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
Azimuth: Snow Zone
Credits: Dan Abnett (script), Tazio Bettin (art), Matt Soffe (colors), Jim Campbell (letters)
Greg Lincoln: Dan Abnett is the king of dropping readers into the middle of things and somehow bringing them up at speed without anyone being the wiser. This one shot effectively introduces the complex layered character of Ramone Dexter, the slightly off, oddly pixilated world on which he’s currently stuck, and that is apparently trying to kill him. Tazio Bettin draws this world with lots of real details, but it’s just glitchy enough and odd enough to say it’s a simulation pretty clearly. We don’t see how hard it is for Dexter to kill the outliers persueing him but Dan Abnett makes it clear from the narration that his special ammo does little to affect them.
Dexter gets saved by a pretty diverse group that we are told reject the norms of body modding everywhere else in Azimuth. They are hiding in a “Trash Zone” with their leader Andi who we learn is one psi active and two a fellow outsider. The beautifully drawn and rendered taking heads scene clearly sets up where Dexter must go and what he has to do to accomplish the assassination mission he’s on to take out the AI running the show in Azimuth. All this is compelling enough to set the hook for the upcoming story arc but the final few pages makes it a sure thing. The outliers nearly get Dexter after attacking the encampment. He’s again saved by Andi… ,well actually, Cassandra who travels her real form to him.
Anderson: PSI Division – The Game Within
Credits: Torunn Gronbekk (Script), Kieran McKeown(Art), Pippa Bowland (Colors), Rob Steen (Letters)
Chris Egan: Merry Christmas, here’s some child killers to brighten up Mega City One! When a run of mass murders perpetrated by children in the blocks begins, the PSI Division begins looking into it, using their mind powers to read the thoughts of the children in custody. All to quickly they discover that the kids are being controlled to murder by a powerful psychic somewhere in the city.
Usually, the reveal of an outside force causing the deaths would be the third act twist, but being that this is such an obvious outcome, Gronbekk drops it right up front with Anderson’s interrogation. From there the script becomes an action-packed whodunit as Andersok races across the city, into radiation zones, and and various levels of Mega City One. The buildup of the mystery and the myriad gang members and other City denizens that Anderson must get through really take this dark subject matter and allow it to exist somewhere between something incredibly bleak and kickass adventure. Having the killer jump from person to person, taunting our hero feels pulled from an 80s schlocksterpiece. The art by McKeown and Bowland is energetic, beautifully detailed, bright, and excellent.
Violence and action abound, but this is a really solid one-shot for Anderson as a character. Sometimes it feels like she’s relegated to uninteresting “Judge Dredd” knock off stories, or stuff that attempts to make her a solemn and stoic detective figure with little personality. This story however, gives her some of the signature stoicism while still giving her levels to her character and personality, and overall, it’s a fun read with plenty of light and dark to experience. A lot of this has been done before, but there’s comfort and enjoyment to be found in the familiar.
Fiends of the Eastern Front: Silent Knight
Credits: Ian Edginton (script) Tiernen Trevallion (art) Jim Campbell (letters)
Matthew Blair: While the holidays are a time of togetherness, comfort, and joy it’s also the darkest and coldest time of the year. This gives people plenty of opportunities to tell stories of a more brutal and violent aspect of the holiday season, a time where monsters roam and prey upon humanity. In a way, it makes sense, for every Santa there’s a Krampus, a demon lurking in the shadows that punishes bad children and sends a shiver down your spine that reminds you to lock your doors and hold the covers a little tighter.
Continued belowOf course, there are other things that go bump in the night that are just as scary. All of this is to say that today’s story presents a simple question: what if Dracula fought Krampus?
And yes, now you REALLY want to read this story.
“Fiends of the Eastern Front: Silent Knight” is written by Ian Edginton and it is a classic vampire story with just enough holiday spirit to twist and enhance the story. A demon masquerading as Krampus is terrorizing the kingdom, and the townspeople send an emissary to beg their local vampire lord to help them. While there is a moment of kindness and holiday warmth (brought on with incredible violence and bloodshed) Edginton is quick to remind the reader that this is still a vampire, and his help must be purchased with blood and obedience. It’s a twisted holiday tale that has more to do with Halloween than Christmas, but there’s still enough goodwill and even a bit of kindness to give the reader a small amount of holiday glow.
The artwork for “Fiends of the Eastern Front: Silent Knight” is provided by Tiernen Trevallion, who is a great choice for the story and delivers plenty of action, blood, and gore. There’s a bit of Mike Mignola’s style in Trevallion’s artwork, but it’s mixed in with a bit more realism and detail. Trevallion does a great job with the aesthetics and mood of the comic, making the vampire look like a classic Romanian nobleman and giving the demon a red robe that turns him into a cruel parody of Santa. The whole comic looks and feels gray, bleak, and depressing which is perfect for this story and the blood and gore flows in copious amounts.
“Fiends of the Eastern Front: Silent Knight” is a comic that delivers holiday warmth and is certainly in the spirit of giving, provided that said warmth is the blood flowing from your veins and the giving is the surrendering of your soul to the forces of darkness. However, while this story would probably be more suited towards Halloween, it does show that even monsters can have a heart every now and then.
Rogue Trooper: Runaway
Credits Geoffrey D. Wessel (script), Simon Coleby (art), F. Segala & S. Del Grosso (colours), Rob Steen (letters)
Michael Mazzacane: “Runaway” is a nicely put-together one-shot adventure of the Rogue Trooper. The plot is straightforward, literally, as Rogue and an anonymous Nort child, Temo, race to stop a rogue Nort mech from wrecking a refugee caravan. The stakes are immediately clear along with the internal conflict or at least the appearance of one. As Wessel’s narration repeatedly points out, Temo doesn’t know anything but by the end of this strip, he learns something.
F. Segala and S. Del Grosso’s work on the color for this strip helps to add clarity to what is at once a simple but complex and chaotic strip. In an interesting move, they don’t really add much texture to the figure work, those are essentially flats. The texture is added to the atmosphere and environment which gives everything this ethereal grit and contrast with the strange smoothness of the figure work. Simon Coleby inks this strip like it was supposed to be black and white. That’s not entirely a bad thing, it gives everything sharp angles and a rough geometry, it also robs the image of a certain sense of volume. When mixed with the coloring it creates a surprising series of flat images, it’s all very graphic. That works in the strip’s favor on the first page as we slowly pull in and out to see Temo running from the mech and the sudden appearance of Rogue Trooper. Other times though when they pulled the Hoth maneuver to get the rampaging bot down it left me confused at to how exactly it all worked. As a series of graphic individual images, it mostly works but the flow of that particular sequence doesn’t add up.
Segala and Del Grosso do add clarity by giving individual panels one dominant color which helps to set up who is talking and the general theme of binary juxtapositions that runs throughout “Rogue Trooper”. Though in the history of this strip, that binary is shown to be ironic and false.
Rob Steen does his best lettering to try and give the other chips some much-needed distinction. Wessel’s script does a solid job in terms of voice but all the balloons run together and just emanate from the Trooper. It’s a bit of a mess in spots.
Even with the messy spots “Runaway” is still a solid “Rogue Trooper” adventure. It’s not exactly tied into a larger story, just an endless battle. Which is the melancholic point.
