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 Four
Credits: John Wagner (script), Colin MacNeil (art), Chris Blythe (colors), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Rowan Grover: The mainline “Dredd” story continues to deal with some of the more discussion-heavy political sides of the universe. Wagner gives the old Chief Judge Hershey a quiet send-off, as she and Dredd ponder the future whilst looking over the city skyline, where Hershey also slyly asks if this is where he comes to brood. Wagner also paints the new Chief Judge Logan as an interesting and surprising character. Having appeared hesitant and humble when Dredd proposed the idea of his promotion, he now appears to have decisively come up with a plan for his tenure, immediately choosing to wipe out the old Council of Five and replace them with new members. He now appears deadly and strategic, especially given his choice to include the robot judge Harvey on the council. Wagner uses this conflict between personalities to keep readers on their toes. Should we be worried about Logan, and his pro-robotic ideals? Read on and find out, Wagner dares.
MacNeil’s slick style always impresses me but feels a little too static in a script mostly dealing with dialogue and debates. It works for the first scene, as Judge Dredd looks almost melancholic standing still in the shadows of the precinct. During the press conference for Logan’s promotion to Chief Judge, a lot of what we see is just people in the same poses repeated over and over. There are some subtle differences in Logan’s facial expression, especially when he talks about heavier topics, but it doesn’t stand out a lot. I love how MacNeil renders Dredd’s silhouette on the final page, though. We don’t see facial details, but the body language conveys rage and annoyance superbly, which is cemented through the dialogue. Blythe works with mostly melancholic blue palettes throughout this story, giving it an overall somber tone. This feels especially significant in the press conference scene, which should be celebratory but feels muted and solemn because of this palette choice, leading to some interesting storytelling choices.
This prog of “Judge Dredd” takes some time to flesh out the political side of the story. It’s a little slower but shows the core cast as more complex, however, the art feels a little lacking compared to previous progs.
Brink: High Society Part 19
Credits Dan Abnett (scrip) Inj Culbard (art) Simon Bowland (letters)
Michael Mazzacane: This addition of “Brink” comes to a satisfying teased filled end as Abnett and Culbard setup what book four could be. Kurtis has to find out what actually happened during the Mercury Event. Their little chat with Anoor also provides the series a surprisingly good fusion of sci fi and cosmic horror, two ideas that could sound father apart.
Culbard changes the art style up a little bit in this final strip. He use more shading and the line work is less exacting, more cartooned. This shift in style transforms Anoor’s cell into more of an expressionist backdrop as Anoor explains some fittingly weird stuff to Kurtis and Gibrani. While the lines are less precise they are still quite expressive, there is a lot of emphasis put on Anoor’s bald head and the shifts in his brow. The first page of this final strip features him from only the nose up. Culbard finds a nice amount of range in Anoor’s limited movements, using small tweaks and twists to have him go from a playful wry smile to something more sinister. Those tweaks are mostly from how Culbard changed the coloring, with an overall lower color palette with more blending and shading. These changes help to heighten the vaguely ominous warnings Anoor gives Kurtis and Gibrani.
Functionally it isn’t the most exciting strip but Culbard’s strong line and precise line work gave everything a very organized feel. The color play is eye catching but this strip is looser, although fitting given the subject matter as things begin to become unmoored from the old reality. Where this final strip shines is how it handles plot and setup, Abnett has shown a strong sense of pace and structure throughout all of “Brink” to keep readers continually wanting more. Now it leaves me wanting more, and no clue as to when the fourth book will be published in the pages of “2000 A.D.”
Continued below
Skip Tracer: Louder than Bombs, Part 8
Credits: James Peaty (script), Paul Marshall (art), Quinton Winter (colors), Ellie De Ville (letters).
Tom Shapira: in this chapter we finally get to meet the Children of Fury – and if you are shocked to discover the rebels living literally underneath society might be the good guys while the corporate overlords in their raised-glass monstrosities are the bad guys…. Well you’ve probably missed out on quite a lot of science fiction stories in the last half century; some of which are quite good.
After being shot in last week’s chapter Nolan Blake stumbles to the house of one the few friends he has left – and also into a world of troubles. This strip offers some variation with the visuals: a quasi-nightmare quasi-vision scene allows Paul Marshall and Quinton Winter to play a bit with layouts and texture of scenes; the bit with Blake losing consciousness and face in front of him morphing into a skeleton is a particularly nice touch (I’m sure Mike Mignola would approve). None of this stuff is particularly revolutionary, but it is a nice change of pace from how visually un-inventive the world of “Skip Tracer” had been so far. More floating eyeballs, less people talking in small rooms!
I would really like to see more of this dreamscape-stuff in general – the character is psychic; the strip should go the distance with it. the art team is certainly game for wilder take whenever given the options. Just give them more interesting stuff to draw.
Grey Area: Whistleblower
Credits: Dan Abnett (script), Mark Harrison (art), Ellie De Ville (letters)
Greg Lincoln: As a long running strip, “Grey Area: Whistleblower” has a lot of history behind it. Dan Abnett managed, as well as could be imagined, to communicate a little of the context and nuance o the social science fiction story he has been telling. Abnett keeps the storytelling fairly straight forward by focusing on the one dimensional bigoted leader of the Black Ops unit, Grell and his set up for a snatch and grab mission. He and his two trusted cronies use all the manipulative jingoistic terms to describe the situation and if your a new reader it’s as obvious to you as it is to Krym, the foil in the story, that there is something wrong with the set up. Abnett’s word choice tells you a lot about these characters, comfort with the idea of rendition, scragging, Black Ops, obedience app and body disposal tells you that Grell, Lang and Zitmund and no heroes. It’s an effective hook of a story that hints at much more to come.
The art from Mark Harrison is complex layered and rich in details. He has a very stylized sense of character and design that has given “Grey Area” a very distinct look. Though his panels are packed with interesting elements he manages not to make pages feel over worked or crowded. His bold color choices on the page create a hook the draws the eye and he includes a lot to find on his pages making it worth looking. It’s also interesting just how much he can give characters “expression” through their body language.
Jaegir: Bonegrinder, Part 2
Credits: Gordon Rennie (script), Simon Coleby (art), Len O’Grady (colors), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Kent Falkenberg: Tank attacks and troops battling it out in the muck – ‘Bonegrinder, Part 2’ gives Atalia Jaegir a crash course in just exactly how the remote outpost got it’s name. And, under Gordon Rennie and Simon Coleby’s command, it more than lives up to the name.
While Rennie’s script might not unearthing any riveting new acts in the theater of war, it does enough to show Jaegir taking control of the base and struggling somewhat to keep from being overwhelmed by the intensity of it all. After successfully keeping the enemy surge at bay, Rennie sinks a hook in to keep the momentum up for another strip – these surges never stop coming. And she’s only got 3 hours to regroup.
Where ‘Bonegrinder, Part 2’ really succeeds though is in capturing the stressful, claustrophobic nature of being under siege in that way. The panels of her, deep within the base, a smaller and more cramped in comparison to the more horizontally sprawling images of the armored tanks rolling in. Coleby carefully controls the tension through the contrast of what’s happening within the base and the chaos taking place on it’s doorstep. And while chaotic it might be, there’s such a clarity in his art that you never feel lost even though the action between tanks and troops and satellites raining down ballistics on the base’s blast shield.
Rennie and Coleby spread an intense battle sequence across ‘Bonegrinder, Part 2.’ The pace has picked up considerably from the first strip. This second one is a clear indication it probably won’t let up until a considerably number of both sides are ground into dust.
