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: Unearthed, Part Two
Credits: Rob Williams and Chris Weston (script), Patrick Goddard (art), Chris Blythe (colors), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Rowan Grover: Williams and Weston wrap up their short, comedic, yet powerful two-parter in this week’s prog. Their characterization of the delightfully villainous Krassilnikov is perhaps my favorite part of the story, making quips related to his zombie-fueled hunger like “YOU’LL SOON BE REUNITED WITH YOUR VASSALS… IN THE BELLIES OF MY MEN!” and using one of the archaeologist’s hammer as a blatant symbolist weapon. Williams and Weston deliver a super determined and tenacious Dredd in this prog, as he fights tooth and nail to stop Krassilnikov from striking on Mega-City One. It’s made even more moving by how quickly the events are set in motion, and Dredd calls to the Judge’s base to launch missiles upon his location, seemingly sacrificing himself. Williams and Weston deliver a great finish as Krassilnikov, crashed and supposedly defeated, looks upon the wreckage of Mega-City One and weeps, claiming that the Sovs won the Apocalypse War all along, before Dredd shoots him in the head. It’s a great way to have readers question the state of affairs for the city, and how much has changed for the setting in the publisher’s history.
Goddard delivers some truly cinematic moments in this story. The opening pages have a lot of them contained within panels, like the shot of the Sov ship lifting up from the dig site below, or Krassilnikov smashing in Dave D. Digger’s head. What follows is a great, tactile fight scene between Dredd and Krassilnikov, as Goddard gets truly down and dirty. There’s wrestling here that feels reminiscent of early Kirby work, with dynamic camera positioning to make the action more intense. Goddard even utilizes the fact that Krassilnikov is a zombie, having him take bites out of Dredd’s flesh. Chris Blythe also delivers some radiant colors, adding to the movie-like look of the story. The glowing of the Sov’s ship and the fires that eventually consume it are mesmerizing, especially as the fires consume all the color in the prog, leaving the rest of the story’s palette drab and grey, fitting in with the narrative themes.
“Unearthed” was a great, super-fast action piece from a bunch of creators right within their element. Williams and Weston provide great character work and clashes, while Goddard and Blythe pump up the cinematic aspect and deliver hyper-kinetic fight scenes.
Kingmaker: Oroborous Part 3
Credits: Ian Edginton(script), Leigh Gallagher (art), Ellie De Ville (letters)
Greg Lincoln: Having not read the initial Kingmaker Story I can only assume that the events of this week’s meeting between the invaders and Lord Tycho, the father of Princess Yarrow, follows out of the first arc. Any minor confusion that you may have with the story of Kingmaker this time around is most certainly offset by the amazing art and world presented by Leigh Gallagher, Ian Edginton and Ellie De Ville. They shows us the forces of the Thorne, their internal power struggles, and their on-world allies. Edginton explains they background of the invaders and their history with dialogue that is a little awkward but in the whole entertaining. Duke Eschatus, the leader of the invading force, explains in no uncertain terms the objective of the resource invasion, also he fires the opening shot in a coup that the leader has ultimately had planned. The story is a solid introduction to a new aspect of the story but the art is where this part really shines.
The planet-scapes seen from space, the space palace set a great scene to open this very different moment in the tale. The character design in this part are compelling enough to overcome the lack of context we really have for them. The art really shines in the Duke’s facial expressions, they are subtly and devilishly manipulative. Gallagher also delivers some well choreographed action to balance out all the talking heads scenes necessary for the story.
Continued below
Survival Geeks: Dungeons & Dating (Basic), part 3
Credits: Gordon Rennie & Emma Beeby (script), Neil Googe (art), Gary Caldwell (colors), Annie Parkhouse (letters).
Tom Shapira: This is a comedy strip, in theory at least, but I’m just not laughing (why yes – the girlfriendless geeks fondest wish is to be surrounded by beautiful babes – hardy har har). All the jokes here are familiar Dungeons & Dragons and nerd-fodder that were tired in the beginning of this decade, nevermind now that mass culture has basically taken a shine to them.
