Multiver-City One: 2000 AD Prog 1903 and Judge Dredd Megazine 353

Welcome, citizens, to this week’s installment of Multiver-City One! Every Wednesday we examine the latest offerings from Tharg and the droids over at 2000 AD, the galaxy’s leading producers of thrill-powerful entertainment! Between the weekly “2000 AD” itself, the monthly “Judge Dredd Megazine”, an extensive library of graphic novel collections, and new US-format one-shots and mini-series, they have decades of zarjaz comics for you to enjoy.

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 D’Israeli.

I. THIS WEEK IN PROG 1903

Judge Dredd: Block Judge, Part 4

Murder, torture, psychics, drug trafficking, and 3am explosions; Judge Dredd certainly has his hands full with the upper levels of Gramercy Heights!

One of the penthouse dwellers Dredd has his eye on is Dwight ‘Whiter Than White’ Knight. Dredd sees him as a possible head that needs cutting off, as the struggle to tame Gramercy rages on. The thinking is that vandalism is the result of gangs, gangs flourish because they’re well-funded, the funding comes from drugs, and the drugs come through Knight. So if you can eliminate Gramercy’s drug trafficker, a lot of the block’s problems could be remedied. But Knight’s been around a while and knows how to maintain the appearance of a clean nose, so Dredd and his team will have to take a bit of an extralegal approach to solving this problem.

An interesting bit of Dredd’s inner dialogue in this week’s strip got caught in my paw…

Corrigan’s flagging. Lacks grit. Maybe he should move him on.
He lets that thought brew. Turn the block round quickly and it may not be necessary.

It almost reads like a throwaway line, wedged between one of the many tasks Dredd and his fellow Judges are tackling. But throwaway dialogue isn’t something John Wagner does, so I find myself wondering what this could be foreshadowing. Will Corrigan wash out? Make a wrong move at the wrong time? Become corrupted? Or worse? Dredd’s no stranger to bad decisions, some of which will hound him for the rest of his days. Is there another on the horizon?

Credits: John Wagner (script), Carlos Ezquerra (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)

Stickleback: The Thru’Penny Opera, Part 4

“Bob’s your uncle.”

That’s a phrase I’m sure our readers in the UK will recognize as one we Americans would use in the same manner as “There you have it” or “Voila!”. As in, “Take the ring, chuck it into the volcano, and Bob’s your uncle – problem solved!”

I bring it up because this week, Black Bob’s our (zombie) uncle and Edginton has him let Stickleback (and, therefore, the readers) know what the crop-circle-looking symbol turning up at all of The Cutter’s crime scenes means. I’m not familiar with Black Bob before this week’s strip, so I’m not entirely sure how talkative he’s been up to this point, but he certainly spins quite the yarn about his last encounter with that sigil and this week’s cover girls, the Bad Pennies. Turns out that was a long time ago, giving D’Israeli a chance to break out of London for a spell and draw an earlier civilization. Much, much earlier.

Trust me when I tell you that symbols’s not just some cool design The Cutter’s using like a graphic version of Jules Winfield’s Ezekial 25:17. Stakes are definitely raised this week. Let’s just hope Stickleback figures out how to make sure “Bob’s your uncle” doesn’t leave London in ruins.

Credits: Ian Edginton (script), D’Israeli (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)

Greysuit: Prince of Darkness, Part 3

This week finally shows us the job that John has to take care of. We knew he’d have to take the life of a lawman; that was dropped on us back in the first chapter. But now the whole scenario is laid out before us, and it is not going to be pretty.

‘Prince of Darkness’ has had, up to this point, one central question: will John be able to take care of this assignment? This is not an outlandish question to raise because, as it turns out, John has a history of letting his feelings get the better of him and jeopardize his missions. For instance, he broke protocol in the ‘Project Monarch’ story to help some teenagers who were being assaulted by government goons. It seems John’s handlers now feel confident enough in his reprogramming to put him back in the field. John’s got a dark history with someone involved in this mission, but so far seems oblivious to it. We’ll see how true that remains as this story unfolds.

