackle the rest of the Dredd cast. But fear not! A little digging has uncovered this sketch of Psi-Judge Anderson by Guera, from his 2009 interview in Twomorrow’s excellent Draw! Magazine #18.
You can see more of Guera’s work at this website.
John McCrea is a guy who’s cut his teeth on both sides of the Black Atlantic. He’s done a bunch of work for DC/Vertigo and 2000 AD, and most recently has contributed to David Lloyd’s Aces Weekly and Dicks from Avatar. Now, I may be wrong, But I don’t think that he’s got any Rouge Trooper on his resume, so I was excited to see this one pop up.
John’s Twitter is full of amazing art like this. Go follow him!
I think Judge Dredd kicking the snot out of Batman might be becoming a theme here at Multiver-City One. We’ve already had a couple of pieces in that vein by Chris Weston, and this week we’ve got Cliff Robinson’s version of this epic clash.
Cliff’s been doing great work for 2000 AD for a while now, if you’re unfamiliar with his work please check out his blog. It hasn’t been updated for a while, but there is a LOT of amazing work to look at!
III. AN AUDIO HISTORY OF JUDGE DREDD
The tale of Judge Dredd has been continually published since 1977, and has been brought to us by some of the most creative minds to ever work in comics. As a result, there have been some out-of-this-world story beats woven into the fabric of the character. We thought it would be interesting to talk with the writers and artists behind Mega-City One and see what their favorite bits of Dredd’s history are. This week Rob Williams drops in to talk a bit about Titan and what it means to the Judges, especially those on the Wally Squad.
[audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/robotsfromtomorrow/rob_williams_history_1_mixdown.mp3]
This is just a bit of what you can hear next week when Rob sits down with Robots From Tomorrow. Subscribe in iTunes and don’t miss it!
IV. FUTURE PERP FILES
ATTN: ALL CITIZENS OF THE MEG! Be aware that there is always a Judge watching you. Each sector is equipped with millions of HD-CCTV and bioID units. They are there for your protection. If your intent is upright citizenry, then you have no qualm with our surveillance. And remember: if you see something, you are now an accessory to a crime. That’s six months in an Iso-Cube, creep! Random CPU algorithms has selected this citizen for immediate surveillance and assessment…
That’s gonna do it for us this week! Prog 1867 is on sale today and is available from finer comic shops everywhere, from 2000ADonline.com, and via the 2000 AD Newsstand app for iPad and iPhone. So as Tharg the Mighty himself would say, “Splundig vur thrigg!”
