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 Better World Part 6
Credits: Rob Williams and Arthur Wyatt (script), Henry Flint (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Greg Lincoln: Rob Williams and Arthur Wyatt hit readers in our divided, media obsessed hearts on the opening page. Some people embrace change; most fear it and the media ether push the fear or sport opinions simply to have them. The remainder of this weeks ‘A Better World’ develops in a few surprising ways. The first is solidly illustrated by the twisted wreckage by the hands of Henry Flint. The glider Domo was using to escape was shredded by the heat seeker and its unrecognizable remains along with Domo were pulled from the Black Atlantic, with the shock being he didn’t escape. More shocking was the blatant way Hernandez defended Robert Glenn, saying he was off limits to Maitland. Flint captured that shock and anger well across the talking heads scene between them.
The action in this story followed out of that interplay between Maitland and Hernandez. Though Flint did get to illustrate Judge Dredd in action for a couple of panels, the major tension followed Maitland. He made those panels showing her mentally trying to follow the “money” to find the criminals more engaging than the fisticuffs. Rather than illustrating the data, he brings her face in closer and closer as the reality of what she suspected becomes a fact in the data.
Tharg’s 3rillers: The English Astronaut, Part 3
Credits: Paul Cornell (script), Laura Helsby (art), Matt Soffe (colours), Jim Campbell (letters)
Brian Salvatore: The problem with creating a story that is full of paradoxes and unnatural moments is that there is rarely a way to wrap up that story satisfactorily. In fact, ‘The English Astronaut’ doesn’t really end at all. Oh, there’s an ending, but it’s as unsatisfying as the first two chapters were engaging. The last narration box basically sums up the story in just a few uncreative words, and it all feels like an incomplete thought experiment.
That sense of being incomplete extends to the art as well. The “chaotic” pages are too neatly composed and the pages that are supposed to be impactful suffer from relatively flat faces without much emotion expressed across them. The art makes what should be a rollicking story of time travel into something that feels stilted and stiff.
This is a bigger problem with “3rillers” all the time; the pacing doesn’t work for every story, and things often feel like one-shots stretched out or longer stories cut short. This feels like a bigger tale, truncated, but because of the format, will likely remain in its shortened state forever. That’s too bad, because the kernel at the heart of this is still interesting.
Full Tilt Boogie: Book 2, Part Three
Credits: Alex De Campi (script), Eduardo Ocanna (art), Eve De La Cruz (colours), Annie Parkhouse(letters)
Michael Mazzacane: Compared to the previous couple of strips, this third entry is sparse and extremely straightforward. There is no cut away to a ‘B’ plot or the development of a ‘C’ plot with Granny back at the base. This strip is locked on the perspective of Tee as she is delivered to the restricted zone to hunt for crystals. This strip is about the journey into the unknown and Eduardo Ocanna’s art more than carries it. De Campi’s script is functionalist with a fitting half hearted attempt at humor before Tee is left to wander through the restricted zone.
Eduardo Ocanna is asked to create the feeling of a journey in this strip in an extremely limited amount of space. When I first read this episode it felt like the journey took up at least three pages. It is in fact 1 and a half. That feeling though is developed by a good page turn that totally changes the environment that the beetle ship is flying through, from lush Mediterranean like spaces to the Arizona desert. That sudden shift creates the feeling of distance. Even Tee’s trip into the zone is at once truncated but loaded with an affect of exertion as he draws Tee in a trio of panels that go an indeterminate amount to the zone. The mountain and desert environment in this trio of panels is at once in continuity and could be read as being near one another and at once feels totally untethered from one another. Tee was warned that things get “weird” the farther into the zone she goes so this subtle warping of continuity is good foreshadowing for what is to come in the following weeks.
Continued belowThis strip ends on a double page splash, a move I’m rarely in agreement with. Ocanna’s image is big, bold, and fittingly contradictory. It is at once expansive and cavernous but pushes Tee into the foreground in a way that feels constrained. Ultimately I do not think this episode would have been served by more panels of Tee’s journey so this large image is effective.
Enemy Earth – Book Three: Part Ten
Credits: Cavan Scott (script), Luke Horsman (art), Simon Bowland (letters)
Chris Egan: The finale is here. The moment we’ve all been waiting for, but it’s mostly just more of the same. A lot of the same action beats from the majority of this series are in use, and because the last few chapters have been more or less continuous high energy action and violence, it does make sense to lead with that here. It unfortunately just feels redundant upon first glance.
There is a tenderness to this final chapter that dies occur by the end and is rooted in what has been going on for this entire third of “Enemy Earth.” It was nice to get this resolution, and it wS even a bit surprising that with everything that’s happened, there was even a semblance of a happy ending. That was probably the most shocking element of this entire run. While unexpected, it still felt earned. Which was nice. Overall, this has been one hell of a wild ride and while this final chapter was a little lackluster at first, it was nice to be surprised.
Thistlebone The Dule Tree: Part 4
Credits: T.C Eglington (script), Simon Davis (art) Simon Bowland (letters)
Matthew Blair: This part of the story is very much a tale of two horrors. The first is the very real horror of homophobia in 1970’s rural Britain, although it’s certainly not that much more horrific than what’s going on in parts of the world today. The second is the fact that reality and fantasy seem to be warping together and bending the rules of perception, because people are starting to see and hear things.
I’ll leave it up to you to decide which one is more horrific.
After the chaos of the last prog, writer T.C Eglington starts off pretty small in “Thistlebone The Dule Tree: Part 6”. Eglington has the screenwriter recovering from his beating in a hospital and the scene that plays out is very human and depressingly familiar to anyone who has had to hide a part of themselves in fear for their lives. However, Eglington weaves in some very subtle hints at something bigger going on here from the very beginning. Some of the words don’t feel right, some of the people are a bit too mysterious, and there’s a great moment at the end where the movie begins to bleed into reality that is very well done and lays a great foundation for more of the mystery.
The best part of Simon Davis’ art in “Thistlebone The Dule Tree: Part 6” is his ability to show the characters processing and talking about their damage and their trauma. There’s a great little scene where the screenwriter relives the memory of his attacker, and it’s uncomfortable and sometimes hard to read. The mundane moments lead to some great panels showing quiet contemplation and disgust with the general state of things, and it’s a great bit of character work. There is a scene at the very end that is a rather jarring and confusing shift in the art, but it sets up the next prog beautifully, so it gets a pass.
“Thistlebone The Dule Tree: Part 6” shows that scary things don’t have to be supernatural, they can be just as ordinary as the people around you. Of course, in the next prog it looks like we’re going to get some supernatural scare in so stay tuned!
