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: The Removal Man Part 2
Credits: John Wagner (Script), Colin MacNeil (Art), Chris Blythe (Colours), Annie Parkhouse (Letters)
Christopher Egan: Judge Dredd is on the hunt in part two. Wagner separates the plot more heavily into two sections – in scene dialogue and the continuation of the old school narration. It works, but at times comes too close, butting up against each other when both the ‘removal man’ and Dredd are having their own inner monologues. The manhunt angle is quite strong throughout. Wagner really nails Dredd following the clues and looking for witnesses in the old school detective story style.
MacNeil’s art style continues to both grasp the classic look of the Judge Dredd, while being firmly planted in a modern, almost animated style; much more than what we got in part one. With Blythe’s bright colors are clear, crisp, and lacks any imperfections. It’s beautiful, and perfectly planned out, but at times loses its emotional depth. The use of shadows really brings some weight and a noir-ish vibe that looks great, but doesn’t alway gel with the rest of the work. Overall, the art works for a simple six page chapter, but flounders a bit under deeper evaluation.
Some decent beats and ideas are at play, but it ultimately feels like nothing more than a bridge to the next chapter.
Mechastopheles: The Hunting Party Part 4
Credit: Gordon Rennie and Lawrence Rennie (script), Boo Cook (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Greg Lincoln The ending of ‘the Hunting Party’ comes as a bit more than a shock. It may be, perhaps, that I have become accustomed to longer stories in 2000 AD, I was surprised when this week’s installment concludes with a shocking “The End.” Gordon and Lawrence Rennie introduced in these four chapters a setting and a cast of characters that feel like they have much more to say to us than the little that they revealed in these pages. It feels like the battles set up in part three were knocked over like bowling pins in what is again surprisingly the end. “Mechastopheles: The Hunting Party” feels like that unexpected amazing movie preview that bowls you over and leaves you wanting more, because it feels unfinished.
Much like the opening chapter, ‘Part 4’ stands out because of the Boo Cook’s art and the lettering delivered by Annie Parkhouse. Even if the characters and the action feel a bit distant and maybe a little unfinished, there is no denying the pages do pull you in. Cook’s art and design crates real interest in this story even if we were deprived of knowing much about the characters due to the short nature. The final page hints at so much more story, that is hard not to feel a little disappointed that we’ll have to wait for it.
Department K: Cosmic Chaos, Part 4
Credits: Rory McConville (script), Dan Cornwell (art), Len O’Grady (colors), Simon Bowlnad (letters)
Brian Salvatore: Last week’s installment of ‘Cosmic Chaos’ ended with the realization that a ‘Locust’ had been killed. A Locust, as established in this week’s chapter, is essentially a giant, super powerful entity that can destroy universes. Department K asks a few important questions, such as “is it a bad thing that a Locust is dead?” and “what is strong enough to kill a Locust?” This push and pull between fear and relief is relatable in this instance, though it doesn’t take long for fear to win out, both conceptually and in reality.
Dan Cornwell gets to let loose a little here, both exploring the innards of a Locust and also the ‘ectoplasmodic cybrofelip infinitude’ creatures that attack Dept K while inside the Locust. None of Cornwell’s designs fall outside of the normal range of looks for alien creatures/cultures, but he has a really clever way of mixing and matching elements to look unusual together. The ECIs have a band of tubing across their faces, and a little addition like that bisects the face and lengthens the head, giving it a less traditional alien look. Little touches like that add to the uniqueness of this story.
Continued belowThe main complaint with Rory McConville’s script is just that, from a structural standpoint, it is a little predictable. So far, each strip has ended on a cliffhanger, which gets quickly resolved next week. There’s not a lot of variety here. That said, the scripts are well-written and characters fairly well developed. The nature of 2000 AD somewhat demands conformity, but McConville can do better to shake it up.
Skip Tracer: Eden, Part 1
Credits: James Peaty (script) Paul Marshall (art) Dylan Teague (colors) Jim Campbell (lettering)
Matthew Blair: It’s the distant future and while humanity has spread out to the stars, there’s still a massive housing crisis and a bunch of undesirables that so-called respectable people don’t want to be associated with. Thankfully, there’s the Cube: a massive former monitoring station in the depths of space that now serves as a dumping ground for about two billion undesirables. It is here where we meet our hero, the psychic tracker named Nolan Blake aka “Skip Tracer”, who receives a message telling him to go to a mysterious planet and meet someone for some mysterious reason.
“Skip Tracer Eden: Part 1” is written by James Peaty, who also created the character. Peaty does a very quick and efficient job of introducing Skip, the world he lives in, and his powers to the reader. The one downside is that while it’s a very efficient story, it does suffer a bit from the creators being too familiar with the characters and expecting brand new readers to know what’s going on. Still, there’s a fun little action scene and the story wastes very little time getting the point, which is a solid start that can be developed into something bigger.
The artwork for “Skip Tracer Eden: Part 1” is provided by the co-creator of the character Paul Marshall with colors by Dylan Teague. Marshall’s artwork leans more on the side of realism and he does a great job showing some interesting robot designs and future tech while demonstrating a knack for well drawn human faces and emotion. The artwork is enhanced by Teague’s colors, which provide a bright and flashy compliment to the realistic artwork and do an especially great job of showing off Tracer’s psychic powers.
“Skip Tracer Eden: Part 1” is a fast, action packed, and pretty good introduction to the character and the setting for new readers, although there are some moments where it can be a bit confusing and in need of some more exposition. It has a solid creative team with good art and has some great potential for a fun story.
Chimpsky’s Law: The Talented Mr. Chimpsky Part 4
Credits Ken Niemand (script), PJ Holden (art), Chris Blythe (colours), Simon Bowland (letters)
Michael Mazzacane: Noam Chimpsky’s case enters its final acts as the creative team poke fun at the classic drawing room mystery trope of one more thing. This time the typical deductive reasoning that Noam would’ve gone through is contrasted with the surprisingly smart, but still wrong reasoning of Herakles Jepperson. Going through this routine, however, does involve repeating essentially the first page of the previous strip as all the murders are cataloged. I’m not sure how you could do this another way, and Holden does redraw all the murders from different angles, but as the start to a strip it reads as inessential and padded. The point counterpoint between Herakles and Chimpsky’s deductions are effective.
What Shrimp and Noam were afraid of comes to pass as the family becomes an unruly mob and is ready to enact violence on their servants, but not before following proper family-corporate bylaws and voting on it of course. That particular gag of slowing down the setup was quite effective and pushes the rest of the strip into being a pure chase as Chimpsky has to solve everything and save everyone or die trying. Which pushes us up to the point where this strip all began.
Niemand and Holden make an interesting choice and represent Chimpsky’s thought process on what to do by turning his options into a literal wheel of fortune. It’s an interesting way to represent the choice of action as it renders it in a purely probabilistic manner devoid of emotion. That cold view is part of the gag in the end.
While this strip has largely been humorous, Niemand seems to be playing fair with just who the killer and Noam’s fan might be. The revelation about the house A.I. was a twist but one that fits the logic of a murder mystery in retrospect. It has me very curious how this case will turn out in the next Prog.
