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: Iron Teeth Part 1
Credits: Ken Neimand (script), Nick Perceval (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Greg Lincoln: The first impression that this story’s art gives is an unsettling one. The backgrounds are hazy, out of focus and the characters kind of border on the uncanny valley, giving the strip an off-putting feeling. Nick Perceval and Ken Neimand give each of the orphaned juves their moment to make an impression on us before sending them off to hunt for whatever is making their peers disappear. With the sinister overtones set by the art, it is no surprise that Iron Teeth, the new heavy introduced this week, is a full on horror show. He hunts children and has visual overtones that make him seem on the Judge Death level of baddie.
In addition to the new villain, Ken Niemand includes a lot of the usual Judge Dredd quips and themes. Dredd appears at the sight of a crime and sends down both the perpetrators and the victim because everyone is a potential or actual criminal. It is actually pretty funny, if fairly predictable. Even though the the fate of the hunters introduced in the opening pages is predictable, the images conjured by Nick Perceval are so downright disturbing that it’s only the cybernetic eyes that tell you for sure that the bodies are the characters we recently met.
Brink: Consumer, Part 5
Credits: Dan Abnett (script), Inj Culbard (art), Simon Bowland (letters)
Michael Mazzacane: The opening three panels for this strip tell you everything you need to know. Just three panels of Kurtis slowly shifting in their seat awash in the glow of a computer screen. It could be a brief moment in time, or it could be an eternity across three panels. That indeterminacy is the mood that overhangs this entire strip as things shift into procedural space-Zodiac side of things.
Kurtis as always in on the case, what case that is she doesn’t know but the work never stops. Inj Culbard’s staging in the first two pages as Kurtis and Wade make awkward early morning small talk with one another furthers that feeling, it is just awkward. Wade feels like he could be right behind her or 10 feet away on the second page with how flat Culbard makes the image. It’s a visual metaphor for the unknowability, at least at this point in time, of what these markings mean and if they point to something more sinister. Wade gives Kurtis a very classic noir anserw to the seemingly high amount of missing persons on the hab, it’s hard to know who is truly missing when you don’t know who is actually on the hab at any one point. It’s space Chinatown.
That feeling of unknowability, morass, is shattered though in the final two pages as the Victim whose POV has been our own for the past several weeks is discovered. Or well what is left of it. Abnett’s scripting nicely shifts the tone when we get to the beat cops on duty, just talking shop and ways to milk the system and get a good retirement package early. Ya know normal space cop stuff, but than the real work intrudes on their fantasies.
With the body revealed the real work begins and along with it the potential madness of space.
Aquila: River of Hades Book 2, Part 6
Credits: Gordon Rennie (script), Patrick Goddard (art), Dylan Teague (colors), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Matthew Blair: This is the end of this particular chapter of the story, and it ends on a rather quite note. The gang has left the Underworld with the soul of former emperor Nero and they got what they came for. Unfortunately, doubts remain and it’s up to Aquila and the newly reincarnated emperor to come to grips with what they have done, and how they must live with themselves.
Continued belowWhile the plot of “Aquila: River of Hades Book 2 part 6” is very character focused and low key considering the epic battles we’ve seen in previous installments, it doesn’t mean that the ending lacks in emotional depth or meaning. Writer Gordon Rennie delivers quite the emotional journey in this finale, and he even manages to make a decadent monster like Nero almost sympathetic. There is a lot of quiet contemplation on the burden of memory and the guilt over past crimes, but Rennie provides a soft and gentle landing for the monsters of this comic, which comes from a man who has known nothing but violence and death. It’s a solid ending with a lot of meaning.
A character focused script demands character focused artwork, which artist Patrick Goddard provides in “Aquila: River of Hades Book 2 part 6”. This is a moment where a lot of people bare their souls to the audience and to themselves, and Goddard does a good job of showing it. Nero looks genuinely remorseful for his many crimes (seriously, look him up, it’s bad) and we can see how much Aquila relates to the problem and sympathizes, despite the fact that he has spent the entire story wishing to kill the former emperor again. There isn’t much to say about the art other than that it’s good, and there is a fun and literally monstrous cliffhanger at the end.
“Aquila: River of Hades Book 2 part 6” is a gentle, sweet, and almost kind ending to a story that has been filled with violence and death, and while Nero and Aquila cannot and will never be true friends, their shared trauma and guilt gives them an opportunity to help each other in ways that nobody else could.
Intestinauts: Busted Flush – Part One
Credits: Arthur Wyatt (Script), Pye Parr (Art/Letters)
Chris Egan: An extremely brisk introduction is at hand with Intestinauts. In the distant future a lab specializing in all manner of biological studies has a sample hit the floor, causing a contamination and quarantine lockdown. The scientist we follow for a few pages decides to send their latest experiment, The Intestinauts, to deal with the error. And we get a very silly, tongue in cheek action sequence of these little guys teaming up to take down a very angry substance that just wants to kill and add robotic bits to itself.
A breezy script by Wyatt throws in enough world building, double meanings, and one-liners to fill an entire full issue and does so within these five brief pages. The artwork by Parr is gorgeous. Just slightly off kilter, never looking to make things look too perfect, the character designs are very human in the best way. And while we really only get a good look at one person in this premiere chapter, there is enough of them to make us understand how this world and its people look. There’s a wacky and humorous element to the sci-fi that is both taking itself seriously while not taking any of it seriously. It’s a tone that works here and was a pleasant surprise. Rather than childish bathroom humor, which one could assume would be the case, the story gives out plausible scientific elements in a very fictional setting.
Knowing nothing about this story going in, I found it quite enjoyable, it made me smile, and I’m definitely intrigued to see what happens next.
Proteus Vex: Devious, Part Eight
Credits: Mike Carroll (script), Jake Lynch (art), Jim Boswell (colours), Simon Bowland (letters)
Brian Salvatore: The last page of ‘Devious – Part Eight’ is the moment that the entire strip thus far has been building to thus far. With Vex finally awake and on the move, the story will change quite a bit. Instead of being a catalog of the world around Vex, he will be the focal point again.
As has been a theme of these reviews, this chapter feels a little underwhelming and ancillary compared to some of the others we’ve had in ‘Devious’ thus far, but the effect remains the same. Without Vex, there is only so much juice that can be wrung out of “Proteus Vex,” and the fruit is dry and breaking apart at this stage. Mike Carroll is trying to build up the world, and is doing so reasonably effectively, but there’s nothing to support that world building. It doesn’t feel like the additional characters and settings are going to really do anything in the story. It’s all just set dressing for Vex’s return, which has been teased since the first chapter.
Jim Boswell’s colors again do the heavy lifting for this tale that features flashbacks. Jake Lynch’s art remains in one style throughout, with just the shading of pink by Boswell to let us differentiate the timelines. This seems like a missed opportunity for a number of reasons.
