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: Disciples of Death Part 1
Credits: Ken Niemand (script), Neil Googe (art), Gary Caldwell (colors), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Greg Lincoln: ‘Disciples of Death Part 1” is the most gripping and funnest first chapter Dredd story in a while. The art by Neil Googe is smooth yet richly textured, charming and laugh out loud amusing. The interview scenes he drew need to be read slowly and actually looked at closely as there is a lot of interest in them, particularly the reaction to the deep northern accent of Moira and Judge Patsy’s obvious puzzlement to it. Even if you the strip was silent, it is clear the Mechanismo Judge is flummoxed by her. The underground death, or maybe more accurate Judge Death, worship club that Moira’s partner wisest with zombies in tow is beautifully designed is a way only fanboys could.
The entire vibe of the story Ken Niemand wrote is a delicious mix of horror and comedy that works a treat with the clever art. The flashback to the Coatbridge and the references to grave robbing and human sacrifice set give some clues as to the possible horror farce that may be coming. Callum went prepared to create a diversion with a couple zombies on leashes but it seems he didn’t plan for a Judge raid to happen just as he nearly gets the scroll he came for. There is really so much going on in these five pages that it really feels like a much longer strip.
Durham Red: Mad Dogs 03
Credits: Alec Worley (script) Ben Willsher (art) Simon Bowland (letters)
Michael Mazzacane: In this strip, Red learns the number one rule of launching in a battle royale game: always keep an eye out for the giant mutant pigeons! They’re hungry. Luckily they’re not picky eaters.
Ben Willsher takes a turn in this strip. They are unbound by the harsh industrial environments of previous stories, instead rendering the amorphous space of the halo jump with wispy clouds and variations of blue. Even the previously mentioned mutant pigeons have a more realistic texture than normal. Look at the careful rendering of feathers on the birds on the second and third pages and compare them with Red and Burt. It’s a contrast that makes them feel alien to one another. This rendering is also some of the more interesting stuff I’ve seen Willsher do in the pages of this comic. Willsher plays with perspective, blocking, and dynamic poses without a hard environment to orient around. The opening four pages are not that far removed from the 90s Image style, in a good way.
The mutant bird also creates a surprisingly effective drama for this strip. I honestly bit on the birds ripping Burt apart and making them the ultimate red shirt. They survive, for now.
Once on solid ground, the hard industrial setting returns, and it’s not all bad. The environment is certainly more interesting to look at, a dilapidated amusement park. Depending on how this strip goes, I might look back and think this was five wasted pages that could’ve been used to push things forward faster and farther. For now, though, this is about as effective an action strip as you can do in the pages available.
The Order: Heart of Darkness Part Eleven
Credits: Kek-W (script), John Burns (art), Jim Campbell (letters)
Chris Egan: Look, I’ll be honest, I don’t really know what to say about “The Order: Heart of Darkness” this week. With these mini-reviews I want to talk about the emotional reaction I have to the chapter. I don’t want to reiterate the plot just to fill space. This week’s entry, Chapter Eleven, is very much in the same vein as Ten. So, I’m sure my thoughts would be quite redundant. Steampunk sci-fi meets early American horror. Mechas go smash! Green space whales hover into my heart.
Continued belowIt is not a lull in the story as there’s plenty of action and weird shit happening, but it does feel like a bit more of a hangout chapter, even if some of the story is quite urgent racing towards next week’s finale. This series is pretty awesome. If you’ve been following along this whole time but haven’t been checking it out, here’s the review that says little more than, “Hey go read “The Order. It slaps.”
Enemy Earth Book 2: Part 3
Credits: Cavan Scott (script), Luke Horsman (art), Simon Bowland (letters)
Matthew Blair: With a bit of quick thinking, and the threat of larger and hungrier beasts out there, Zoe has managed to de-escalate the current situation and gain a new–if tenuous–ally. The good news is that they manage to make it up to Scotland in order to reunite Jules with his father.
The bad news? There’s something waiting for them, and it doesn’t appear very friendly.
Cavan Scott does a great job of developing Zoe and the rest of the group as characters in “Enemy Earth Book 2: Part 3” and it’s nice to see old enemies become friends, even if that friendship is based more on mutual survival rather than genuine nice feelings. With that being said, while the small level character work is great, the story does suffer a bit when it comes to macro level exposition. The character’s journey to Scotland is over in a very short amount of time, and it feels like there could have been more opportunities for development. Granted, there are probably time and budget constraints, but it would have been nice to see their journey drawn out a little more.
While the script may be a bit too fast paced, it allows artist Luke Horseman to play around with some pretty interesting worldbuilding ideas in “Enemy Earth Book 2: Part 3”. For starters, there’s a nice contrast between the bright, colorful, and insanely dangerous planet that the characters are desperately trying to survive and the dull, bleak, and fortress inspired architecture where humanity has chosen to hide away in and live out their last days as a civilization. Also, Horseman gets to showcase his talents as a horror artist at the very end, where we get to see a monster that is genuinely creepy and disturbing.
“Enemy Earth Book 2: Part 3” might be a bit too fast paced for some readers, but it is a great little bit of character building and sets up some genuinely creepy action and emotional drama.
Rogue Trooper: Blighty Valley, Part Two
Credits: Garth Ennis (script), Patrick Goddard (art), Rob Steen (letters)
Brian Salvatore: This chapter is a more than a little reminiscent of the one we just read last week, with Rogue showing off his tactical and physical gifts and being introduced to more of the soldiers of his temporary company. Due to the sheer repetition of this chapter, it feels slight, and sends the story a little off-kilter going into its fourth chapter.
Thankfully, Patrick Goddard’s art, especially during Rogue’s impressive dismantling of a tank and its contents, is top notch and brings a visceral energy to this story that separates it from the sort of boiler-plate war stuff we see elsewhere in this strip. What is most impressive is how Goddard is able to imply just wanton destruction and brutality while showing almost no actual violence. It is a great use of both perspective and the reader’s imagination to make things worse than they could possibly be shown on the page.
One of the issues with 2000 AD in general is that is seems that stories are often solicited/sold as “x” number of installments, and so most strips have chapters that feel like this. While Garth Ennis is, no doubt, an incredible writer, even he is not immune to the need to stretch things out a bit. The only real new piece of intel from here is that Rogue’s companions know that his armor/gun speak, and seem relatively nonplussed by it. And while sure, they are thankful to have the help, it does seem like a stretch that folks who have likely never had a telephone in their homes would be able to comprehend this with any real understanding. It is also understandable that Ellis didn’t want to spend half a strip on explaining this; that said, instead spending half a strip meeting more relatively faceless soldiers isn’t that much better.
