2000AD Prog 1571 - 23 January 08

Cover by Brendan McCarthy and Steve Cook

Robert Frazer: "Bold, brutal, and brilliant" would be my alliterative appraisal of this powerful picture. The cover is suffused with dramatic energy, charged like one frozen frame of quivering bullet-time; it is enhanced and amplified by the striking sunburst background, which serves as a point of focus as the comic sits on the newstand, patiently biding its time to strike your wandering eye and ensnare the prey. The image is also replete in superbly intricate and exhaustive detail, too, giving us plenty to regale and appreciate with repeated viewings, elevating its quality beyond a mere immediate disposable impact.

Most people dislike cover headlines as distracting attention and detracting from the quality of the art - some magazines like PC Gamer or SFX even remove them altogether as a subscription incentive. The announcement for this prog, though, deserves special praise - the ragged edges of the font complement the violence of the scene, and "SHAK ATTACK! Into the JAWS of the TEKNOSAURS" enjoys a strong rhyme which veritably springs off the tongue - the second line doesn't need an exclamation mark because it's already stamped into your mind.

Admirable in every respect, I'll happily stake my developing reputation as a 2000 A.D. reviewer on this cover being a contender for the "Best of 2008".

Adam Crabtree: Oh, YES, that'll do. It'd be enough to gaze upon the textures, dark and rich and murky like a Tim Burton fog (not that kind of fog). But no, this is gonna take that pedigree and create an image so gloriously demented as to make Pat Mills cock a wry eyebrow.

Emphatically Evil - Part 3 Script: John Wagner Art: Colin Macneil Colours: Chris Blythe Letters: Annie Parkhouse

I'll bet that stung...

Synopsis: Judges Roake and Beeny begin interviews with Kennet Purvis's friends, family and colleagues in an attempt to establish leads on his murder, and are later called to a scene where Bobert Ignatz, another Ebeneezer Industries official, has been shot dead; graffiti left on the site confirms that the murderer is a PJ Maybe copycat.

Unbeknownst to the Judges,,the killer is actually a young boy - JP Buwick, the son of the woman who first alerted the Judges to the Purvis crime, and who did the deed by stealing Purvis's personal firearm. JP is emotionally troubled (he is described as intelligent, and thus frustrated by the slower progress of his peers in school), and now evidently an emergent psychotic.

Meanwhile, the real PJ Maybe - alias Byron Ambrose, city mayor - is enthusiastically glorying in the lurid tone of his (mistakenly posthumous) biography, and considers the irony of killing the book's author himself. His musings are interrupted by a communication from Judge Dredd, confirming that 'Ambrose' is no longer a suspect in the case as his movements can be accounted for at the time of Ignatz's death. Only just succeeding in masking his shock when Dredd reveals that the killer styles himself as PJ, Maybe inwardly seethes with rage at the impertinence of the impostor, and resolves to destroy the challenger...

RF: There was a gloriously twisted irony in the opening instalment of "Emphatically Evil..." as the oppressive uniformed jackboots of liberalism stamped down on the indignant masses crying their rebel-yells for intolerance, and it's somewhat deflating to see that ingeniously inverted scenario dwindle away into a police-procedural in these later chapters (the upcoming vote on mutant citizenship isn't so much as mentioned in this part) - although admittedly, given the story title I was perhaps wrong for expecting focus on the former. It still disappoints, though, and I only hope that it comes back into focus as the framing background towards the story's end.

The notion of a psychopathic pubescent also does little to excite me. It seems remarkably pointless, serving no dramatic end and providing just another opportunity for Wagner to vent his bilious spleen over the nihilistic inhumanity of the cold, uncaring world; that dismal topic is a dead horse that was beaten to a pulp in last year's interminably predictable catastrophe of a story, "The 'Secret' of Mutant Camp 5", and I don't appreciate its rotting corpse being exhumed here - it's not provocative drama, it's just angst.

The strip is rescued, however, by a re-emergence of that cooly observant sense of irony in PJ Maybe's scenes. The black absurdity of him admiring the titular book's portrait of his misdeeds - him being in the best position to comment as he actually perpetrated them! - is a great tonic that remains in keeping with the atmosphere of the story while lifting it out of the dreary brooding that the previous pages are bemired in. This wouldn't be possible if PJ Maybe wasn't such an entertaining character; despite his status as a murderous madman, his childish spelling and its leveling effect, the exaggeratedly outlandish consideration he gives to his methods ("pen inserted in the..."), the conspiratorial thrill of the complete deception of his identity-swap, and general boyish enthusiasm makes it hard to envisage him as anything other than a lovable rogue, no matter how high his bodycount. If Maybe was literally painted as an unsympathetic aberration against Creation, the scene would just be a bland reiteration of his cruel character, but in this light it's a sly, knowing wink to the reader and is altogether more satisfying.

