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 9
Credits: Rob Williams and Arthur Wyatt (script), Henry Flint (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Greg Lincoln: Henry Flint’s art left no doubt, Judge Maitland was shot dead and Judge Dredd was swarmed by civies. Part 9 is a fitting tribute to her and a set up for more stories to hopefully come. Mega City-One drenched in rain the Judges morn one of their own and we get hints that Dredd knows who’s to blame, who craves vengeance and unsurprisingly who is complicit. Flint has extra pages to play this part and it’s all well worth it. From the grey tinged opening pages on morning to the final black bordered page of the man that should really fear Dredd now, it’s all pretty stellar. Multiple times he returns to Maitland’s shattered glasses and, somehow, it always hits home.
The story reflects the importance of the loss of Judge Maitland. They made it clear her project is dead and will try to be hushed up. Williams and Wyatt introduce a hint that there will be news leaked to the public at some point and that truth may cost people their positions or maybe someone’s life. At least we know that Bomo won’t get his money or get away scott free. Though this story arc has run it’s race, there is more coming clearly. Dredd being on Hernandez’s tail will be very interesting to see play out as will seeing Beeny attempt to get revenge or Justice. Rest in peace Maitland, you will be missed by the citizens you tried to help and made a difference to. All in all, one of the most enjoyable and affecting “Dredd” arcs in a long time.
Indigo Prime: Cracked Actors, Part 3
Credits: Kek-W (script), Lee Carter (art), Jim Campbell (letters)
Chris Egan: As this story once again morphs into something completely new, we get a deep space high concept sci-fi adventure. It’s a very different direction for this strip basing our expectations on the previous two entries. As those had clear connections, this week we are once again dropped into a whole scenario. Narrative building like this really makes it feel as though the floor is pulled out from under the reader every time we crack the next issue, and while my initial knee jerk response to something like this is to dislike it. Not to dislike it just because the story is now different, but to criticize it for being a cheap stunt to just shake things up without a great story building foundation.
For some reason this works for me this time. I’m still a little uneasy about where it is going because, to be honest, Kek-W isn’t my favorite 2000 AD writing alum. It isn’t a talent thing, but a connection thing. I’m hoping I continue to connect with this story. The art by Lee Carter is really the top thing going for this overall, but I am on board for the concept. Carter’s ability to create something wholly new for this next iteration and working with Kek-W to keep that story moving ahead with a good amount of clarity. Seeing dialogue and characters continuing on with new faces and ideas all over it is a cool thing to see.
Full Tilt Boogie: Book 2, Part Six
Credits: Alex De Campi (script), Eduardo Ocanna (art), Eve De La Cruz (colours), Annie Parkhouse(letters)
Michael Mazzacane: This is why I like 2000 AD because given the form of a weekly strip you can afford to experiment a little bit. If an experiment doesn’t work, well, it’s only one episode and there is a new strip next week. When considering the anthology nature of the publication it could be argued there are lots of little experiments each week. De Capi and Ocanna’s experiment in this week’s strip is the compression and decompression of time and an extremely traumatic experience.
Continued belowAfter the second panel, Tee doesn’t say a complete sentence for the rest of the strip. “I’m claustrophobic! Please!” she screams at her mysterious captures who are sent into the ether just as soon as they appeared. This is the most panel heavy strip from the series thus far with 31 in total and despite their varied shape and puzzle like construction it is a, fittingly, claustrophobic experience. Ocanna is most often in a tight close up of Tee’s anguished face. Even when she isn’t in close up Ocanna makes her spatial relationship within the panel to be on that is overbearing and threatening. These decisions help the sense of temporality spiral between close moment by moment and the indeterminate period between panels.
All of it building to a pitch perfect final splash page. By the end I felt out of breath just like she was. Only I’m not stranded in the middle of the desert.
The Fall of Deadworld: Retribution, Part 10
Credits: Kek-W (script), Dave Kendall (art), Simon Bowland (letters)
Brian Salvatore: “The Fall of Deadworld” is a long-running strip in the Progs, but unlike some of the other classic strips, perhaps because this one re-started an existing arc a few issues back, this one is hard to jump into. There are a ton of characters whose goals are obviously the same – escape, save their allies, kill the bastards – so it is hard to get a sense of who is who.
That alone makes this a tough read, and it isn’t helped by the fact that the art continues to not focus on sequential storytelling, but on more pinup-style images and characters that are hard to visually distinguish from one another. The only thing that this strip really has going for it is the sense of danger and dread that inhabit the pages. Kendall’s art does infuse the story with a healthy sense of darkness and fear, but without too much character development, it continues to fall flat.
Thistlebone The Dule Tree: Part 9
Credits: T.C Eglington (script), Simon Davis (art) Simon Bowland (letters)
Matthew Blair: We have reached an inflection point. After days of stress piling on, everything going wrong, and people starting to slowly lose their minds the higher ups in charge of the film have snapped and have started screaming at each other, and it’s all happening just in time for the press to show up.
As if things weren’t bad enough, people are starting to ramble on and on about horrible things that never happened to them and others are starting to…see things.
The fallout is somewhat understated in “Thistlebone The Dule Tree: Part 9” but that doesn’t mean writer T.C Eglington is slacking off. Eglington does a great job of showing how tired and frustrated everyone is and he chooses to show it through the dialogue. If there is a criticism of this part of the story, it’s that Eglington does do a bit more telling than showing in this part of the story, but there is a well written monologue that puts the whole situation into the right contrast and makes the reader feel just as tired and as overwhelmed as the rest of the cast. There is a definite sense of dread and foreboding in the script, and it feels like there’s going to be an absolutely wicked payoff.
Since the script has chosen to focus more on the dialogue and character moments there really isn’t a whole lot for Shane Davis’ artwork to do in “Thistlebone The Dule Tree: Part 9”. Since most of the story is spoken and is centered around the characters talking to each other, it does allow Davis to show his talent for drawing emotion and characters and it’s very good. Everyone looks appropriately tired, worn down, and frayed around the edges and there’s a very real sense of weight to the action. There’s also a great scene where one of the characters hallucinates something, and Davis gets to show off the looming supernatural threat in an awe inspiring and legitimately scary image.
“Thistlebone The Dule Tree: Part 9” shows the entire cast of characters at the end of their respective ropes and snapping in the face of overwhelming pressure. Everyone’s yelling, nobody trusts or supports each other any more, and they are ripe for whatever evil has been lurking in the shadows to reveal itself and strike.
