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: Rend and Tear with Tooth and Claw, Part 2
Credits: Rob Williams (script), RM Guera (art), Giulia Brusco (colors), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Greg Lincoln: ‘Part 2’ of this story packs in a whole lot of action and allows Moon to save the damsel in distress, Dredd, this time around. This chapter has some truly well drawn action scenes by RM Guera. The scenes he drew of the initial fight with the giant bear are impressive and pretty brutal costing Dredd almost all his fellow judges and their attackers. The entire story really shines when Moon pulls Dredd away from the skirmish and leads him, in a very cinematically done moment, off the edge of a cliff, Butch Casidy and the Sundance Kid style. Much like the bear’s intrusion into the strip at the end of last week, the finale of this week ends with an enigmatic tattooed Hunter, both threatening the Judges and possible being their savior, as he’s familiar with said bear.
Rob Williams has a whole kit to explain with this story yet and as we are in the midst of a chase scene it seem it may be a while before we get any answers. We have yet to find out what mission they were on, where they were headed, and even where they got shot down. Beyond the winter landscape hinting at somewhere in north, this story could be happening nearly anywhere. A suspicious mind might think Chief Judge Logan might be trying to get rid of some troublesome Judges by sending them into a trap but only time and more chapters will tell.
Full Tilt Boogie: Book 2, Part Ten
Credits: Alex De Campi (script), Eduardo Ocanna (art), Eve De La Cruz (colours), Annie Parkhouse(letters)
Michael Mazzacane: Book 2 comes to a close with the promise of an energetic finale. Unlike Star Wars it forgoes a dark middle chapter, ending on something better described as measured optimism. Everyone has their new mission. Z and Achilles are off to find an end to feeling and fulfill purpose. Three teenagers, their Grandma, and a Cat are going to take on the Empire and kill a parasitic Titan holding the Empress hostage. It’s daunting, De Campi and Ocanna end the note on that measured optimism. To the question of can this ragtag group of rebels really change the universe? They say a definitive no, but maybe just maybe them and a lot of people along the way can if they all work together. You know, like the big fleet arriving scene from The Rise of Skywalker but emotionally and aesthetically nourishing instead of hollow calories. That promise of nourishment though is measured by Ocanna’s final image of our gang of heroes staring out into the distance on top of a broken down bridge to seemingly nowhere. The state of the infrastructure is fraught with peril as they plan to pull off a heist and regicide.
This strip caps off a series that are very plot heavy, they have been enjoyable but mechanical. Ocanna’s art on the third and fourth pages as Z and Achillies make their decisions encapsulates why these last few strips have worked so well. It’s not just that Ocanna’s art on a macro level is incredibly readable and naturalizes the movements that De Campi’s script is going through, their character work imbues these figures with small sparks of determination. Such as the panel in which Z names themself. Or Achilles deciding to go become a rock person. They are in some ways studies in contrast. Z is in an affirming close up. Achilles is in a removed back shot. But both moments capture this energy of self determination.
2000 AD promises that this series will return for its final book soon and I can’t wait.
Continued below
Aquila: River of Hades Book 2, Part 1
Credits: Gordon Rennie(script), Patrick Goddard (art), Dylan Teague (colors), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Matthew Blair: The story starts in the middle, with former gladiator Aquila at the door of the underworld hoping to get across the River Styx and find the emperor Nero so he can learn the location of the demon that cursed him with immortality and end his life once and for all.
That’s the background info you need to know for “Aquila: River of Hades Book 2 part 1”. This part of the story opens with Aquila fighting the ghost of Spartacus.
“Aquila: River of Hades Book 2 part 1” is written by series creator Gordon Rennie and it is a solid comic and a great bit of Roman historical fantasy. All the names are correct, the script gets the mythology right and the people tied to actual history really existed. Rennie puts the shared struggle of Aquilla and Spartacus to the forefront here and the dialogue and friendship between the two slaves turned freedom fighters is well written. The story does suffer a bit from being in the middle of a longer narrative and new readers might find it difficult to follow the story if they don’t know the backstory and who is who. There is a bit of exposition at the beginning of the prog that fills in most of the gaps, but it is easy to lose.
The artwork for “Aquila: River of Hades Book 2 part 1” is provided by Patrick Goddard with colors by Dylan Teague. Like the writing it is pretty true to history with the armor, clothing and weapons being accurate enough, although Spartacus’ armor does veer into fantasy territory a but. The highlight of the issue is the story’s action, which Goddard makes clear and easy to follow with mid shots and wide frames. If there is anything to critique it’s that for the Underworld the setting looks very bright and a bit too much like the real world, although it gets more fantastic near the end. Still, the art work had a fun gritty aesthetician that isn’t afraid to be weird and violent, which is very suitable to the story.
“Aquila: River of Hades Book 2 part 1” suffers a bit from being the middle of a long established story, but all the ingredients are there for something dark, twisted, and fun enough to pique a new reader’s interest.
Indigo Prime: Black Monday, Part 7
Credits: Kek-W (script), Lee Carter (art), Jim Campbell (letters)
Chris Egan: Revelations and backstories are briefly given some additional info as they overlap with another total universe shift. This chapter gives us a bit of insight into these characters, in ways that we truly haven’t gotten yet. Or at the very least, we have only gotten some hints at these details. It also gives us a beautiful transition from one world to another. There is not hiding just how different these environments are, not just in their design, but in the use of the black & white that carries over from last week and then the jump to this bizarre stylistic mash up and bombastic sci-fi world for the second half of the chapter.
This series is nothing short of fascinating and beautiful. Whether it clicks with you every week, or whether or not you fully understand what this story is about or where it is going, every week, there is something for someone. It’s a gift to continue getting weird stuff every week. Keep it weird, keep it fresh, keep it interesting. And that is what this creative team is doing with “Indigo Prime: Black Monday” with every single chapter.
Proteus Vex: Devious, Part Three
Credits: Mike Carroll (script), Jake Lynch (art), Jim Boswell (colours), Simon Bowland (letters)
Brian Salvatore: Another week, another story that isn’t about Proteus Vex, but this week is the least focused on Proteus yet. This week adds an even further level of obfuscation, with the story not just being once removed from Vex, but twice. The focus of this week are fellow members of Midnight’s species, and Midnight is a character who was important in a prior Vex story. This has been a common theme in “Devious,” but if you can look past the lack of Proteus, all of these stories are quite interesting little vignettes of this universe.
Jake Lynch’s art continues to work on the edges of disturbing, never quite going all in on the weirdness, but getting pretty damn close. The characters are rolypoly little creatures who Lynch makes look almost cute, but still retaining enough alien nature to be off-putting. This chapter, Lynch gets to draw a couple of spacecrafts, and does a phenomenal job distinguishing between a junky one and a more impressive ship. This may sound like a small detail, but so many times in sci-fi stories, everything looks so futuristic that the classification between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ doesn’t really make sense outside of the context of the story. But here, anyone could tell that the sleek, metallic ship is a better vessel than the barrel with boosters on its back.