As a point of continuity, it's pleasing to see Dredd's faith in 'Ambrose' restored - even he's admitted that the mayor is good for the city (which, given the acid cynicism of Old Stony Face, is practically a recommendation for canonisation!), and so it was a little puzzling to see him so readily place the mayor under suspicion in the previous part.

MacNeil's art usually elicits little comment from me - it's entirely competent, but rarely excites. A few panels, however, do warrant extra merit here - JP's hoody costume is a wise design choice, tapping into our real-world fears of rising youth violence and effectively villainising him despite the indulgences we might make for his young age, and the cold gleam of his glassy stare as he prepares to kill Ignatz is truly chilling. The inventive idea of "Concrete Park" and advertising a public facility with a great sculpture of the ceramic throne is also a welcome return of the light-hearted 'Mega-City Madness', and the electric, quirky character of the city and its folk that has been sorely lacking recently - it's warmly welcome here, however brief its stay.

As "Emphatically Evil..." approaches its mid-point then, I have the distinct impression that the story is treading water. There's a broad ocean to explore, but it doesn't seem too exercised about swimming us anywhere yet. The strip might turn out to be something more than another "hard life" lesson for Beeny, but it seems determined to sink down into it - a shame, because Beeny could be much more than Young Stony Lipstick. At the moment, then, we're relying on Maybe to throw this floundering strip a life-ring.

AC: An interesting approach here. The two ongoing arcs could not be more tonally different, with the mutant legislation throughline taking a cold hard look at injustice within a system, and the PJ the Mayor story being a gleefully madcap thread where the body count is high and the laughs come black as pitch. It is the uniting thread of the eponymous book that cements these two very different narrative into a cohesive whole, with the added bonus of background info for Maybe newcomers.

"JP" pre a bit of intrigue as well; I THINK I know what the twist here is, an I daresay you do too, but it could just as easily be a colossal rug-pull. We are dealing with a pro here after all.

The Defiant - Part 5 Script: Robbie Morrison Art: Henry Flint Letters: Annie Parkhouse

Shakara puts down some Teknosaurs ...

Synopsis: The Teknosaurs benefit from bulging brains as well as bestial brawn, and that transforms them into truly formidable opponents - after some hot fighting, Shakara is beaten back by their furious assault. Outfought, Shakara grabs a protesting Eva (not understanding why Shakara is protecting his would-be killer and infuriated by his silence) and beats a retreat deeper into the ship, which is somewhat too cramped for the Teknosaurs to manoeuvre in!

Eva is rendered unconscious by the Teknosaurs blasting their way through the ship to reach the chamber where Shakara has rallied himself. He has an ace up his figurative sleeve, though - using a grenade to destroy the ship's anti-gravity generators, he can rebound off the walls and decking to dice up the Teknosaurs without opposition as they flail about helplessly. Later recovering herself amidst the gruesome, swirling, floating fog of dismembered meat and billowing blood, the first thing Eva sees as she awakens is Shakara's fixed red glare as he dives towards her...

RF: We can speak of philosophical plots and captivating characters all we like, but in the end we have to remember that comics are a visual medium, and it will ultimately be the art that is the making of a strip, and the strongest impression that lingers in our memory. Shakara is intimately aware of this, and the entire strip is an exultant celebration of it.

Shakara's storyline is perfunctory and wafer-thin at best, little more than a frame for the action - but it is, nonetheless, a very attractive frame. Muppet mercenaries and giant eyes in previous instalments and now galaxy-dominating dinosaurs this week place the adventure in a firm "future fantasy" setting as opposed to a strictly "SF" one, allowing us to roll happily with the Thrill's rollicking exuberance instead of bickering over whether a diffuse stream of anti-neutrinos would have created a temporo-spatial fold-flux.

