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 the galaxy’s greatest Thrill-Zine! We’ve got both a new Prog AND a new Megazine this week, so let’s get right to it!
This week’s cover is by Paul Marshall & Chris Blythe
I. BEFORE WE BEGIN
One year ago tomorrow, we launched Multiver-City One. This is our 52nd installment and that’s just crazy talk. Thanks for reading, guys and gals.
II. NOW DEPARTING
Judge Dredd: Cascade, Part 5
Here is it! Dredd and The Lawlords going head-to-head in what will in-no-way be their final encounter!
This last installment of ‘Cascade’ felt a bit abrupt in its ending. Yes, the big Prog 1900 is next week, but I wish that this story had one more chapter to decompress. Writer Michael Carroll planned out a solid long-game with lots of interesting characters and moving parts to it, and the conclusion just seems rushed to finish before the big change-over.
Mild spoiler here, but the reveal of Dredd having set up sleeper cells only he knew about was a sudden revelation I felt didn’t get nearly the examination it should have. I thought it was a bluff at first, but rereading the strip makes me less sure about that due to Doleman’s part in all of this. He makes me think that Dredd was being truthful, but he entered the story well before Dallas or the Lawlords became involved. The whole thing is ambiguous, but not in an intensional way. It doesn’t feel like there’s a did-he-or-didn’t-he mystery being built so much as just being pressed for a solution that fits the time remaining.
Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed the story overall. I mean, the thousands of words I’ve dedicated to it these past few weeks should be an indication of my excitement about it. And I think Marshall and Caldwell ended on an exceptionally strong note. With so much to fit into the strip, there wasn’t a lot of room for them to get bombastic. But with storytelling this tight and the final pages this dynamic, they proved they’re a hell of a team!
Credits: Michael Carroll (script), Paul Marshall (art), Gary Caldwell (colors), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Aquila: Carnifex, Part 10
Let’s say you come up with a plan to become a god (or goddess) among men (and women; otherwise, what’s the point?). Said plan requires you to get the heads of seven servants of other deities. You enlist the services of a nigh-unstoppable killing machine to procure said craniums. You neglected to tell said machine his cranium was one of the seven needed. You send another nigh-unstoppable killing force (a squad of demon babies) to collect machine’s head. Herein lies the flaw in the plan: how likely are you to be able to find a killing machine nigh-unstoppable enough to survive collecting six heads, but stoppable enough to be the seventh?
The answer, for those playing along at home, is not very likely.
And I must apologize for a screw-up on my part last week. I miscounted and said Aquila was heading off to see Nero after he had already collected the seven heads. Not sure where mine was, but that was not the case, as evidenced by Nero being decided un-godlike when Aquila came a-callin’. Deserted by Locusta, Nero takes a swig of poison to rob Aquila of the secrets he promised to tell him about where Ammit the Devourer’s lair is. How likely is Aquila to let that stop him?
The answer, for those playing along at home, is, again, not very likely.
Rennie gives ‘Carnifex’ enough closure to keep readers satisfied. Certainly Gallagher and Teague don’t skimp on the depiction of Aquila’s wrath. How likely am I to be looking forward to more tales of Felix Fortunatus, Triscus the Diviner, and Aquila himself?
Continued belowThe answer, for those playing along at home, is very likely indeed.
Credits: Gordon Rennie (script), Leigh Gallager (art), Dylan Teague (colors), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Brass Sun: Floating Worlds, Part 12
So I’ve come down off the ledge from last week. Looking back on it, I’m not sure exactly how I thought Edginton and Culbard could have wrapped things up in this last installment. Wishful thinking on my part when faced with the idea that this was all I was going to get. Thankfully, there will be a Book Four after the Book Three concluding in this Prog. Huzzah!
That said, there is an ending in this Prog; a parting of ways mentioned in the tag line of last week’s installment. And as much as I’ve enjoyed seeing Ariel and Pretty Boy (I still know that’s not his name, and I still don’t care) these past weeks, I feel like they’ve been taking the focus off Wren, and her & Septimus. Han Solo is awesome, but “Star Wars” isn’t really Han’s story. That and it was getting a little tough to tell Septimus & Pretty Boy apart at times visually.
