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!
THIS WEEK IN 2000AD
Judge Dredd: Icon, Part 2
Credits: T.C. Eglington (script), Colin MacNeil (art), Chris Blythe (colors), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Alice W. Castle: 2017 has certainly been A Year. Now, I know, I don’t want to be the one who always harshes the buzz of talking about comics by bringing up real world shit, but it’s hard to talk about a comic exploring a dystopian, hypercapitalist wasteland ruled by a fascist judiciary system without talking about how it reflects our present. A world in which scores are killed and hundreds injured by a lone gunman in an act that can only be described as commonplace in today’s America. A world in which a white supremacist demagogue refuses to offer crisis aid to his own people because of the colour of their skin. A world in which a peaceful independence referendum in Barcelona is raided by police and the votes of the people removed by force.
It’s hard not to think of these events and more when reading a story in which the peaceful protest of a statue erected to honour a jackbooted fascist is interrupted by two Judges and the protestors removed by force. It’s hard not to see this story as not just a future we could potentially end up in, but as a dark mirror to our present. Dredd is no hero, the Justice Department doesn’t live up to its name. That’s the feeling I got from this chapter of ‘Icon,’ that explores just what kind of a shadow Dredd casts over Mega City-One.
T.C. Eglington and Colin MacNeil have presented a story about Dredd that barely features Dredd. Dredd is a concept, an allegory for the judiciary systems we see in place today, and how we let them behave. It explores the way the public is suppressed in holding those that are sworn to protect them accountable, being attacked at a peaceful protest no differently than those at a full blown riot were treated in the previous chapter.
‘Icon’ is a hard read in the wake of recent tragedies. It would likely be a hard read in how it examines our modern dystopia regardless, but the timing certainly hasn’t helped. Still, for as hard a pill as it is to swallow, it’s a necessary examination of police states with decades of history to draw on.
Grey Area: Homeland Security, Part 2
Credits: Dan Abnett (script), Mark Harrison (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Greg Lincoln: A story is not a story without tension and a war story is not so much a war story without casualties and loss. Though, I can not tell you why the two losses in this chapter affected me despite the characters being introduced last chapter, their abrupt and violent ends did. Dan Abnett and Mark Harrison in fact did a great job of building the tension in this chapter as the members of the ETC 86 and ETC 87 enter the Affiliated Gulf States region among the 12,000 troops and quickly become isolated and lost as all their technology goes haywire even down to their physical compasses. Their words and actions show their mounting tension and the hazy blurred sand storm filled panels well set the scene. Given how little time I’ve had to spend with the heroes of ETC 86 and the newly reformed ETC 87 it’s a testament to the Mark Harrison’s art and Dan Abnett’s writing that I feel as much as I do about their plight. Harrison and Parkhouse effectively communicate the horror of combat both visually and through sound effects, blood spatter and bodily damage as Bulliet and Railsback’s teams get ambushed.
Dan Abnett flipping the scene back and forth between the commanders and the field gave a real impression of just how dire the plan going pear-shaped really is. Visually, the juxtaposition of the warming toned battlefield with the the cool control center somehow worked well to up the ante tension-wise. The dire tone of the discussion between Major Said and Commander Hallard reveals just how screwed their combined troops are. Whether Hallard’s prediction of a massacre comes to pass is all in the hands of the boots on the ground. That whole interchange giving the last image of this week weight showing the two ETC teams in the distance fighting. Next week’s part can’t come soon enough because Abnett Harrison and Parkhouse have me engaged with this story.
Continued belowSlaine – The Brutania Chronicles: Archon, Part 2
Credits: Pat Mills (script), Simon Davis (art), Ellie de Ville (letters)
Rowan Grover: This second installment of the latest “Slaine” story loses steam somewhat quickly. Regardless that this is only a six-page story, the pacing is drawn out and spends a lot of time on action, leaving the plot waiting to be driven. Most of the story is how Slaine and his cohort use the horn from last issue to defeat the Archon’s stone army, which isn’t even explicitly stated as to how it works or what it does. Still, I appreciate that Mills doesn’t dwell on it, and spends some time in the back half of the issue fleshing out Slaine’s upbringing and worldbuilding.