It's an attractive frame, for a truly astonishing picture. Flint has poured love and labour into sculpting artistry that is nothing short of superb. Continuing the style of the cover every last frame is suffused with wondrous deep detail: every inch of the age is positively mesmerising, whether it be in the knotted sinews on Shakara's hands, the abject surprise in the tyrannosaurus's expression as Shakara punches through him, the blizzards of shrapnel bursting out from an explosion, or even just the welds on the walls of the spaceship. Shakara's design is a triumph - "SHAKARA THE DEFIANT", the title proclaims, and when viewing him you can well imagine it - every contour of his body is sharp and hard-edged, and the elongated spindly limbs take on the character of swords themselves when viewed from a distance. His entire body is athletic and gymnastic (emphasised by his squatting posture as he throws the explosive on page three), evoking a lean, honed-down point, directed towards those burning orbs of implacable fury that burst angrily from underneath his headgear.

Thirty years from now, Shakara may not necessarily be remembered by name - ultimately it is just an action-adventure with no deeper impact - but I have every confidence that page four, of the knife-daemon twisting and arcing across the gravity core, keening out his distended cry of outrage (at once an assertion of identity, a terrifying spectral revenant, and a determination to survive), will be scored into Thrill-seekers' brains as an apogee of the Cosmic Power of the Galaxy's Greatest Comic. A joy to behold.

AC: I've got a new nickname for this series- the Matador. It strides confidently into the arena, clad in colours you've never seen, courts disaster openly, and with every step, only to emerge all the more dazzling for the victory. Henry Flint (the real hero here, shouldering a good 90% of the burden of making this work) and Robbie Morrison are alright by me, and that dinosaur evisceration not-even-a-splash page will live in infamy.

The Promised Land - Part 6 Script: Dan Abnett Art: Richard Elson Letters: Simon Bowland

Gene's curiosity gets the better of him...

Synopsis: Them swarm at the breach torn in the fence, but Gene holds the line for long enough for the farmers to stand to and cut down the remainder of the attackers with massed gunfire. In the aftermath, after Leezee has washed down a Them-drenched Gene, Ralph Sower worriedly confides in Gene that, had the Hackman not been there, the Promised Land would have surely been overrun. Them are testing the fence for weaknesses; as Ralph aggreivedly and pleadingly asks why Them has to continue to torment them, Gene opines "Maybe Them is hungry", as he himself considers another plate of synth-meat.

During the night, Gene creeps towards the Culture Shed, desiring to see what lies within it and disregarding the anxious cautions of the Urgings. Inside, he sees towering piles of solid meat - with masses of the ticks Gene fought earlier crawling all over them! Staggering back in appalled horror, Gene is then dazzled by the lamps of the farmers as they rush up to him - armed.

Curiosity killed the cat - now it may very well be the death of the dog...

RF: I was extremely fond of the original Kingdom and it was one of my favourite thrills of 2007 - some called it slow, but I preferred "slow-burning". The clipped dialogue was sparing, austerely poetic and endearingly honest, and the art showed invention for infusing such a desolate environment with action and energy - and in light of those qualities, declarations such as "get whet", "tougher and tough", "muscles in the head" and so on weren't repetitive, but rather took on the aura of the touchstones that are returned to in epic verse.

Lofty praise indeed - but although I certainly want to, I'm not quite yet certain whether I can accord the same eminence to the sequel, mainly because with the development of the setting has also come the development of awkward questions that it was previously not necessary to ask. Specifically, the very existence of the Promised Land seems impossible - how could the insects, which have eradicated virtually all other human civilisation, possibly be confounded for over a thousand years by a single village of latter-day secularised Pilgrims and a strip of barbed wire?

Pleasingly, though, this latest instalment looks as if it will provide some substantial response to this puzzle, and the revelation portends that there's more to the village's survival than the Numberless Hordes all falling down a plot hole - my interest has certainly caught light again, and on this point alone I'm looking forward to next week's continuation with some anticipation. Even the very placing of the strip in the comic itself is effective, forming a dramatic cliffhanger, pregnant with awful moment, to end the comic on and leaving us impatient for the next prog.

Abnett's dialogue continues to remain 'restrained' rather than 'bland', investing meaning into his words even if he few of them - something as simple as "I am cleaner now" seems oddly touching, as if it's a little joy that's fixed in the firmament just by being said. Indeed, the attentive could have smelt a rat leading to the interior of the Culture Shed last week - isn't 'Hydroponics' for plants rather than animals? However, I would take issue with Gene's abrupt rebellion against the Urgings - while I freely admit that I'd be put out at the prospect of eating nothing but that Quorn gunk for the remainder of my days, Gene has never questioned the Urgings' will before so it smacks a little of a plot device for him to do so now.

