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: A Penitent Man
Credits: Ken Niemand (Script), Tom Foster (Art), Chris Blythe (Colors), Annie Parkhouse (Letters)
Christopher Egan: Sometimes it’s easy to forget that Judge Dredd isn’t a hero, but it’s arcs like this that are needed to ground us from liking him too much. To remind us that he is a cog in a fascist dystopia system. His view of law and justice is a narrow one with little room for interpretation.
Ken Niemand gives us a look at paroled criminal. A former Judge, Kyle Asher, who went too far and beat a suspect to death. After serving twenty years in the prison on Jupiter’s moon, Titan, he’s returned to Earth doing one of the worst jobs imaginable and just trying to live out his days in a way he sees fit.
Through today’s lens it’s hard to find sympathy for a cop killing a suspect, and even harder to believe they’d serve any time – let alone twenty years in a maximum security prison. But, Niemand has us go along with this man’s journey, because it’s a human one. We want to believe he is sorry for what he’s done because even after time served he is still clearly punishing himself.
While Dredd appears about halfway into the chapter, his politics and view of the law permeate this entire story. From his first frame it should be evident that we are meant to be on Asher’s side in this. Dredd’s cold touch is too heavy and unforgiving for us to see him as the hero.
Foster’s artwork is beautifully detailed, giving realism to both the horrid conditions of Asher’s life and to the more outlandish sci-fi aspects of the world of Mega City One. The settings take their cue from the satirical early “Judge Dredd” and are updated to fit in with a modern sci-fi/action style.
The work really evokes both pain and wonder, something that, in a particular balance, needs to be a part of every Dredd related comic. Blythe’s color work is truly exceptional doing the same amount of lifting that Foster is doing with the pencils.
His work is both something to behold in terms of talent and absolute beauty. It’s attention to detail like this that brings a comic to the next level. The use of light and shadow from the first moment only let’s us into the story to a point, just as the illustrations do. As the story progresses through plot and dialogue, it allows us in before the art fully does.
Like a velvet rope keeping us out of the exclusive club until we’re deemed ready or worthy, things come into focus with each panel and page.
It’s a gorgeous first chapter that drives to understand its meanings and compels us to figure out what comes next.
“Judge Dredd: The Penitent Man” Part One is an excellent start to the latest strip, using a familiar tactic to have us both stand apart from Dredd and build our desire to see what the character will learn or achieve by the end.
Thistlebone: Poison Roots, Part 5
Credits: T.C. Eglington (script), Simon Davis (art), Simon Bowland (letters)
Brian Salvatore: This week focuses the attention of the strip to Seema’s trip to visit prison to interview Jasper Hillman, who is the person who started the ‘modern’ Thistlebone incidents. This doesn’t lead to the most visually arresting installment, but Davis and Eglington use this quiet chapter to give a little more context to the entire Thistlebone cult.
Davis uses the pages-long conversation between Seema and Jasper to do both give us a good, long look at who Jasper is at this point in his life, and also uses some insects to present a relatively heavy-handed illustration of what Jasper is doing to Seema right in front of our eyes. It’s a beautiful sequence, but seeing a spider catch a fly in its web is about as cliché as you can get, and when, just a page or so later, you see the trance that he’s put Seema under, it should come as no surprise at all based on what you just saw.
Continued belowWhile the first volume of “Thistlebone” answered a few questions by the end, the mystery at the heart of the Thistlebone cult was still very much open ended. And, despite the new “information” that Jasper tells Seema, the story remains more mysterious than revelatory, and that’s just fine.
Visions of Deadworld: You Give Me Fever
Credits Kek-W (script) Dave Kendall(art) Simon Bowland(letters)
Michael Mazzacane: Judge Fire has a fever and the only cure for that fever is MORE. Seeing a story about the Dark Judges deal with their petty emotions is intriguing, the fall hasn’t fully taken place yet during the story, and what better character to center it on than the flaming hot Judge Fire. ‘You Give Me Fever’ focuses on the brief relationship between Judge Fire and Sister Despair, two characters that are elementally opposed and antagonistic to one another that nevertheless find something oddly satisfying with one another.
