2000AD Prog 1589 - 4 June 08

Cover by Leigh Gallagher

Daniel Payne: Unfortunately for any new readers who might be attracted by the ‘all-new thrills’ banner, this prog’s cover is slightly weak. The composition is not especially imaginative or engaging. Also, while the line-work is okay, the colouring seems to detract from the piece rather than improve it — the yellow and brown wash dulls the image, and the graphics in red and blue look even more untidy than usual. The current standard of the front covers is one area in which the comic would benefit from a general improvement. 

David Knight: This cover has a nice subject, which has definite crossover appeal and the potential to attract new readers. The elements that work well are the angle and expression of maniacal disgust on Defoe’s face, the ‘team’ scenario depicted and the eye-catching and harmonious use of colour.

The elements that don’t work well are the foreshortening of the gun barrel – we have no sense of the scale of the weapon until we turn to the centre pages – the foregrounded zombie hand, and the lack of clues as to the strip’s period setting due to Defoe’s wearing of a huge cloak. The angle, which gives so much expression to Defoe’s face, has the unfortunate effect of obscuring his body shape and attire.

Nevertheless, it is the most exciting cover to be seen for a while, and leaves no doubt that recent joiners and occasional readers can expect something different from what they’re used to. 

The Edgar Case - Part 1 Script: John Wagner Art: Patrick Goddard / Lee Townshend Letters: Annie Parkhouse Colours: Chris Blythe

Dredd catches up with his nemesis...

Synopsis: Dredd gets a call to visit Judge Edgar - an old enemy of his who was demoted from PSU surveillance to the head of a Cursed Earth correctional facility. Edgar is dying and has refused medical help. She gived Dredd a vid slug which she calls "unfinished business". Back in Mega City 1, Dredd prepares to view the evidence...

DP: John Wagner returns to provide the script for his most famous creation this week, and the quality of his output is typically high. The story touches with great dexterity on the awkward subject of Dredd’s advancing age and some of his physical and personal shortcomings. Moreover, the episode lays the groundwork for a promising tale, and finishes with a well judged cliff-hanger.

The artwork is also very good, and suits the tone of the story nicely — particularly in the excellent plaintive-looking portrait of Dredd on the second page. Chris Blythe on the other hand appears to have been on autopilot when he was colouring the strip. His standard treatment tends to homogenise everything it touches, so it is a mark of the artwork’s quality that it manages to emerge in a fit state after the ordeal of his trademark blue mists and endless generic gradients. 

DK: I haven’t much to say about this one, sorry. This is John Wagner doing his thing, setting up another of his more serious and cerebral Judge Dredd stories: one that will no doubt flesh out some barely-touched-on-before aspect of Dredd’s world or past and have profound repercussions in stories to come. So I’ll just sit and read quietly and be good and wait to see what Wagner’s tale has to say; but so far, so much like The Cal Files. 

As an aside, I would like to point to the juxtaposition of Dredd’s internal monologue about impulses and self-discipline with images of naked judges of both sexes showering together and sharing a locker room. That’s surely just asking for trouble. The idea is of course that judges are conditioned to ignore sexual urges or channel them into controlled aggression, but nevertheless, we know judges have been tempted in the past by the sins of the flesh, and this unsatisfactory arrangement is just putting temptation right in front of them! Perhaps it’s some sort of test? 

Part 1 Script: G Powell Art: D'Israeli Letters: Simon Bowland

"Crispy" comes to the rescue ...

Synopsis: Meridien Bless is sent to the Vort, an asteroid amomaly where soldiers are fighting enemies called "froggys" for an energy source at the heart of the asteroid. Electrics don't work on the planet, so the soldiers fight with genetically modified guns which Bless witnesses when caught up in a firefight. She can't see who they're firing at, but she does see one of the soldiers - Crispy - rescue a man that was cut down by enemy fire...