The dramatic stuff is a bit more workable – I have trouble getting into it because the characters are so broadly drawn, but there is an attempt to make something out of the broken relationship between Sam and Simon. I am not quite sure where the creators are going with this, especially considering Sam’s avatar-construct is the one who’s trying to break them up, but there appear to be some honesty to the writing here.
Googe and Caldwell’s art remains the best thing about this strip: towards the end Sam and Simon find themselves separated with Simon being able to observe but not intervene as his would-be girlfriend explain how much on a brink they are; there’s a solid bit of character acting on both parties there, as well a good use of build-up tension as Sam in unaware of the monster creeping up on here.
“Survival Geeks” fails to inspire, but thanks to art it manages to entertain.
Max Normal: How the Max Got His Stripes, Part 2
Credits: Guy Adams (script), Dan Cornwall (art), Jim Boswell (colours), Simon Bowland (letters)
Kent Falkenberg: Where last week’s introductory chapter had a juicy elegiac atmosphere, ‘How the Max Got His Stripes, Part 2″ feels a touch more formulaic. Guy Adams and Dan Cornwall shelve some of their broader ideas – generational gaps, timelessness, the specter of one’s past – in favor of an opening volley in the burgeoning conflict between Max and his (extremely) youthful opponents.
That’s not to say there’s not fun to be had. The bulk of this installment finds Max and Vito on the run from a clothing press reprogrammed with malicious and deadly intent. It’s a ridiculous conceit, and it’s played our wonderfully by Cornwall’s art. Using smooth lines and crystal clear panel composition, Cornwall finds a clever balance between the flailing, exaggerated movements of the steamer’s telescopic lines and bulbous, antennae-like eyes and the under-reactive calm of a man trying, above-all, the remain cool in the face of all this chaos.
And while this sequence plays out with jaunty glee, Adam’s script tempers it with a quick moment of backstory in the violent lives of the Earl twins. Sure, the image of a toddling gangsters – blaster firing in one hand, soother clutched tightly in the other – matches the irreverent tone being played up this week. But the unsettling image of their lifeless father, drunken lout that’s he drawn to look like, with a dead-eyes and a gaping red wound in his forehead lands a much more jarring punch.
Overall though, “How the Max Got His Stripes, Part 2” fails to match the rhythmic lilt from the first part. It does move along at a lively enough pace. However, one can’t shake the sense Adams and Cornwall are forcibly pushing the story ahead instead of letting it amble along at Max’s own pace.
Grey Area: Making History Part 3
Credits: Dan Abnett (scrip) Mark Harrison (art) Ellie De Ville (letters)
Michael Mazzacane: I wouldn’t consider “Grey Area” a joke or comedy strip in the way I approach Dredd strips, however, you can’t doubt writer Dan Abnett is having some fun when he opens the third part of ‘Making History’ with one of Grell’s lackeys proclaiming that they are “frickin’ compromised!” To which our shady blacks opsman replies “No shit.” Before ordering the execution of Mike-Drop protocol.
The normal panel dense art from artist Mark Harrison effectively uses the visual chaos created by throwing all of these panels in a tight space to create the tense image of standoff between Bullit, Face, and Grell and manage to be readable. The readability of his imagery is aided by Ellie De Ville’s lettering for Grell’s speech, stringing together three word balloons that help the readers eye glide across the page and not get stuck in the conflicting images. One of the small highlight panels is a view of Bullit from a perspective completely opposite the main one, violating the 180 degree rule, but with that image mixed together with several other headshots it creates a larger collage of tension, echoing the near constant cutting during standoff in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Abnett’s dialog meanwhile undercuts that sense of tension by having Grell quickly surrender without a fight. For a series that I’ve often criticized for being too visually messy, everything comes together in this third of a page near perfectly.
The rest of the strip is fairly standard, a multi layered rundown of what Grell and his compatriots plans really where. Overall it ends this arc on a nice note and sets things up for the next batch. In that rundown, however, there is something missing: Kymn, or at least some sort of personal fallout. Harrison leans into images of large devastation but the toll and cost on the core cast are subsumed by the need to exposit the new intergalactic order. An order that has made Earth far more important.
