Prog 1344 - 11 June 2003
Cover by Simon Davis
Synopsis and review by Gavin Hanly
2nd Opinion by Eric Moore

Summaries and reviews contain spoilers for this issue.

GH: A great cover by Simon Davis, the undisputed best Sinister Dexter artist there is. Much like the current Megazine cover this is a good pastiche, with a wonderful B Movie effect. A top cover all round.

EM: I’ve always liked movie pastiche covers in past 2000ADs (the Hammerstein/Volg one being tops) but this didn't work for me. The spider's good, so's the title and the smaller figures but the rest didn't look too much like a cinema poster. It didn't help that I'm also not a fan of Simon Davis' work.

Revenge of the Chief Judge's Man - Part 3

Synopsis: Edgar orders the pursuing judges to shoot to kill when encountering Gill. Dredd joins the case, figuring his past experience with Gill will help. The captain offers 100 creds to the first to bring Gill down, and they think retrieving Gill will be a cakewalk - but Dredd knows better. As Gill hides from the pursuing force, he reflects on his days in the Mega City army. He was a crack soldier, incredibly strong, able to avoid sensors by lowering his body temperature, and with skin 10 times as tough as a normal human's. But the programme was experimental, and Gill's violent tendencies came to the fore. Back in the present, two judges on hover bikes search for Gill when he erupts out of the sand below them killing them both and taking a hover bike. Gill wipes out the remaining pursuing force, before Dredd shoots his bike, causing it to explode...

GH: Not much to report for this episode. Wagner keeps the tension running high as Gill proves to be a dangerous man to deal with, and we learn a little more about his background. The background information is, however, still a little vague, especially with regards to what he was doing to the citizen he was attacking, so hopefully we'll see a few more flashbacks as the series continues. The judges following Gill seem a little too easily gotten out of the way - but I guess that can be attributed to their lack of experience in actually having to get a prisoner back.

Great artwork from Burns again, nicely keeping the flashbacks monochromatic, and thus keeping the confusion level to a minimum.

EM: Again John Burns excels at the moody rain effects with page one being especially effective.

So we finally start to see the back-story to Gill. And what a story – able to reduce body heat and heart rate to almost zero, skin ten times tougher than normal. I’m not sure if John Wagner had this all planned out when he started this story arc as we haven’t seen Gill in this way before, but it sure explains how he can give Dredd a run for his money. Especially liked the arrogant bumbling Judges getting their come-uppance. Have they gone soft at the penal colony or are they there because they couldn’t cut it in the Meg?

Dredd could have gone for a headshot at the end but chose not to – is he going to allow Gill to escape, keep him under surveillance, and watch him re-enter the city? I'm looking forward to finding out.

Big Game - Part 2

Synopsis: Sin, Dex and Riceburgh are pursued by the giant spider - a common house spider mutated by the growth hormones. As they run, Riceburgh offers them triple the reward money to get him out alive. Sinister attracts the spider with gunfire, and runs to an overgrown petrol station. The spider nears, and Sinister swings away on a vine, shooting the petrol and blowing the spider up. When the dust settles, it seems that Riceburgh has given Sin & Dex the slip. Riceburgh makes it to a payphone. While asking for a pick-up, he scratches at his face and hundreds of spiders erupt from under his skin, leaving Riceburgh dead...

GH: As mentioned last week, Sinister Dexter is usually pure hokum and little else, and this backs that up. But this is still a pleasant diversion, well paced and with some decent artwork from Cam Smith. The unexpected ending, while something of a horror cliché, is still surprisingly shocking and really quite nasty. My only problem is that it really did come out of left field, with no foreshadowing except for the unseemly marks on his face. But then again, the foreshadowing might have given the game away, so maybe I'm just hard to please. All in all, a fun thing to skip through before Interceptor. A palate cleanser, if you will.

EM: I really do think this pair has out-stayed their welcome but a new location for them at least puts a different slant to it. Nice artwork by Cam Smith who does a Frazer Irving/Kelly Jones in places (especially page 2, last panel). Storywise though, it's not much is it? Run from spider. Find out it doesn’t like fire. Blow it up. And that’s it. Gross hatching spiders ends it nicely though.

Part 8

Synopsis: Carter finds out that he's a robot - a "technorganic simulcra". He was once human and host to an alien, F'azile, who took him over. Escher destroyed his earlier body, but saved his consciousness, rewrote his mind, and recruited him as a judiciary. Lyra notes that the bad guys have stopped trying to break in.

Indeed, Proteus is bringing back more aliens into their own minds, having got 65 so far. The Japanese schooolgirl and the old lady want to know when they'll get their bodies back, but Proteus says he needs them as agents on earth. Meanwhile, Rose and Carter have jury rigged an enormous flamethrower, which Rose uses to take down the attacking aliens. They get back to the penitentiary, but Proteus is waiting with Marcus, so Lyra stops Rose from attacking. Proteus uses the orrery, but Lyra dives for him...

