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: Desperadlands: 4
Credits: Mike Carroll (Writer), William Simpson (Art), Annie Parkhouse (Letters)
Jacob Cordas: This is the bloody end. This is it. Violence has beget violence and ugliness is everywhere. “Desperadlands,” in these final moments, is still what it always has been: excellently mean and dangerously cruel.
Simpson is as good as he has always been in this story. With even more blood, even more violence and even more savagery, it brings out everything I’ve loved so far in this series. His use of inset panels here especially is on point. When a child does a harshly painful act, the panel layout more than anything else carries us through it.
Surprisingly though, Carroll is the highlight of this chapter. He writes a perfect ending to this story. It’s brisque as always but with far stronger hard-boiled dialogue than seen in the previous chapters. It feels like here he has finally hit his full stride. It’s clipped and ugly and exactly what it needed to be from the start. Hell, he is even able to end it with what feels like a classically Judge Dredd interaction. It’s wholesome but also not – ugliness as love.
Well worth the read, “Judge Dredd: Desperadlands” is an exciting and dynamic take on the character. Simple and visceral, it’s everything I could ask for and a little bit more. Let’s hope this team stays together to make something equally unattractive soon. I’m gonna start hungering for my fix of viscera soon.
Durham Red: Served Cold 05
Credits Alec Worley (script) Ben Willsher (art) Jim Cambell(letters)
Michael Mazzacane: The general cliffhanger nature of a Prog strip can lead to some awkward transitions inbetween strips. When we last left off, the Sheriff was holding a BFG doing his best Schwarzenegger impression. That would seem to promise an intense amount of action in the next strip, except that isn’t really how these strips work. Dedicating a strip to all action in that way would stop the plot in its tracks among other things. It seems like an untenable situation, but Alec Worley and Ben Willsher find a good way out of this conundrum on the first page of “Durham Red” part five.
Worley uses a typical narrative technique, retrospective narration to create a window view of what happens when a BFG is unleashed in tight quarters 12 people deep. Which creates space for Willsher to show the copious bloodletting and spectacle without it overwhelming the strip. The page design for the first page is this narrative sandwich that is just plainly easy to read and well done.
With that taken care of the strip begins to catch its breath after several weeks of intense action. Worley checks in on both the mercs trying to get Durham and her ragtag group of survivors. Worley does a good job of contrasting the two parties to build up a certain amount of ethics at the heart of ‘Served Cold.’ The mercenaries and their financiers have none, answerable only to money and are thus cold with the livelihoods they are throwing away just to keep pounding them instead of taking the smarter tactical position. The Sheriff and Durham have a similar dispute over what is tactically best, they can’t hold out longer and need to find a prisoner who could hack the comm-relay so that they might be able to send an S.O.S.. The Sheriff is against the matter fearing their safety, but also shows his own personal ethic on why he refused their offer to turn in Durham in the first place: if he did that the whole system would be up for sale. It’s simple but effective storytelling from Worley and Willsher, who shows more emotive range than I expected them capable of.
Proteus Vex: The Shadow Chancellor Part 5
Continued below
Credits: Mike Carroll (script), Jake Lynch (art), Jim Boswell (colors), Simon Bowland (letters)
Greg Lincoln Vex made a vow when he became Proteus, “To the end,” promising all missions would be seen through to their end no matter what. Keeping Midnight aboard his ship, not returning her to her people, seems like it may cost him a lot. Regurgitating the Silent soldier may have provided another victim to interrogate, but it seems to not have swayed the opinion of Commander Tross. ‘The Shadow Chancellor’ part five is a bit of a bridging chapter and it’s an interesting one at that. Carroll tells us that you don’t anger the Hive and, seeing what one of their people, Midnight, is capable of all be herself, it is likely good advice. We also learn, if you’re paying attention to Vex’s flashes of the Chancellors memories, that his last quarry had some significant connections to the Silent. They show us that in the few moments since their meeting that there is a significant connection made between Vex and Navarch Andrum. She easily decides to go against “orders” to answer his simple but classified question.
Lynch and Boswell create some panels that are really interesting, considering that they are essentially talking heads scenes. Many of those scenes cleverly show Midnight trying to snoop in on the things being discussed. They kind of use her and her movement and expressions to move the story along as we learn about the extensive redundancies in the Mutaveron system. They created a great variety of scenes in this shots from perspective heavy closeups and scenes that have their focus in the distance, defining the characters only by their silhouettes. It’s a clever way to tell a story, visually, when there is little action to drive the story and create interest on the page.
Sláine: Dragontamer Part 5
Credits: Pat Mills (script), Leonardo Manco (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Brian Salvatore: For a character that has been around as Sláine, there needs to be different ways to get to what are, usually, relatively similar stories. ‘Dragontamer’ took a circuitous route, showing Sláine as a shapeshifting creature before firmly establishing him as the protagonist of the story. But by Part 5, we get a fuller picture of the situation, and a better understanding of Emperor Brutus.
Much of this installment is Brutus talking about either his family, or inquiring about Sláine and his past. After the explosive first few pages, where Leonardo Marco gets to show off his classic fantasy action, punctuated by Sláine throwing pouches of dragon spawn at his enemies, the action slows to a crawl. But Manco does some fantastic work in these quieter moments, both through some horrifying detail work and through establishing Brutus more fully, allowing the reader to observe him in all of his arrogance.
Pat Mills has been writing this story for almost 40 years, and the stories feel as natural to him as almost any pairing of comic and creator. That’s a double-edged sword, however, as there is little here that feels fresh or new, but also nothing that feels out of place or like a missed opportunity. If you’re a “Sláine” fan, this strip will continue to deliver. If not, you aren’t likely to find too much here to change your mind.
Hershey: The Brutal, Part 5
Credits: Rob Williams (Script), Simon Fraser (Art), Simon Bowland (Letters)
Christopher Egan: “Hershey: The Brutal” part 5 gives this week some purpose, in terms of character motivation and explanation, and this chapter is all about control. Hershey’s control over Dirty Frank, over the hand she has in the criminal organization, and the gambling tied to the underground fights that Frank is involved in. The chapter opens with a flashback of Hershey discussing Frank’s situation over his hospital bed. This scene brings more than one big reveal, but the main takeaway is that we must begin questioning more of Hershey’s motives. The problem with this, is that we haven’t really been able to understand anything that has driven her during this entire strip. This control she has over Frank has a light put on it, but most of what is revealed isn’t all that satisfying, or surprising.
Continued belowHershey sees Frank as her property, using him like a weapon, or a slave to meet her criminal desires. Frank has been under the thumb of everyone who had any power in his life. It used to be Dredd and the Justice Department, now it’s just Hershey and her quest for more power in this criminal underworld. Now it becomes really unclear how we should feel about Frank and his situation. It seems like we should be feeling sorry for him, but by the end of this chapter he seems ok with his predicament.
Fraser’s artwork is consistent throughout, and his ability to show real emotion on every character’s face is fantastic. We get some excellent detailing in the major scenes, especially from Frank and Hershey. It’s a chapter of great facial expressions. The minimalist color palettes are still the best thing about this series. The main colors used in each scene immediately fill out the setting. Based on single colors alone, we understand place and time.
What does it all mean? Well, we’re starting to get an inkling. Hopefully we get a full story and satisfying wrap up by the end of the series. Five chapters in, and the bones of this story are more interesting than anything that has actually occurred over its run at this point.
