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: Machine Law, Part Three
Credits: John Wagner (script), Colin MacNeil (art), Chris Blythe (colors), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Rowan Grover: There’s a lot more action in this prog and a welcome return to the glib absurdism of old “Judge Dredd”. The political side of the story is continued on at the start, with Logan trying to humbly refuse Dredd’s offer for Chief Judge. There’s a neat little meta comment with Logan mentioning the number of times Dredd has turned down a supposedly once-in-a-lifetime offer. Following this, we get more of the enjoyably mellowed out take on our title character. Wagner still writes him with bite and cynicism, as when he discusses the ethics of robots getting to decide what criminals can be executed and where it can all go wrong. However, we see more of the wisened Dredd in the Inconvenience Store scene, the setting being the aptly named “The Uncooperative”. Wagner gets to stretch his legs here, creating a grocery store with rude and unpleasant employees. When the store is held up by criminals, we see Dredd defuse the situation in a peaceful manner, showing the character as a touch more human yet still bearing his grimacing visage, in a great payoff for the character’s long history.
MacNeil, as usual, portrays the dark city and it’s morally questionable denizens superbly. Opening the story with the usual array of towering spires and worn out cyberpunk architecture, MacNeil handles a lot of the emotion and conversations in silhouettes. It’s an interesting method, but what little we see off the characters conveys their meaning powerfully, as with Logan looking weary from the decision he’s had thrust upon him. There’s a lot of great moments that feel quiet but give a good sense of movement and action. The scenes of Harvey and Dredd riding through the city streets are desolate except for the buildings rushing past them, and feel intimate and interesting. Blythe’s colors are a great swathe of neons and greys, which look especially good lighting up the blues and rustic golds of the Judge precinct. I love his use of sickly greens in the Inconvenience Store as it gives a sense of unease to a place that should inspire such a feeling.
“Machine Law” part three revels in depicting an older and more restrained Judge Dredd, with some great travel sequences and emotions in the artwork, too.
Skip Tracer: Louder than Bombs, Part 7
Credits: James Peaty (script), Paul Marshall (art), Quinton Winter (colors), Ellie De Ville (letters).
Tom Shapira: This strip continues to frustrate me. Not because it’s bad, that I can deal with quite easily, but because it’s mediocre. ‘Bad’ is, at least, interesting to write about. “Skip Tracer” just seems like a generic idea of a 2000AD story rather a full one: it takes place in the future, in a crowded landscape full of interesting weirdoes, the main hero if a gruff and tough action guy who’s macho on the outside, because it’s a hard world that needs hard men, but actually cares about people (unlike the powers-that-be who are utterly callous to human suffering). It has all right notes for a good story but it fails to arrange them into proper music.
Seven chapters into the “Louder than Bombs” serial and I have little clue what is it that I’m supposed to feel about Nolan Blake, he’s a blank slate. 2000AD mainstays have not only an easily digestible concept but you can also sum their story in what they are looking for: Rogue Trooper wants revenge, Judge Dredd wants order, the gunsharks want money. Nolan Blake…. Blake obviously doesn’t want to be in this story, which means I don’t really want to read about him.
Part 7, at least, utilizes the talents of Paul Marshall in a slightly more interesting manner: the scene in which Blake takes over the minds of the henchmen that are meant to threaten him and turns them on their former boss is nicely framed. The way the panel cuts for a back view to a forward view as the hero shifts the situation in his favor (taking over the narrative, as it were) is good representation of the creepy potential in psychic powers, especially when it’s the good guy who has them. but that’s one scene; the rest of it stays in the traditional lane. Sure, it’s all very professional, but nothing more.
Continued below
Brink: High Society Part 18
Credits Dan Abnett (scrip) Inj Culbard (art) Simon Bowland (letters)
Michael Mazzacane: After the psychedelic binge of the past few strips, this nice calm debrief of a strip is a chance to sit back and take stock. Which leads to a biting but true line from Elane, about how conversations with Kurtis are always “depressing.” With the eccentric nature of previous strips I was waiting for a twist that Kurtis was still under the effects of the drugs, but that didn’t come. Instead she’s left sane and asking hard questions about everything that went down, questions others don’t want to consider.