DP: This is a completely new series, in which we learn that a female reporter named Meridien Bless has been posted on an asteroidal colony known as the Vort, amid a vicious war against the natives. Judging by the first episode, it is not the type of story that will run for a long time — there is no Rogue, Nemesis, or Dante to be found. Nevertheless, it could possibly prove to be an entertaining series in its own right; it is reasonably well written thus far. D’Israeli is on quite good form, he has ditched the unusual grey tones of some of his recent output in favour of full colour, and his work looks better for it. 

DK: This new strip was a nice surprise. I’d seen the title and a few visuals, but really wasn’t expecting a war story at all. G. Powell’s script does a good job of revealing the world as if to a totally ignorant stranger, and it’s quite the pleasure to read. One might almost say well-crafted. D’Israeli’s art makes a welcome return, and with a style that’s similar to his Scarlet Traces work, but seemingly done with a freer hand. Scarlet Traces and the rest of the Martian trilogy demanded tightly controlled line work and a painstaking exactitude that this new strip evidently doesn’t, freed as it is from cityscapes and Martian Victoriana. 

Meridien Bless is unlikeable already, so I’ve no clue yet as to which of the protagonists I’m supposed to identify with. The Vort is an interesting premise: a world with polar vortices, saturated with electromagnetic activity from its sun, such that most ships can only land there and it takes really special ones to be able to take off again. Just one query though: the flip chart diagram suggests the surface of AVA1 is made of water “(no solid matter)”. So what is the camp built on? Should that be “(no solid matter apart from some islands)”? 

Using bioengineered weapons to circumvent the effects of EM activity is a great idea, although I don’t know how original it is or if it’s quite commonplace in sci-fi these days. Dan Dare’s old 2000AD enemies the ‘Biogs’ spring to mind, and so do the Tyranids from Warhammer 40,000. The rationale for their use here was satisfying, especially the suggestion that conventional technology would be preferable if only they were able to use it. The bioengineered dinosaur transport was marvelous. This is a strip that’s earned its place in 2000AD with its very first showing. 

Brethren of the Night - Part 1 Script: Pat Mills Art: Leigh Gallagher Letters: Ellie De Ville

Jones makes a break for it...

Synopsis: While Defoe and his crew are taking on hordes of the undead at the ruins of St Paul's Cathedral, Fear-The-Lord Jones returns to The Three Pigeons tavern, looking for him. He's returned from a trip to Ipswich and tells the Innkeeper Sal that something happened in Ipswich. Sal goes out to get word of Defoe. When she does, the only other person in the bar, a hooded woman, shoots Jones with guns concealed in her cutlery. He recognises her has having followed him from Ipswich. She appears to be demonic...

DP: The first Defoe story initially seemed full of promise, thanks to its impressive visuals and intriguing lead character, but it ultimately tapered into an unstimulating zombie shoot-’em-up. It wasn’t the worst strip around, but few people are likely to greet this sequel with great anticipation. In the event, this preliminary instalment seems to be true to form; the opening pages tell us what to expect, with plenty of zombies and lots of shooting with extravagant weapons. The story will probably please some of those who are partial to the genre, but it is not a Mills classic. 

The art remains good; Leigh Gallagher’s ornate black and white inked pages are perfectly suited to the subject matter and are generally a pleasure to look at. The only significant complaint about his work is that many of the faces he draws are not sufficiently lifelike. Finally, lettering is something that does not normally need mentioning — since when it is done well it goes largely unnoticed — but in this episode the excerpts from the journal are rendered in a typeface that is almost unreadable. There are surely other suitable old-fashioned fonts available that would not have interrupted the flow of the strip so markedly. 

DK: Defoe is back, and I’m very pleased indeed – nay, delighted – but I get the distinct impression many other readers were less than enthusiastic at the prospect of the strip’s return. The main attraction for me is the opportunity it affords for Pat Mills to showcase his literary, historical and technological inventiveness, which in many of his strips is both his glory and his downfall. The average installment of Defoe is so brimming with novelty that plot and characterization are not my prime concern when I read it. 