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Credits: Pat Mills (script), John Higgins (art), Sally Hurst (colors), Ellie de Ville (letters)

The Grievous Journey of Ichabod Azrael (And The Dead Left In His Wake): One Last Bullet, Part 3

The answer to last week’s question? Yes, the typewriter is mightier than the pistol. Especially when someone clocks the gunman over the head from behind with it, as Ichabod Azrael found out firsthand. Now he’s strung up on a horse next to an old travelling companion he seems less than thrilled to be sharing a gallows with.

It may look like Azrael is in one of any number of two-horse towns in the Old West, but Rob Williams has the gunfighter in the town of Atonement, located on the wrong side of the river Styx. Yes, THAT river Styx. Meaning that while the location looks familiar, it most certainly isn’t. Williams gives Azrael a really great descriptive caption for the town: “[He] felt in gut, groin and grey matter that this was the finishing point of all realities. What becomes of a soul if neck snaps here?”

While old friends fail to recognize Azrael, we get the sense that he, a killer in his mortal life, has met every one of the townspeople before. Horses speak, and miss no opportunity to use that voice to twist whatever knife of sarcasm they just verbally shanked you with. Shambling killers walk into town and…well, let’s just say Azrael might be better off kicking that horse out from under him and ending it there than take his chances with Atonement’s latest visitor.

Credits: Rob Williams (script), Michael Dowling (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)

Kingdom: Aux Drift, Part 4

It seems that Gene the Hackman and his band of soldiers can finally relax a little. It’s been a hard stretch of back-to-back battles, but that’s all behind them now. There is beer to be drunk, meat to be consumed, and new friends to share them them with. Aux Drift seems like a pretty alright place, and everyone there has taken a liking to Gene.

But when you’re a gigantic, grey-skinned barbarian, trouble is never too far off.

Credits: Dan Abnett (script), Richard Elson (art), Abigail Ryder (color), Ellie DeVille (letters)

IV. THIS MONTH IN JUDGE DREDD MEGAZINE 353

This month’s cover is by Phil Winslade

Judge Dredd: Dead Zone, Invisible Part 1

Life has been hard for Yodie and Belle. As if traveling across The Cursed Earth in an attempt to become Mega-City One citizens wasn’t tought enough, they were kidnapped along the way and put into forced labor, with Yodie forced to dig through the massive Chaos graves in search of cash, jewelry, or anything else of value. Luck helped him find the bracelet which gave him and Belle a way to make their escape. None of this escaped the notice of Judge Dredd, who is now looking to apprehend them both. Not necessarily because they’ve committed any crime, but because of that bracelet. Just like the One Ring or the Infinity Gauntlet, this clothing accessory is more than it appears to be. It has powers Dredd feels should be under the control of The Justice Department rather than a couple of Cursed Earth refugees.

Overall, Wagner and Flint do their best to make this is a heartbreaking strip. Yodi and Belle only want a safe place to live with their newborn child, but the bracelet puts all that in jeopardy. Dredd and the Justice Department are pulling out every stick and carrot they can, from deceptive smiles to separating Belle from Yodie and her baby, to get their hands on that bracelet.

Credits: John Wagner (script), Henry Flint (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)

Lawless: Welcome to Badrock, Part 4

Colonial Marshall Metta Lawson continues her uphill fight to keep law and order in the mining town of Badrock. Whereas the last few months of Lawson’s stories had her mostly keeping the townsfolk from tearing each other apart, this new strip sees her dealing with an external force come to town. Fargone private security has been hired by Aldis Brotherly on behalf of Munce Inc., and immediately butt heads with Marshall Lawson.

