2000 AD Prog 2307 Featured Columns 

Multiver-City One: 2000 AD Prog 2307 – Grub’s Up!

By , , , and | November 9th, 2022
Posted in Columns | % Comments

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!

Cover by Luke Horsman

THIS WEEK IN 2000AD

Judge Dredd: Buratino Must Die, Part 4
Credits: Rob Williams (script), Flint Henry (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)

Greg Lincoln: This week, we get a clear explanation as to why Buratino was allowed to stay in Mega-City One and a denouncement of the promises that got him and Iaazk their amnesty. It’s still unclear as to what he is doing in the basement of the Justice building and the nature of his intentions. What made is clear is the radical differences between the Psi Division and the Sov Zersetzung. It’s frightening to conceive of a creating a weapon that is deliberately undefinable, psionic, and consciously created to subtly influence others. That is the Zersetzung, and Buratino offers a defense to secure his amnesty. The war for the Sov apparently never ended, it’s just became something different and more insidious. This chapter reveals the next step in that war that never ended and implies that Buratino has a bigger role to play.

Henry Flint does a commanding job this week with the art. The limited color pallets he uses is eye catching, but it’s his expressions that draw you in. The stand out moments have to be Cassandra Anderson facing up to the repercussions of her actions in the Apocalypse War and the shark-like vacancy of feeling on Buratino’s face as Judge Dredd confronts him on the final page. His art fails to show that nothing is moving in the city towards the end but that is forgivable; his art usually has such motion to it, it’s no surprise the narration has to tell us things are frozen in place. The art is a solid as ever though and flows so well you’d never know people were frozen in place.

Chimpsky’s Law: A Terrifically Disturbing Adventure, Part 6
Credits: Ken Niemand (script), PJ Holden (art), Chris Blythe (colors), Simon Bowland (letters)

Matthew Blair: Things are not looking good for Noam Chimpsky. He took too long trying to figure out what was happening and now most of the people in his block are being manipulated by the telepathic twins into a homicidal rage and are out for his blood. I say most people because there is one person who remains unaffected by the mind control: a crazy man who dresses like Adolf Hitler.

Yeah, things aren’t looking good.

One of the intriguing things about Ken Neimand’s scripts in “Chimpsky’s Law Part 6” is how it’s able to incorporate character development and action at the same time. The story has a weird and interesting combination of captions that deliver both an internal monologue and two sentence blurbs that allow the reader to get a better idea of Chimpsky’s history with the block residents and inject some humor into what would otherwise be a scary situation. It’s a fun and unique writing style that makes this story engaging and fun to read.

While the script of “Chimpsky’s Law Part 6” does a great job of focusing on character development and humor, PJ Holden’s artwork does a great job of focusing on action and terror. This part of the comic involves a lot of people moving from place to place and Holden uses plenty of tricks to make said movement clear and easy to understand. On top of some great momentum and dynamic character moments Holden makes great use of maps to show where everyone is and where they are going. The terror of the comic comes from the twins themselves, where Holden cuts back on background details to focus on the characters themselves and makes great use of abstract shapes and colors to showcase their abilities, which seem to radiate off the page.

“Chimpsky’s Law Part 6” is a very impressive action showcase that shows the main character at their lowest point and the moment where they turn the corner and start fighting back. It will be interesting to see how that turns out.

Continued below

Hope: In the Shadows Reel Two, Part Five
Credits: Guy Adams (script), Jimmy Broxton (art), Jim Campbell (letters)

Christopher Egan: Equal parts war film and sinister road trip story, chapter five uses a paranoid mood to set the scene for what seems to be a simple look at movie making until the quick realization that it’s something so much worse.

Adams keeps the script nice and tight once again, giving us just enough conversation to give us a sense of who these characters are, until the reveal hits halfway through. This is a pretty dark and upsetting chapter, but has a delightfully sick and slick sense of dark humor coating it from start to finish.

And as ever, Broxton’s work speaks for itself. It’s dark, gloomy, and haunting as all hell. The added horror of military over-reach makes the story all the more terrifying. And a brutal, no mercy ending is shocking, even when you should see it coming. It’s another great self-contained entry that still makes its overall connections.