Simon Davis’s work feels like a natural continuation from last chapter, which is both a good and bad thing. It makes the overall story feel less segmented, and feel like a free-flowing narrative. Davis goes nuts showing how the Horn makes the stone army all melty and vulnerable, and I really enjoy that. My problem is more that there’s less that feels distinguishing in this issue from the last. Much of the spectacle is the same – Slaine and his cohort both sport agonising grimaces as they lop stone heads from bodies and scream covered in blood. I did find the flashback section compelling though – having Davis draw quite a normal, almost suburban family setting is interesting in contrast to the start of the story.
“Slaine” still has me hooked with this story arc, but less so with how this chapter followed from the explosive debut. It looks like the direction Mills will be taking from next chapter will take the story to a deeper direction, so I’m looking forward to that.
Indigo Prime: A Dying Art, Part 2
Credits: John Smith (script), Lee Carter (art), Simon Bowland (letters)
Kent Falkenberg: Whereas last week was more of an introduction to characters and swirling realities, ‘A Dying Art, Part 2’ feels like a statement of purpose. John Smith’s pacing this round has a rousing, getting-the-band-back-together quality as William Burroughs, Unthar, Crippen, and Jinks (the tech support volun-told to participate) all march off on their mission. Lee Carter even devotes a page for various panels of the team members walking down an anonymous industrial corridor as they get into formation for their trip into the Psychosphere (one could easily image this walk happening in slow-motion).
Carter’s character work is a bit more photorealistic than I usually enjoy. However, it has an interesting effect in these pages. Aside from the Psychosphere and other “olfactory hallucination/phantosmia induced by telepathic stimulation of the limbic system,” there’s a swirling whirlpool of metaphysical inter-dimensionality being fooled around with. Having the characters depicted in such a clean, realistic way provides an anchor from keeping Smith’s story from straying to far into esoteric sci-fi.
And while not much happens in “A Dying Art, Part 2”, there’s enough discussion about what pseudosciences the Indigo Prime agency dabbles in to give context for what’s to come. John Smith’s script can feel expository at times, but the explication is welcome. And he does feather in some interesting character moments rather efficiently – for instance, did you know that Mr. Burroughs likes a quick fix of black-tar heroin before facing the magnitude of the Psychosphere. And Carter defly implies it’s used as some sort of crutch/defense mechanism as a skag bag complete with syringe and other paraphernalia is shown last in a triptych of Burrough’s gathering some weapons from his room:
“Of course I’m high,” Burroughs says, after Crippen calls him out on this.“You don’t think I’d enter that place straight. Do you?” At the rate “Indigo Prime” is ramping up, I’d say we’re all going to feel at least a little bit slanted before too long.
Sinister Dexter: Snake-Skinned
Credits: Dan Abnett (script), Jake Lynch (art), John Charles (color), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Mike Mazzacane: The (mis)adventures of Fin and Rex continue after traffic puts them in the wrong place at the wrong time and only a harebrained scheme can get them out of a mess that (actually) isn’t their fault.
Continued below‘Snake Skinned’ gets a lot out of its five pages from the effective mood brought on by Steve Yeowell and John Charles art. Like any good short, creating an immediate sense of mood gives everything a sense of depth that otherwise wouldn’t be developed. Yeowell’s art gives everything an 80’s crime comic feel, like the Mike Grell “Green Arrow.” What was once an advanced dystopian Downlode looks more like a crime ridden twentieth century L.A., as master gambler Chuck “The Serpent” Clacker waits for his protection to arrive as the sunsets. Yeowell’s use of black infects everything, creating a crag like façade for Charles’ solid colors to hang over. Everything looks nice, but there’s that ever present since of grime.
Another spot Abnett and company get a lot of mileage out of is the tension created in two pages, by essentially cross cutting the game Finn is playing and Ramone’s fist fight. The games commentary becomes play by play for the struggle across the page. Yeowell’s page design is spot on by placing Finn at the center and paneling Ramone’s actions around him. It’s a nice call back to the distance motif referenced on the first page that is the cause of all their problems in the first place. Yeowell gets to use dynamic angles and positions give a sense of energy, but he really hits the right choreographed moments that turn what is brief bit of fisticuffs into real struggle.
Everyone’s favorite gun sharks live to play games another day, oh what trouble will the find themselves in next time.
That’s gonna do it for us this week! “2000 AD” Prog 2051 is on sale this week and available from:
- The 2000 AD Newsstand app for iPad and iPhone,
- The 2000 AD app for Android devices,
- 2000ADonline.com in print or DRM-free PDF and CBZ formats, and
- Finer comic shops everywhere
So as Tharg the Mighty himself would say, “Splundig vur thrigg!”
