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 6
Credits Rob Williams (script), Henry Flint (art), Chris Blythe (colors), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Greg Lincoln: Rob Williams delivers some very interesting history and insight into Judge Sam in this part. He gives us insight into who the Brit-Cit tech wizard transplant to Mega-City one is, how he is connected to Dredd and why Dredd trusts and relies on him. Williams also, much like last chapter, extracts a price for giving a character other then Dredd agency. Much like with Kazan clone’s last week Sam’s spotlight on the stage looks to have cost him his life. The story comes off as more tell then show but at least for Sam it works as it gives us a deeper knowledge of who he is. The rest of the narration also comes off as more tell then show. The dialogue suffers for that as it comes off as rather flat and emotionless even though the characters are way more visually animated then the intensity of their words. Perhaps Williams’s word choice is just a bit off and doesn’t seem like what people might say. Another aspect of this week that doesn’t quite work are the deep references to “Judge Dredd” history. Mentioning the early 2100’s, the Apocalypse War, Judge Cal and specificity 2103 might mean a lot to people with an encyclopedic memory of the stories but in general it feels more like as a reader there is something overwhelming that your missing.
Henry Flint and Chris Blyth created a kind of mixed bag of pages and panels for this part. The panels showing Sam’s memories were very effective. The slightly fuzzed out images distinguished them from the rest of the story and meshed well with his voiceover narration. A lot of their little details throughout are pretty amazing. They put a lot of effort into the uniforms and particularly the eagle shoulders in this part. The overall panels are pretty rich artistically but some of their faces are just a little flat and odd at times. They are not bad but given the rest of the attention to the art those few odd shots just stand out.
Skip Tracer: Legion, Part Six
Credits: James Peaty (script) Colin MacNeil (art), Dylan Teague (Colors) Ellie De Ville (letters)
Rowan Grover: “Skip Tracer” gets a little confusing, but makes some satisfying plot developments in part six. With the Legion entity out and loose, the physical world has become a little more chaotic, and Peaty seems to make it intertwine with the psychic when Kennan and Nolan regain consciousness and work together. It’s an interesting idea, however, I’m not totally sure if that’s what happened or what happened at all, as it’s not explicitly stated in the narrative. However, Peaty does make Legion a terrifying anomaly to behold, as it possesses the soldiers in the real world and incinerates those that it doesn’t need. Nolan’s comeback at the end of the issue is also satisfying, but again, due to the confusion earlier on, doesn’t quite work as well as it should.
MacNeil does some expressive work here whenever rendering the chaotic, dark energy of Legion. The inking is soupy and spreads throughout each panel with a mess of weaving tendrils. The use of negative space in the psychic realm also does help to distinguish it from the real world, leading to a clearer visual distinction in the crossover scene. The inky shadows look ethereal and don’t ground the characters as much as the physical objects do in the real world. Teague’s colors here are a washed, eerie teal shade which ramps up the psychic and sci-fi nature of the story perfectly. The textured shading, especially in the psychic realm, looks otherworldly and super interesting.
“Skip Tracer” starts to trip somewhat in this chapter, but still delivers on some solid story beats and great art. The narrative isn’t super clear in what is happening in some sections, but the visuals manage to tell the story well on its behalf.
Continued below
Brink: High Society Part 6
Credits Dan Abnett (scrip) Inj Culbard (art) Simon Bowland (letters)
Michael Mazzacane: Part 6 of ‘High Society’ picks up where we left off last week, Sinta and Shirley staring down the flashlight of Mr. Blasco. It was a tense and surprisingly cliff hanger way to end things, here it’s taken care of within a page per “2000 A.D.” norm. The quick clean up Dan Abnett and Inj Culbard do gives the maximum page space to the real meat of the strip: Sinta meeting the head of H.R. Joel Tillerson.
This being a corporate spy thriller, meeting H.R. likely isn’t the best thing, but the tension in this strip isn’t from the fear of being caught it’s the fear that Tillerson will do something licentious with inherent power inbalance between them. Inj Culbard’s art really cares this strip as he plays the body language of Sinta off Joel’s. There isn’t a total disconnect between what their body language and their words but there is a tension. Joel is just way to easy going, his new agey approach to HR of thinking about the people seems way to out of step for “Brink.”
Simon Bowland’s lettering is excellent in this strip, he accentuates phrasing in Abnett’s script that gets the maximum level of awkward tension out of it.
Culbard also brings a different color palette to Tillerson’s office. Past strips were noir inspired in their moody coloring. Others had ultra-pristine primary colors with maximum saturation. Here, everything is given an awkward yellow tone, like the shade of light you put in a lizard cage. The shade of yellow mixed with greens and garish oranges turn the environment into dingy 70s affair. Culbard’s art lacks texture but it has all the other components of an itchy couch that won’t ever let you sit comfortably.
Fiends of the Eastern Front 1812: Part 6
Credits: Ian Edington (script), Dave Taylor (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters).
Tom Shapira: This is, technically, the end of the current storyline. “Technically” because what we have here is just a small break, the fiends will return in two months’ time, and a set up for the rest of the strip in which D’Hubert will probably play a more major role. I am in two minds about this direction: one the one hand I complained throughout the whole storyline about D’Hubert was rather a wet blanket who added nothing much to the story other than grounded POV – so giving him room to develop is certainly fine by me. On the other hand, this seems to involve ditching the set-up which was of the more interesting things about this strip.
It’s possible that the next storyline would contain similarly fertile ground, with protagonists that are basically immortal and the mandate of ‘war story’ they can choose almost in period in any location (which probably says something really disgusting about humanity). But the ultimate problem of “1812” is that it hardly explored that ground – the story quickly, too quickly, found a narrow focus and excuted it. The main characters were detached from the war itself and the bad blood that animated this conflicted ultimately had very little to do with Napoleonic invasion of Russia, which seems like a wasted potential if there ever was one.
Still, I ended up liking the story: for being a well-executed tale of bloody revenge, I am naturally down to these, and for featuring some really lovely Dave Taylor art. Taylor is one of the best working for 2000AD right now and, more important to me, beyond the sheer skill he has a personal and very indefinable style that gives his story a sense of difference. To see his work is to know his work, to immediately know the type of world he is presenting. A rare gift that should be given more room to grow.
Kingdom: Alpha and Omega, Part 6
Credits: Dan Abnett (script), Richard Elson (art), Abigail Bulmer (colours), Ellie de Ville (letters)
Kent Falkenberg: Those expecting an extreme hack-and-slash response to Gene’s newly regained freedom in ‘Alpha and Omega, Part 6’ might be disappointed. Tougher and tough as he might be, Gene takes a much more measured approach.
Continued belowDan Abnett’s script gives Gene the chance to voice a much more philosophical and pragmatic view of what his freedom means in the context of his world. “Gene could end the war in favour of the Masters, or of Them, or of the Ticks,” he expounds, before finally landing on the crux of his own motivation. “In all of this long war, however it ends, who will stand up for the Aux.”
‘Alpha and Omega, Part 6’ is not all pontificating though. Richard Elson lets Gene cut loose with all the anger and aggression that’s been pent up over the past weeks. A particularly large panel centers Gene on the page as he savagely eviscerates a wild Them. It’s as emphatic and energetic, as it is indicative of his mindset. And it’s especially telling that when Gene pronounces the extent of his own power, Elson frames the panel by looking upwards at the Hackman, while he holds a severed head in his grasp as if it were nothing more than debris clogging his path.
Abnett and Elson continue their streak of thematically rich strips. All is well in their unwell kingdom.
