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: End of Days, Part Eight
Credits: Rob Williams (script), Henry Flint (art), Chris Blythe (colours), Simon Bowland (letters)
Michael Mazzacane: Things are going from bad to worse, as they tend to do in these kinds of stories, after the Judges unleash a series of ancient deadly plagues in an foolhardy attempt to eradicate the enemy. I have to admit despite knowing that this strip was produced well in advance it does not make reading it any easier. Although in one of the next stories, if they say one of the ones released is COVID-19, it would elicit a dark chuckle from me. That feeling of sliding down hill is to the strip’s benefit as it tries to thread the needle between pushing plot and trying to do something more. I wouldn’t say it is entirely successful but it is a better use of Henry Flint and Chris Blythe’s art.
The previous strip was a bit more methodical and mood based as Williams set up the second horsemen, Pestilence. The first page introduces the horsewoman properly with a Nurgle-esque character design. The chaos god of plagues from the Warhammer multiverse is a good starting point to understand how this character operates. Framing the character in this way expedited everything. The plagues that haunt the pages offer some interesting color choices by Blythe who mixes really warm primary colors with more off putting secondary ones.
The core plot of this episode is fairly straightforward: the plane comes down hard. Spending three to four pages on a plane falling out of the air isn’t all that interesting so Williams uses that tedium as an excuse to check in with Mega City One for a weather report. Things are not looking good. Moving from location to location in this way forces Flint to put more and more on to the page and it is to this strip’s benefit. It creates a feeling of tension and energy as everything is spiraling out of control. Which is good because in reality the plane is also spiraling out of control.
The creative team once again end the strip on a near full page pinup of the Horsewoman. This image has more energy as the Demon Bear-esque Shako luges towards a downed Dredd. It is an overall well done page and image, that also feels slightly out of place given the density and energy of the previous pages. It is that standard cliffhanger ending though, why they chose to do it that makes sense.
Full Tilt Boogie #7
Credits: Alex De Campi (script) Eduardo Ocana (art) Simon Bowland (lettering)
Matthew Blair: We’re gearing up for a showdown between the two disparate factions in “Full Tilt Boogie” #7, with the bounty hunters getting ready to hand off their captive prince to a group of knights who seem to be more interested in destroying them than a peaceful exchange. But first, character development!
As a small part in a larger story, “Full Tilt Boogie” #7 is kind of a let down. It’s not that the story itself is kind of bad, it just feels like writer Alex de Campi skipped the part of the story where the two opposing sides make first contact with each other. Instead, de Campi makes the choice to simply have the two sides spontaneously decide to meet on an asteroid in the middle of a destroyed planet. While it feels like there was a missed opportunity for a high octane space battle, de Campi does redeem the story a bit with some very good character work; specifically the grandma character who has a wonderful motherly moment with the previously silent warrior woman, whom we now know as Black Dog. As an individual story, “Full Tilt Boogie” #7 works and makes the reader feel really develop sympathy for these characters before the inevitable showdown.
Continued belowOcana’s artwork on “Full Tilt Boogie” #7 continues to be good, and I’m starting to run out of different ways to say that it’s good. In the beginning, Ocana does a great job of showing Black Dog’s emotional distress and pain from losing her home and apparently the effort of talking. After that little bit of character development, the art starts focusing on the setting and the stuff that occupies this world. Ocana has an interesting take on spacesuits, with a minimalist take on the suit and an interesting helmet design while the asteroid field the team has landed on looks interesting with bits of architecture and a harsh, brown color scheme that is reminiscent of a desert setting you might find in a Western.
“Full Tilt Boogie” #7 continues to show that this story would have probably been better as a regular comic series or graphic novel. However, while this particular section of the story doesn’t necessarily mesh well with the big picture, it does provide some good character development and sets up a potentially interesting showdown.