Elson has always been fondly regarded by me since I grew up with his sterling work on Sonic the Comic, and he continues to maintain a high standard throughout Kingdom. His palette is bright, but not so much as to sacrifice detail, and there are attentive touches which help create carefully-crafted character, whether it be the bouncy spring of happy Leezee's hosepipe, or the contrast between Learner John wildly letting rip with his weapon against the firmer stances of the more physical farmers beside him.

Gene has been a very Bad Dog - will he now be put down? I'm looking forward to finding out.

RF: It's the 2000AD syndrome. If there's GOING to be parochial community of humans living in a post-apocalyptic land, then they're GOING to be doing something they shouldn't. Those are the rules, and Dan Abnett's so on form with this strip he can make us forget that. So concerned was I with the onslaught of Them as the main plot point that the mysteries of the "hide-rononiks" seemed very much a tertiary concern. But no, the beautifully well realised clan who have taken Gene to their collective bosom show their true colours and the story can only get denser and more devastating.

Nice shower scene as well...

England's Glory - Part 6 Script: Ian Edginton Art: D'israeli Letters: Ellie De Ville

Cody plays with his food...

Synopsis: The monsters and magicians that Stickleback's mob have been skirmishing with up to now are revealed to be acts in the "Wild West" circus of one William F. Cody, now performing its final evening with a sell-out show in Hyde Park. Cody shares the same murderous inclinations as his charges, turning a young boy who wants to run away and join the circus into dinner! Egg Shen, the Chinaman, attempts to upbraid the showbusiness-concerned Cody for lingering in London when they've secured their prize of the jewel, but there's a darker presence lurking behind the ringmaster's eyes which easily intimidates the mandarin to submission.

Outside the park, Stickleback and his cronies discuss a strategy for reclaiming the jewel - or, rather, Stickleback dictates and the others put up and listen if they know what's good for them. Stickleback dispatches a consternated Miss Scarlet to deliver a sealed message to the Empress of Limehouse, and leads the gang to confront Cody by presenting the decapitated head of his cook as dessert...

RF: Fantasy London is a recurring theme in 2000 A.D., and its latest iteration is so far a fair one. Stickleback never really caught my attention the first time around, so I'm entering this series unaware of much of the backstory, but it's not proven a hindrance so far - the conventional-but-classic chase after an occult MacGuffin with all manner of hi-jinks and capers along the way ambling along at its own quiet and pleasant pace.

The dialogue was subjected to some scrutiny in last week's review, but I myself have no problem with it. Th' apostrophe-lovin' drawl of Ringmaster Cody reinforces his Western character without being darn-tootingly overdone, and Stickleback himself does have a real authentic voice - playing to type, but not a caricature. Indeed, the closing "so hard to find good staff these days" line is an entertaining tidbit of period detail (if you have the setting, you may as well make use of it!) that'll be familiar to anyone who has read late-nineenth/early-twentieth century novels.

D'Israeli's art is quite striking, particularly in his curious use of lighting. It gives it an 'overexposed' effect that almost renders pages as the stark images of an unusually vivid dream (which suits the fantastic atmosphere), and can be used to induce an effective sense of torch-under-the-chin menace (which works well with the portrait of Cody's slitted eyes on the third page, complementing his vicious, peeled-back snarl). As an incidental point of detail, I find Miss Scarlet's tattoos to be very distracting and it makes it difficult to focus on her, but nonetheless D'Israeli did effectively depict her as looking quite furtive in anxious during her brief appearance.

Stickleback probably made the least impact on me in this prog - but that in and of itself is no bad thing, seeing as Judge Dredd's impact is decidedly negative. While it may not be the most gripping tale ever told, Stickleback is a good chair that you can laze back into and relax in.

The old man has cracking aim with that head, too - will he be my bowls partner?

AC: It's no effort to just dive into this one and lose yourself completely. The dense and murky Victoriana is a seductive setting for one of the most evocative artists and enterprising adventure writers on Tharg's team to play with, and as cowboys eat children and lackeys get beheaded, you know this was how it was always meant to be....

The Glum Affair - Part 6 Script: John Wagner Art: Carlos Ezquerra Letters: Annie Parkhouse

Alpha & Sternhammer's relationship raised some more eyebrows...

