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: A Fallen Man, Part 7
Credits: Ken Neimand (script), Tom Foster (art), Chris Blythe (colors), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Greg Lincoln: Asher seems to have things all planned out and under control as the story opens. That is until the narration makes it clear that he’s the only one who believes that and it’s even more clear that at ten end of the opening action scene that Zoola is , terrified of her supposed savior. The plot is clever and spells out just how intelligently Asher has manipulated the players around him. To get out of Mega-city one Asher has flipped info to the Justice department and maneuvered a couple major Crime-Suns into what is amounts to a crime war. With all this going in Dredd remains focused, as is very like him to be, on his real target, Asher himself.
Tom Foster clearly spells much of this out in the art, so much so very little of the third person narration is necessary. Despite having to show lots of set up scenes and imply actions he does an apt job of pacing the story. He shows the Mechanismo and human Judges massing for the fight and shows little actual action but the mind fill is in the fun parts. He clearly depicted the fear on the battered face of Zoola as she is pulled along by Asher and his escape plan. Fowler nicely juxtaposes the masked face of Asher with Dredd showing little emotion they are niearly a mirrored twisted reflection of each one another. It’s that craggy familiar jawline of Dredd that fills the panel near the end. The image makes it clear that someone is there to ‘save’ Asher, but it’s a save he for sure does not welcome and may not need.
Future Shocks: Fear & Loathing of Las Vegas
Ned Hartley (script), Joe Currie (art), Simon Bowland (letters)
Chris Egan: This month’s Future Shocks is a goofy, yet poignant send up of a lot of today’s, mostly American, politics and capitalist way of thinking. Being a one-off comic strip, it has a lot to say, and not a lot of space to say it. Even with its limited pages, it is mostly successful in its message and is fairly funny, if not all that clever.
Hartley’s script is fleshed out without feeling overstuffed, but at times feels a bit rushed. The artwork by Joe Currie is a delightful mix of classic 2000AD and that of a Mad Magazine. Zany and odd proportions while still getting at the finder details across and getting right to the point of the image.
While it takes aim at a lot of what is wrong with put current political and economic landscapes, it doesn’t do anything new with it. So rather than really feeling a great connection with the work that makes you think and laugh at the same time, you’re left with just a little bit of the desired effect and a lot more depressing thoughts about the state of the world.
Azimuth: The Stranger Part 6
Credits: Dan Abnett (script), Tazio Bettin (art), Matt Soffe (colors) Jim Campbell (letters)
Matthew Blair: The revelations have occurred, now it’s time for the fallout, and most of the residents of Azimuth do not appreciate being told their reality is a sham, especially from someone who isn’t from there.
Buckle up, because it’s about to get violent.
“Azimuth: The Stranger Part 6” is a short but sweet finale to this particular part of the story, and writer Dan Abnett presents a quick, efficient, and entertaining end. Specifically, the conflict between Ramone and Dexter is settled quickly, but it’s just enough of a challenge so that the ending is satisfying to the reader. Also, now that the city is in chaos, Abnett does a great job of looping the story back around to our original protagonist and sets the stage for the exciting possibility of Dexter facing off against the original meat assassin: Suzie Nine-Millimetre.
Continued belowThe artwork of “Azimuth: The Stranger Part 6” continues it’s excellent run, and artist Tazio Bettin crafts an excellent fight scene. The whole thing has a sense of intense energy and high octane thrills and makes the reader feel just as panicked as the characters. There isn’t a whole lot of opportunity to show off some of the weirder parts of Azimuth, but it’s a great showcase of action and there’s a pretty good chance the city won’t be there for long, so it was nice while it lasted.
“Azimuth: The Stranger Part 6” is the finale to an interesting part of the Azimuth story. There have been quite a few interesting revelations and we’ve learned much about the digital landscape and what’s going on behind the scenes. Hopefully we’ll get more answers, and more awesome visuals and violence, in the future.
Tharg’s 3rillers: Die Hoard, Part 2
Credits: Eddie Robson (script), Nick Brokenshire (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Brian Salvatore: After a surprising opening chapter, it was nice to see the story continue to zig while also confirming some suspicions from last time. Eddie Robson’s script continues to be plot driven which, understandably, sounds likes faint praise, but often in these shorter 2000 AD stories, the whole story is based around a punchline or a vague concept instead of a well-crafted plot. But Robson clearly has a story he wants to tell here: this was hoarding with purpose and intent, and there are consequences to any intent that disrupts the system.
Nick Brokenshire’s art gets a chance to add some tension and release in this installment, as well as continuing to draw a ‘realistic’ setting for a story of hoarding and AI security. Again, there’s nothing in here that you’d confuse for photorealism, but the way that Brokenshire is crafting the art, it has a truly lived-in sense, as well as one of probable and possible technological developments. This all still seems like science fiction, but not like extreme sci-fi.
Hershey: The Cold in the Bones Book 2, Part 6
Credits Rob Williams(script) Simon Fraser(art) Simon Bowland(letters)
Michael Mazzacane: Rob Williams and Simon Fraser really come to their highest moments in this issue. The former, in their delicate inner monologue by Hershey, is a mixture of arrogance, hubris, and clarity of retrospection. The latter pushes their color pallet, what that pallet means, as well as a couple of plainly aesthetically pleasing pages.
Former Chief Judge Hershey says she is a ghost as the bust goes down, allowed to dress like a Judge and ride a motorcycle, but not directly take part. She cannot materially interact or affect things. There is a certain phantasmal quality to this state, but the ghost is about those who have stuck around after death – which, to be fair, she has technically done. The more apt description for Hershey, as she feels the ennui of nostalgia, is that it renders her a zombie, the living dead or undead. Everything around her, Mega City One, is ALIVE. Everything and everyone, except her. This liminality allows Williams’s scripting to move between the cold consideration of past actions and her political failures and arrogance as a Chief Judge as well as recognize the still burning embers of her fascist streak. She recognizes the limits of the Justice Department but still gets a kickoff of the fear she initially considered respect the citizens give them as a Judge pulls up alongside.
By the standards of previous episodes, Simon Fraser’s first page is positively psychedelic as their palette gets progressively more and more complex. Growing from variations on a single tone to them slowly mashing all together in the final two panels. It’s a burst of color and life that visually captures what Williams means in the scripting. It’s also worth noting that the reflection of Mega City One in Hershey’s eyes due to the coloring, makes it look like she’s staring into a fiery blaze. Even as the strip returns to the coloring mean, with a bit more variation than the arctic setting, it is still lively in ways previous strips haven’t been.
The bust page, page 4, is just a plainly well-designed page with its mixture of beige, olive green, and red helmet. The colors all sort of blend together except for the red. The paneling just funnels the reader’s eye down until you’re dead center of the last panel and the image of Hershey alone, a ghost.
It seems like the strip will end in the next episode. There seems to be only one way for it to end. Curious if they go that way.
