Prog 1322 - 8 January 2003
Cover by Kev Walker

Synopsis and 1st review by Gavin Hanly
2nd opinion by W.R. Logan

GH: A very impressive cover by Kev Walker, with an extremely striking image. Puts across just enough of that "don't mess with Dredd" vibe. I love Kev Walker's Dredd, and this is a near perfect rendition of him.

WRL: Dredd, a big Lawgiver and an Alien Chestburster. This cover comes so close to being an instant classic, but yet somehow fails. Kev Walker delivers a great Dredd pose with the Chestburster pushing away the Lawgiver and the line "Start Talking Creep!". So why does it just fail, I wish I knew. Maybe it’s the fact that there is so much wasted space on the cover. The background is dark, non specific and just doesn't add any excitement to the image - in fact it probably detracts more than anything else.

Dredd is too low on the page; the tagline is intrusive and gets in the way. I may seem to make it sound like it’s a bad cover, but it isn't. With some more thought on the layout, it could have started off the new year with an image that would set a standard that any cover artist would be hard pushed to surpass. In the end it's close but no cigar. (You may think I am being over critical and if I was, I could have knocked out another 3 paragraphs on Dredd's badge - but I didn't.)

Dredd vs Aliens: Incubus - Part 2.
Synopsis: An Alien rips out from Godber, but Dredd swats it aside. As it dashes across the hallway, Dredd gets off a shot, but misses it before it escapes into the hospital's ventilation shaft. Dredd calls for a "Verminator" squad, and goes to check on Godber's address, taking Sanchez, a new graduate judge, with him - "this investigation will be good experience for you." The Verminators watch the footage of the baby alien, and seal all the wards.

At Godber's apartment, Dredd and Sanchez meet his mother, who tells him Godber was involved in pit fights. They find a keycard to a rental warehouse, and arrest Godber's mother for "failing to report suspicion of a crime".

Back at the hospital, the verminators send a probe through the shafts which meets up with a far larger alien...

GH: The Aliens story moves along at a breakneck speed, starting with a gruesome chestburster shot. All the classic hallmarks of an "Alien" story are there - the gung-ho "marines", motion detectors, and a conspiracy at the bottom of it. Wagner and Diggle really do seem to have picked up the spirit of the films, the second one in particular, and meshed it with the world of Dredd. Never a boring moment in this episode, with the promise of more revelations in the warehouse next week.

Hard to know what to say about Flint and Blythe's artwork, except that it harks back to the days of the classic Dredd epics, and from what we've seen of Flint's Aliens, we could be in for a big treat once they start coming out into the light. Absolutely fantastic, and cementing him in the position of the comic's top artist.

WRL: Three weeks… We've had to wait three weeks to be able to read the next installment of Dredd V's Aliens and it's been driving me nuts. Just as the last ebbs of Thrill Power were waning and my circuits in need of a Thrill injection, Henry Flint's artwork sends a jolt through the system that nearly blows them apart.

This may be only the 2nd episode but we've got another fourteen to look forward to and I have high hopes that this will be the thrill of the year, one Prog down and will any artist top this? We'll have to wait and see. Lets not forget the script, Wagner and Diggle push the story along, but at a pace that is building everything up perfectly - it would have been an easy option to get the Aliens into the story as quickly as possible and just have pages of teeth, guns and acid. And are we seeing the influence of Diggle in picking some of the names? Poughkeepsie Apartments? All we would have needed was Dredd to ask Mrs Godber if her son had a habit of picking his feet!

Then there's the Verminator called Millar, are we going to see him come too the most grisly end of all? I don't care who reprints this when it gets collected as a Graphic novel, but get the creators involved, do an intro and design sketches because I hope to be as positive about the next fourteen episodes and will be first in the queue to buy it.

Going Underground - Part 2
Synopsis: An unknown man sitting in a bath full of blood, and surrounded by dead bodies accepts the call of an "offer" from Ethan Kostbi.

Meanwhile, Brand and Simmons are taken to the underground station scene of last week' attack. They see the video footage of the "skull" appearing from the tunnel, but Simmons says they don't know how to deal with it. Upon which they are introduced to Lawrence Verse and Hannah Chapter (seen fighting in Croatia last week) - "We take care of all the weird shit."

Verse warns them to shut down the entire underground network - but as he does, another station comes under a flying demon attack.

GH: I'm still unsure what to make of this series. As we're still being introduced to the characters, (Chapter and Verse - ho ho) it's difficult to make out what the group dynamic is going to be like. There's certainly a great deal of intrigue, but with their first case I'm struggling to find the attacking demons all that interesting. So the jury's still out on this one, I'm afraid.

The art is good enough, and I can only see it improving. Reardon's heavy use of blacks suits the material well. But hang on a minute! Tottenham Court station? Where would that be then? I can understand an American comic getting it wrong, but can't British editors spot this kind of glaring mistake?

Moloch - Part 2
Synopsis: The battle continues. A demon tries to take a child's tears, before he is killed by the berserker Slaine, who saves the boy. Meanwhile, another batch of demons have finished attacking and raping a woman, and turn on her husband. Slaine kills them.