The Diaboliks: Profondo Rosso Part 4
Credits: Gordon Rennie (script), Antonio Fuso (art), Jim Campbell (letters)
Greg Lincoln: In Part 4 Gordon Rennie gives us a bit more time to get to know Detective Daria and Sue seems an interesting version of the beleaguered detective. This week it’s a lot clearer in the telling, both visually by Fuso, and in the script what is happening in the story. They give us more of the flashback so we get a clearer picture of the results of the mobs summoning of the Red Madonna. Daria gets to be a real presence in the story. She is the archetypical Detective, amusingly needing to stop her subordinates from doing foolish things like speaking horror into being. She also calls for the appropriate backup, priests to exorcise the crime scene, despite really not wanting to have to deal with their kind. The bodies littering the police scene leads one to wonder how many of the mob figures originally in the room agree consented to follow the Red Madonna into the upcoming battle.
Though we don’t get to that this week, Rennie and Fuso do set the stage for it as or supernatural quintet hit squad as they prepare themselves in a cemetery. Antonio Fuso’s heavy inking creates a very moody impression with his initial wide shot of the cemetery. Even if he didn’t carry much of that darkness or scenery through the remainder of the panels that feeling carries through with the slight reminders he includes. Even as Rennie plays up the the darkly amusing idea of Solomon, Jenny and Damien having an impromptu manage a trois among the gravestones you never forget where they are. The reaction that Fuso shows on Sebastian and their priest companion is precious. Your almost sad they didn’t get to go through with it as the alarm spells go off. Next week promises to be very interesting.
The Order: Land Of The Free, Part Eight
Credits: KEK-W (script), John Burns (art), Simon Bowland (letters)
Rowan Grover: “The Order” wastes no time this week trying to grab your attention as we open with one of our mechs doing a Jack Kirby-as-hell wrestling move on a robot yelling “Damn you Francis Bacon!”. Then the prog does a complete swerve into telling a story that’s part-alternate history sci-fi retelling, part-existential crisis, and all-around success. At the top end of the story, it does feel a little frantic like KEK-W is throwing this at you all at once, with the shift from robot fighting to historical secrets being a somewhat jarring shift. Once we can really sink our teeth into the middle section, however, the story becomes genuinely interesting and reads smoothly, with each new revelation feeling like a well-earned success. The final page also handles Clara’s phantom limb/claustrophobia problems really well through tight narration and silky smooth pacing.
Burns gets to really run us through the paces here, jumping through plenty of different visual styles as the narrative shifts through different scenes. The first page handles that kinetic, classic silver age comic book style really well as we get robots flinging themselves at each other, and electricity crackling through panels in a very pulp sci-fi style. Then Burns quickly moves to a more renaissance-era painting style, with lots of high-intensity emotions on display and a painterly quality to the colors. Burns also shows talent by blending sci-fi with this style when we see the mechs embedded in the mountainside, or the xenomorphs (yes, they are called that here) fighting black-hatted witch hunters. But the real kicker here is the final page with Clara, where Burns uses heavily smudged and darkened shading to really convey that creeping existential terror that she’s experiencing.
Continued below“The Order” is as wild a ride, as usual, exploring some more of the world outside of the mainline story in this prog.
The Out, Part 4
Credits: Dan Abnett (script), Mark Harrison (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Brian Salvatore: The human to human interaction this week was a really nice moment of connection and tenderness between two strangers. Cyd and George are overtaken by the sheer shock of seeing another human and share an incredibly intimate moment. The interaction, along with a payment from her publisher, spurs Cyd on to do something daring and helpful with her life. Instead of just taking shots of beautiful scenery, she wants to get into the shit and show some real life.
Because of the transitional nature of this installment, in terms of setting, Mark Harrison doesn’t get a chance to do as much of his standard, beautiful worldbuilding. He gets to, instead, focus a little more on the human faces of George and Cyd, and he does something that may or may not be intentional. George looks different in just about every panel, from the color/length of his hair to the thickness of his beard, to some pretty basic building blocks of his face. I wonder if this is just Harrison’s style, or if he is supposed to be representing a greater swath of humanity than just one person. Remember, Cyd hasn’t seen a human in nearly 10 years, so she’s not just seeing George, she’s seeing a thousand Georges she’s known in the past.
Again, the tonal shifts that Dan Abnett keeps introducing helps this strip to feel unexpected and fresh each week, without the whiplash you’d expect. “The Out” continues to be an intriguing and unique story, with beautiful artwork and an ever-evolving story.
