2000AD Prog 2073 Featured Columns 

Multiver-City One: 2000 AD Prog 2073 – Future Visions!

By , , , and | March 21st, 2018
Posted in Columns | % Comments

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!

Cover by Greg Staples

THIS WEEK IN 2000AD

Judge Dredd: Fit For Purpose, Part 1
Credits: Rob Williams(script), Chris Weston(art), Dylan Teague(colors), Annie Parkhouse(letters)

Greg Lincoln: In ‘Fit For Purpose,’ there are really two stories in this slightly longer strip. One is a darkly humorous bit of violent fluff to get Dredd into the story, the other is the more overarching tale, which brings back the SJS, the “Judge Dread” version of Internal Affairs. SJS Pin has, for some reason, chosen to investigate one of their own, SJS Judge Gerhart, a character with deep ties to Dredd. ‘Fit For Purpose’ starts with an extra opening page that sets out a number of story beats. The opening monologue that accompanies Gerhart’s suiting up scene establishes much of the emotional conflict to come. Rob Williams builds up an odd juxtaposition between Gerhart’s remaining humanity alongside the art by Chris Weston and Teague which shows the flesh and blood that his career has cost. The creative team cleverly covers Gerhart’s history with Dredd in a two panel montage at just the right moment to hook him into the story of his ally right along with us.

Another hook of ‘Fit For Purpose’ is the classic Dredd approach of the art by Weston and Teague. They capture the line work and the color pallet of the oddly bright ‘happy’ comics look of the eighties Dredd stories. Lots of light colors went along with so much dark content. The gadgets and mechanics are big, nearly clunky, and give the world a definite feel and flavor separate from the tastes of modern art and design tastes. Weston did a great job of creating weathered, fittingly lived in, faces. None of the players have lived easy lives and the lines of their faces tell the stories we have yet to hear. The best aspect is how humanly they treat Gerhart, despite his missing human bits.

Jaegir: In The Realm of Pyrrhus, Part 1
Credits: Gordon Rennie (script), Simon Coleby (art), Len O’Grady (colous), Ellie de Ville (letters)

Kent Falkenberg: The battle between the Norts and Southers flares up once again as Gordon Rennie and Simon Coleby return with another round of “Jaegir.” Plot and character take a backseat to chaos and conflict in this bombastic introduction, or re-introduction.

Coleby opens ‘In The Realm of Pyrrhus, Part 1” with a lumbering, battle-scarred frigate jutting out from page at such a righteous angle that you can feel every ounce of momentum from it’s slingshot through the eye of a black hole. And Rennie ensures the ensuing pages lose none of that energy as he plots a harried and harrowing landing from deep space to the blood-stained soil of Nu Earth.

“For those incoming troop ships that make it past the orbital defences, one final hurdle remains…” Rennie’s narration is cut in half by tank and mortar fire, “… actually making it to the surface.”

Explosions burst off the page, while Coleby’s textured style dusts the action with a weathered and worn aesthetic. ‘In The Realm of Pyrrhus, Part 1’ might not show us who’s really involved in this fight, but Rennie’s more concerned with showing the overall scope of the fighting, anyway. There’ll be time enough later to be thrown into the story, for now it’s more important to be thrown into the war.

Sinister Dexter – The Salad of Bad Café
Credits: Dan Abnett(script) Steve Yeowell(art) John Charles(colors) Ellie De Ville(letters)

Michael Mazzacane: Leave it to 2000 AD to publish something that makes me wonder what if “Watchmen” meet My Dinner with Andre. While this strip certainly lacks the space and history to act as commentary in the way “Watchmen” did, it uses a 9 panel grid and that’s just what you say when it happens. The use of grid is to the strips immense benefit, each row of 3 panels lets Abnett’s scripting have a natural comedic flow of setup and punchline, before transitioning to some new subject.

Continued below

With this being a conversational strip, there is a greater emphasis on Abnett’s dialog. However, Steve Yeowell art is no slouch in representing the sincere emotions our two hitman go through as they talk about the nature of existence vis a vis perfunctory diner salad. He manages to make small expressive shifts panel to panel in Ramone’s facial expression. He also accurately creates the cramped feeling tall people have when sitting in one of those booths, as Ramone and Finn attempt to get up at various points it is never with ease.

Getting a 5 page strip out of an existential crisis brought on by the fact that there is always a salad no one wants to eat is no easy task. Abnett managing to elicit actual laughs from the concept and not tepid anti-humor chuckles at the sheer awkwardness of it all is amazing. He even works in a old Abbot and Costello routine. Some of his slang didn’t land for me, though I can never get behind Lobo’s edgelord faux-cursing either.

