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 Small House Part 4
Credits Rob Williams (script), Henry Flint (art), Chris Blythe (colors), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Greg Lincoln: Part four of ‘The Small House’ does a lot of small things that move the story forward, hopefully not to too speedy a conclusion. Williams satisfies our early suspicions, revealing that the stealth judges once “thwarted” by Dredd and Smiley are now in fact taking their orders from Smiley. We also get a hint that some of Dredd’s cadre might be feeling a little uncomfortable with their extra-curricular activities. Giants reference to them as a gang comes off as a little critical paring his dialogue with the expression on his face. Williams gives Chief Judge Hershey some quality screen time as the chapter opens and we get a taste of the burden of leadership is weighing on her. She mentions McGruder, the first female Chief Judge and weather you know the reference or not her distracted weary appearance in that moment speaks volumes.
In fact Henry Flint and Chris Blythe’s art across this entire chapter carry a lot of the characters emotions home. They well communicated Judge Sam’s joy for his success against the stealth Judges. You get how oppressive Hershey feels the burden of leadership. They give you the impression that Smiley was more affected by the spillage of his tea then the failure of the stealth judges. In Dredd’s questioning of Dirty Frank, the Wally Judges facial reaction shown by Flint and Blythe says much more then his simple denial in the text. They even made Sensitive Klegg’s toothy maw expressive in his diatribe about his time as Mayor. Their art gives the background characters real presence.
Their characterful faces do bring something disappointing also home though. Many of the people around Dredd in this story have had little personal agency. Giant, Maitland and to some extent Sam are kind of window dressing for the bigger story. Hopefully this arc will be long enough to give them some time to be more then that.
Brink: High Society Part 4
Credits Dan Abnett (scrip) Inj Culbard (art) Simon Bowland (letters)
Michael Mazzacane: The fourth entry in ‘High Society’ gets bloody as things get messier and messier. Which is an apt metaphor for a strip about maids acting as corporate spooks. It’s just a normal sweep for Sinta until she actually finds a nano listening device. This is the real executive suites, so of course they are immaculate. Culbard upped the intensity of his colors by having everything set against a bright white or all encompassing light blue. It made the rest of the furniture, and to a degree maid uniforms, seem even more high class. Until someone gets blood all over it.
The representation of blood in this strip is interesting, by treating it a non-diagetic and minimizing it through framing. The initial blood splatter from Blasco’s shot is treated as spraying out towards the reader, which is an excellent effect. All the red dots in the end look like they hit a glass window of sorts and are separate from the comic panel proper. As the body lays there, the characters orange-red suit helps to hide it, but Culbard also minimizes view of the body. He doesn’t make a spectacle of the dead body, the emphasis is always on the characters reacting to the body. Which makes storytelling sense, they are the ones we will spend the most time with. This minimization also helps to preserve the high class and pristine style of the executive suite, no matter what it will be spotless.
This bright and clean look is contrasted in the final pages by Sinta and a contacts evening chat. He colors it almost like Taki Soma would by limiting things to 3 or 4 colors. It is a sudden shift that gives everything a noir vibe. The color palette’s mood matches the content of Sinta’s chat as things are only going to get messier and messier.
Continued below
Fiends of the Eastern Front 1812: Part 4
Credits: Ian Edington (script), Dave Taylor (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters).
Tom Shapira: This week we get more of Constanta’s backstory, or at least his version of it (he could be lying through his fangs). It’s interesting that the creators are going with a version of vampires that is a bit more mythical in nature than what we’ve gotten used to throughout the years – vampires have been so ‘normalized’ as monsters, all the tropes have been codified throughout popular culture, that they are hardly ever surprising, let alone scary.
In fact, between the more demonic origin story and the inclusion of the Baba Yaga this story seems to be reaching deep into Hellboy territory; not that I’m complaining – it’s a good place to be and stylistically fits within the purview of 2000AD while retaining enough of its own sense of identity. Dave Taylor’s art remains as strong as ever, it gets better the more it approaches the horror direction – from the witches’ ceremony to the travel through the deep and dark woods – he seems fully engaged with this world. I just hope they are going to push the pedal to the metal and give us some more gory violence in the coming weeks.
If I have a major complaint it is that D’Hubert remains somewhat dry as a protagonist: we get to see his more religious side here, quoting from the bible, but it would seem nothing unusual for a man from this time period and location; why does he not react more strongly to the revelation that hell is real? Why does he not engage with the facts before him that the devil is operating in the physical world while God is seemingly absent? The strip doesn’t have to answer these question but it does need to do something more interesting with him other than provide narration. Give him something to do other than being an anchor.
Skip Tracer: Legion, Part Four
Credits: James Peaty (script) Colin MacNeil (art), Dylan Teague (Colors) Ellie De Ville (letters)
Rowan Grover: Nolan is kinda-sorta reunited with an old flame in this prog. “Skip Tracer” delves back into the weird psychic dreamscape at the end of last issue, starting with a Nolan’s Dad as a giant, floating stone head summoning swarms of undead to stop Nolan as he spots brilliant lines like “NOT EMBARRASSED BY YER OLD MAN, ARE YA?”. However, Peaty reintroduces Selby, Nolan’s once-romantic interest as a psychic entity/ghost mentor to guide him through this landscape. I love that Peaty has her stating her mission statement almost immediately, declaring that she’s a form of Nolan’s guilty conscience haunting him over her death. Peaty lands the issue with a classic sci-fi twist, feeling like a classic Future Shock as we see the villain scheming to completely map Nolan’s unique mind. It’s campy, but combined with the psychedelic aesthetic, it works pretty well.
MacNeil works well with negative space and big, bold figures in this issue. The first sequence is suitable trippy. The way that Nolan’s father’s head streams a flow of rocks and earth from the ground as he floats above it visually looks fantastic and super distinctive. Even the zombies that the head summons work well. Although they’re pretty generic, MacNeil gives them a very solid, Kirby-like feel as they rush over Nolan. The starkness of the environment gives a very desolate feel, too, and leave a lot of room for colorist Ellie De Ville to go wild. There’s a lot of great textured gradients clashing with the neon sci-fi highlights, like in the gateway to Kennan’s mind. It’s such a visually distinctive book, and both the artists work well to achieve this.
I’m a little sad that it seems we’re leaving this absurd dreamscape already, but “Skip Tracer” still delivers satisfying twists and great high concept artwork.
Kingdom: Alpha and Omega, Part 4
Credits: Dan Abnett (script), Richard Elson (art), Abigail Bulmer (colours), Ellie de Ville (letters)
Kent Falkenberg: It’s fitting that Gene spends the entirety of ‘Alpha and Omega, Part 4’ tied to a tree with with arms and legs splayed wide into an X. Dan Abnett and Richard Elson use their time to start intersecting the paths of the various groups we’ve been following so far.
And while this installment might not crackle with the same philosophic flourish the Abnett delivered last week, there’s a hellacious ambush scene that really lets Elson cut loose. Battle axes swing far across the page, escaping panel boundaries in the process, while bloody wounds explode off of limbs and faces. It’s an intense moment that continually ups the tension by, pulling back to show Gene bound and helpless.
As the story continues, it’s becoming apparent that Abnett is switching back and forth between more action-oriented strips and more idea-based ones. It’s clever pacing and allows both himself and Elson to play to their strengths. ‘Alpha and Omega, Part 4’ is another strong addition to the “Kingdom” cannon.
