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 Seven
Credits: John Wagner (script), Colin MacNeil (art), Chris Blythe (colors), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Rowan Grover: “Machine Law” is in the heat of action at the moment with the march ongoing. Wagner documents the issue as a series of events leading to the meeting of the former Council of Five and Judge Logan, and instruments Dredd’s shift of alignment and intervention. It works almost like a Rube Goldberg machine, with Beeny using a nearby kid to phone an emergency call to Dredd, who then manages to make his way to Logan’s room around the same time as the Council in a satisfying moment of synchronicity. Not only this, but we slowly start to see all the doubts in Dredd’s mind that have been planted over the last few chapters come to fruition. The revelation that the Council plan to take Logan into custody seems to slowly snap Dredd to reality, who then meets up with other Judges and seemingly reaffirms his support of Logan’s law. It’s satisfying to see such an unchanging character shift focus in this way, and Wagner makes it all organic.
Having the entire magazine open with an overhead shot of the march is a powerful panel for MacNeil to start with, but it’s great at immediately grabbing readers’ attentions. The whole scene is a great Where’s Waldo-esque scene of discerning clever and biting protest signs, and the composition of the title card below the final member of the protest is really striking. Later on, we get a scene with a few other Judges, and MacNeil seems to slap the same disgruntled expression Dredd bears on all of them, making it hard to fully discern them regardless of the lack of his trademark protruding chin. Blythe does solid work here, painting a hazy daylight palette for the march to take place on. It’s a little confusing since the last issue seemed to have the sun setting, but his lighter palette still feels appropriately dramatic.
“Machine Law” is building up to an even bigger conflict now that Dredd has made his position concrete. Character work is great, and the art composition is clean and superb, making this a fun chapter to check out.
Skip Tracer: Louder than Bombs, Part 11
Credits: James Peaty (script), Paul Marshall (art), Quinton Winter (colors), Ellie De Ville (letters).
Tom Shapira: the central scene in this week’s chapter involves a bad guy knocking down the protagonist when he has all the reasons in the world to kill him quickly. Not only does Hesh, who’ve been building up for the better part of two months, choses a stun shot when lead would be just as fine, he also starts takes a short time to gloat before pushing the button.
That’s either charmingly old-school or a trope that should’ve disappear in a post-Watchmen world; whatever your opinion on this matter it reflects how you take to “Skip Tracer” – a serial very much deep in familiar science fiction ideas presented anew. Much of 2000AD main characters are like that, the creators never hid their tendency to borrow or even steal from what is popular around to build up their own ideas; the problem is that Skip Tracer, both the strip and the character lack the proper hook that makes others memorable.
It’s a rather slow story that’s centered around a rather boring guy. If the world around him is not interesting by itself, if it has nothing new to offer, then the story has nothing new to offer. It’s a re-hash. An expertly made re-hash, I really like Quinton Winter’s color work separating the scenes involving psychic powers from the sunset haze of the real-world scenes and you’ll never catch me say a bad word about Ellie De Ville’s lettering, but there has to be more for a strip to go on as long as this one has.
Continued below
Tharg’s 3Rillers Presents: Tooth and Nail Part 2
Credits: Andi Ewington(script), Staz Johnson (art), Abigail Bulmer (colors, Simon Bowland (letters)
Greg Lincoln: The mob interrogation/intimidation continues for the character we now know as Mr. Ha in this issue. Andi Ewington uses the abusive questing to re-introduce the plot points and the assassinations from the opening of the story again. He adds some information about the men that were killed but otherwise we learn little more this time around. We are pretty much as hapless as the narrator though as the ramp of the torture looks to be in the horizon. Ewington gives no clue as to what the expected twist ending might be or how the dog fits into the overall story. He does introduce the person at the top of the mod doing the interrogation though and hints that they/she knows of the assassin called “the nail.”
