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: The Death Watch
Credits: Rory McConville (script), Paul Marshall (art), Dylan Teague (colors), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Greg Lincoln: ‘The Death Watch’ reads as a kind of one-off cautionary tale about technology and the blinders we wear because of it. The eponymous Death Watch is not the kind of device we have, yet, but it’s pretty sure someone will make something like that because it would sell and would easily become an obsession, as in Gavin Meany’s case. The creators captures the feeling of a Black Mirror or a Twilight Zone social science fiction story and married it to the ‘gotcha’ kind of satire of Mad Magazine. Gavin Meany, in his myopic focus, doesn’t see the obvious signs and tells tat there is something up in the ‘Infini.T shop. It’s a sad tale, a tragedy really and though Dredd gets to deliver a bit of a punch line like end, it’s not really laugh out loud funny. It’s cautionary, we are all taking similar risks being so dependent and attached to our own devices. Even if it’s just the risk of losing connection to the ones we love, live and work with.
Paul Marshall and Dylan Teague create a mood with the art that does feel a bit like its right out of Mad. The faces and bodies border on caricature for most of the story and, even Dredd, in several panels, appears near cartoonish and flat. Annie Parkhouse’s sound effects break that cartoonish atmosphere in the ‘genius bar’ as the firefight starts and Meany is maliciously shot by the Shaggy-looking clerk.
After all is said and done, Dredd collars Meany for his years of endangering his surroundings by ignoring a recalled his beloved death watch. It’s the kind of twist ending that the tone of the story needed. Though it’s one that night cause people to reflect on their own technological addiction it’s also got that <i>G.I. Joe</I> ‘knowing is Hal’s the battle’ nod even if it’s tongue in cheek. Not a bad break from the serious and foreboding overtones of the last Dredd Arc.
Jaegir: In The Realm of Pyrrhus, Part 3
Credits: Gordon Rennie (script), Simon Coleby (art), Len O’Grady (colours), Ellie de Ville (letters)
Kent Falkenberg: Where the first two installments hit the ground running, ‘In The Realm of Pyrrhus, Part 3’ begins to establish exactly what it is Kapiten Jaegir and her inglorious bastards are running towards. Gordon Rennie’s script leans a little closer to murky intrigue than the previous atmosphere of combat-boots-in-the-muck. And it’s a welcome change.
That’s not to say, we’re not hit square in the face with the horrors of war. Simon Coleby goes for maximum visceral impact when Rennie’s script calls for Klaur to literally disarm an enemy soldier primed to shoot Jaegir in the back. Coleby pulls in tight to show a battleaxe cleaving a forearm as if it was a water balloon filled with red paint. Bold motion lines traverse this panel and the next, featuring the axe being driven deep into the soldiers chest, emphasizing the urgency and ferocity of the action. It’s only a two panel sequence, but it’s such a burst of energy that its momentum seems to carry through the rest of a dialog heavy strip.
A flashback to an exchange between Jaegir and her war criminal father continues to obfuscate what exactly her stake is in the conflict. Coleby continues to hide her face in shadow, which only seems to add layers to the seeming subterfuge.
Now that we’ve been reacclimated to this world and its players, Rennie and Coleby start the arc in earnest. Nu-Earth’s already a brutal and murky place to be. ‘In The Realm of Pyrrhus, Part 3’ goes a long way to say that it’s only going to get moreso.
Sinister Dexter – The Devil Don’t Care Part One
Continued belowCredits: Dan Abnett(script) Steve Yeowell(art) John Charles(colors) Ellie De Ville(letters)
Michael Mazzacane: Maybe it’s a British thing, or maybe it has to do with my finding Lobo’s various neologism to be terrible, but something about the use of “funt” in this weeks strip of ‘Sinister Dexter’ didn’t work at all for me. Writer Dan Abnett uses that word too much in this five-page strip. That repetition makes charmers like “double-you-tee funt” not land and just come off as needlessly repetitive. It’s not like Abnett can’t write solid dialog/narration, the first page nicely sets up everything and even plays with the liminal nature of Downlode as a city. When the strip isn’t punning around there’s some decent one liners, it’s all just surrounded by “funt” this and that. This isn’t what I imagined to be thinking about when the Devil returns to ‘Sinister Dexter.’