But now we have to wait for months until the next book. It’ll be interesting to see if Edginton introduces another in-story time jump like he did between Books Two and Three. Looks like we’ve got time to wonder before we get to read Book Four: Motor Head! (Shouldn’t there be an umlaut in there somewhere?)
Credits: Ian Edgington (script), INJ Culbard (art), Ellie de Ville (letters)
Black Shuck, Part 9
It’s fang versus fang as were-Viking Black Shuck goes up against the King of the Jötunn (there’s that umlaut!)! Let me explain…no, there is too much; let me sum up…
Returned Shuck shows up at his Viking King dad’s fort and finds out his dad brought a Jötunn curse on them both when he stole that Jötunn’s treasure from his burial mound. So long as no part of that treasure makes it back to the Jötunn’s corpse, he is just a ghost. Impetuous Shuck grabs a kick-ass sword from the stolen treasure and rides off to the burial mound, where the Vikimg King’s men are waiting for him. But nobody told them Black Shuck was a werewolf, so when they see a wolfman armed to the fangs galloping towards them, they let fly with the arrows. Target Shuck takes a few to the chest, falls, and gets dragged into the encampment, which just so happens to be inside the burial mound. So the sword brings about not only the Jötunn resurrection, but also just about every Viking shouting whatever the Norse equivalent is for that word rhyming with Shuck.
I don’t think it’s spoiling things to say we’ll most likely be seeing more of Black Shuck, but once he makes it back to the fort, he might want to mix his own victory drink, because there seems to be something in the water this Prog and it’s not healthy…
Credits: Leah Moore & John Reppion (script), Steve Yeowell (art), Chris Blythe (colors), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
III. THIS WEEK IN PROG 1899
Future Shocks: Personality Crisis
I don’t know that I’ve ever read a comic featuring sci-fi courtroom drama before, but after this Future Shock I’d say that there is certainly room on the stands for something like it!
The story takes a look at the ethics of IP, ownership, and personhood. The whole thing was quite enjoyable, even if I was upset by the fact that this is something that’ll probably actually happen in our lifetimes.
Credits: Eddie Robson (script), Nick Dyer (art), Ellie de Ville (letters)
IV. THIS WEEK IN JUDGE DREDD MEGAZINE 352
This month’s cover is by Glenn Fabry
Judge Dredd: Dead Zone, Part 3
I really wish I didn’t have to wait four weeks between installments of this story. Wagner and Flint are both in top form here. The idea of robbing mass graves is a pretty dark one, but the snappy dialogue and fluorescent art keep things from ever getting too gritty.
Continued belowThis chapter was dedicated to pretty much exposing all the lies, deceit, and corruption that have festered at the new Chaos Day Memorial. Dredd’s been sniffing around the site for a reason, and now he’s going to attempt to set things right. Well, right as he sees it.
And I know I sound like a broken record, but holy smokes is Henry Flint’s art incredible. He’d be earning high praise just for providing either the line or color work here. But the fact that he’s doing both is astounding.
Credits: John Wagner (script), Henry Flint (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Lawless: Welcome to Badrock, Part 3
This chapter, readers get to see a couple of new sides of Marshal Lawson. And yes, that was a joke about the bathtub scenes.
But in all seriousness, Lawson got to have some really great character moments here. Like her not shooting Kill-A-Man-Jaroo. Sure, she claimed it was because of the crowd, but as her clerk Petifer pointed out, that shouldn’t really make a difference with the accuracy of a Lawgiver.
From her handling of Jaroo to her reaction to the Megabuild, Abnett gives readers a bit of insight into the type of person Lawson is behind the badge. Winslade also does a hell of a job as well, especially in designing and rendering the Megabuild cityscape. I’ve probably said this before, but it bears repeating that making B&W linework this intricate look this good and discernible without color or grayscale to keep the back & foregrounds from all blending in the midground is a gift. Between that, his design work, and his figure acting, Winslade is bringing his A+ game here.
