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 7
Credits: Rob Williams and Arthur Wyatt (script), Henry Flint (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Greg Lincoln: Robert Glenn’s relentless attacks on Judge Maitland and her experiment continues apace this week. First though, we get a view inside Glenn’s head as he’s obviously thinking about a corporate takeover. Henry Flint has a real gift for exaggeration and shows it grandly on this page. The already distasteful form of Glenn becomes a all consuming monster in his minds eye. Henry also treats us to a smarmy ingratiating version of the same distasteful face on the following page. It’s all a bit gross as he goes on about the dangers of the change in policing and the threat of a new chief judge.
The story then shits to Hernandez and new developments between him and Maitland as she is still perusing him. Everything she has in obviously incriminating but, to quote the traitor, nothing she has is solid enough to bring to the SBS division. The only things that are not clear are why the Domo case is interesting to Hernandez and how the fish fry assassination of Zeit after his release from the hospital will affect the growing violence in sector 304.
Indigo Prime: Cracked Actors, Part 1
Credits: Kek-W (script), Lee Carter (art), Jim Campbell (letters)
Chris Egan: In the wake of the destruction of Indigo Prime’s headquarters, as ICP attempts to pick up the pieces and direct the remaining IP employees into the multiverse, Clive Vista is sent to acquire the actor Johnny Depth to take on his next role.
A somewhat fun romp through an alternate Hollywood that pokes fun at a few big actors and films, this introduction to the new arc is mildly clever, but Kek-W feels like he’s patting himself on the back a bit too hard as he makes silly nods to Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, and a whole lot of American Psycho. The plot is simple enough, but with the reader getting plopped down in media res, it feels like we’re playing catch up to something that isn’t deep or layered enough to warrant that feeling.
The art is well made and nicely detailed. Carter does an excellent job with recreating famous faces and scenes for this other Earth somewhere in the multiverse. Not an overly bad or tedious read, but it does feel lacking in a way that leaves a bit to be desired. Too much gimmick, not enough reason, yet.
Full Tilt Boogie: Book 2, Part Four
Credits: Alex De Campi (script), Eduardo Ocanna (art), Eve De La Cruz (colours), Annie Parkhouse(letters)
Michael Mazzacane: Eduardo Ocanna’s art work continues to be the real highlight for this strip. While things have yet to get as weird as I’d hoped, this strip ends on a tease for things to start to get strange. Perhaps that feeling about a lack of weirdness is due to Ocanna’s page layouts being readable and structured in such a way that contains the non-descript geography of Tee’s adventure.
This observation is derived from the first page which doesn’t have anything to do with Tee. Instead, it shifts to Granny’s POV as she wanders a farmers market lamenting being old and not carrying her own weight, that is until she finds a game of space dominos and puts the spaceship up as collateral. That opening page is in the style of Tee’s own adventure with a large central panel, in this case about a third of the page is on a vertical strip, with the rest of the panels structured around it. That page design follows for Tee’s adventure with large portions of a page taken up by a single panel and then 3-4 smaller rounds in the margins. It creates an interesting contrast that allows for the display of large, cavernous spaces with small panel sequences showing a journey through space. The way geography is vaguely specified in these pages helps to give the feeling of weirdness; however, it remains readable. This isn’t some exercise in surrealism.
Continued belowDe Campi’s plotting takes an interesting turn in the final page as we shift to the quest giver and why he is putting Tee at risk. He has someone very close to him in the local hospital and that crystal is the only thing that might save him. It isn’t that this is a necessary humanizing moment, the gag about we aren’t creatin’s for charging docking fees already did that. But it’s a nice moment that shows how everyone has someone in this story.
The Fall of Deadworld: Retribution, Part 8
Credits: Kek-W (script), Dave Kendall (art), Simon Bowland (letters)
Brian Salvatore: There is a certain art style that is very indicative of certain 2000 AD strips that “The Fall of Deadworld: Retribution” is very representative of. Unfortunately, this is also a type of art that I’m not particularly fond of, and so the process of reading and reviewing this strip is not a pleasant one. I wanted to get that out of the way early, because I will do my absolute best to give each chapter a fair shake, but felt it was important to voice my prejudice up front.
Dave Kendall’s art is deeply saturated and truly gives the vibe of a city that has been to hell and back. The deep, incandescent reds and oranges that appear with Judge Fire really help to sell the turmoil, visually. However, the painterly style also limits the amount of sequential movement that pops off the page, leading to a very staid, static looking strip.
Because this is the first installment in three months, there would be an understanding/expectation for a lot of exposition to catch folks up but, thankfully, Kek-W totally eschews that and drops us right in the middle of a story. There’s not too much you need to know beyond the very basics provided by the title. Horror is always a fun genre to bump into Judge Dredd stuff, and so there’s a lot of stuff here that basically works, even if it feels a little predictable and stale in parts.
Thistlebone The Dule Tree: Part 7
Credits: T.C Eglington (script), Simon Davis (art) Simon Bowland (letters)
Matthew Blair: With everything falling apart, the stress piling on, and people starting to crack, it’s time for some introspection and trips down memory lane. For this part of the story we get to take a look at the backstory of Callum, the screenwriter.
Mild spoilers: it turns out his childhood was almost as rough as the making of this film, and even more violent and destructive.
While some might say it’s a bit too late in the script for backstory, writer T.C Eglington crafts a sad, tragic, and incredibly violent childhood for Callum in “Thistlebone The Dule Tree: Part 7”. Eglington goes the sadly traditional route of giving the screenwriter an abusive drunk of a father who has no problem beating his wife and son until one fateful day when everything changes. Eglington does a great job of writing Callum in such a way that he pretends not to care about his past, but deep down there’s a very real sense that he does care and that it still has quite the impact on him. It all culminates in a legitimately horrific ending that goes a long way towards explaining Callum’s fascination with gore and violence, and for a sadly familiar story it is very engaging and well written.
Once again, Simon Davis’ art is the highlight of the story in “Thistlebone The Dule Tree: Part 7” and this time we get to see him play around with different styles and ideas. Since Callum’s story is told in flashbacks, it’s up to Davis to differentiate between the present and the past, and he does this by introducing a completely different art style for the flashbacks. This new art is far more cartoonish and simple, and while it does detract fro the horror of the story a little bit, it’s still fun to see experimentation and new storytelling ideas make their way into comics.
“Thistlebone The Dule Tree: Part 7” trods depressingly familiar ground in Callum’s backstory, but it’s still well written and shows that it has the courage to branch out and try new ideas and new techniques to enhance the story.