This being a Prog strip Kek-W and Dave Kendall have to move fast, which works in their favor. By the end of page two readers understand what their kinky quasi-physical relationship looks like in bracing images. It’s a “Deadworld” story, subtly is for cowards. The reader has to burn and move at the pace of Judge Fire. Kek-W’s narration does a lot of the heavy lifting, perhaps a bit too much. Kendall creates several excellent and recurring images that unify the narrative for all the excessive qualities it has. Kek-W’s writing isn’t overly long, just maybe a bit redundant and functionally a speed bump in a strip that is about the burning passions of emotion.
Kendall’s art has a loose sketchy quality too it. I’m curious what it looks like without their color application because there is a distinct lack of hard lines and blacks. Their page layouts are basic and functional, rarely going over 6 panels a page. There is one moment on the third page where the jump between panel 4 to 5 feels slightly confusing as Fire’s addiction takes over. The panels themselves are well composed; they just don’t flow together well in that instance.
The final page reinforces this opposing duality between the characters that the story is built on. It’s a visual motif I wish had been carried out more through the strip. It’s hinted at early on but never quite comes together. ‘You Give Me Fever’ is an overall functional, well composed strip that could have been something a bit more with a few tweaks.
Terror Tales: Half Life
Credits: John Tomlinson (script), Anna Readman (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Rowan Grover: Tomlinson provides a serviceable yet overstuffed creepy story here with “Half Life”. The basic premise of a psychic connection between identical twins taken to horrifying extremes is a really solid one and lends itself to lots of rich and creative methods of execution. The way that our protagonist Aaron keeps referring to Jesse as a definite antagonistic force in his life despite everyone else denying his existence creates a great sense of childlike helplessness when the adults will never believe you, and the idea of Jesse being completely in Aaron’s head as a separate identity clawing itself out is a scary one. The way that this is executed with the final page reveal is a bit lackluster, unfortunately, and the pathway to this point is cluttered with lots of extraneous information about other victims of Jesse’s violence which doesn’t feel like it contributes a whole lot to the overall story.
Anna Readman has a great art style that mashes ideas and page structure from EC horror comics of old with the loose stylistic penciling of zines and underground comix. The way that Readman renders the scarred and disfigured Aaron is with a lot of attention to facial detail that leaves readers uncomfortable, but not hyper-detailed enough that it distracts from the rest of the page. Readman also uses heavy black inks and shadows to great effect, especially in scenes like the stairwells of Aaron’s workplace, giving them a very gloomy domestic feel with a touch of claustrophobia induced from the camera angles. Although there’s not a lot of narrative continuity between the visuals of Aaron’s scars and the reveal at the end of the story, Readman also gives a sense of continuity with Aaron looking worse and worse for wear, which gives a feeling of progression to the overall story.
Continued below“Half Life” is by no means a groundbreaking horror short, but it’s a decent and chilling read that can get bogged down in its narration in moments. Come for the creepy premise, stay for the loose and exciting art.
Feral and Foe II: Part 2
Credits: Dan Abnett (script) Richard Elson (art) Jim Campbell (lettering)
Matthew Blair: “Feral or Foe II: Part 2” is the part in the beginning of every story where the protagonists can get down to business and come up with a plan that would have the whole situation fixed in a heartbeat if things ever went smoothly. Sadly for them, this is a fantasy adventure filled with swords and magic. It’s a genre that doesn’t like to make things easy for anyone.
This gives a chance for writer Dan Abnett to show off his character development skills and banter writing. Despite the limited page space for this particular section of the story, Abnett does a great job of building just the right amount of tension in a group of adventurers that have found themselves occupying other people’s bodies and trying to get used to different needs, skills, and limitations. Abnet also introduces the plan for the group to get everything back to normal, which for this particular gang of adventurers feels less like a high adventure and more of a mix between barroom brawl and small time extortion racket. It’s a great set up and it will be fun to see where it goes.
Elson’s art is slightly hampered by the needs of the story, but it’s still a lot of fun. Since most of this section is made up of banter and dialogue, the art needs to have a lot of close ups, which doesn’t give Elson a chance to really flex his creative muscles. Still, the close ups allow the characters to have some great emotion and Elson’s character design is still an interesting blend of familiar fantasy races mixed in with just enough new design quirks to make it look interesting.
“Feral or Foe II: Part 2” lays a strong foundation for the rest of the story, further develops some already great characters, and moves the plot to a point that is an excellent cliffhanger for the next section of the story.
