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: Poison, Part 3
Credits: Rob Williams (script), PJ Holden (art), (colors), Simon Bowland (letters)
Greg Lincoln: It’s a quick transition from a colony world back to East Meg Two on Earth. The visuals that PJ Holden conjures with his pencil and ink are characterful, if a bit too on the nose for an Eastern Europe stuck in Cold War stereotypes. Lots of snow, lots of cold grey buildings topped in onion shaped domes in the background as we follow a woman trying her level best to fit in, thoughts and all. The images may be a bit too direct but they all pretty effective because all the cold and threat come across in the scenes that Holden crafted. That level of threat continues throughout the strip, from that opening scene right through Dredd’s arrival via stealth ship. Probably the best overall memorable moment is the one shared between the nameless beleaguered pilots who ferried Dredd into the Sov Bloc where pilot number two just says “I warned you.” It hints at so many interesting stories that we will never see or know.
The nearly animated looking art of PJ Holden makes this totally set up storyline fun to read. From the introduction of Domino to her betrayal by her contact, the story is pretty entertaining to read, even if we know little of how she ties into Dredd’s search for Hershey’s killer, as she is clearly connected. The scenes with Dredd standing alone with a hand cannon looking into the Russian steps in the distance sets the feeling for the story to come. He’s one man with a gun, albeit a big one, against an entire city’s militarized police force. It’s Dredd so it’s a pretty even match, or at least he looks like he feels that way drawn by PJ Holden. Little may have really happened in this week’s chapter, but the story is still compelling.
Helium: Scorched Earth Part 3
Credits: Ian Edington (script), D’Israeli (art) Simon Bowland (letters)
Matthew Blair: We have a classic “out of the frying pan and into the fire” situation on our hands. The frying pan takes the form of a very large and presumably very hungry monster that wants to eat the group and the majority of the comic is people running like mad to escape. The fire takes the form of a new threat, and it isn’t very clear who they are or what they want.
Ian Edington crafts a very good action sequence in “Helium: Scorched Earth Part 3” and continues to be bafflingly short on large scale answers. Edington proves to be great at writing interpersonal dialogue and does some great character work with the very limited time and space available in this fast paced story. However, we still don’t know what’s going on in the grand scheme of the comic and who the new threat is. What’s worse is that Edington is using the reader’s ignorance as a way to create mystery and make us want to read more, which is a decent way to maintain interest but doesn’t buy the story a lot of goodwill.
D’Israeli’s art in “Helium: Scorched Earth Part 3” continues to be excellent. Since the majority of the story is a massive action scene it’s up to the artist to hold the reader’s interest and in this part of the story, it works. The world looks and feels weird and psychedelic, but offers a very real sense of danger as the soft, fleshy humans attempt to escape this deadly world and a monster that has a really cool and original design. As stated in previous reviews, the whole thing looks like a really good blacklight poster, and the effect is both interesting and engaging in the best possible way.
“Helium: Scorched Earth Part 3” is a short and tense action scene that provides some good character work and awesome looking monsters. However, if the story doesn’t start providing some broad scale context and better worldbuilding, it’s probably going to start losing reader interest.
Continued below
The Devil’s Railroad, Part 2
Credits: Peter Milligan (script), Rufus Dayglo (art), Jose Villarrubia (colors), Jim Campbell (letters)
Brian Salvatore: After last week’s introduction, “Part 2” gives us more insight into who Palamon is as a character, and the context helps us understand why he wasn’t able to thrive in a society up until this point. Although his heart appears to be in the right place, he is impulsive and violent which, in this case, may lead to his entire caravan being stranded along the Devil’s Railroad. Despite him looking out for a fellow passenger, his natural way of handling things has possibly damned the only thing that he really cares about: his unbord child.
While Peter Milligan’s script is not the most nuanced thing he’s ever written, there’s enough here to make the story feel a little more substantial than just “bad temper guy on a roadtrip.” Milligan is planting little character moments for even the minor characters that seep out in unexpected places, which helps the somewhat boilerplate structure of the story. Similarly, Rufus Dayglo’s art, which feels as classic 2000 AD as you can possibly get, packs enough surprising images into a smartly constructed panel grid to keep the reader surprised when expected things happen. Dayglo’s characters have bold expressions and emotive eyes, and even when the individual panels and scenes seemed cramped, the facial work gives the story a depth that helps push it beyond its elevator pitch.
The Fall of Deadworld: Retribution – Part Two
Kek-W (script), Dave Kendall (art), Simon Bowland (letters)
Christopher Egan: The second chapter of “Retribution” is a knock put, drag out battle of Judges and the living dead. It’s nasty fun with the stakes feeling somewhat high, but with no real explanation or barometer in place to tell us just how high or low they are.
Kendall’s art continues to be the highlight and reason for checking this strip out as Kek-W’s script is mostly simple dialogue meant to help move things along, and even still the art does most of the heavy lifting, aside from it being gruesome and beautiful. It’s stories and artwork like this that truly takes me back to the 90s when I first stumbled upon my first “Judge Dredd,” and other equally mean-spirited comics and got a taste for things outside of the same old superhero books.
The tactile nature of this work is enough to achieve its gross out moments. Skulls, viscera, slime, and the like are all at the forefront to a point that it seems like you’ll draw back your hand with organic grime stuck to your fingertips, or you’ll be able to smell the rot if you bring your face to close to the page. Gore aside, the action is truly spectacular and is classic “Judge Dredd” fare to be sure.
So far, this story is keeping me around with its simplicity and horrific nature. Whether its plot continues at this level or achieves something deeper or meaningful, I think it should be a good time straight through to the end.
Feral & Foe: Bad Godesberg, Part 3
Credits: Dan Abnett (script), Richard Elson (art), Jim Campbell (letters)
Michael Mazzacane: The third entry of ‘Bad Godesberg’ goes maybe a little overly broad for my taste as Dan Abnett and Richard Elson do have to service plot, however a few pages stand out that are making this into an overall solid fantasy comedy.
Richard Elson’s page design comes through in the first two pages of the strip. The opening page picks up where the second strip left off, with Bode and his comrades facing the skaven like onslaught of coboldikin. Elson draws things the full Aliens with chaos and threats coming in from every angle. It is a chaotic page that is still surprisingly clear due to the coloring of Bode’s neon green lighting bolts and the framing of the second panel which puts Bode in the dead center of the page. A panel that has him talking about how right he was and didn’t he say this would happen. It’s the kind of comedic moment that only works because the page is so chaotic and here he is smack dab in the center of that chaos rue the fact he was smart enough to see this coming. On the second page, Elson introduces a a new color for the series pallett: fire red. The addition of a magical flamethrower furthers the Aliens references and breaks up the grey green pallet with fiery reds and yellows that create a new energy.
Continued belowIn contrast to this high tempo action, Wrath finds herself in the nest of an Owlbore. With how long these strips tend to be in production it is fortuitous timing that this reference to a fantastical Owlbear comes out just as that creature is making a resurgence in Baldur’s Gate 3. Unlike that cute, cuddly, little carnivorous best boy, this fully grown Owlbore overwhelms its victims by lulling them to sleep and exploding their minds with too much pointless factual information. The build up to the final page in this sequence and the creeping lethargy are paced quite well.
In between these two episodes, the power hungry Wretchfinder General meets her match for now. Abnett’s scripting makes this sequence passable but it’s mostly just plot movement.
After a slow start, this strip is starting to come into its own and be an overall enjoyable time.