This is a superb opening chapter. The double-page centre spread, a perennial fan favourite, is a real attention grabber, and it’s a rum looking bunch of coves Defoe has backing him up: something for everyone. Defoe himself hefts an improbably weighty-looking cannon that most certainly wouldn’t serve him well against an enemy at close quarters; and his right-hand man appears to be holding a hand-cranked machine gun fashioned after a sausage mincer, which, incidentally, looks too heavy to both point and fire at the same time, unless you happen to have three hands! 

The startling image of Defoe’s motley crew, plus the skirmish overleaf, is bound to secure the strip’s popularity with younger readers and current players of Warhammer Fantasy Battle. Many are the times that as a teenager I was inspired to recreate for Dungeons & Dragons or Warhammer the scenarios depicted in 2000ad’s fantasy strips, and this is exactly the sort of thing that would have prompted me to draw up statistics, select miniatures and create terrain for that purpose. 

Now, what did I not like about this strip? Well, mostly the lettering font used by Ellie de Ville for Mungo Gallowgrass’s handwritten journal entry. It’s too perfect and uniform, and makes me nostalgic for the days when comic book lettering had to be done by hand. Swamp Thing letterer John Costanza used to be amazing at this sort of thing. It’s also far too small to be read comfortably, which will no doubt put off readers with poor eyesight or a low reading ability. This is a pity, because comics are generally a great tool for kids to use in improving their own literacy. 

An example of just how bad the font looks without the aid of a magnifying glass: “boiling and coating common criminals in tar” looks like “boiling and eating common criminals - in tar!” 

Just the introduction of Defoe’s zombie hunters is enough drama for one 6-page segment, but Pat nevertheless serves up a sub-plot centred on reporter Fear-the-Lord Jones and his encounter with a deadly cutlery assassin (?!) for good measure, getting in a lot of unforced exposition and a marvelous stage coach dash along a zombie-haunted highway in a single-panel flashback. That is a lot of storytelling to squash into 6 pages! Mr Mills, my hat off to you, Sir! 

Amerika - Part 1 Script: Pat Mills Art: Anthony Williams Letters: Ellie De Ville

Dante gets up to some superheriocs...

Synopsis: America was taken over by the Tsar at the end of a civil war sprked off by economic depression and environmental disaster. A campaign of terror is run against the Tsar's men in Amerika, let by the Minutemen - a group of insurgents powered by a DNA enhancement that gives them superhuman powers but kills them minutes later. Dante goes up against a group of them and takes them down. He looks for applauase, but his crest reminds him that he's the villain in an occupied country...

DP: Since the time that Simon Fraser resumed his duties as artist for Dante in 2006, it has returned to being one of the best and most important elements in the comic. Dante’s tenure as the Tsar’s right-hand man has thrown up a slew of interesting plot lines, and the strip has seen an overall boost in quality, including John Burns’ contributions.

The early signs from Amerika are also good. Fraser remains one of 2000AD’s best artists; he treats us here to a double-page spread of one of his peerless cityscapes, as well as some nice action shots of the leading man. Gary Caldwell colours the work very well as usual. The story too looks set to be entertaining fare, and might give us a deeper look into Dante’s world. There seems to be adequate reason to hope that this chapter will be as good as the other recent instalments. 

DK: Whoah, Tharg! Dude! Another double-page spread, and this one depicting a future-augmented, panoramic New York cityscape? By Simon Fraser? No, you’re just pulling my leg! Wow, you’re really spoiling us, bless your little green Betelgeusian toes. 

At last Robbie Morrison tells us what happened to America in his far-future Earth dominated by the resurgent Imperial Russia. Has he been saving this up to heighten the suspense, or has he been putting off the evil hour because he hadn’t decided yet what story he was going to tell with America in Dante’s world? No matter, because what he has done in the event is really rather elegant, multi-layered, and quite funny. 