Credits: Dan Abnett (script), Phil Winslade (art), Ellie de Ville (letters)
The Man From The Ministry: Part 5
Yeah, I’m pretty sure that wasn’t a doodlebug (a nickname Brits gave to the V-2 rockets Hitler decided to rain down on them in WWII). Doodlebugs don’t give people in their blast radius brilliant theories about technology and concepts far beyond those of human technology of the era. While this wasn’t quite a “Flowers for Algernon”-type deal, Quatermain definitely leveled up thanks to the not-a-doodlebug.
Rennie drops a fair amount of exposition here, as a Quatermain recording brings the returned Commander (and the rest of us) up to speed about the whys and wherefores of what led to an alien spacecraft in geosynchronous orbit over the launch facility reading to act out the White House blast from “ID4”. But don’t despair. Hopgood gets a chance to show some good action beats and laser-blast-avoiding space travel. Rennie does take an opportunity to shoot a dig at American spacecraft design that would feel right at home in Warren Ellis’ “Ministry of Space” miniseries, but what the hell, no one’s perfect.
And for those of you who’re curious, this is the football match Sally Quatermain is referring to.
Credits: Gordon Rennie (script), Kev Hopgood (art), Simon Bowland (letters)
Dredd: Uprise, Part 3
Three months into the second “Dredd” film-universe sequel finds things going from bad to worse. Oemling has built a fortified luxury block in the middle of The Spit, a Mega-City One sector known for being pretty inhospitable on its best days, which were way way way before now. The residents (“Spitters”?) haven’t taken to kindly to the corporation just taking over part of their sector, nasty though it may be. There are tensions, assassinations, skulls meeting batons, and a now-missing construction droid loaded with a huge amount of demolition explosives. Dredd is trying to find out who the terrorist Uprise is that’s instigating all this, while trying to avoid letting Oemling’s robots take over. Mostly just from pride in keeping the policing of humans to humans, but also because how impartial can robots from Oemling really be?
Davidson continues to do really solid work in this story, but my favorite has to be these Robo-Judges. He’s had to straddle the line between making this visually interesting and keeping them within the framework of the world set up my the film. Which, if you think about it, has to be at least somewhat counter-intuitive for a comics artist. We always hear “There’s no budget in comics” or “Comics are movies on paper with unlimited budgets”. But Davidson kinda does have a budget, or at the very least a framework to keep within. The fact he makes these bots look as weird and grounded as he does is a really good thing. Because while they may be offered as help, we know those part-Cylon, part-ED209 SWAT-bots are just trouble with badges for The Spit and for Dredd.
Continued belowBut not the readers, as I can’t wait to see what happens next.
Credits: Arthur Wyatt (script), Paul Davidson (art), Chris Blythe (colors), Simon Bowland (letters)
V. MEGAZINE FEATURES
Besides scheduling, there’s a big difference between a Prog and a Megazine. While each weekly Prog acts as a comics anthology, “Judge Dredd Megazine” is more of a, well, magazine. In addition to all the comics (new and reprints), a variety of contributors write articles focusing on topics that, while usually related to the Dredd-verse in some way, spread the scope of the Megazine beyond the obvious cast of characters and into topics, both Meg-centric and real world, that would be of interest to the readership as a whole.
New Comics: Brothers in Arms by Barry Renshaw
Pat Mills is a giant of British comics. Not only did he, as the editor, create “2000 AD” in 1977 and many of its most popular strips as a writer over the following years, he also wrote the long-running WWI strip ‘Charley’s War’ for “Battle Picture Weekly”. Intensely researched by both Mills and artist Joe Colquhoun, this strip has been praised as one of the best war (and anti-war) strip ever created. This article talks to Mills and artist David Hitchcock about “Brothers in Arms”, a return to the WWI era for Mills.
One thing I thought this article did really well was show that Mills is dedicated to getting to the universal truth about these conflicts rather than the current era’s spinning of them. He talks about how politicians in the UK are spinning WWI as a more righteous ‘peacekeeping’ action instead of the human meatgrinder every other nation recognizes it as. This is the guy you want to have writing these books, heavy on fact and free of spin. And just look at Hitchcock’s work above. Given Mills’ talk of France being the probable home for “Brothers in Arms” at first, it might be quite a while before we see the work in English, but I know it’ll be worth the wait. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go pull the first book of “Charley’s War” off the shelf and start re-reading it.