Elsewhere, Balor and the demon with the swords believe they have crushed the rebellion, and blame Slaine for the uprising. Then Slaine - still warping - bears down on them in a spiked chariot...

GH: I'm going to be less forgiving of this than I was last week. While the art seems to be very good - it also seems extremely very dark. There's too much time spent squinting at the page - trying to work out what's actually happening. Now this could be a fault of the printing, but it's hard to tell. Langley's artwork is impressive enough when you do actually pay close attention to it, but I'm not sure if it does a particularly good job of telling the story.

And it's the story I'm having the main problem with. Haven't we been here before? Another big battle full of posturing and Slaine spouting rubbish like "Taste the bile of punishment!". It all just gets a bit tedious after a while - and it says a great deal that the tale the demon tells, of Slaine carving "kiss my Axe" on the tax collector's head, is actually more interesting than the battle we're watching. Let's hope things move on to new ground next week.

WRL: Well I knew it was too good to last and maybe I was being over optimistic after the opening episode, but I'm not now going to condemn it because this episode didn't charge my Thrill Circuits as episode 1.

Clint Langley's artwork again gets so dark that at times it's hard to make out. I'd love to see this in its un-printed state, so that I could compare it before and after printing. I really want to like Clint's artwork as it has an originality that makes me want to enjoy it, but you have to be able to see the art without putting it under a light and magnifying glass. Pat Mills seems to be treading some old ground using a limited amount of stock sayings and situations, but I won't condemn it yet, I mean its supposed to be a 3 book saga, I just hope the Mighty One hasn't been seduced by earth magic and commissioned a load of night soil.

Relode - Part 1
Synopsis: The gang return to earth in Manx's ship. However, it soon becomes clear that the D-jump unit they've used to return while avoiding the police has pulled them into an alternate Earth. They escape from rampaging knights and keep trying alternate Earths until finally they reach their true destination. Manx takes his leave, as Sinister, Dexter and Billi head back home. But Dexter picks up a paper, and discovers that they've arrived 15 years before they left...

GH: It's no secret that there are an awful lot of 2000AD readers that really hate this series (including my co-reviewer) - so bringing them back so soon after the last major epic seems like an very odd decision indeed. I personally quite enjoy SD, but even I was willing to accept a moratorium for a while.

Despite that, this sounds like a fun premise for another series, so it's hard to feel too critical. And it does follow on immediately from the last epic. And it does keep Billi, who worked so well in the last storyline. So I shouldn't really complain - though I expect others to...

Ben Willsher's art, meanwhile, is pretty good. I have to say I don't recall his art offhand (which last appeared in the comic the week before I started these reviews), but some strong linework combined with some great effects from Chris Blythe works wonders - and I did like the Asterix reference...

WRL: Oh dear, they're back. Well that’s just started my New Year off fantastically.

After being subjected to 9 weeks of torture in the last Sin/Dex adventure I thought that they would take a break for a while. But no. They're here, like the proverbial bad penny. I can't believe I even have to read this, but it’s a tough job and someone's got to do it.

Ben Willsher makes it look like his characters are sucking on lemons in places. I can put up with the Christina Aguilera trousers that Sinister is wearing, and the Asterix Roman, it's just that the art isn't very inspiring. Sinister/Dexter appear near enough every week, at a guess I'd say that some people must actually like them, although I can never work out why. So you may expect the tales of Downlode's gunsharks to have a more regular stable of artists. The art on Sin/Dex may fluctuate but it’s the whole concept and Dan Abnett's scripts that have just ran out of steam (if it ever had any).

Sin/Dex needs to be rested, or at least given a break, so that someone can come up with something new for this one trick story that has gone on well past its sell by date.

Hell and High Water - Part 2
Synopsis: Back in the present, Dante is stranded at sea in the remains of his ship. He come across a pirate ship attacking another vessel. As he boards, a woman is killed in front of him. The other pirates attack, but Dante disposes of them. He finds the woman's children, Karl and Mina, and realises that the mother was trying to lure the pirates away from them. Mina initially threatens to kill Dante with a crossbow, believing him to be a pirate. But she eventually comes round and throws it overboard. She says her mother is at peace because "He can't hurt her any more...The Kraken. My father"

GH: We're back to the Dante we know, and it seems clear that Dante's going to have a few parental issues in this storyline - especially after last week's flashback. I'd be very surprised if the Kraken wasn't a pirate of some kind. This is a nice change of scene from the previous tales, although I hope the kids don't end up being too irritating.

Some more first class artwork from John Burns this issue, who really excels as the swashbuckling fighting of Dante. Hard to find a bad thing to say about this episode - so I wont...

WRL: After Prog 2003's flashback to Dante's youth we now see the Russian rogue stranded on the high seas. John Burns' artwork as ever seems tailor made for Dante's adventures. After some disappointment with this weeks prog, the final 6 pages lifted my spirits, both with the story and artwork, ensuring that as I close this weeks Prog, it ends on a high.