On the satirical level, the situation in Amerika is analogous to that of contemporary Iraq. Invaded by a foreign power and having no effective means of resistance barring suicide terrorism. And in a future-America sci-fi setting, what form should this terrorism take? Why, superheroics, of course. Thanks to a DNA-altering drug, the Amerikan martyrs take on the attributes of comic book heroes, appropriately enough called the ‘Minutemen’ after the militias who gamely but largely unsuccessfully put up resistance against the British in the early days of the American Revolutionary War of 1775-1783 (ready to take up arms literally at a minute’s notice). In fashioning the Minutemen after certain Fantastic comic book heroes recognizable to their readers, Robbie Morrison and Simon Fraser are following in a fine tradition of parody that includes Marshal Law, Savage Dragon, Major Glory and the Justice Friends, and The Tick. 

Yer Ass from Yer Elbow - Part 1 Script: Dan Abnett Art: Leigh Gallagher Letters: Ellie De Ville

Dexter fills us in...

Synopsis: Sinister and Dexter tell Kal Cutter that he has to leave the country after all the mess ups he's made along the way - especially not telling them about the Mover's true identity. They've set him up with passage back to Mangapore - and tell him to take Isobel there. But when he returns to the safehouse, Isobel has already left him - fearing for her live as the gunshark's life is too dangerous. This pushes Cutter over the edge...

DP: Sinister Dexter has been a regular 2000AD fixture for over ten years, so the characters are clearly well-liked by many readers, or the editors would not continue publishing it. It is difficult, though, to understand what attracts these people to the strip.

This episode is a typical example: Sinister and Dexter tell a former associate, Kal, that he has to leave the city and the mercenary business, due to a series of his blunders. When he goes to collect his girlfriend to leave town, he discovers that she has already abandoned him because of his dangerous profession — the discovery of which induces him to pledge retribution on his two antagonists. This is not a terrible premise, but unfortunately it is a variation on a theme that these characters have visited on dozens of occasions already. There is never any development in the overall saga. Anything resembling a major plot change always turns out to be a temporary inconvenience, following which the duo return to their usual business of dealing with stock capers like this one.

Anthony Williams fails to rescue the strip with his artwork; the talking heads that form the majority of the episode are unconvincing, and he pays scant attention to the restaurant surrounding them. This is a standard dose of Sinister Dexter, but that, apparently, is enough to satisfy some readers. 

DK: “And this is Downlode, the City of Broken Genes.” What does that mean, exactly? Probably something to do with Kal Cutter’s family connections which got him the gunshark’s apprentice gig in the first place, and his failure to live up to their reputation. *Sigh*. The wordplay is one of the most enduring and endearing quirks of this strip, so it comes as a disappointment when its meaning is sometimes far from obvious. Where ‘City of Broken Genes’ fails, “Rioja Round the Clock” comes up trumps. 

Kal Cutter gets a telling off instead of a bullet in the head, and due to dramatic coincidence, girlfriend Isobel does a runner because Kal’s gunsharking is more dangerous than she can cope with, right on the day that he gets kicked off the job. *Sigh* again. Everyone’s so capricious in Sinister Dexter, and they’re always so quick to act first and think later. More often than not, someone dies as a result. Not my favourite entry in this week’s Prog, but at least it makes ‘sense’ and you can’t say “but that wouldn’t happen in real life” because, y’know, it does. 

DP: This prog full of opening episodes offers mixed results. Stalwarts Judge Dredd and Nikolai Dante seem to be holding the fort with strong new tales. The new series of Defoe is likely to rumble along causing moderate entertainment like its predecessor, and Sinister Dexter will presumably give some pleasure to its fans while it underwhelms everyone else. New story The Vort offers some promise, but it is too early to make a well informed judgement about it.

So while it is not a vintage prog, it has plenty to offer and gives fans ample reason to be hungry for forthcoming instalments.

Best Story: Judge Dredd

DK: As quality entertainment, I would say this Prog is 5 for 5. It’s a treat to have five new stories starting in a single ‘jump-on’ Prog, and it’s a privilege to get to comment on Part 1 of anything, let alone Part 1 of five new strips. Not wanting to add too much insult to injury – and there has been plenty of both lately – this Prog shows a marked improvement on the recent content, which will no doubt lead to an upturn in the comic’s fortunes where critical reaction is concerned. 

Best Story: Defoe