Calling yourself the Galaxy’s greatest comic takes balls. “Action Comics” gave us the superhero while “Fantastic Four” kicked off the Marvel Universe as we know it, and the highest either of them aspired to was being just the world’s greatest. But if “2000 AD” has had anything going for it over its 39-year history, it’s attitude and swagger. Director Paul Goodwin’s documentary about the British weekly sci-fi comic makes the case for that label being not only deserved, but possibly even an understatement. Future Shock! The Story of 2000AD presents a deep bench of British comics talent (with a few Americans sprinkled in for flavor) past & present to talk about the comic’s history, influence, and what’s gone right (and wrong) for “The Galaxy’s Greatest Comic”.
FUTURE SHOCK: THE STORY OF 2000AD!
Directed by Paul Goodwin Produced by Sean Hogan, Helen Mullane, & Stanton Media
Originally intended to cash in on the success of STAR WARS, 2000AD proved wildly popular with readers, but quickly forged its own distinct identity, light years away from the clear-cut heroes and villains of George Lucas’ space operatics. 2000AD was violent, edgy, anti-authoritarian, blackly funny and above all, idiosyncratically British, and the recent UK success of DREDD demonstrates that there is a continued audience appetite for the brand of gritty futurism still to be found within the pages of the comic every week. But yet, the definitive documentary account of 2000AD remains to be told. STANTON MEDIA are therefore proud to announce FUTURE SHOCK! THE STORY OF 2000 AD – the comprehensive story of how the comic came to be, how it’s survived for 36 years, and how it continues to be an innovator and game-changer in both comics and the wider cultural world beyond. FUTURE SHOCK! will offer an illuminating overview of the magazine’s history: a warts and all look at the various highs and lows, a peek inside the creative process of some of its most legendary creators, and a funny, moving and passionate chronicle of how a disparate band of talented eccentrics came together to create something both visionary and extraordinary.
Full disclosure: I’m half of this site’s Multiver-City One review team and, as such, an unabashed “2000 AD” fan. That said, I’d never read a Prog (as the weekly issues are called) prior to reviewing them here, so the last two years have been spent trying to fill in as much backstory (fictional and real) as possible. Which isn’t to say that you can’t just jump in with any Prog, because you can, but I like to know as much as I can about something if I’m going to be talking about it. So the idea of a feature-length documentary about “2000 AD” sounded fantastic. Especially since it looked like it was culling interviews from all the comic’s major players, including the ‘unholy trinity’ of Pat Mills, John Wagner, and Alan Grant. The only way that could lose is if it failed to: hit the main historical beats (positive AND negative), showcase the artwork, and give context to the comic’s place in the grand scheme of things.
I can say happily that Future Shock! does all that. The film is a perfect summation of what made “2000 AD” something special in 1977 and what keeps it that way in 2016 and beyond.
Part of that is Goodwin’s choice to infuse the film with the same Thrill-Power the comic’s been known for. I’m sure you could have made a successful film about “2000 AD” without it, but it wouldn’t have been THIS successful or evocative of the subject matter. Thrill-Power, for those just joining us, is “2000 AD”’s term for the aggressive, edgy, unapologetic tone that you’ll find in every strip, regardless of genre. Thrill-Power is what makes “Judge Dredd”’s science fiction mesh with “Slaine”’s medieval adventure and “Zenith”’s superheroics. When critics refer to “2000 AD”’s punk energy, they’re talking about Thrill-Power. So for Future Shock!, Thrill-Power gets you audio and visuals with bite. Justin Greaves’ choice of thrashing guitars and pounding drums set the heartbeat of “2000 AD”’s anarchy, while Zebra Post deliver a Prog-sourced title sequence and animated transitions with complementary energy. I can’t imagine what it was like to see Brian Bolland’s art from “The Punch” in motion on a full-sized theater screen, but it and its compatriots looked pretty good on my laptop.
Continued belowGoodwin carries the comic’s anti-establishment aesthetic into the subject matter as well. It would be easy to just focus on the good years (of which there’ve been many) and make Future Shock! into another publicity puff piece. Goodwin doesn’t do that; he lets his subjects talk about the lean years just as passionately, and as such gives us some alternate insight on US comics history. The mid-80’s “British Invasion” of UK creators like Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Dave Gibbons, and Brian Bolland may have revitalized American comics of the era, but from a British perspective it was a nightmare. The film also touches on the comic’s handling of creator rights and how they’ve lead to numerous creators no longer working for “2000 AD”, even to this day. Neil Gaiman talks about hearing Moore tell him the full story of ‘Halo Jones’ one afternoon (only 1/3rd of which was written before Moore quit “2000 AD”) and remarks that the completed story would have been a work talked about in the same breath as “Watchmen”.
Which brings us back to one of the strengths of the film: making the case for “2000 AD”’s importance in not only comics culture, but culture as a whole. Sadly, this usually takes the form of higher-profile sources pinching either talent (in the case of Vertigo or the US comics market in general since 1984) or material directly from the comic (you’ll never be able to look at Robocop again without thinking of “Judge Dredd”), but there’s no way you can deny that “2000 AD” changed the cultural landscape in a way few other entities have.
The film does have two flaws. The first is one shared by The Image Revolution, another otherwise-excellent comics documentary: shortchanging the comeback stage of the rise/fall/comeback narrative arc. In the case of Future Shock! this isn’t a fatal flaw by any means. And yes, I understand the need to keep things moving at a good clip, which the film does. But after spending a good chunk of runtime on the horrors of the 1990’s (apparently a pretty bad decade for everyone involved), be it the Stallone Judge Dredd movie, The Summer Offensive, editorial difficulties, and some of the most wrong-headed advertising ideas I’ve ever seen outside of dropping turkeys from a helicopter on Thanksgiving, it would be nice to better showcase just how good the Progs are today. That would be an even bigger flaw if there wasn’t somewhere you could follow along with the comic on a weekly basis.
The second is one I don’t hold against Goodwin or the film itself, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t bring it up. According to the Future Shock! website, the film is available on iTunes and Amazon. This is absolutely true…if you don’t live in North America. There is no way to get the documentary here in the States without ordering it from Amazon UK and having a Region 2 DVD sent to you, which you then need a region-free media player to watch it on. I’m sure Goodwin and Stanton Media aren’t trying to exclude the North American audience, if for no other reason than that audience being an ideal one for this documentary. I’m sure this is a reality brought on by financing & rights realities far above the paygrade of that actual creators. However, it is unfortunate for those of us actually living in Mega-City…uhhh the US.
That being said, Future Shock! is a fantastic jumping-on point for “2000 AD” newbies and a great retrospective about a comic that has shaped the industry we all know and love, whether we knew about it or not.
Final Verdict: 8.5 – Seek out and buy. It will be tough to track down if you’re living in North America, but there’s no better one-stop shop for finding out why “2000 AD” is the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic.
