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 8
Credits: Ken Neimand (script), Tom Foster (art), Chris Blythe (colors), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Greg Lincoln: Ken Neimand spent eight chapters building to this moment and it is worth the pay off. Asher’s opening narration talks about academy training and how its three options do nothing for the hostage. He goes on to follow Asher as his improvisation and modifications nearly give him a win. It is Dredd who seals the deal on the hostage situation in the end though, and it’s that fact that seals the deal for Asher. The Lawgiver and the voice make it clear to him he’s done. It’s a great parallel to the opening of the story where it’s Asher’s use of the voice that give him away as an ex judge. The finale, though foreshadowed and pretty easy to predict, is no less satisfying. Asher gets one dig in that is particularly apt and pretty much the message of the whole story. His response to Dredd’s statement about him still thinking he’s a good guy, “why not, you still do,” has been between the lines this whole time.
Tom Foster’s usually solid art has some hiccups this time, specifically with some odd perspective on Dredd’s face and helmet in a couple panels, but otherwise it was spot on. The knowing look Asher gives Dredd when he delivers the line mentioned above is particularly choice. Both scenes where Asher gets shot in center mass are both viscerally effective and make the reader ache for him whether he was sympathetic or not.
Azimuth: The Stranger Part 7
Credits: Dan Abnett (script), Tazio Bettin (art), Matt Soffe (colors) Jim Campbell (letters)
Matthew Blair: At last, it’s the long awaited showdown between Suzie Nine Millimetre and Ramone! One of them is a specially modified corpse with insane talents and the resources of Azimuth at her fingertips, the other is a normal human with a gun…and a special program that can give him advice and warnings.
Also, there are some really groan worthy puns here that are just excellent.
Writer Dan Abnett delivers a hell of a finale in “Azimuth: Inflicter of Sorrows” which is basically Groundhog Day with a lot more death and guns. The story is delivered through Suzie’s point of view as she attempts to kill Ramone over and over again, but dies each time. It’s fascinating to see the fight through the supposed bad guy’s view and watching the thought process on how to fight a superior opponent and eventually realizing he has help is really interesting and well thought out. Naturally, the story ends on a massive cliff hanger, and it’s an effective one since you are definitely going to want to see what happens next.
The artwork of “Azimuth: Inflicter of Sorrows” helps the finale along by continuing to showcase the insanity and cool visuals of a digital world like Azimuth. Artist Tazio Bettin has to be having a lot of fun with this story and a world where a house with legs exists (it’s called “Bara-Yaga”, which is just a fantastic pun). Aside from that, Bettin does a great job of showing two characters who look tired and probably don’t really want to fight, but they are compelled to by forces bigger than them. It’s a beautiful, terrifying, and violent world and Bettin was a great choice to show it.
“Azimuth: Inflicter of Sorrows” is the last big story before this series goes on a bit of a break, and it has a heck of an ending. There are some great fight scenes, some wonderful revelations, and a solid cliffhanger that will leave you wanting to find out more about what’s really going on and how to stop it.
Tharg’s 3rillers: Die Hoard, Part 3
Credits: Eddie Robson (script), Nick Brokenshire (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Brian Salvatore: For the third week in a row, “Die Hoard” added interesting elements to the story that would’ve seemed absurd a chapter earlier, but somehow fit in the current. This week introduces a shape-shifting alien and a backup, hilariously jacked clone of the deceased. Both elements share an internal logic to the story, even when they get silly. But that silliness is undercut by a viciousness that began to emerge with the AI last time, but really gets ramped up this week. The amount of shocking violence feels absolutely over the top, intentionally, and works to remind us that nothing in this story will necessarily end happily.
Nick Brokenshire’s art has enough exaggeration and artifice to put a healthy barrier between the horrors presented and the tone. There’s no reason that a bulletproof clone indiscriminately smashing a (somewhat) innocent stranger should be anything less than gut-wrenching, but the way that Eddie Robson’s script had set up the character as an opportunistic rat and Brokenshire’s panel composition makes the moment sort of hilarious. It is shocking, but it is also funny.
Overall, this strip was an enjoyable one, and the second straight “3rillers” arc to land this well. Let’s hope this trend keeps up.
Hershey: The Cold in the Bones Book 2, Part 7
Credits Rob Williams(script) Simon Fraser(art) Simon Bowland(letters)
Michael Mazzacane: And so ends Judge Hershey. There was only one way this story was going to end, and after the cover proclaimed the historical final appearance of Hershey they better have delivered on that promise.
Rob Williams and Simon Fraser’s final 6 pages with the former Chief Judge is somewhat idyllic. They send Hershey out doing what she wanted, judging. This isn’t the end of someone like Hercule Poirot, Kurt Wallander, or other northern European detectives played by Kenneth Branagh. Those ends were somewhat tragic and melancholic. Here Williams and Simon Fraser use the medium to tell a story in an instant. We see her final goodbyes and her attempt to pass with dignity. Everything is captured in one instant.
Williams writes some plainly effective stylized but not explicitly haha funny dialogue between Hershey and Juninho. All of these interpersonal moments put one final humanizing moment on the character. They don’t absolve the character of their sins or their participation heading up a fascist institution. It lets them not be the kind of arch one note character the world of Dreddverse can sometimes be reduced to from a top down perspective.
For their part, Simon Fraser’s page design is excellent in this final episode. In their paneling Hershey’s isolation is emphasized, even when she shares the panel with someone else. This moment is only really broken when Dirty Frank hugs her, he hugs her, he breaks down those barriers not her. It’s a sweet moment. This constant visual isolation helps to build up to the moment when she is no longer there.
As far as endings go this strip hits all the right notes and doesn’t feel rushed. It’s poignant but to the point. Sentimental but not sappy.