Synopsis: Wulf and Alpha begin working the tables in a different way; after the pair fake a violent, sprawling and furniture-overturning falling-out in one the Paradiso's seedy bars, Wulf lures a group of hoodlums onto the shuttle with the promise of a cut of the money he claims to intend to steal in revenge off of Alpha - allowing Johnny to surprise and hold them up without the space station's security interfering.

After repeating this method a couple of times, the combined bounties on all of the captured criminals amount to over half of the money Billy Glum requires to save the orphanage - Johnny is confident that their goal is in reach, but with some trepidation Wulf remarks that their success so far has come a little too easily...

RF: I can't claim to have been a Squaxx Del Thargo since Prog One, and while I'm aware of the tremendous legacy that Strontium Dog is invested with as a classic pillar of 2000 A.D. and the high esteem in which fans hold it, I am not imbued with the same nostalgic glow - indeed, this is my very first Strontium Dog strip!

The expectant question, then - what impression does it make on me? That would be a considered, carefully-chosen... "Good". Not great - it won't redefine my experience of comics and become the prism through which I view all other strips - but good. Maybe not exceedingly excellent, but entirely entertaining. Only fluff, but by no means filler.

I'm new to reviewing, so maybe I just don't feel brave enough rend apart Master Ezquerra's art yet, but it honestly is good. There's nice distinguishing variety between the aliens that crowd the Club Paradiso, demonstrating its nature as a melting-pot (or should I say, boiling cauldron?), and Johnny's stagger as he pulls himself upright in Panel 2.3 is a pleasant note of continuity showing the effects of the fight and adding that extra edge of outrage to Alpha's voice.

This dialogue between Johnny and Wulf during their staged brawl is effective - it sounds natural, and the repartees ("You pay me nuts!" / "That's what you give monkeys, isn't it?") give it bite. It's authentic dialogue, spoken with genuine character and not just irrelevant grunts or personless and interchangeable expository spiels (which might be found in the Dredd strip). There's one glaring problem with the bounty hunters' plan, though, that goes beyond Wulf's cold feet in the closing panel - those storage bays have open windows - wouldn't the prisoners have called out alerts to the next group of gullible rubes that Alpha and Wulf were trying to entrap? I think the desire to make their captors come unstuck and try to escape would override any spite that they have for their rivals in crime...!

While I can suspend my disbelief for an extravagant interstellar adventure to be embarked on for the sake of saving an orphanage - it's a classic quest for goodies the world over, after all - it becomes decidedly strained when it has to be done for the sake of so unsympathetic a supplicant. There are no two ways about it - Billy Glum is an odious git. His complaining about the price of a cup of a drink in Part Four, and his pathetic bleating about wanting to go to the bar in Part Five, smacked of nothing more than puerile petulance - it probably would trouble him too much to show a flicker of gratitude for being alive, perhaps? - and given that he murdered a policeman and has been such an unrepentantly crotchety coot throughout this tale, his sudden pang of conscience over the body of a dead crook this week doesn't have me sympathising with the terrible struggles demanded by dire straits, but rather sneering about crocodile tears. Had I been in Johnny's position, I'd have been sorely tempted to let Glum swing, and as the strip has gone on this has hardened into a certainty. "The Glum Affair" indeed - he's bringing down the entire story.

No, I regret to say that I haven't fallen down, stunned with the majesty of Search/Destroy action. This might elicit a sigh of disappointment and a few quiet words with the valet to discreetly chivvy me away from the executive lounge of 2000 A.D. fandom, but there you are - still enjoyable, but not essential. Eh, but what do I know? I'm just a critic, after all.

AC: The lustre on this one is dimmed by essentially being the straight man in a wild and saucy bunch; still, Stronty serves up the same tough talking pragmatism as played out by the biggest collection of grotesques you could ever encounter that has won it so many admirers. This week in particular I'm feeling the homoerotic undertones and am wishing they'd just get TO it, y'know? "I'll make it up to you, big fella..."

RF: Judge Dredd is definitely the weak link of this prog. It comes across as a grump at a party - all of the other Thrills are using their mighty Power on the dance floor, whereas Judge Dredd sits in a corner, hunched over a drink and casting his own shadow over the table, and having a big sulk over something no-one even knows about. Fortunately, while misery may love company that doesn't oblige anyone else to share it with him, and this week's other Thrills are never less than enjoyable.

Best Story: Kingdom/Shakara (tie).

AC: WHOAH on all counts. A good prog

Best Story: Shakara, best of an exceptional bunch