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!
Not so fast.
Before we get into our final Multiver-City One column, I (Brian) want to thank the folks who have been tirelessly recapping/reviewing these strips for the past few years. Mike, Matt, Greg, and Chris have been consistent, thoughtful, and engaged while the quality of the strips they cover haven’t always lived up to their end of the deal. I’d also like to acknowledge Rowan Grover, august (in the wake of) dawn, Kent Falkenberg, Ryan Perry, Tom Shapira, and everyone else who put time into this column since it started.
However, the biggest thanks go to the two folks who started it, Mike Romeo and Greg Matiasevich. You’ll never meet two nicer guys who love comics more.
Also, sorry for ending when stories are still running. But, of course, we know that they’ll never stop… – Brian
This Week in 2000 AD
Judge Dredd: Iron Teeth Part 3
Credits: Ken Neimand (script), Nick Perceval (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Greg Lincoln: Nick Perceval’s ethereal art makes ‘Iron Teeth’ feel like a very, very dark fairy tale and this chapter in particular fits that storytelling style. The best “Judges Dredd” stories know that Joseph Dredd is a great straight man for a joke and Ken Neimand makes good use of his super stoic nature. Right off the bat, Martha calls out his lack of people skills as they meet and add Lex to their Undercity delving group. The meat of the tale is our introduction to the legends of the Undercity from Martha’s research: the lost patrol, the last Sov the snatchers, the haven, and the renegade judges. Perceval’s one panel images of those stories really sold them as full stories, there was enough hazy detail that it’s easy to imagine the tale and Dredd somehow being a part of the story itself. It didn’t hurt that Martha started to ask about Dredd himself, which he slyly sidesteps the whole issue.
We still know surprisingly about Iron Teeth, why he is abducting kids, if he’s supernatural or not, but it’s clear he’s a new addition of the legends of the Undercity. Neimand makes it clear that at least one of the stories connects to the kids hunting the new boogieman and he leads us up to what is sure to be a confrontation next week. The hazy and ethereal nature of the tone set by the art makes this gotRuss feel more myth building then it is likely to be. The biggest myth of Mega City one is Dredd himself, he’s the boogieman for both criminal and citizen alike, its something that is hinted at in part one and I suspect it may be the actual point of this tale of Undercity tales. Yes, he does need much better people skills, but don’t try to tell him that.
Brink: Consumer, Part 7
Credits: Dan Abnett (script), Inj Culbard (art), Simon Bowland (letters)
Michael Mazzacane: Abnett does not really push the plot forward all that much in this episode of “Bring”. We don’t even work the case in such a way that leads to new evidence, Kurtis is still trying to figure out what the glyphs mean. Instead Abnett’s scripting emphasizes character traits in the context of doing procedural work. Procedural is not just limited to criminal investigation but the overall corporate and careerist ladder as Kurtis asks Bonner for access to Lind.
Lind has been casually characterized through his associations with Bonner and Kurtis and the work they do. This is taken a step further as Kurtis plays on his desires for advancement to argue for why he would help her. Bonner, the current subject of Lind’s procedural working over, cannot see this claiming that Lind “likes Golf.” Simon Bowland’s lettering really sells the emphasis and hurt in Bonner’s voice as he defends his golf buddy. Low and behold a couple of pages later Lind stands before Kurtis offering help. Golf really isn’t his thing it turns out. This is both a funny refutation of Bonner’s own statements but also helps to further the enigma of who Lind is. Once again he is only characterized through his association with work. Now, he really doesn’t look like a golf person to begin with. Abnett through this plotting doesn’t push anything forward but it is a nice example of how he lays character work into the genre of it all.
Continued belowAbnett and Culbard do play on our understanding of past episodes by showing the PI having a nightmare. It plays out exactly like our previous scenes with the space vampire, only this time she wakes up. It’s a nice reflexive play on reader expectations. I don’t know what it means but it was a fun experience.
Tharg’s Thrillers: Blue Skies Over Deadwick Part 2
Credits: David Baille(script), Nick Brokenshire (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Matthew Blair: In the last prog, we learned that there is a war between the last remnants of humanity and giant mech machines that seem hellbent on destroying the human race. It was an interesting and action filled story that created a fascinating world and left us with lots pf questions.
Now, in this prog, we get a time jump into the future and a story from the machine’s perspective, which answers a bunch of questions…but leaves a lot more to be answered.
Writer David Baillie does an amazing job of subverting expectations in “Blue Skies over Deadwick part 2” while introducing a whole new set of ideas and themes for the audience to engage with. It’s not that Baille makes the giant robots relatable–that would be nearly impossible–but he does do a great job answering a lot of the questions a reader might have about what happened in the first part of the story. We learn why people get older when they attack the brains of the robots and we learn that there is something bigger controlling things behind the scenes. If the story has any problems it’s that there is a massive time jump that isn’t explained very well and a lot of the story moves forwards in a massive block of expository text, but it doesn’t distract that much from the cool new mystery at the end and the fantastic world building
The artwork of Nick Brokenshire really comes into its own in “Blue Skies over Deadwick part 2”, and this part of the story is even better than the first. While the first part of the story focused on the characters and kept the action tight and close, this part of the story requires scale and massive amounts of space to breathe. Brokenshire’s clean lines and use of space allows the reader to truly appreciate the sheer scale of these giant robots from a distance and it’s equal parts haunting and pretty at the same time. On top of that, Brokenshire does a great job of showing the passage of time as the main characters look older and everything looks more beaten and run down than before.
“Blue Skies over Deadwick part 2” offers a very unexpected but welcome twist to the standard post apocalyptic story as the true purpose behind the robots is revealed. They aren’t just mindless machines, they think and have feelings of their own. Every question from the previous story had been answered, now it’s time for new ones.
Intestinauts: Busted Flush – Part Three
Credits: Arthur Wyatt (Script), Pye Parr (Art/Letters)
Chris Egan: As the last remaining Intestinaut lives within a digital realm, they attempt to assist in the stopping of the escaped contaminant before it takes over the entire facility. This chapter doesn’t go in some of the galaxy brain ways I expected with how part 2 ended, but it does make for an interesting, if less bombastic, chapter. The artwork continues to be a truly fun and pretty addition to this series, fully complimenting the script in every way. The writing takes a major shift again, more or less going back to the style of part 1, with the dialogue being fully conversational between the Intestinaut and our scientist protagonist. As things come to a head, we get a whole new fleet of Intestinauts cloned from the last existing one! New armor! New strengths! New equipment! The series is really holding its energy and excitement, even when giving characters a few moments to breathe, it doesn’t last long before the action ramps up once more giving us yet another exciting cliffhanger. This chapter ends with an extra page of backstory adding to what’s to come.
Proteus Vex: Devious, Part Ten
Credits: Mike Carroll (script), Jake Lynch (art), Jim Boswell (colours), Simon Bowland (letters)
Brian Salvatore: “Devious, Part Ten” finally gives the reader more than a few panels of Proteus Vex himself, but delivers a mixed bag of a chapter. On one hand, it is nice to have all of this backstory dumped in one place, allowing the story to move forward next week without spending too much time on the hows and whys of Vex’s return. But when considering all the side stories that the last nine chapters have told, it seems like these elements could have been threaded through those chapters in a way that made their telling less recap and more storytelling.
Similarly, the lack of Jake Lynch’s art devisions in the various scenes feels like wasted opportunities as well. With only the shading of Jim Boswell’s colors to differentiate current state from past, there’s nothing particularly engaging about the panels found here. This entire chapter feels like an info dump, looks like an info dump, and has all the emotional impact of an info dump.
