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 Citadel
Credits: John Wagner (script) Dan Cornwall (art) Dylan Teague (colors) Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Matthew Blair: Deep in the bowels of Iso Block 1, there is a prisoner waiting to be executed. He wears a mask that keeps him quiet and he is strapped to a stretcher unable to move. A priest has come to give this dying man comfort and solace, even though he is not allowed to talk to him or interact with him in any meaningful way. Fortunately for both men, a timely assault on the prison allows the priest to remove the gag…and allow the prisoner to confess that he has secret knowledge about Mega City One’s greatest hero during one of the city’s darkest moments.
“Judge Dredd: The Citadel Part 1” presents the reader with a strange and rare sight: a religious official who appears to be compassionate, capable, and not a stark raving lunatic. Then again, the story is written by John Wagner, who is the co-creator of Judge Dredd himself, so the story has a lot of leeway and can be told in any way it wants. Wagner is a long time comic book scribe and a natural expert in all things related to Judge Dredd so the story is well written and well paced, taking its time in establishing the set up for the story and the personalities of the characters. What’s interesting is that while the story is relatively quiet and almost slow, there’s a lot more going on beneath the surface that strikes at the core of just how brutal and violent Mega City One really is, and how there is very little room for compassion and kindness.
Dan Cornwall and Dylan Teague provide the artwork and colors for “Judge Dredd: The Citadel Part 1” and outside the robotic guards and an establishing shot of the Iso Block, everything looks surprisingly present and almost normal. While Cambell opts to portray the human characters in a simple manner with ordinary appearances and clothing, the highlight of the story is the brutal and imposing architecture of the setting. The Iso Block looks like the depressing and imposing prison that it’s supposed to be with harsh lines and drab colors. It’s a place that is meant to show how hopeless life can be and is the perfect setting for a bombshell deathbed confession.
“Judge Dredd: The Citadel Part 1” is the set up to what promises to be an epic story about Mega City One’s greatest hero, and it will be fantastic to see what information the co-creator of the character has in store for the readers.
Proteus Vex: Desire Paths, Part 9
Credits: Mike Carroll (script), Jake Lynch (art), Jim Boswell (colors), Simon Bowland (letters)
Greg Lincoln: As explosive as ‘Desire Paths’ has been so far, it is a surprise to have the truths spoken turned up to eleven. The arrival of Commissioner Shrokulin, Mayday, and the Imperium forces to apprehend Vex has fully unanticipated results and the Scorchers. His questions brought out their collusion in the extermination of one star born race and leads to the question this week, which is if the imperium knew she of more like them. It’s all too a real a feeling, the desire to feel unique, special, and important and it’s equally easy to believe in it as a cause for violence and genocide. The fallout of the the lies and secrets hidden by the imperium cost one life this week and it feels like the beginning of something bad more than the end of a story. The damning memory that started all this and lead Vex here wasn’t just the heliospawn, but the number of them the imperium knew/know about.
The hellish landscape conjured by Lynch is an apt place for the terrible and disturbing things that happen among the talking heads scenes. The most telling scene though is the quiet black and white flashback that predicts the end and mentions that the scorchers will not react well to the others. It’s not even a particularly well drawn panel, but it carries the weight of the reveal very well somehow even in its mediocrity.
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Indigo Prime: Whatever Happened to Mickey Challis?
Credits: Kek-W (script), Lee Carter(art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Michael Mazzacane: The funny thing is this “Indigo Prime” one shot starts normal, the kind of narrative you’d want for a one shot to entice new readers. That lasts until about page 6. By the end of this strip Kek-W and Lee Carter have gone about another 4 steps past normal where things begin to look like the infamous (because of timing issues) ‘Dear Sister’ digital short from SNL in 2007. People are just getting their heads blown off left and right. And yet by the end of it, the creative team land in a place that has me intrigued and wanting to go on another reflexive ride through intellectual and platform economies and meme stocks.
For all of its reflexive inclinations, noted in the very first panel by its use of meme stocks on reddit, Kek-W and Lee Carter actually make really functional come book pages. The first page is the origin of the titular Mickey Challis in 5 panels. It tells the reader everything they need to know. Even the subsequent escape from Prime HQ, the destruction of which occurred in the previous series, for all its surreal qualities the page designs and composition are straight forward. How Carter balances all the shades of purple in these sections is phenomenal. Even the exposition dump in the next couple of pages is functional, though filled with sci-fi mumbo-jumbo.
That ability to balance all the weirdness and mumbo-jumbo with an understandable plot of a boy, his dad, and the watch that holds the power to the entirety of existence. It is a lot. Kek-W scripting reads more like madlibs of references than coherent prose at times. But underneath it is something affectively understandable. So even if the third twist feels like one too many and there to be a cliffhanger, because it’s a 2000 AD strip, it all kind of works.
Kingmaker: Falls The Shadow. Part Seven
Credits: Ian Edginton (script), Leigh Gallagher (art), Jim Campbell (letters)
Christopher Egan: The battle rages on with Crixus and Yarrow defeating what looked like an insurmountable threat fairly quickly. Another action forward chapter makes for a great page turner, but don’t expect to be fully satisfied with the story progression. There simply isn’t enough space to carry the battle sequence and the reunion of the heroes at the end.