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I think it’s telling that Fargone is specifically said to be a non-governmental organization because, for me, using this terminology implies certain things. I take it to mean these are contract soldiers operating with minimal oversight and no accountability, hired for what can be considered an imperialist mission. The private sector often use hired goons to advance their own interests, both here in this country and around the world. Add to that the fact that the guy from Fargone doing all of the talking is named Pinkerton and you’ll see that Abnett is using a lot of context to clue the reader in about this group and their intentions. It’s a nifty trick, getting the readers’ presumed knowledge to do the heavy contextual lifting and avoid having to load in a bunch of space-eating exposition, especially when you only have a few pages every month to tell a chunk of story.

Winslade’s work has been phenomenal on this strip already, but he’s really swinging for the fences this month. Between the scenes at the mine and the indigenous village, he’s showing us that not only is he a hell of a draftsman, but that he is not afraid to get in and render out some pretty crazy scenes. And making such involved work still understandable without color to help separate elements? I don’t think I’m going too far saying it’s masterful what Winslade is doing here.

Credits: Dan Abnett (script), Phil Winslade (art), Ellie de Ville (letters)

The Man From The Ministry: Part 6

The Megazine has always been a great showcase for different art styles and approaches, and the past few months have been no exception. Before this month’s final installment of ‘The Man From The Ministry’, I wanted to take a chance to point out a particular aspect of that showcase. Between ‘Ministry’ and ‘Lawless’, we’ve had two B&W strips running side-by-side for the last few months. And while they both manage clear storytelling without color, they do so in completely different approaches.

We talked about Winslade earlier (and will again in a bit), but Hopgood used ‘Ministry’ to push black & white in another direction. His linework is bolder and less concerned with fine details than defining and grounding his images. Look at the dusters the men in the ‘Lawless’ preview are wearing; Winslade breaks up the black with enough white to suggest folds, creases, and texture, which works in the outer-space-wild-west of that strip. But Hopgood would have blacked out 90% of that, thrown in some halos for definition and moved on. Not because he couldn’t do something similar to Winslade, but because his story is set in shimmering steel and not dusty canyons.

Hopgood also uses integrated CGI images and some Photoshop approximations of analog techniques like zip-a-toning, along with dropping photographic backgrounds in to heighten the unreality of a scene. Something tough to do without color, but Hopgood’s choices are direct and spot-on. There’s one panel in particular where Commander Britton is talking with a representative of the race that ‘borrowed’ him, which has taken the form of a young girl. Hopgood has a close-up of ‘her’ face that has the hair and clothes rendered in black but the contours of her face and eyes in a more dot-matrix collage effect that really highlights the fact that something is off.

Rennie brings the strip to a conclusion that I won’t spoil, but I will say that there’s a good chance I’ll have another opportunity to talk about Hopgood’s artistic handling of Britton, Quatermain, and Morningside in the future.

Credits: Gordon Rennie (script), Kev Hopgood (art), Simon Bowland (letters)

Dredd: Uprise, Part 4

Here’s a bit of a peek behind the Multiver-City One curtain: Mike picks all the preview images that run in the column, even for the strips he doesn’t cover. So he chose that image for ‘Uprise’, not me. And while it isn’t a spoiler in and of itself, it did kick off a personal “Ah-ha!” moment that sent me right back to look at my write-up about Wallace for issue 350. And I don’t know if that was intentional or not, because Mike has a much longer history with Mega-City One than I do and he could very well have used that to point out something I should have picked up on, or at least taken into account as a theory, back then.

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And I didn’t. Totally, totally did not at all.

Again, I know I’m being vague here but I don’t want to spoil the chances of someone having that same epiphany moment I did after seeing that image in the context of the rest of the strip. But it made me want to call up Arthur Wyatt and tell him he’s a flat-out genius. The set-up three issues ago was done completely fair and above-board…and I completely missed it.

Oh, and while I was just typing out a sentence about how those Robo-Judges were going to be a problem, I realized there’s another bit of Dredd lore Wyatt has seeded this strip with. Bravo, sir. Bra-vo.