Abigail Bulmer and Staz Johnson make good use of the visual comics medium in the storytelling here. Given there is little in terms of revelation they mainly shows us the violence the occurred in the restaurant and the aftermath. They make the retelling visually interesting especially with the twelve panel page that sets up the readers mind to fill in the violence in the sound effect only panels. Thinking in terms of the film the staging, camera angles, and lighting that Bulmer and Johnson achieved create a great tense, oppressive mood for the interrogation scenes. The introduction of the tool roll in closeup did more the amp the tension the actual images of torture would have. It was an effective display of show over tell in terms of storytelling.
Grey Area: Hunted and The Grey and The Black
Credits Dan Abnett (scrip) Mark Harrison (art) Ellie De Ville (letters)
Michael Mazzacane: ‘Hunted’ from Prog 2120 understandably carries much of the formal considerations from the previous strip, this time however it largely works and is to the strips narrative benefit. As in the previous strip, “Grey Space” jumps across several distant locations using all manner of future communications, except this time everything is far more readable. Maybe it’s the come down from all the action as various Area security agencies jokey for position on what went down while Kymn and Face try to find a way out of this mess that allows the strip to catch its breath.
Artistically Harrison’s page design sensibilities are still in tact as pages are littered with panels atop panels. He dose achieve a better sense of pace this time around due to the use of a weak psychic character as comedic relief that lands more often than not. Harrison also smartly breaks down a conversation between Kymm and Lord Bingo into a series of vertical panels laid against larger horizontal ones. These small vertically stacked panels make for nice visual contrast and build a sense of perspective as one another speaks. Using panels in this way also presages how the cutaways the black ops section of the strip works. ‘Hunted’ is an overall more functional strip that helps to reposition the narrative going forward.
Mark Harrison’s layered page designs are in full effect as Kymm’s call for back up is violently interrupted. Harrison creates a chaotic sense of energy by having the attackers and their victims miss matched and facing all manner of direction on the page. The page has a clear left to right reading line but with guns and bodies scattered in opposite directions it adds a faint sense of tension to things. That readable chaos is turning me around on this strips after a rough introduction. That sense of visual chaos is also quickly balanced with some repartee between Kymm and Lord Bingo as they hypothetically discuss some illegal firearms.
As Face engages the attackers Harrison creates a beautiful page of action and flames. For this sequence to make sense, it cannot be the readable chaos of previous pages but something more concrete and geographically specific. Harrison manages this while keeping the page feeling open ended by using the flames to form the reading line. The flames cut through and unite the page in a blazing ‘Z’ like pattern as Face out wits Zitmund. A similar, if less extravagant, example of this continues on the next page.
Continued below‘The Grey and The Black’ brings this set of strips to a nice close and lays the foundation for what is to come. Everyone is back together again, hopefully they can survive the reunion.
Jaegir: Bonegrinder, Part 5
Credits: Gordon Rennie (script), Simon Coleby (art), Len O’Grady (colors), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Kent Falkenberg: Rarely have things felt as dour as they do now for Kapiten Jaegir. Even when battles were at their grimiest, Dan Abnett and Simon Coleby gave the proceedings a distinct bombastic verve that injected it all with a sense that somehow there would be someway to punch, kick, claw or scratch out of the darkness. But there’s no such sense this week. ‘Bonegrinder, Part 5’ is a tale of defeat.
It’s apt that one of the last panels we see is that of a boot pressing down violently across Jaegir’s throat. Even more evocative is the fact that we see only the boot. For a strip where Abnett spends his time following Jeagir’s allies dejectedly leaving her side and enemy troops collapsing in, it says more about the thematic thrust of the arc. That boot doesn’t just belong to the soldier in front of her, it also belongs to those snakes on her own side who’s machinations delivered her into this situation in the first place. And in that sense the sentiment is as suffocating as Coleby’s art makes the thick tread feel.
‘Bonegrinder, Part 5’ might be one of the darkest moments in Jaegir’s life. Rennie and Coleby fully commit their talents to showing just how alone she’s been left and just how crushing this defeat can seem.
