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: Echós Part 2” Part 3
Credits: Michael Carroll (script), Colin MacNeil (art), Chris Blyth (colors), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Greg Lincoln: ‘Echoes’ part 1 ended at the crater that was once East Meg-One, a place I said last week holds a lot of history for the strip and for Dredd himself. Carroll spends about a page of this week hitting us with a reminder of the half a billion Soviets that died when Dredd’s order to nuke the site was carried out. His use of the now obviously Psi-active Salada in telling the tale of the Apocalypse War is effective in that she gets to ask Dredd how the hell he can sleep with himself. Dredd is ever so Dredd in his cold and calculated response, no matter how probably right he may be. The only real let down of this week was the rushed feeling of the scavengers parting ways with their possible hostages, no matter how haunted they are. But, I guess even the desperate must have their limits. The refreshing bit about this story is how matter of fact the event is. In the US, this would have been an event book hyped for months given the historic significance of East Meg One. But in 2000 AD, it’s just well part of the bigger whole.
What was truly effective was MacNeil’s art. The opening page communicated the scale of the destruction on East Meg One, matching the dialogue on the page while equally hinting at Dredd’s involvement. The heavy use of large, blacked out areas of shadow added to the heaviness of the tone. It gave more gravity to the haunted nature of the surrounding and the survivors. The characters were largely defined by their distinct outlines, helmets, or eyewear, and the need to pay closer attention did bring me deeper into the pages and the story. Blyth’s colors in the background subtly told the story of the setting sun, finally leaving us in the dark blue on the last page as the possessed “dead” man arrives.
Brass Sun: Engine Summer, Part 2
Credits: Ian Edginton (script), INJ Culbard (art), Ellie de Ville (letters)
Kent Falkenberg: I guess in theory the Wheel of Worlds keeps turning during this second installment of Ian Edginton and INJ Culbard’s “Brass Sun: Engine Summer.” In practice, however, things stall out. This is a table-setting strip, as time is split between two conversations that basically only serve to reiterate where our heroes are in relation to Merlin’s automaton forces. Edginton makes sure we’re all clear on how the two camps are pointed at one another, so it’s an important step from that perspective. Still, it feels blatantly expository in a way that the first strip’s history lesson managed to avoid.
There’s a lot of talking in Edginton’s script, but not much else. Luckily, Culbard is a smooth enough draftsman that he’s able to rotate the focus of his paneling around his slickly designed characters. This helps to mimic progression. even though these people never leave, or really even wander around, the rooms where we first meet them.
‘Engine Summer, Part 2’ is a bit of a letdown, considering how deftly exposition and table-setting for this new arc were handled last week. Culbard’s art is compelling as ever. And it finally feels like all the preamble is out of the way. Here’s hoping that those wheels really start spinning next week.
Savage: The Thousand Year Stare Book 2, Part 2
Credits: Pat Mills (script) Patrick Goodard (art) Ellie De Ville (letters)
Michael Mazzacane: The previous strip used Patrick Goodard’s black and white artwork as an effective medium to slowly build tension between Savage and Voldina and show a mirrored sensibility. This strip delves in a similarly tense direction, but the tension is more overt and deadly as they find themselves under assault by killer alien robots. Mills script and Goodard’s art make for extremely effective panel to panel pacing as Savage runs through the train dodging laser beams and what not. This was fine sequential art, with each image slowly building off one another and telling readers what they needed to know on a purely visual level. It left me a little let down when they did begin to speak, prior panels had been accompanied by a lyrical poem, such is the effective execution in these opening pages. Even with dialog it doesn’t supersede the purely visual pleasure of action in this strip and like good comic craftsmanship synergistically enhances the core motif: tension.
Continued belowI got to read a bit of manga over the holidays and it has me thinking about the similarities and differences between that style and Goodard. It’s interesting to see how the assorted styles of inking effect the end product. There are a couple of panels in “Savage” that are just bursting with lines in all directions. The first panel on the second page is just filled with stuff, even with it primarily filled by a killer robot. How Goodard uses the ink to change line weights to build depth and sense of perspective in the image is fantastic. The outside line of the robot’s arm is about twice as thick as all the crackling lines of damage around it making it burst forward.
This strip is crammed full of visual information and at first glance it seems a bit overwrought, almost a camp idea of action. And to a degree with the subject matter it is a bit camp, but part of true camp is it being “bad” without realizing it is. This isn’t bad by any measure it’s methodical in execution.
Bad Company: Terrorists, Part 2
Credits: Peter Milligan (script), Rufus Dayglo (art), Dominic Regan (colors), Simon Bowland (letters)
Hon Lee: The strip begins with the unit searching for Crawley, who needs to be found before the survivor now we know as Keane gets to him. The next starting sequence allows to link the other story in the strip, where Kano remembers all the massacred civilians of a place called Min Town while retracing Keane’s footsteps. The scene is marked with large sound effect onomatopoeia, “TAKKA TAKA TAKKA,” of gunshot people splayed full in crimson red.
Milligan does a stellar job, along with Simon Bowland, giving small intro notes in a lined memo in the top left corner, as well prompting the importance of the current situation and thoughts of the Bad Company with quotes from Malarkey. This is done particularly well when the soldiers meet the War Lepers asking about Crawley’s whereabouts. In this scene, Dayglo’s art becomes much more very graffiti influenced, and gets crazier when they are suddenly cloaked with synth gas. These subsequent scenes are given a very psychedelic feel, showing snapshot images of the Company in a mad trance.
ABC Warriors: Fallout, Part Two
Credits: Pat Mills(script), Clint Langley (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Rowan Grover: : As much as I love the ABC Warriors, this issue felt more like a status update than the chapter of a story. Much of what we’re given here is the narrator telling us about ‘Drapetomania’ and how it affects robots, while Mongrol proceeds to demonstrate these effects in the foreground. It feels like a way to explain Mongrol’s behavior way after the fact, and feels a little hollow. I do like the little fascist empire touches, with the masses of the city’s people following Sturn, the city’s leader, on Thoughtbook, with the threat of prosecution if they do not. It develops Sturn into a kind of whimsical, moustache twirling threat, but his frontal actions (ripping Mongrol’s legs off with hooks) still convey his sinister motives.
What you’re really looking for here is another look at Clint Langley’s art. This art feels like a beautiful comic/video game hybrid that looks realistic but with enough sense of motion and sequence that it doesn’t feel static. Mongrol himself, depicted by Langley, is a constant rolling, hulking figure – we never get a shot of him standing still in a pose, as he’s always on the move being chased, which establishes the tone of the whole chapter. I’d also like to note that the usage of negative white space is used to great effect here – the white panel borders scream with brutality as Mongrol stomps through them, and will often spray with white sparks when Mongrol is harmed – almost as if it is the lifeblood of the robot himself. It makes the chapter super immersive and fun to look at, redeeming the one-note narrative.
It’s still early days for this story, so I have confidence that this chapter will set up some interesting content. But this remains to be, nonetheless, a setup chapter, with little story drive. It does have some excellent Langley art, as usual, so definitely check this out to see some shiny robot- fighting action.