Enemy Earth: Book One: Part Six
Credits: Cavan Scott (script), Luke Horsman (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)

Michael Mazzacane: The trek across the “Enemy Earth” continues and like most road trips after the initial excitement of getting on the road it turns into a monotonous exercise that is measured in “our we there yets?” This road trip isn’t entirely normal, but writer Cavan Scott takes the opening pages to lean into the quieter side of road trips and use it as a moment of introspection for Zoe as she thinks about the initial days of the outbreak. The characterization of Zoe’s memories isn’t new but continues to effectively paint them as a traumatized individual that is being pushed outside of their norms.

Luke Horsman creates a good contrast in the opening pages between the quietness of driving across the country with the hectic memories. The dynamic panels of grandma driving the van away from Mothra are all at angles compared to the flat paneling of the first page.

Past and present merge in the third page in a slightly confused way. Page three features two artistic decisions that don’t mesh. There is the coloration in three of the panels that has this light mask on it that clouds the images. Horsman varies the panel borders between hard edges and warping lines. In the abstract these decisions make sense, except those panels don’t line up as being entirely in the past or present. Instead, Horsman splits past and present in upper and lower portions of the page works, which again works but with the previously mentioned features makes everything blurry in a bad way. These formal rough patches create some unfortunate friction for the story the creative team are telling as Zoe looks back and realizes what was really going on in the chaos.

All of this chaos helps to make a cliffhanger, the sudden appearance of more people effective because it is sudden and in a moment of relative calm. “Enemy Earth” hits a few rough patches, but is overall still on a strong path forward as the series straddles “Lone Wolf and Cub”, The Road, and YA fiction. It’s a strange brew but interesting.

Hershey: The Cold in the Bones: Book One, Part Six
Credits: Rob Williams (script), Simon Fraser (art), Simon Bowland (letters)

Brian Salvatore: Due to the five page format of 2000 AD, there are always going to be strips that feel like they’re shoving at least ten pages of story into five, and then those that feel like they’re stretching two pages into five. This installment of ‘The Cold in the Bones’ is the latter, but only because it is almost entirely made up of an action sequence that, while quite affecting, doesn’t exactly have a lot of story packed into it.

Simon Fraser does a fantastic job laying the action out in a way that is chaotic, but still readable. There are no Michael Bay-style tumbles that leave the reader disoriented; instead, Fraser keeps the action clear, but by changing the focus of the panels, keeps the battle feeling like it is both unpredictable and also deadly. Most of the characters we’ve met already – and most importantly our good, good doggo – survive, but there are casualties on both sides of the battle.

Rob Williams is writing Hershey like the grizzled veteran she is, but adds a little more ‘no fucks left to give’ than you usually see a Judge offering. Her declining health is clearly the reason for that, but instead of writing her afraid, Williams is writing her as fearless. It allows the character to do things that may feel slightly outside of the standard deviation, but not outside the realm of possibility. It’s a really well played balance, and between the wild card nature of Hershey and Fraser’s art, which does well with giving the reader plenty of space, the story is unfolding in a fun way that has some gravity to it.


//TAGS | Multiver-City One

Brian Salvatore

Brian Salvatore is an editor, podcaster, reviewer, writer at large, and general task master at Multiversity. When not writing, he can be found playing music, hanging out with his kids, or playing music with his kids. He also has a dog named Lola, a rowboat, and once met Jimmy Carter. Feel free to email him about good beer, the New York Mets, or the best way to make Chicken Parmagiana (add a thin slice of prosciutto under the cheese).

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Christopher Egan

Chris lives in New Jersey with his wife, daughter, two cats, and ever-growing comic book and film collection. He is an occasional guest on various podcasts, writes movie reviews on his own time, and enjoys trying new foods. He can be found on Instagram. if you want to see pictures of all that and more!

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Greg Lincoln

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Michael Mazzacane

Your Friendly Neighborhood Media & Cultural Studies-Man Twitter

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Matthew Blair

Matthew Blair hails from Portland, Oregon by way of Attleboro, Massachusetts. He loves everything comic related, and will talk about it for hours if asked. He also writes a web comic about a family of super villains which can be found here: https://tapas.io/series/The-Secret-Lives-of-Villains

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