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 Working Girl: Part 3
Credits: Ken Niemand (script), Patrick Goddard (art), Dylan Teague (colors), Annie Parkhouse (lettering)
Matthew Blair: It’s a high speed, high octane chase through the streets and between the skyscrapers of Mega City One. The various skyboard jockeys hired by the mob to transport their illegal goods are dropping like flies, either shot down by the pursuing Judges or taken out by the rather violent security measures imposed on them by their mob employers. Will our hero survive?
Writer Kevin Niemand crafts one hell of an action sequence in “Judge Dredd Working Girl: Part 3”, but despite all the high speed antics and explosions he still reminds the audience that this is still a story about a lady who just wants to take care of her family. Dredd and the rest of the Judges are portrayed more as an unstoppable force of bogeymen who seem to be around every corner and watching every street, ready to pounce at the slightest mistake. Meanwhile, the criminals who hired the skyboarders are portrayed as equally ruthless, demanding that their employees stick to the plan no matter what happens. It’s a truly overwhelming scenario with no guarantee of survival.
Goddard’s art does a great job of showing off the high speed chaos of “Judge Dredd Working Girl Part 3”. He uses dark and heavy shadows on the character and contrasts it with bright and shiny splotches of color in the background so the reader can easily tell the difference between the two. This allows the story to have a clear sense of geography and allows the reader to see the highly dynamic poses and motion of the characters in an instant. In turn, this lets the reader’s eye move very quickly across the page, which enhances the pacing of the story and gives the reader a great sense of speed and motion to the chaos.
“Judge Dredd Working Girl Part 3” continues its wild romp across the skies and streets of Mega City One, and creates a scenario that is so tense and overwhelming that it feels like there is a very real possibility that the protagonist won’t survive what’s coming.
Proteus Vex: Desire Paths, Part 4
Credits: Mike Carroll (script), Jake Lynch (art), Jim Boswell (colors), Simon Bowland (letters)
Greg Lincoln: Chancellor Baryon’s memories have brought Proteus Vex and his partner Ko to the Obdurate system, where so much death happened to stop the Obdurate war. Mike Carroll reminds us about the part Vex played in that genocide. He talks about the Scorchers, the race that was so important in the initial storyline, and tells us that they joined the war because of Vex’s manipulation. It’s a good callback to the start of the series; we learn little concrete about the new mystery, but the steps the characters are taking feel like they are leading somewhere.
Jake Lynch adds new designs as we meet another player in the bigger story: the scavenger Count Lythos Tiorn. It’s unclear wether this new character is an artificial life form, but the forces that Vex faces as he approaches the Counts ship are, for sure, mechanical. This is another chapter where paying attention to the art pays off, as earlier in the chapter, while in in deep space, you can see the machines that attack Vex later on gathered on a few asteroids. Lynch does a great job of staging the fight Vex takes to the machines, as we see the Count watching in neighboring panels.
The Order: Fantastic Voyage, Part 4
Credits Kek-W (script) John Burns(art) Simon Bowland(letters)
Michael Mazzacane: What I thought was just a strange, at the time, one off tangent strip that could be brought up later continues in the fourth entry of ‘Fantastic Voyage.’ It is a good thing we stuck around with Cassiopeia and her one woman stand because that is how the son of Cyrano de Berzerak and his crew from the previous series are reintroduced.
Continued belowAs such the strip is a little action heavy as the zombie-like wyrms continue to encroach on everything in Deadworld. For his part John Burns makes the action plainly look good. There isn’t the sort of excessive style in terms of figure work from the previous strip, but he makes good use of the desert setting and sunset by alternating between harsh oranges and fetid green browns that makes pages pop.
It isn’t all action with Kek-W playing to some sentimentality with the resurrection of Clara Weitz/Armoured Gideon in another juxtaposed heavy page by Burns. These character moments are small and maybe don’t land that well for newer readers, but their execution should make them land and for longer term ones it is the kind of character interaction previous strips haven’t had.
Kingmaker: Falls the Shadow, Part 4
Credits: Ian Edginton (script), Leigh Gallagher (art), Jim Campbell (letters)
Christopher Egan: Oh no! Tycho is dead! Burned up in the atmosphere! My expectations dashed once again! With that sad (?) turn of events, General Simeon and the Wraith King talk about their upcoming plans and the King questions just how loyal Simeon is, but is seemingly pleased by his answers. Planet side, Crixus and Yarrow hide out in caves while Crixus mourns the probably death of his father. This chapter is very quick and gives us the narrative bridge needed leading us into the main confrontation of the series.
While I wouldn’t dare call this six-page chapter “text heavy,” we get more discussions from our two main villains, and our two main heroes. These character-based moments are nicely done and surprisingly quiet in contrast to all the noise and destruction soon to come. This is one of the more successful chapters so far and it really comes down to how well Edginton gets us invested in learning more about these characters and what their struggles are, and are going to be. I can’t help but be more intrigued by the big bad here, but I’m still completely enamored with the genre blending going on. The grand finale of this arc should be something truly exciting and special.
Saphir 2: Liaisons Dangereuses, Part 1
Credits: Kek-W (script), David Roach (art), Peter Doherty (colors), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Brian Salvatore: Debuting as a “3riller” in 2020, “Saphir” returns to the Prog for its first proper story. In this chapter, we meet Lady Corundum, who calls herself not a magician or conjurer, but an ‘expeditor,’ “mov[ing] things around, exchang[ing] one object for another.” We also meet two members of her entourage, both of which are in possession of items that seem out of place in her era. The Lady may not explicitly be a magician, but her reputation, and abilities, precede her.
David Roach’s art sets the book squarely in the Victorian past, and he manages to incorporate the stranger elements of Corundum’s abilities without torpedoing the tone he’s set across the pages. So even though a car might be an anachronism here, Roach manages to make it feel both out of place and of its time. It’s a neat trick that allows the emotions of the story, as well as the perspective of the ‘outsiders’ to remain intact, without sacrificing either to the fantastical elements in play.
The most interesting part of Kek-W’s script comes at the end, where it appears that Corundum’s conjuring has made at least one powerful enemy. The strip does a fantastic job of giving the reader all they need to know and supplying enough intrigue to draw them back for next week’s second chapter.
