"Prog 2003" - Continued

Hell & High Water Part 1
Synopsis: A 10 year old Nikolai Dante is caught stealing from a street vendor. As he is about to be caught, his mother, the pirate strolls over, and Dante hides behind her. The people are afraid of her. His mother takes Dante to a nunnery - "you've grown too heavy for me to carry any more" - clearly meaning to abandon him there. Dante escapes the clutches of the nuns and dashes after his mother - but on her orders, her aide Marguerite beats him down. Dante picks himself up, but his mother has gone...

GH: Ah, Nikolai Dante. Possibly my favourite 2000AD character after Dredd. Once again Morrison does not disappoint, as the tale of young Dante begins. Not much happens, but the groundwork is well laid, and I'm already demanding more.

I found it difficult to get used to John Burns the 1st time he took over the series. I loved his style wherever I'd seen it before, but wasn't sure it was the Dante I knew. This was probably due to his starting on a fairly downbeat chapter of the saga. I've considerably warmed to his work on Dante since - and now see him as the only true alternative to Fraser. This is a great start to the series.

Now can we have some more trade paperback collections? Really long ones like the first one? Please?

WRL: The Russian love machine returns to The Galaxy's Greatest Comic but unless Nikolai started his womanising extremely early, there may not too much love action in his latest outing. Nikolai's mother puts him in the care of some nuns and no matter how hard Nikolai protests his mother isn't going to take him back. This initial six pages sets up the story so not a great deal happens but Robbie Morrison returns to what is arguably his greatest creation for 2000AD. John Burns turns in artwork that lives up to the standard that we've come to expect from this elderly statesmen of Tharg's art droids.

Going Underground Part 1
Synopsis: In Switzerland Ethan Kobasti, a reclusive former rock star, talks on the phone to a Mr Slater "I see an appetite for Post Millennial Mondo Strangeness" while watching a bank of TVs - one of which reports the shutting down of a 60 year old secret government dept. to tackle Nazi Occult Warfare. Kobasti decides to hire them - and others...

Howard Slater contacts two individuals, a man and a woman fighting the undead in Croatia, and goes to see the aforementioned Q Branch in person - hiring Professor Brand and Miss Simmons - the remaining members.

Meanwhile the spectre of a horned skull appears on the underground, incinerating everything in its path...

GH: Occult Nazis? A touch of Hellboy influence here, perhaps. But nevertheless, this looks like a compelling new series from Rennie and Reardon. As long as the set-up is gotten over with quickly, and we get into the action, this could be the start of a long runner. It's still a little too early to tell, but it certainly shows promise. And it's promising artwork from Dom Reardon too, whose heavy inking style suits the black & white artwork. So one to watch, but I'll save a more in depth look for next prog.

WRL: Gordon Rennie continues to produce new stories for 2000 as well as revamping some old favourites. Caballistics, INC. opens well and has an intriguing enough opening so that I'm looking forward to the next instalment to see where this new story goes. Dom Reardon's art, while not suitable to every readers tastes, seems to fit the style of the story and adds atmosphere. A good start and hopefully Rennie and Reardon won't disappoint when the story continues in the regular Prog.

Save the Fitz!
Synopsis: Banzai Batallion are continuing to rid Martha Fitzenheimer's garden of pests. But they overhear her lawyer plotting with a real estate developer to sell the estate for a 10th of it's worth - with the garden to be built over by a hyper-mall. They seek out Rosie - who says Mrs Fitzenheimer lost everything in the stock market - and tell her what they heard.

Rosie has a meeting with the lawyer, Uriah Bender, smuggling the batallion into his offices to grab the deeds to the estate. They switch off his robot assistant and manage to grab the deeds, and a tape with information on the buyer. But Bender catches them in the act, just as they burn the deeds of sale. Bender traps the soldier with the tape, but the Batallion rescue him with a particularly painful attack on Bender. Rushing to the window, they call over a nearby teen hoverboarder, who picks them up. The tape falls, but the batallion and the boarder manage to catch it - "Good lad! Honorary Banzai, by Jingo!" The tape gives Fitzenheimer all she needs to sue the buyer and Bender for all she lost, and the Batallion decide to lay low for a while...

GH: The Batallion makes a one off appearance back in the comic and, as always, the teaming of Wagner and Gibson is well worth it. It's very much a "caper" story, which the batallion is best suited for, but Wagner manages to pull off a complicated set-up robbery with finesse in just 10 pages. The scenes of the batallion attacking Bender are great, even though the last attack is more than a little eye-watering.

Gibson excels here too, and is the perfect artist for this fast moving story. My only complaint it that it clearly isn't up to the same standard as his self coloured work in the previous issue. It's still great - but suffers a little in direct comparison.