With this being a two-part strip there isn’t that much violence, it’s all build. This dosen’t mean there isn’t any action as artist Steve Yeowell draws perhaps the single best panel I’ve seen him do. Sinister and Dexter are just trying to chill out and shoot some pool, until the Devil shows up guns drawn talking about how someone’s put a hit out on them. Yeowell captures the record scratch quality of the moment in this panel. Everything is frozen in mid motion at the terrible news as a 9 ball flies off the table. Yeowell placing the ball in the extreme foreground when mixed with the speed lines of the off tilt cue gives it a slight foreshortened quality. Mixed with Devil in the background the image has real sense of depth. That uses of perspective is pretty much what Yeowell does during the action beats only spread through an entire page.
That sense of liveliness isn’t really found in the remainder of the strip since it revolves around exposition and bad edgy puns. These moments aren’t poor, Yeowell and colorist John Charles do a good job of building moody atmosphere with lighting. It is interesting seeing Yeowell work with figures that can have expressive eyes in comparison to the title characters.
Anderson, Psi Division: Undertow, Part Three
Credits: Emma Beeby (script), David Roach (art), Jose Villarrubia (colors), Simon Bowland (letters)
Rowan Grover: We get to see Judge Anderson in a much more proactive and empowering role here in part three. The opening sequence is sharp and quick, enacting the titular Judge busting out former Vampire host Karyn to help her with the new unseen psychic threat. It’s a breath of fresh air to have them travel together, but what actually happens from here on out is a little unclear. We see the pair encounter Anderson’s partner in an act of hostility for some unexplained reason, and it disorients for the rest of the part. Beeby attempts to bring it all back at the end by throwing in some kind of small green dragons to unite the judges against a common threat, though again this seems to come out of nowhere with little explanation except to add to the tension.
Roach still does a pretty consistent job on the art here. His figure work is detailed and complex and looks amazing when drawing the characters within the asylum/prison setting, and Karyn’s Vampire transformation. But there’s more than one instance in which Roach’s sequential action has each character look like a poorly posed, stiff action figure, occurring heavily in the confrontation between Karyn and Anderson’s partner. However, the panelling is dynamic that it still retains a good sense of motion, with each swipe and jab appearing to chaotically descend through the page in a good use of directing the reader’s eye. Villarrubia also gets to frame some beautiful colors in Mega City One. The scene of Anderson and Karyn biking through the city is one of soft neons and warmth, something Villarrubia excels at conveying tonally.
Narratively, “Undertow” is a little all over the place. However, Beeby seems to have a good grasp on Anderson’s character. The art suffers from stiffness not unlike the plot, unfortunately, but still looks detailed, and Villarrubia’s colors keep it eye popping and gorgeous.
Strontium Dog: The Son, Part 3
Continued belowCredits: John Wagner (script), Carlos Ezquerra (art), Ellie De Ville (letters)
Tom Shapira: This is intriguing. I was pretty sure I knew where this story was going, an old routine performed well by a master, but with this chapter John Wagner seems to be deepening his game a bit. You could chart this type of story in your sleep: the son of Jonny Alpha’s old partner is trying to insert himself into the bounty hunters’ life until Kenton (the titular son) does something to prove himself a worthy hair. But this is something else entirely. I’m not quite sure where he’s going and I like it!
In the last chapter the people of planet Protoz asked Alpha to save them from brutish immigrants (this is a troubling bit but I trust Wagner and Ezquerra have something a bit smarter in mind). Right off the bat Alpha refuses, quite soundly, to take the job of saving a whole planet, partly because it’s an insane request and partly because he’s got a different agenda for coming to Protoz. What’s more, his real quarry are aware that he’s after them. These new aliens are also the artistic highlight of the story, a truly bizarre design that seems to be closer in spirit to a strip like “Bad Company” to the more traditional “Strontium Dog.” Ezquerra keeps knocking it out the park, not only with some nice brutal action scenes but also with smaller personal touches: Johnny Alpha was always an enigma and various looks on his face as he considers his options are a joy to behold.
This strip just keeps on getting better.
