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: Brief Encounter
Credits: Ken Niemand (Script), Dylan Teague (Art), Annie Parkhouse (Letters)
Christopher Egan: This week’s Prog has one of the bleaker entries of “Judge Dredd” in a while. The unsettling bleakness comes more from the writing than any extreme violence, though it isn’t completely void of that either.
During a peaceful sit-in protest a couple Judges, including Dredd himself, are called in to deal with the situation. A few protestors decide to speak up regarding their rights and so forth. Some interesting conversations come out of the entire ordeal. Mostly between the two lead protestors. A nice connection happens between them until Dredd gets fed up with the waiting around for the catch wagons to show up.
Teague’s artwork is masterful, finely detailing characters and certain aspects of the environment, while letting other details fade into the background. He allows for the focus to be front and center while keeping the scope and scale of the story to exist as it should. His color choices are interesting and welcome as well. While giving everything a full, broad palette, it’s all muted in a way that misleads us to a sense or calm or mundanity.
Unlike most “Judge Dredd” stories, ‘Brief Encounter’ really pulls back on any of the satire or humor. It’s pretty matter of fact and stares Mega City One and its Judges fascist ways right in the face. It’s uncomfortable straight through, especially by the end. It’s a well told, but rough story to get through and leaves us questioning why we ever see Judge Dredd as a hero.
Mechastopheles: The Hunting Party Part 2
Credits: Gordon Rennie and Lawrence Rennie (script), Boo Cook (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Greg Lincoln: As ‘Part 2’ opens, the Rennies remind us that the meager remains of humanity all live inside the massive demonic Mechastopheles. People being people, the few remaining humans have broken into contentious bands bonded together by their beliefs against the others around them. From last week’s big macro picture, we shift to the personal and fractious, as Molotov cocktails are tossed along with insults and curses. Along with the factions, we meet a captain of the guard and, as described by the guard, a demon expert, a tin man, and a mad artist. It’s a delightfully colorful and oddly philosophical group of characters and, through them, we get a hint of the plot of the tale. Sure, it’s another chapter of introductions, but it’s done with the drama to match the opening Technicolor chapter.
Boo Cook’s art keeps its painterly panoramic feeling, even if it’s more confined by a more standard comic panel breakdown. Cook made use of the gutters and full page images to create a fuller, richer world and reading experience. The way Cook draws action gives implies motion very effectively for such a painterly approach to storytelling.
Department K: Cosmic Chaos, Part 2
Credits: Rory McConville (script), Dan Cornwell (art), Len O’Grady (colors), Simon Bowlnad (letters)
Brian Salvatore: Part 2 of ‘Cosmic Chaos’ is very much a placeholder chapter, with almost nothing of note happening. Last chapter, Trill showed up looking for help. In this chapter, the crew agrees to help, travels to his dimension, and see that the threat is legitimate. This is a frustrating installment, because almost none of this furthers the plot at all. Aside from Estabon getting a moment of doubt and a little fun poked at him, we also don’t learn too much more about the characters either.
Like last chapter, some of the best stuff on these pages is the character design from Dan Cornwell. Fanged lizards in jetpacks are something that, frankly, we don’t see enough of in comics, and so Cornwell obliges us by drawing a bunch of them. But unlike ‘Part 1,’ where Cornwell was given space to innovate and cram every possible inch with new characters, here he is more or less limited to the invading force.
Continued below“Department K” is a pretty straightforward strip that doesn’t require too much knowledge or familiarity to work. This chapter takes that and tosses it out the window, creating a clear case of telling and not showing. Hopefully, ‘Part 3’ will allow more forward progress.
Feral and Foe II: Part 11
Credits: Dan Abnett (script), Richard Elson (art), Jim Campbell (lettering)
Matthew Blair: Dark magic! Body switching shenanigans! Moral complexity! And a twist that would make M. Night Shyamalan proud!
Yeah, “Feral and Foe II: Part 11” has it all.
“Feral and Foe II: Part 11” is the big payoff for the entire series and writer Dan Abnett does not disappoint. Every major character that we’ve seen across the previous 10 issues gets to contribute to the story, even the undead zombie guy who is actually possessed and has been pretty quiet the entire time. The greatest hallmark of Abnett’s writing is how he makes the actions and motivations of each of the characters. There is no pandering and no high fantasy morality where all the characters go against their personal worldviews in the name of moving the plot forwards. The cowards act like cowards, the power hungry act like those who desire power, and the true dark lord reveals himself to the group in a way that is unexpected and legitimately scary.
The three hallmarks of “Feral and Foe II: part 11” are magic, emotion, and violence, all of which are things that Richard Elson continues to show off very well with his art. There’s a very clear sense that most of the characters are tired and want nothing more than to be done with their quest, yet there is still one final challenge to overcome, which involves both incredible violence and lots of weird looking black magic. Elson brings his usual dark and heavy metal inspired flair to the artwork and it looks properly bloody and a bit terrifying.
“Feral and Foe II: Part 11” is a well written and well drawn climactic twist to a very good story created by a team of fantastic creatives who understand the genre of fantasy well enough to properly subvert it. It will be very interesting to see how it all ends.
Chimpsky’s Law: The Talented Mr. Chimpsky Part 2
Credits: Ken Niemand (script), PJ Holden (art), Chris Blythe (colours), Simon Bowland (letters)
Michael Mazzacane: The creative team begin to channel their inner Agatha Christie as Noam finds himself serving as a butler on the detestable Jepperson estate floating above Earth. Niemand and Holden give their homage to Christie and her eccentric drawing room mysteries a bit of an excessive edge by working through the stock members of the Jepperson Family Trust: socialite heiress celebrity, obligatory playboy, the traditionalist, political activists, and Lydia from BeetleJuice. Before pulling out to reveal the enormity of the Trust, rendered cartoonishly anonymous, before nearly blowing them all up a few panels later.
As with the previous strip there is a command of structure and pace as ‘The Talented Mr. Chimpsky’ gets off its feet. It isn’t all that exciting or invigorating because it cannot be that yet. But it’s still an enjoyable read that does its job well with enough light chuckle worthy humor throughout. The goal was to introduce the reader to the rest of the cast, and we now have solid portraiture of everyone involved.
In all the commotion of introducing the family and the explosion that kills a fair number of them, the reader isn’t directly plugged into Noam Chimpsky the way they were in the previous strip. It’s very much about showing how the world sees him. Niemand does place readers in his point of view for the last couple of panels as the irony of what he must do comes across him. PJ Holden’s bifurcated expression more than sells Niemand’s scripting, the mixed feeling of disdain and paternalism towards these at best apathetic monsters. That realization wouldn’t have landed as well if the reader didn’t see how that is exactly how the Jepperson family views him. And now he’s got to save the rest of the Apes and Jepperson’s.
