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 03
Credits: John Wagner (script) Dan Cornwall (art) Dylan Teague (colors) Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Matthew Blair: We still have no idea what dark secret Mega City One is keeping about its legendary Judge, all we know is that it’s dangerous enough to kill one of their own to keep it. However, at this current moment all we’re seeing is a desperate gang of Judge cadets and Mega City One riff raff pretending to be soldiers make their way across a blasted wasteland while being led by their greatest hero.
While writer John Wagner spent the last two segments of the story setting the scene and showing the reader how the rest of Mega City One sees Judge Dredd, “Judge Dredd: The Citadel 03” actually shows Judge Dredd leading from the front in his typically brutal fashion. There is nothing that will stop Dredd from doing his job, and everyone is an asset to be used and thrown away like chaff. Here we get to see Dredd in all his capable, brave, heroic, and utterly ruthless glory no matter how many nukes fall from the sky or how many Sov battle droids stand in his way.
Artist Dan Cornwall does a very good job of capturing the atomic blasted hellscape that is a ruined Mega City One in “Judge Dredd: The Citadel 03”. There is a definite post apocalyptic flavor to Cornwall’s artwork as the group wanders abandoned and ruined hab blocks and stores. Yet, despite all the destruction, Cornwall does a great job of making the characters look clean cut and dashing, paragons of order in a world of chaos. Like the writing, this is artwork that understands the message and the irony of Mega City One’s world, and it is fantastically done.
“Judge Dredd: The Citadel 03” shows what makes Judge Dredd such a compelling character. It doesn’t matter how hopeless or chaotic everything may be, Judge Dredd is there to save the day…whether you like it or not.
Proteus Vex: Desire Paths, Part 11
Credits: Mike Carroll (script), Jake Lynch (art), Jim Boswell (colors), Simon Bowland (letters)
Greg Lincoln: Mike Carroll addresses the title “Desire Paths” directly in this chapter. The narration feels a little disconnected from the images; it reads a little more like an anthropology text than the narration of an escape from assured fiery death. After an explanation of the origin of the term “desire path” in nature and natural environments, Mike Carroll goes in to how that applies to society and its laws. Upon further extrapolating, he scales it up to kingdoms and how this emergent behavior leads to the idea that might makes right and those in power support laws that back their interests. It’s a coincidence that we are seeing a real world example of that as an old empire tries to regain lost territory.
Jake Lynch and Jim Boswell do a great job of telling the story of the Imperium escape attempt and how it goes awry. We almost don’t need the dialogue of the survivors to tell what is happening as they try and fail to escape on their own and are saved by Vex. The flow of action and storytelling is so smooth that the two separate stories being told between that sociological lesson and the breakneck escape are both very clearly told.
The Order: Fantastic Voyage, Part 11
Credits Kek-W (script) John Burns(art) Simon Bowland(letters)
Michael Mazzacane: The ‘Fantastic Voyage’ comes to a not so fantastic conclusion, both in terms of satisfaction and where it leaves our adventurers. A voyage is a journey, which implies a road film like episodic structure, it becomes about the process of going to point B not the arrival at point B.While there are clearly episodic elements in the previous 10 strips, in retrospect they seem to have culminated into a wholly satisfying ending for me as a reader. This leg of the journey just ends with the promise of more to come in ‘Heart of Darkness.’ That cliffhanger ending is inherent to the “2000 AD” format, but in this case, it just feels like an ending where nothing has been resolved. Le Victorie, Kohl, and the rest of the crew are left plunging into the darkness of a timeless ocean about to become one of the many wrecks throughout time that litter that island of death. There is a narrative symmetry to that ending but it isn’t a satisfying one. Kek-W and John Burns promise more adventure and I’m not all that enthused by the prospect.