GH: Continuing to be by far the most entertaining story in the comic, Interceptor reveals another plot twist in the shape of Carter's odd predicament. His comment of "Keeping the unstable Thorium rector strapped to my back from going critical is just the thing to take my mind off my personal problems" is wonderful, and just what was needed to keep the series going at a fast pace. Again, Pugh produces some stunning artwork, especially in the case of Rose having just a little too much fun with the flamethrower. The re-sleeved alien killing his former host is great too, and the host looks almost like he's based on a real person. Is Pugh getting his own back on someone? A similar touch of the janitor sweeping the bodies up is also another great throwaway gag. Only one more episode left after this...

EM: For me, this has been a real take it or leave it strip. Can’t fault the script and certainly not the art but for some reason its just left me cold. However, last issue and now this has made me sit up and take notice. Steve Pugh’s art of course plays a large part in all this. His art seems to have a US comic feel to it, which can sometimes jar a bit in the prog, but here it fits just fine. I’m looking forward to the next episode, which is something I haven’t done since episode one.

No Gain, No Pain - Part 3

Synopsis: Lobster and his new friends prepare to invade the fortress of Londo Dinera, which is protected with state of the art security. However, it wasn't prepared for "old-style brute force and ignorance" and they burst in fast. However, Londo Dinera comes on the intercom telling them they'll never get out, and Megacyborgs come storming in after them. Lobster, whose lack of sleep and inability to feel pain makes him a little unstable, rips through them, although his partner Klik, accuses him of eying up one of the cyborgs while he does. One of Chiv's people calls him a Mek Fag - at which point Lobster puts his head through a wall. They finally get to a computer port, and discover the vault is 3 miles down, and only Dinera has the code to retrieve it. But Dinera died 15 years ago and saved his personality to the mainframe. How can Random torture a computer...?

GH: Another strip which has been a surprise success. I'm never sure what to expect when a major new character is launched in 2000AD, as so many have come and gone, never to be heard from again. However Lobster Random, in only 3 issues has already well established its lead, and clearly has enough ideas up its sleeve to be around for a good while yet. Certainly having such a strongly defined lead character is the mark of Random's success. Rather than a tale which is sticking to an overall plot, like say Interceptor, Lobster Random looks like he could easily be used in a number of different setups - therefore massively increasing his potential lifespan. But as I say, it's early days yet, and this is an 8 part series - so there's plenty of ground to cover before a final analysis can be made.

Critchlow's artwork again seems ideally suited for this - always the case when the artist involved is also responsible for the creation of the strip - and the section with Random going mental at least finally puts those pincers to work.

EM: What can I say? The best thing happening in the prog at the moment by far, with Simon Spurrier at last being forgiven for Bec and Kawl. So many nifty things going on in this tale that it really is a case of "thrill power overload". This week we have Dinera’s fortress with its ingenious protective measures and previous victims plus the instant classic "Attention all braindead criminals".

Carl Critchlow has sure come on since Thrud and he suits this strip to a tee. His rather scratchy style along with the two-tone colouring effect gives it a European feel with some great design work. If I have any criticism (and it’s a slight one) it’s that visually - and also character-wise - Lobster is very reminiscent of Axel Pressbutton. Also, from time to time, it looks like I’m reading the SF adventures of Sid James with page 4 being a good example.

Ghouls - Part 1

Synopsis: Captain Arkhan, held prisoner in Nort military prison Lubiyanka is being attacked by soldiers he has served with, each promised an escape in duty serving with the Nagan legions if they kill Arkhan. But Arkhan uses his knowledge of the soldiers and their weaknesses to defeat them all. After he has, guards rush in along with General Keherig. Keherig says it was a test by him and War Marshall Zell to see if he was still a good fighter. Keherig tells him he has a job for him on Nu Earth.

Meanwhile, in a facility on Nu Earth, a scavenger goes to see a Major Barabas, telling him he's found some "Flesh Scrap" and handing over Rogue Trooper's helmet: "some weird Tech-scrap". Back on the scrap heap, Rogue lies motionless...

GH: I had some serious problems with the last Rogue Trooper series, ant not least of them was that it seemed to turn Rogue into an unstoppable Arnold/Sly/Jean Claude-like one note superhero. This coupled with a lack of a contimnuing plot served to make the series disjointed and very unsatisfying. Plus there's the same problem shared with the Strontium Dog stories: we know what happens in the end - a very big hurdle to get over.

However, the story in Prog 2003 helped to redeem the series somewhat, giving a nice spin to the Venus Bluegenes character, and there was some groundwork laid in the last episode of previous series that could prove promising. And so this series starts out well. There's better storytelling, with the character of Arkhan and his skills set up well - plus we instantly see that Rogue isn't quite as invulnerable as he was made out to be in the last series. It's still too early to tell, but this is a promisingly good start.

The art is great, with Staz Johnson producing some great kinetic artwork, that seems a vast improvement on his work last time round. It'd be nice to see Rogue in colour, but Johnson's work stands up well to the black & white treatment.

EM: For me, Rogue Trooper really should have been laid to rest once he'd found the traitor general. Every incarnation since then has either not interested or appalled me. The latest ploy to feature stories with Rogue on Nu Earth is a whole different kettle of fish and the latest tale is looking very promising indeed. Gordon Rennie has come up with a worthy opponent for Rogue in Kapiten Arkhan, with the chilling dispatching of his former troops straight away showing the reader this is a dangerous opponent. We’ve seen Rogue introduced in this manner before but locating him in some sort of Nort junkyard is new and I’ll look forward to seeing how this pans out.