WRL: Wagner, Gibson, Frame and the Battalion, four names that can't fail. Ever since the diminutive robots first appeared in Dredd (Prog 1135) they've brought a smile to my face and their continued appearances have been more than welcome. Henry Flint, Cam Kennedy and now Ian Gibson have brought the characters to life and hopefully we'll get to see Captain Bug Stomper and his troops in 2003, Stomper and his men (not forgetting Sergeant Flambo) should definitely "Go Marching Along!"

Miscellaneous Material
Synopsis: Other features in the comic are:

• A Dredd Crossover feature
• A Dredd/Anderson/Death pin up by Jock & Blythe
• A bunch of creator droids pick their favourite cover
• A preview of the new Durham Red story
• A sinister Dexter text story by Abnett, and illustrated by Davis
• A feature on the Dredd vs Death game
• An Indigo Prime Pin-up (Chris Weston/Richard Elson)/Profile
  
  

GH: Not much to say on these really. I don't look too much at the text features, I have to admit (and I'm feeling very guilty about that now that I've seen the work WRL's put in...). The Dredd crossover one's quite good though, and the best cover feature throughout the prog is the best kind of feature for these end of year progs, and a long standing tradition taken over from the annuals. And to accompany that, we've picked our own below...

One note about the Dredd game feature, though - could the screens BE any smaller? It's about time we saw some action shots of this upcoming epic, especially of either Dredd or Death, and it's a shame that this feature didn't really deliver.

WRL:

Meanwhile… In Another Continuum…: The end of year progs have taken the place of the old annuals, and this article would fit perfectly at home in those old hardbacks. This brings new readers up to date, and reminds old readers of the other continuities and places Dredd has appeared. From Batman to Lobo and everything in between, a nice filler and something to read after you're stuffed with turkey and have had one sherry too many.

StarScan: Jock and Chris Blythe: A nice image from Jock, it’s a pity that he's been snapped up by the yanks, but I hope he keeps dipping his toes into the 2000AD waters. He does a cracking Dredd and I don't see why the yanks with their big bucks and fancy ways should take some of our best away 8-)

The Droids Decide!: Some of Tharg's droids choose their best 2000AD cover of all time. There are some great images in this feature that pops up four times throughout Prog 2003. The images are at times iconic and bring back a flood of memories from years gone by. They were all wrong with only AALN-2 coming close with his choice of Prog 85 by Mike McMahon. Although CYBER-MATT should get a mention in dispatches for choosing Prog 669 by Carlos Ezquerra. For mine - see below...

Sinister/Dexter: Get Shirty: First the good news, this Progs Sin/Dex story is a text story so that makes it even easier to ignore, the bad news is that this is a review column so I've had to read it. Saying that, I was pleasantly surprised. Although this story won't change my opinion of Sin/Dex, and by now you should all know what my opinion is, it wasn't as bad as I expected it to be. The text allows Dan Abnett to expand upon all the descriptions and puns that you see weekly in the Sin/Dex caption boxes. There's no doubt that Dan Abnett must enjoy writing the adventures of Downlode's gunsharks and at times I wish that enjoyment could be passed on to me when I read their stories but I just can't. There's no doubt that I enjoyed this more than the regular outings in the normal Progs, but this is Sin/Dex and it would have to take an amazing leap in quality for me to like it. Not as bad as I thought but still the last thing that I read,

Trigger Happy: Some decent screen shots from the forthcoming Dredd PC game, I'm not a big game player but who wouldn't be interested in being Judge Dredd and patrolling the streets of MC-1. According to the text the game should be released in time for next Christmas so that’s the first thing on my 2003 letter to Santa.

Indigo Prime: Pin-up's fill the odd page, they always have and especially in 2000AD annuals, but why Indigo Prime? Was it just an excuse to get some decent Chris Weston art with in the mighty one's end of year special? Or is the pairing of Winwood and Cord due for another story in The Galaxies Greatest Comic? Either way it’s a good pin-up that'll appeal to old readers and may whet the appetites of new readers.

Best Cover Ever
As a companion piece to the magazine, we've decided to enlighten you with our favourite 2000AD covers of all time.

Prog 225

GH: I started reading 2000AD just before the Judge Death Lives saga, and haven't missed an issue since. When I had to think of one at the top of my head, this was the image that kept coming back. And one I kept badly trying to copy with my feeble art skills at the time...

Prog 74

WRL: The greatest 2000AD cover of all time? Well in my opinion, it has to be by the greatest artist ever to grace the pages of 2000AD, Mike McMahon.