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: Judgment Days
Credits: Ken Neimand (script), Henry Flint (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Matthew Blair: “Judge Dredd: Judgment Days” opens with the looming extinction of the entire human race from an army of zombies under the control of a necromancer from the future named Sabbat. Dredd is ready for a suicide mission to kill the necromancer, but the leadership of the remaining Sov blocks proposes a simpler solution: detonate a series of bombs that will shunt the zombies into a different dimension. The bomb won’t kill the undead, it’ll just make them someone else’s problem.
Naturally, weakening the barriers between dimensions and tossing in hoards of mindless, flesh eating corpses powered by dark magic is a brilliant idea that has no chance of going wrong at all. Spoiler alert: this is the catalyst for the entire event so yes, it goes horribly, horribly wrong.
Writer Ken Neimand has a challenge on his hands with “Judge Dredd: Judgment Days”. This is a world that has an apocalypse occur on a near daily basis, so this one has to stand out and find a way to raise the stakes. Fortunately, Neimand is a great writer and manages to create a great foundation for the magazine’s entire stable of characters to engage in some zombie killing action. On top of setting the stage, Neimand crafts a good story that cuts to the chase and even manages to make all of the characters involved understandable and sympathetic. The Multiverse doesn’t fall because of cackling evil villains or stupidity, it falls because a bunch of scared and nervous people made what they thought was the right call at the time, and that is commendable writing.
Henry Flint is the artist on “Judge Dredd: Judgment Days” and proves that he is the right artist for the job because his zombies look amazing. He has a style that looks messy and has a lot of very thin line work, but really comes into its own when the story needs to show the blood and chaos that the rotting flesh monsters leave in their wake. It’s a great introduction to the crisis and it would be really nice to see Flint doing more zombie stories.
“Judge Dredd Judgment Days” is a hectic, bloody, and deliciously violent introduction to the prog’s massive zombie event that is well written, well drawn, and makes sense from a storytelling point of view. It doesn’t present its events as the doings of a madman or idiot, just logical choices made by scared people who don’t want to suffer.
Rogue Trooper: Mortal Remains
Credits Mike Carrol (script) Gary Erskine(art) Yel Zamor(Colours) Simon Bowland(letters)
Michael Mazzacane: Zombies! And this time they’re not confined to that “Zombie Army” in the Megazine with Andrea Mutti art.
The creative team don’t really have the space to tell a solid zombie tale or use them in any way that offers much commentary, besides the irony of soldiers transformed into the living dead forced to once again fight an endless war. Instead, they just take the basic concept and run with it, literally. A zombie outbreak has occurred, and the strip follows a Sargant Cassidy Marsh and the 279 infantry and the animated remains of the Rogue Trooper racing to get to Rosalind Station. For his part Gary Erskine’s art does an excellent job of imbuing a sense of overwhelming threat and speed for this race. Their pages are stuff to the gills with overlapping figures and figures that are not confined to panels. Everything is an encroaching threat. The decision to effectively drop out the environment when the squad boards the land raider and replace it with a series of impressionistic greens overlaid with speed lines is effective and gives the sense of tension and pace.
This breakneck pace brought on by the lack of page budget undermines what seems to be the emotional turn of the book, when the biochips are unable to animate the Troopers body anymore and the body animates itself, just sort of happening. Erskine’s facial expressions show the subtle difference but any examinations on the ethics of this bodily control are pushed aside.
Continued below‘Mortal Remains’ does leave the “Rogue Trooper” property in an interesting place if more stories were to be published with a whole squad of Troopers ready to fight back against the zombie hordes. There’s a certain precursor to “Bloodshot” quality that I’ve always liked about this strip and that sense of an ironic monstrous military industrial complex rings through at the end with a new squad of unkillable troopers, the toughest troopers who ever lived, died, and lived again.
Survival Geeks: House of the Dead
Credits: Emma Beeby (script) Neil Googe(art) Gary Caldwell(Colours) Jim Campbell(letters)
Michael Mazzacane: The “Survival Geeks” creative team manage to fit in a surprising but fitting twist on what it means to be a zombie in ‘House of the Dead’. Unfortunately, Clive is a zombie. Which quickly brings forth a very important question: is he a Romero or Rami kind of zombie? The Boyle erasure is palpable. And from there many different subdivisions that reference and define all manner of cultural zombie.
As “Survival Geeks” is wont to do it goes through copious amounts of references to other bits of zombie media. Running through them would give away the gag and some of the pleasure of the strip. Although it is worth noting that Beeby and Googe take up what is effectively a full page (two half pages in the strip) that run down zombie media in a way not dissimilar to the “Invincible” gag on decompressed comic art. With little of the punch or effect of that gag.
The real joy of this strip is how the creative team turn the zombie virus and the act of being a zombie into being a metaphor for obsessive fandom, or from another angle cultish obsession, that do nothing to solve the problem of what started the zombie plague and instead just spread it everywhere.
‘House of the Dead’ is one of the better “Survival Geek” one shots and a good example of what the figure of the zombie can be used for in such a compressed space of time.
The Meat Arena
Credits: Karl Stock (script), Kieron McKeown (art), Matt Soffe (colors), Simon Bowland (letters)
Brian Salvatore: An update of the “Mean Arena” strip, “The Meat Arena” is that Rollerball-esque street football league, put into the zombie-fied world of this Prog. Truthfully, the review could end there, as there’s not all that much to say about this short strip, especially if the reader isn’t familiar with or a fan of the “Mean Arena.” This strip’s purpose in this issue is to give the reader a sense of the depths of the zombie situation, and show how even entertainment and sports have had to adjust to this new status quo.