Culbard sticks to the tried and true formal elements of the strip but in a more clearly relaxed manner. The espionage of the strip led to a level of artifice and awareness of how things are being presented. Kurtis’ debrief is relaxed. The perspective and framing within the paneling is just a hint looser, due in small part to the relaxed posture everyone has. In a series all about the crampt nature of living on a space station, this strip the features just three people in a single room talking feels wide open. The design of the room is in line with everything else, but Culbard smartly drops some of the extra lines to just give certain panels a single splash of color and imbue it with a wide open feeling.
That feeling of wide open space is also created due to how Culbard visually constructs the conversation. Gita is more often than not given corner panels and single close ups, interjecting bits of trivia and moving things along while Elane and Kurtis are shown to be the ones talking at one another the most. Kurtis meanwhile, fitting her reclined and bedded position is placed at the bottom of the page in wide panels.
The eighteenth edition of ‘High Society’ is a charming little rest bit as the series begins to spin its gears toward the next series.
Tharg’s 3Rillers Presents: Keeper of Secrets Part 3
Credits: Robert Murphy (script), Steven Austin (art), Pippa Mather (colors), Ellie De Ville (letters)
Greg Lincoln: This shock horror tale started out promisingly. Robert Murphy managed to define his main cast pretty well and few of them come off as empathetic, which is the biggest problem with this finale. Adelphi, Elliot and Jon arrive in time to save Jemima’s intended revenge victim. What we learned about the two characters and their “relationship” makes it hard to be happy the Numen was thwarted. ‘Keeper of Secrets’ part three does deliver a suitably bloody slasher horror moment when Delphi saves Jon from being dragged to the underworld. But beyond the shock and the unfairness of that mutilation, there in not much effect that the story has.
The art from Steven Austin and Pippa Mather, which until now has been pretty interesting at least, kind of slipped also. The detailed backgrounds that brought the earlier chapters to life are largely absent, as this part takes place mainly in the dig site from part one. Without that visual interest, the characters fall a little flat. Some of Mather’s colors, too, fell a bit short. The Numen and Delphi’s shin read far too similar, and was actually a bit off putting. The one sequence that really worked was the set up for the blood spatter scene. The panels building up to the brutal use of the skill saw set up all the elements when Adelphi “saves” Jon. It does not save what has become kind of a disappointing “3Riller,” but it does visually work.
Jaegir: Bonegrinder, Part 1
Credits: Gordon Rennie (script), Simon Coleby (art), Len O’Grady (colors), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Kent Falkenberg: Simon Coleby and Gordon Rennie get it. If you want to kick off a new arc of a futuristic military story, especially one that trades in equal doses of action and intrigue, you start with the frantic whirlwind of a sci-fi air cavalry blitzing into the frame. Before we really even know what this chapter is going to be about, ‘Bonegrinder, Part 1’ has dropped a half dozen of these transport hoppas into our laps. And a platoon of gas-masked troopers have put boots to the ground with the piercing crimson of their eyes being the only reprieve from the grimey, olive earth-tones that wash over the rest of the scene.
Continued belowIt’s a simple tactic to open this week’s reintroduction to the strip. But it’s effective. It’s an adrenaline blast that’s every bit the equal of the fireworks Coleby lets loose with over a half-page spread showing what happens when incoming ballistics make contact with the blast shields of the remote base that’s this arc’s namesake. Kapiten-Inspector Jaegir has been deployed to the Bonegrinder to apprehend a war criminal. Of course, her mission’s isn’t quite that simple, as it’s just as likely her superiors sent her on hunt she’s just as likely not going to come back from.
Coleby uses a realist style that’s just smudged and scuffed enough around the edges to effectively compliment the fact Rennie’s script is all about Jaegir’s team doing the dirty work in the midst of an even dirtier war. While there’s precision and clarity in his action and pacing, it’s still rough enough that one can feel the spray of blood and saliva when Sargeant Klaur starts throwing elbows and uppercuts.
‘Bonegrinder, Part 1’ is deceptively energetic. In fact, there’s little actual action in it. But Rennie structures his script to maximize it’s momentum. And Coleby frames his panels to either prioritize motion or emphasize impacts. As an opening salvo, it’s an absolute blast.