Continued belowWhile the ending to this leg of the journey may have left me wanting, John Burns’ art continues to satisfy. The Weird and the strange are a common reference point in this series and while the Innerspace of Ben Franklin was weird and most definitely absurd there is an excessiveness to that which helps to cohere things. Ben Franklin going on a spiritual journey, summoned to DC by the Shadow Congress of the Gulf – a singularity outside of time and space – who try to recruit them into their uniform shadow republic is plain just weird in an effectively eerie way. John Burns just draws Washington and someone else mouth agape with humanoid shadow entities spewing forth. It’s at once hilarious and frightening. The shadow creatures remind me of the way Akira Toriyama draws ghosts in “Dragon Ball”, but less funny. The boilerplate talk about democracy vs autocracy, individuality vs homogeneity, is a nice touch as well. Even if the strip itself wasn’t a satisfying conclusion, the craftsmanship and ability to manage all of this by Kek-W and John Burns continues to make this strip worth checking out.
Kingmaker: Falls The Shadow. Part Nine
Credits: Ian Edginton (script), Leigh Gallagher (art), Jim Campbell (letters)
Christopher Egan: It’s been three days since the bulk of the battle came to its brutal, but whimpering end. Planet side, Crixus and his compatriots are awaiting any sort of news or sign from their orbiting enemy, and while they were victorious in this battle, it is really unclear as to how this entire situation will shake out. Will the empire fall or simply install a new tip to the spear? Nothing about this win feels like it can be celebrated and that is partly due to the story that’s being told, but is heavily based on the fact that there are so few characters in each page that nothing about this feels grand or note-worthy. Who is going to benefit from either side winning? We are told that the empire is vast and controls many worlds, but all we’ve seen are a few ships in orbit and the Wraith King, and a battle on the ground that we were sort of made to feel like it was huge and had so much riding on it, but now there’s just a weird silence. Who is being saved? Who will be enslaved if the empire continues to rule?
We get this answer in a form of a half serious/half jest-like plot thread that Crixus will now be the new Duke as Eschatus has been killed, but he doesn’t want it; not that that seems to matter. It all feels like what if Darth Vader died and Luke was offered his position, but with none of the weight behind that kind of decision. It’s obvious that there must be plans within plans within plans swirling about to get Crixus to this point, but it’s so thin in its explanation and execution it is simply difficult to find that emotional connection any of this. The series as a whole as really given me whiplash as to how much I should care about any of these characters, with the majority of it being, not at all. With the coming chapters there seems to be a major narrative shift approaching so maybe I will yet have my socks blown off, but I won’t hold my breath.
Brink: Mercury Retrograde Part 3
Credits: Dan Abnett (script), Inj Culbard (art), Simon Bowland (letters)
Brian Salvatore: “Brink” continues to dole out information slowly, but in ways that feel natural and never veer too far into exposition. This week, we learn a lot about Maz, the reporter working on a book about the history of Unions on the Brink. His addiction, criminal past, and obsessive nature were all hinted at in past installments, but here, Dan Abnett is able to give each of those three reveals a little time to breathe. Most impressively, he does so in a way that doesn’t feel like an information download. All three revelations come honestly and naturally, and we have a better sense of his relationship, his motivation, and his potential future from this Prog.
In addition, the union work always had a strange hue to it; something about the way that the new recruit spoke, coupled with a dead-eyed stare, courtesy of Inj Culbard’s precise and exact pencils, let you know that something was amiss. Here, he chats with another laborer and they slip from small talk into coded language pretty quickly. Now, this could be union talk and nothing more, but nothing about the way Abnett and Culbard present it suggests that. This very much feels like something that is neither above board or particularly legal.
Culbard gets to let loose a little with the protest scene we see early in the chapter, but continues to do a yeoman’s task in a setting that is dominated by talking heads in unspectacular visual settings. The walks through the city present something a little bit more dynamic, but Culbard’s work is evocative and unique enough that two laborers talking in front of a pegboard wall doesn’t feel drab. Culbard will get a chance to do more, no doubt, but he’s doing great work even with a limited palette at the moment.