Kieron McKeown’s art is not the dark, horror-influenced style you’d expect to see in this type of story, but features a rather bold, optimistic viewpoint that wouldn’t look out of place in a book like “Invincible.” Matt Soffe’s colors send home the same visual message. On one hand, that works for this strip, as it presents the sport as a less dire piece of this world, gone to hell. But on the other hand, it doesn’t tonally match up to what is happening elsewhere in the issue. How important is that in the overall review? That’s a tough question to answer, but there’s something incongruous between it and the stories that side beside it.
The most prescient part of the issue was showing how the fat cats of the world are still profiting off of the ‘little guy’ by betting on the undead teams. Plutocrats don’t change, even if the world does.
Sinister Dexter: Zed Zone
Credits: Dan Abnett (Script), Russell M. Olson (Art), Annie Parkhouse (Letters)
Christopher Egan: Sinister and Dexter get us caught up on their part in the post “The Bite” world with writer Abnett and artist Olson creating a much schlockier, grindhouse kind of story. The boys are waist deep in the undead, using any and all weaponry to mow down the zombie hordes. It’s a much more fun angle on this on-going zombie tale.
This chapter goes full horror comedy to take the sting out of the end of the world. It is zany and gory, and a wild ride of blood and guts. They don’t have time to wallow in their predicament, they’re going to blast their way through the undead and laugh while the mayhem ensues.
Continued belowIt all makes for an enjoyable, but mindless read. It will keep you engaged in the moment, but won’t stay with you for as long as some of the other Bite stories will.
Ampney Circus Investigates: Setting Sons
Credits: Ian Edginton (script), D’Israeli (art), Jim Campbell (letters)
Brian Salvatore: Whenever 2000 AD serves up some D’Israeli art, it is a cause for celebration. One of the greatest in their stable, D’Israeli always delivers something unique and startling in his work. This strip, set mostly during the Second World War, is no different. The artwork is gorgeously rendered in a style that feels both classic and digital; a true balance of comic art in the ‘old’ and modern ways. His work is subtle in parts, working extra hard to make you notice when things change in the background or around the edges. It’s delicate work that has a perspective of its own.
The story is less impressive than the art, but who can really blame it? It’s a fine story about zombies in war, and gives a few fun twists along the way to keep the reader entertained. But no matter what Ian Edginton does here, it doesn’t really hold a candle to what D’Israeli is doing throughout. The coloring adds yet another layer of depth to the work, with the shadows framing the bright flashes from things like a soldier’s blue eyes or a flash from a gun.
Robot Hunter: Z-Inf
Credits: Arthur Wyatt (script), Toby Willsmer (art), Simon Bowland (letters)
Matthew Blair Zombies have invaded the Multiverse, including the world of robot bounty hunter Sam Slade. This is a world where robots are mean hunks of metal in need of culling and where all sorts of robot themed mysteries and capers are afoot. Fortunately, human Sam Slade, along with his robotic dunce of an assistant Hoagy and his sentient cigar Stogie, is just the man to get paid to do it. But how can a story about a bounty hunter/private eye who kills robots for a living have zombies?
Why, Zom-Borgs of course!
“Robo Hunter: Z-Inf” is written by Arther Wyatt, and if you have no idea who Sam Slade is or what his stories are about, you are going to be a bit lost. The story follows Hoagie and Stogie in the middle of a city dump, desperately trying to find a way to get things back to the way they were. Unfortunately, they are cornered by brain eating Zom-Borgs, but are saved by a half crazed Sam Slade, who winds up getting bitten. It’s a quick story that is well paced, but it doesn’t set things up very well and ends on a beast of a cliffhanger.
The artwork for “Robo Hunter: Z-Inf” is provided by Toby Willsmer, who has created one of the more unique looking stories in the entire prog. The artwork looks like a cross between early 3D graphics from a late 90’s video game and an underground comix zine from the 70’s, which all comes together in a story that is very colorful and fascinating to look at.
“Robo Hunter: Z-Inf” is a quick and dirty story that will be familiar to fans of the series and the characters, but is completely foreign to newcomers.
Strontium Dog: In the [Dead] Doghouse
Credits: Rob Williams (script), Staz Johnson (art), Chris Blythe (colors), Jim Campbell (letters)
Greg Lincoln: Johnny Alpha is pretty central to the story across both 2000 AD and Judge Dredd Megazine this week. He was present at its start in this issues’s “Dredd” story and in this chapter is returning to his own future corrupted by the spreading zombie plague. Rob Williams took his home, the Doghouse, and corrupted all of his companions, leaving him truly alone. Still dealing with our own plague in our time, Johnny’s isolation and overall despair and anger at the Judges in the past who’s choices caused this feels pretty justified. Coming out of the tone of the other strips this week, the path of this story feels pretty predestined. It may lack surprises, but it doesn’t lack feeling. Each of Alpha’s encounters in his home drives deeper the need to see this terrible situation fixed somehow. His desperate use of time travel in the end feels very justified; we can just hope the future chapters allows his sacrifice to succeed.
Staz Johnson draws really creepy looking dead versions of the side characters of “Strontium Dog.” Whether you know the strip well or are just familiar with it, the attention and details Johnson provides for the cast solidify them as characters important to Johnny Alpha and makes their zombification carry a solid emotional impact. Chris Blythe’s colors set the moody original Ridley Scott Alien haunted house in space kind of vibe. Blythe plays with juxtaposing cold and warm colors to great effect throughout the story making either Johnny or the zombies pop off the page in a kind of shock horror movie kind of way adding a kind of frenetic pace to this already anxiety driven horror tale.