The illustrations are exciting with much of Gallagher’s talent on display. He gives the battle sequence its energy and boldness. You can feel the weight of the creatures and the violent acts used against both sides. The writing again gives us just enough to keep things moving, but this time around we get more linear connections to “The Lord of the Rings.” It’s done both through visual cues and specific dialogue.
Because this chapter moves so quickly and wraps abruptly, I recommend at least one more pass to take in the battle illustrations after initial read. Simply to take in the character beats, as well as the grand action sequences.
Tharg the Mighty in Stars on 45
Credits: David Barnett (script), Robin Smith (art), Jim Campbell (letters)
Brian Salvatore: In an anniversary issue like this, there is an expectation for a little reflection, reverence for the past, and a little humor, too. That is all here in “Stars on 45,” a reference to a group/song that made medleys/mashups in the early 80s, and it’s a nod to the type of story we are getting here. Tharg wants to cut a single, and his droids realize he can’t sing, and so travel across the realms of the Thrillverse to collect Judge Dredd, Anderson, Rogue Trooper, Zenith, and the rest of the classic gang.
There’s not too much to seriously discuss here. There are some fun references to charity singles (Bob Geldof gets name dropped), time travel (lots of Back to the Future gags), and various 2000 AD stories. It’s all in good fun, and Robin Smith does a great job of rendering all the different characters in stark, beautiful black and white. While David Barnett may not get an Eisner nod for his work here, he has the appropriate amount of fun with the subject matter.
Continued belowDon’t think too hard, just enjoy this.
The Order: Fantastic Voyage, Part 9
Credits Kek-W (script) John Burns(art) Simon Bowland(letters)
Michael Mazzacane: We left on the promise of an Innerspace adventure inside Ben Franklin, and the creative team delivers on that! But it is so much more from Franklin’s own astral journey to the POV on the first page. “The Order” operates in a postmodern territory where nothing is secure and everything is up for manipulation, how else do you get these impressionist watercolors and the form of high art with this pulpy low art narrative? It leads to a lot of craziness but as Anna Kohl dryly put it “you get used to it.”
I’d forgotten about the dog, Solak, but their presence serves as another example of how Kek-W and John Burns make all this absurdity work. You could easily say they’re playing to the cheap seats with their sentimentality and cutesy doggo language, wonderfully realized by Simon Bowland’s lettering. As a page that’s exactly what it is doing. At the same time, it is another variation on the strips core ethos of everything having a voice. Through that cutesy language Kek-W is able to put a finer point on Anna Khol than their previous work with John Burns, the profound sense of loneliness about her. Traditional uses of perspective have shown Khol to appear ornery, cold, distant, but from the dogs perspective and their knowledge of body language they see it’s because she is lonely.
John Burns depiction of the many multiplying Little Paul’s evokes the dynamics of John Romita Sr. Spider-man art and time lapse photography. You really need Kek-W scripting to understand the technicalities of what Paul is doing, however, visually it works just fine. One thing Burns does rather well on the second page is flattening and stretching the background figures to bring out the perspective and sense dynamism in the foreground.
Ben Franklin’s astral journey is a surprise as they reminisce (or travel through time who knows) about how the Shadow corrupted the Revolution and America’s founding fathers. Burns leans into the ephemerality of this state but pasting Franklin over the top of scenes at odd angles. Even when he is addressed, he practically blends into the green background save for his bitch black eyes. It’s an effective mood piece that promises a potentially insightful tete-e-tete in the coming weeks.
Brink: Mercury Retrograde Part 1
Credits: Dan Abnett (script), Inj Culbard (art), Simon Bowland (letters)
Brian Salvatore: With the return to “Brink,” Dan Abnett begins by pitting the media and the law against each other. Granted, it’s not overly dramatic or antagonistic as it may sound, but there is a sense of the press wanting to expose a truth that the Judges and other law enforcement types only want revealed when it either fits their narrative or are no longer afraid of what it will reveal. So much of 2000 AD is predicated on the idea that those that enforce the law aren’t always doing the right thing, but what “Mercury Retrograde Part 1” does is show that some cops can be pricks even when there’s no reason to be.
Inj Culbard really knows this world at this point, and easily falls into the color scheme and look of the late 21st century, with the pages instantly screaming “Brink” before you get a chance to read the credits. Culbard tips the script’s hand a little bit, drawing the press as good looking and kind, whereas the most vocal member of the law, Berenger, is all angles and bulk. He looks about twice the size of anyone else in the story, and swears up a storm. He’s a bad dude.
The person who gets the least to do here is the strip’s presumptive main character, Kurtis, who is lamenting a man down and seems utterly distracted by the blood in front of her. This just makes the sides even more clear; while we may be swayed by Kurtis’s general likability, by taking her, more or less, off the table for this first chapter, we don’t have to consider the cops with anything but disdain. It’s clear who Abnett is setting us up to root for; whether or not that remains the focus going forward remains to be seen.
