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 2000 AD
Judge Dredd: Succession Part 4
Credits: Ken Neimand (script), Leonardo Manco (art), Chris Blythe (colors), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Greg Lincoln: ‘Succession’ was an action packed four parter. Ken Neimand’s story takes the ideas of corporate “head hunting,” business sharks and employees with killer instinct and plays with them beyond an inch of their lives. Judge Dredd comments to Gulliver that the body count “… rivals a block war,” as the strip ends surrounded by body bags being tagged. It’s just one of the arresting images that Leonardo Manco greater for this story. His art really composed the meat of this violence fest. He and colorist Chris Blythe delivered in comic book form many panels that came off as dynamic wide-screen Hollywood violence. Marco’s depiction of the Lawmaster cycle’s deceptively agile flight and dynamic poses were very and bat-cycle like compared to its usual bulk. He got to give us a stylish cartoon villain in the head lopping assassin turned corporate stooge in Myron Klant. Though the story had many humorous moments woven into it the only that lands squarely is Klant’s fight with Dredd that amounts to an off handed shot and a comment that he doesn’t remember the assassin at all.
‘Succession’ is a takedown of corporate culture that had some fun moments among its satire laced storyline. The idea of a CEO specifically searching out bloody minded sociopaths doesn’t seem that far fetched. Corporate head hunters want people with shark like killer instinct already. If anything Neimand tale is a bit too short and showed a bit more interesting promise then it ultimately delivers. It works and it is a fun romp but it could have been a bit bigger in scope.
Future Shocks: Love Birds
Credits: Tom Watts (script), Mike Walters (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Matthew Blair: Love and science collide on a distant planet where a team of scientists are researching a type of massive predatory bird that is renowned for its ferocity and violence, but becomes docile and loving when mating season rolls around and they release a mysterious “love pheromone” to assist the mating effort.
If only human love could be so simple since the two main scientists are a married couple who are a few bad decisions away from a divorce. But then again, humans are certainly more capable of working out their differences without chemical assistance.
Right?
“Future Shocks: Love Birds” is written by Tom Watts, who does a fantastic job with the limited amount of space available to the story and crafts a compelling love story and a really good twist. There are some moments that could have been expanded and would have benefitted from a longer story format, but Watts understands how to use the given time and space to focus on what’s important and drop just enough hints to what’s really going on so that the ending makes sense, but is not given away at the very beginning.
The artwork for “Future Shocks: Love Birds” is provided by Mike Walters, who presents the story in simple black and white like an old school creature feature from the 1950’s where the square jawed scientist and his buxom lab assistant decide to play god and pay the price for man’s hubris towards nature. The artwork has heavy amounts of shading and cross hatching and the characters are drawn in a borderline photo realistic way that is reminiscent of Dave Gibbons and other highly realistic European artwork and goes a long way towards enhancing the melodrama and B movie feel of the story.
“Future Shocks: Love Birds” is a sci fi soap opera with a great twist that manages to blend scientific exploration and ethics with a cheesy, daytime television oeuvre that is over the top in a well written and fun way.
The Out: Book Three, Part Thirteen
Continued below
Credits: Dan Abnett (script), Mark Harrison (art), Simon Bowland (letters)
Brian Salvatore: After thinking we lost Cheerio last week, it was refreshing to see him saved this week. For two panels. And then he died again. God damn it.
This chapter puts a stopper in “Book Three,” and does so after Cyd has put it all together: she’s been a patsy, setting the Unamima up for discoveries and intel at her expense and, unfortunately, at the cost of Cheerio’s life. Dan Abnett does a great job in shifting tone chapter to chapter, and after the hopefulness of another Joey meeting, we are at, perhaps, the nadir of Cyd’s journey. The universe is quite literally closing in on her, and she’s got limited options left. And that is where the story is leaving off for now, with Cyd unsure of what to do.
The final page, featuring the Unanima world coming to them, is one of the best that Mark Harrison has done in this entire book thus far. Harrison’s art has a shape-shifting quality to it that allows things to look different ways at the same time. This page evokes grand scale and minutia, technology and the sheer scope of nature and space, darkness and light, all at once. Harrison’s work, by its very nature, is fluid and changing from panel to panel. For some, that can be a negative, but in the context of “The Out,” it allows his work to feel less bogged down and uptight, and reflect more of the looseness and unpredictability of the universe.
The Order: Heart of Darkness Part Eight
Credits: Kek-W (script), John Burns (art), Jim Campbell (letters)
Chris Egan: More than any of the previous chapters this week’s entry of “The Order” feels indebted to two very specific eras of sci-fi and fantasy films, while adding a bit of modern violence. There’s been a touch of the late 60s throughout, mostly with the use of a things that feel both old and futuristic, like the Steampunk submarine and mecha. It’s Jules Verne meets Richard Fleischer in all the best ways. There’s a bit of fun cheese mixed into the fantastic and the bleak commentary that’s foundation is built from the bonkers historical fiction at play.
All of that comes together perfectly in terms of style this week, but the tone does falter occasionally. If you look too deep into it the silly sides can take away from the power of the action and violence done towards characters and that violence does diminish the fun of it all. It’s a chaotic mixture that has been at play this entire time, but for the most part has been able to feel like schlock with a bit of a message. That is still the case this week, but we are now getting into the darker side of things and it’s beginning to feel like the endgame may have some darkness in store for us.
Proteus Vex: Crawl Space Part 13
Credits: Mike Carroll (script), Jake Lynch (art), Jim Boswell(Colours), Simon Bowland(letters)
Michael Mazzacane: “Proteus Vex” comes to a satisfying, surprisingly, straightforward conclusion. Tsellest faces his Richard the III moment with the walls caving in around him, literally. While he was undoubtedly pure hubristic evil incarnate, Mike Carroll writes of him facing that fate and, rather than screaming for a horse to escape, trying to do it himself and win. Of course, he doesn’t win. But it is the right character choice.
There isn’t much to write home about as a finale. As the plot point that was established in the previous strip, Vex’s suicide run comes to its conclusion. It didn’t really go the way they planned, but that tends to happen with these things. Instead of detonating in the planet’s core after Tsellest barges in, Vex warps the ship to the nearby star, where they are trapped within the gravity of that celestial body. Caroll makes good use of the retrospective narration to reference contemporary scholarship theorizing that Tsellest might still be alive, as he is a light absorber, waiting for one day to return. As for Vex, it is unknown what happened to our mysterious hero. I’m pretty sure he’ll show up again somewhere eventually.
Jake Lynch’s expression work is something I haven’t given much space for, but on the final page, he more than earns the sort of illogical but emotional hope in Midnight’s eyes, checking the scanners to see if anything is making it out of the star. She isn’t thinking about Tsellest. It’s a sweet, poignant moment that is earned. For as arch and at arm’s length, this strip was for me when the creative team really wanted to play for sincere emotions more than worked out. Maybe “Proteus Vex” will return someday.