Credits: Arthur Wyatt (script), Paul Davidson (art), Chris Blythe (colors), Simon Bowland (letters)

III. 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.

Interrogation: Phil Winslade by Matthew Badham

The reason ‘Lawless’ looks so good is that Phil Winslade has logged the career hours to know how to make the images in his head show up directly on the page. And in this Interrogation, you get to see where those hours were spent. Did you know Phil was a huge “Howard the Duck” fan, and got to draw the last “Howard” mini by creator Steve Gerber? Did you know Phil painted the Garth Ennis miniseries “Goddess”? You would if you had read this Interrogation. Give it a look to find out what Phil thinks of the superhero domination of mainstream comics, what the most boring five hours of his life were (and why he forced himself to have them in the first place), and just what the late Archie Goodwin sent Phil all the way across the Atlantic, simply because Phil expressed an interest in them.

Interrogation: Lee Carter by Karl Stock

‘Indigo Prime’ artist Lee Carter is the subject of the middle Interrogation. It turns out that last appearance of the strip (you know, the one with Christ-thulu) was the first time he had done comics art entirely on the computer, instead of penciling analog and then scanning those into the computer to end up taking more time to fix. But as good as those looked, we get a shot of some concept art for an upcoming Megazine strip with Gordon Rennie that looks, to me, even better.

Interrogation: Jake Lynch/Eoin Coveney by Karl Stock

This Interrogation splits its focus between two new 2000 AD art droids, Jake Lynch and Eoin Coveney; drawing parallels between the two artists’ careers and the ups & downs they’ve each experienced. It’s inspiring to read about their dedication and perseverance, particularly when you learn they are both in their 40’s. Either one of them could have settled into one of the earlier careers they’d landed in and not taken the risk or expended the effort to become working comics artists. I found the bit about Lynch’s time contributing to various Dredd and 2000 AD fanzines to be especially interesting.

IV. MEGAZINE REPRINT

Every month, Tharg finds a little something from the back catalog to include with the Megazine. This month is Lobster Random by Simon Spurrier and Carl Critchlow.

I really like Carl Critchlow’s art. It reminds me a lot of what Keith Giffen was doing on “Trencher” and “Shadowhawk“, which were some mind-opening comics for me. Critchlow’s top-notch character design sense lets loose with all sorts of robots, gorillas, and dinosaurs, each carrying and wearing nifty weapons and accessories. If you’ve missed his past work on comics like “Thrud the Barbarian” and the new “Judge Anderson” series from IDW, then I recommend you remedy that straight away.

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Spurrier approaches this story with the type of dry wit and irreverent humor he does so well. Lobster’s fourth-wall-breaking banter and snappy dialogue makes this story an absolute delight to read. This is a great adventure story with a hell of a cast.

This collection is rounded out by two shorter stories, both penned by Spurrier. The first, ‘Past Imperfect: Red Man Rising’, has art by Ian Richardson and the second features art by David Roach. All said, you’re looking at about 70 additional pages of comics polybagged in with this month’s Megazine.

V. COMING SOON

We are just two weeks away from the 2000 AD Winter Special, and it’s looking like it’s going to be a hell of a line up!

With a cover by Ben Templesmith, this issue will have a horror theme to it, just in time for All Hollow’s Eve! Here’s the story line up…

Judge Dredd: Sorebone by T.C. Eglington and Riccardo Burchielli

Defoe: Frankensteiner by Pat Mills and Leigh Gallagher

Terror Tales: Phantom Pains by Eddie Robson and Jeff Anderson

Anderson, Psi-Division: Horror Comes to Velma Dinkley by Alan Grant and Darren Douglas

The Alienist by Gordon Rennie, Emma Beeby and Eoin Coveney

Rogue Trooper: The Feast by Guy Adams and Lee Carter

There is a lot to be excited for there! I’m particularly looking forward to Grant’s new Anderson strip and Adams’ second crack at Rogue Trooper. As always, we’ll be right here with reactions and commentary the day this issue hits stands!

VI. 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…