This is a very different kind of ‘Sinister Dexter’ strip, as there isn’t any action. Steve Yeowell is constrained by formal choices. While a bit bleak it isn’t the kind of humor you’d normally expect from this recurring series. And yet it still reads as ‘Sinister Dexter’ showing that maybe this series has a bit more room than just following the exploits of Downlode’s best gunsharks.

Anderson, Psi Division: Undertow, Part One
Credits: Emma Beeby (script), David Roach (art), Jose Villarrubia (colors), Simon Bowland (letters)

Rowan Grover: “Undertow” starts a new arc and jumping on point for our favourite psychic judge. Writer Emma Beeby presents the tale as a solid crime-fiction-meets-sci-fi premise, where other latent psi-users are experiences visions of an unknown and almost existential threat. Beeby almost channels Lovecraft in this unseen fear, especially in the first page where the pyrokinetic Jane cannot comprehend the nature of her vision and reels in fear at it approaching her. On a more intimate note, however, we get a good character introduction to Anderson as she mingles with a large amount of characters in the world, from children, to the coroners of the Judges. Each interaction shows her good nature and deep personality as a strong leading character.

David Roach provides very cinematic artwork, which pairs well with the tone of the story. What is immediately clear is his grasp of character and facial work, especially with Judge Anderson. From the melancholy he portrays in her seeing Judge Jane’s body, to her adoration at spending time with the latent child psychics, Roach has her, like in the scripting, becoming a fully fleshed out and well realised character. The coloring on this part by Jose Villarrubia is a tasteful softness that evokes the psychic and dream-like nature of Anderson and her cohorts’ powers, and provides moments of warmth and relief amidst unknown terror. The first page is a good example – the palette is a little muted but really brings out the glow of the fire and the realisation of Jane’s psi abilities.

“Undertow” Part One is a great start and jumping on point for Anderson, who’s character seems especially relevant in this day and age.

Strontium Dog: The Son, Part 1
Credits: John Wagner (script), Carlos Ezquerra (art), Ellie De Ville (letters)

Tom Shapira: In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death, taxes and that a “Strontium Dog” story by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra is bound to be good. That said, the first chapter in this new series is mostly used for various forms of info dump: setting up a return to the classic scenario in which Johnny Alpha and the rest of the Strontium Dogs operate out a space station with a limited form of legal sanction and introducing the titular Son – Kenton Sternhammer, the previously unknown child of Johnny’s late partner.

There’s a lot of backstory involved here, but one of Wagner’s qualities as a serial writer was always his ability to explain whatever convoluted machinations he has to work with in a speedy yet plain manner. I haven’t really been following the series for years, yet this chapter never made me feel lost (which is a good sign for this jumping-on-issue).

I will say that the scenes of people standing and talking on a space station do not play for Ezquerra’s strength as an artist. He’s not bad, I’m not really sure that there’s such a thing as a “bad” Ezquerra page, but he’s better served by scenes of open plains and blazing guns; compare the carful work here to the energetic pencils Ezquerra is showcasing on the futuristic western “Cursed Earth Koburn” on the Megazine. Still, you got to set up the scene before you start blowing it up and I do love the design of Kenton as someone who’s not just traditionally muscular but is rather a big guy with a large belly to go along with the thick arms of his. “the Son” might start a bit slow but there’s definitely something interesting brewing here and if there’s a writer-artist team that earned all the good will in the world it’s Wagner and Ezquerra.


//TAGS | Multiver-City One

Michael Mazzacane

Your Friendly Neighborhood Media & Cultural Studies-Man Twitter

EMAIL | ARTICLES

Kent Falkenberg

By day, a mild mannered technical writer in Canada. By night, a milder-mannered husband and father of two. By later that night, asleep - because all that's exhausting - dreaming of a comic stack I should have read and the hockey game I shouldn't have watched.

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Tom Shapira

Writes for Multiversity, Sequart and Alilon. Author - "Curing the Postmodern Blues." Israel's number 1 comics critic. Number 347 globally. he / him.

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Rowan Grover

Rowan is from Sydney, Australia! Rowan writes about comics and reads the heck out of them, too. Talk to them on Twitter at @rowan_grover. You might just spur an insightful rant on what they're currently reading, but most likely, you'll just be interrupting a heated and intimate eating session.

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Greg Lincoln

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