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.
There’s a new Prog to talk about this week, so let’s get right to it!
(You can download free sampler PDFs of the currently running strips’ previous episodes here and here.)
I. THIS WEEK IN PROG 1906
Judge Dredd: Block Judge, Part 7
It looks like the conversation Dredd had with Chief Judge Hershey held little water. He’s continuing his tear through Gramercy and stacking menial charges against his targets as a stalling tactic while he finds more serious and lasting charges. Even with Hershey bending to his will, it’s clear that Dredd is feeling the pressure. He’s rounding up as many suspects as possible as quickly as he can in a Herculean effort to bring the block to heel. On top of that, he’s already neck-deep in a murder mystery that seems to get deeper with every passing minute. He’s a busy guy.
Reading this strip, I can see how people can confuse Judge Dredd with a hero. He’s fighting tirelessly to bring law & order to this massive and anarchic block taken over by gangs and drug lords. That’s a good thing, right? It’s good that he wants the people of Gramercy to live their lives free of crime and violence, isn’t it? Yes, of course it is. But the problem lies, and this is something Wagner writes so well, in Judge Dredd expecting the law-abiding citizens to automatically submit to his rule of law, giving up any and all freedoms they have in the name of justice and safety.
Judge Dredd is the embodiment of every civil liberty issue facing the western world today. He is the Patriot Act; he is the NSA; he is Homeland Security. He watches, and listens, and takes notes, and logs every little thing you do just so he’ll have evidence against you if he ever needs it. And here’s the rub of it all: not one of his tactics will ever actually prevent a crime. This is all so he can bury you after you commit a crime. Surveillance doesn’t stop criminals, it only creates a record of an event to be reviewed at a later time.
Credits: John Wagner (script), Carlos Ezquerra (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Stickleback: The Thru’Penny Opera, Part 7
You can’t tell from the preview, but we do get a little bit of backstory into some of Stickleback’s previous exploits (complete with Tharg notes!). It seems the Pope of Crime has, “by default or design”, been one of London’s staunchest protectors from those who would do her harm, like the Sisters. But they have been around a long time. A long time. So you can imagine that they are less than thrilled about hearing of someone standing between them and their goal.
Probably about as thrilled as someone finding their bubble bath interrupted by uninvited guests helping themselves to biscuits with rare honey that kingdoms have risen and fallen in order to obtain. Maybe more, as it is really difficult to get good honey these days.
Credits: Ian Edginton (script), D’Israeli (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Greysuit: Prince of Darkness, Part 6
Things seem to be spinning out of control for our friend John. I’m sure a gunfight out on a city street is something a Greysuit is trained to avoid, but here we are. Mills continue to expertly craft the larger world of this strip by not only using dialogue and character interactions in really smart ways, but also in how he leans on readers’ real-world knowledge to help fill in the gaps. When John pulls rank on a street cop by flashing a badge, we already have the tools to understand the situation. This is the FBI agent coming in and taking command of a crime scene. We’ve all seen it and we all understand that it’s a thing that happens. So by relying on that, Mills is able to unload a ton of context on readers with just one word balloon. It’s deceptively simple and masterful storytelling.
Continued belowCredits: 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 6
Be aware. I have laughed. (That horse is not the end-all, be-all of thus strip but his comic timing is certainly one of the highlights)
Ichabod, however, has few things to laugh about. Even though Ichabod has been separated from the hunter in last week’s strip, the mayor of Atonement seems to think that he would still be up for protecting the town should said killing machine return. Ichabod, the murdering gunslinger, a peace officer? There is literally nothing about him that is peacefully or at peace. And any plan that rests on his peace of mind or soul is one that’s, frankly, full of…horse defacation.
Credits: Rob Williams (script), Michael Dowling (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Kingdom: Aux Drift, Part 7
Dan Abnett, I see what you did here. For weeks we’ve watched Gene the Hackman cut down every monster in his way. For six weeks you’ve shown us why he is the alpha. Tougher and tough.
But then you grind us to a halt with that ending. I’m not going to spoil it for everyone, but it’s… big. Very big. And for the first time in this strip we’re seeing Gene unsure of himself. After the smash-fest of the first few weeks of Aux Drift, this turn of events is both refreshing and exciting. We’ll be sure to go into more detail next week after everyone’s had the chance to read it!
Credits: Dan Abnett (script), Richard Elson (art), Abigail Ryder (color), Ellie De Ville (letters)
II. (DAN) DARE TO RETURN!
2000 AD has been bringing all manner of material back into print this year, from “Zenith” to the Ron Smith “Judge Dredd” newspaper strips. But things like this are said to come in three’s, so it shouldn’t surprise you to learn that there’s one more unearthing of previously unavailable content to unveiled: 2000 AD’s “Dan Dare”!
Dan Dare is a British sci-fi hero created in 1950 as their answer to characters like Buck Rogers. Very stiff-upper-lip, as the chief pilot of the Interplanetary Space Fleet, he lacked the dynamism of Rogers but made up for it with the gorgeous artwork of creator Frank Hampson. Dare was publish in “Eagle” until 1969, and was not seen until his revival in “2000 AD” Prog 1. His inclusion surely gave the fledgling comic an air of legitimacy, while lending the icon a new look and thrill-powerful attitude. Some of those early strips had art from Massive Belardinelli and Dave Gibbons, and took Dare in a direction much closer to Star Wars or Star Trek than his previous incarnation had ever attempted.
But even though Dan Dare was published in “2000 AD”, the character wasn’t owned by IPC like the rest of the strips. So when they lost the license for the character, those strips were never reprinted until the upcoming volumes in 2015.
III. 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! “2000 AD” Prog 1906 is on sale today and available from:
- The 2000 AD Newsstand app for iPad and iPhone,
- 2000ADonline.com in print or DRM-free PDF and CBZ formats,
- Select US newsstands (though probably not the hardcover), and
- Finer comic shops everywhere.
So as Tharg the Mighty himself would say, “Splundig vur thrigg!”