New Comics: Wild’s End by Matthew Badham
Dan Abnett and INJ Culbard have become quite the team over the past couple of years, with two series currently being published at two different companies: “Dark Ages” is a story about an alien invasion during the Middle Ages, and “Wild’s End” is an anthropomorphic sci-fi tale. This interview is filled with interesting anecdotes from the two creators. Culbard relayed this story about the plotting of the pair’s first collaboration “The New Deadwardieans”:
…Suttle (the protagonist) arrives and the butler meets him and informs him, ‘Her ladyship is in the drawing room.’ But following our discussions about how vampires actually physically function it occurred to me that her mascara would be running down her face but not because she’s crying tears, as she can’t. It’s not physically possible for vampires. Instead she paints her mascara in such a way that it looks like it’s running, as though she were crying. It becomes an additional element of the grieving ritual…
Both Abnett and Culbard are each incredibly imaginative creators in the midst of a prolific run of comics work, not just working together but with a number of other collaborators. This interview will surely pique the curiosity of anyone not familiar with the pair’s work.
Interrogation: John Layman by Alex Fitch
John Layman, co-creator of Image Comics’ “Chew” opens up about all sorts of things in this conversation. Most interesting, I think, is his candidness about what he originally thought the series would be. Layman goes into pitching the series to Vertigo, as well as the ribbing he’d get from other creators while the series was in development. The talk also turns to his work-for-hire writing on titles like “Batman Eternal” and “Mars Attacks”, as well as the development of the “Chew” animated series.
Interrogation: Eddie Robson by Karl Stock
He may only have three Future Shocks to his Prog resume at the moment, but Eddie Robson knows his way around the keyboard. Karl Stock gets the writer to open up about all sorts of things! from his “Doctor Who” audio dramas to genre journalism, as well as this nugget of wisdom about how one goes from writing Future Shocks that land with a thud to writing Future Shocks that sail all the way from your keyboard to the acceptance folder:
Continued below‘When I’d written them before I was too preoccupied with trying to make the twist a good one,’ he recalls. ‘There are two problems with that, and one us that all the really amazing turn-on-your-head twists have been done – not on,y have they been done, but you see them coming. The other thing is that it’s not story-driven. A couple of mine were just lots of facing about and then “Ah-ha, you see?” It was about how clever I could be than actually telling a story, so my new approach was to come up with a good premise and characters, and then to work on it from a distance, and so the twist doesn’t have to completely pull the rug out from under you.’
VI. MEGAZINE REPRINT
Every month, Tharg finds a little something from the back catalog to include with the Megazine. This month is Calhab Justice by Jim Alexander, John Ridgeway, and Lol.
In light of tomorrow’s secession vote and in keeping with this issue’s cover, the droids in the 2000 AD Nerve Center have seen fit to include another bit of Scottish influence with this reprint. The story takes place in Calhab, a part of Brit-Cit we would recognize as Scotland and that has a force of Judges, the most famous of which is the kilt-wearing Judge Ed MacBrayne. Unlike his Mega-City One counterparts, Judge MacBrayne is slow to violence and teaches cadets to duck and always wear their helmets.
The story makes reference to separatists who want to end the Calhab union with Brit-Cit as well as the fact that the landscape is mostly irradiated and used as a dumping ground for nuclear waste. This is all quite timely, considering the vote on the horizon and the questions raised about what would happen to long-standing nuclear weapons sites if Scotland were to gain its independence.
VII. NEXT WEEK!
Next week sees the 1,900th weekly issue of “2000 AD” hitting stands. Every story will be a first chapter, making this not only a significant mile-marker in the magazine’s publication history but a great jumping-on point as well! The issue features an astounding line-up of talent that’s sure to please new and old “2000 AD” fans alike!
VIII. 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! Both “2000 AD” Prog 1899 and “Judge Dredd Megazine” 352 are on sale today and 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!”
