Prog 1366 - 12 November 2003
Cover by Richard Elson

Synopsis and review by Gavin Hanly
2nd Opinion by Eric Moore

Summaries and reviews contain spoilers for this issue.

GH: I've been a growing fan of Richard Elson's work, and thought that Atavar 2 contained some excellent art. However, his rendition of Dredd doesn't work for me at all. It seems far too generic for an artist of Elson's calibre and the far more interesting alien is camouflaged in the background due to the colouring. The "Meat is Murder" headline is also lost. A disappointment.

EM: Well, I hope this week's traditional version of Dredd by Richard Elson goes some way to placating the Siku-haters that have been so vocal of late. Although if I wanted to jump aboard the pedantic ship I could say there’s too many vertical bars in Dredd’s belt buckle…

Meatmonger - Part 2

Dredd meets a meatmonger

Synopsis: Dredd finds himself surrounded by motionless citizens, including Lundstrom - none of whom respond to him. He looks out the window and realises he's off-planet. An alien Meatmonger comes in and orders them all to strip. Dredd takes out his gun and fires - but there's a field preventing it from working. The meatmonger attacks, but Dredd still has hid bootknife and bests him after a fight. The remaining citizens obediently head out of the cell and join hundreds others, heading straight for an abattoir, unable to flinch from their fate. Dredd surmises that his bionic eyes have somehow filtered out whatever controls them. He attacks the monsters - there aren't many of them - and he manages to win, and destroy the machinery. He orders the citizens to scatter...

GH: As expected, the return of Siku to the comic brought out the Siku-haters in their droves. It's astonishing - is there any other artist working for 2000AD who receives these vitriolic outpourings? I myself, still enjoy the art overall, but I do find that the detractors have certain points worth making. There are some panels that do have a slightly under-finished look to them with an incomprehensible panel as Dredd dispatches the first meatmonger and you can't help but think some more time could have been spent making it much better. But overall, I still enjoy the art - it has a good kinetic feel to it and offers something uniquely different from your regular Dredd artist. I complained above about the Dredd on the cover looking too generic and I find Siku's art here much more preferable. The artist is clearly making his style felt on the character. Some may hate this and say an artist should stick to approved guidelines - but hey, I'm not one of them.

The story's moving along nicely, and proves that Smith's stories are much more suited to the weekly than they are the Megazine. He's also thrown away his incomprehensible plotlines of late, which is a welcome turnaround.

EM: Here we go then. John Smith's tale is still holding up well – so now we know folk are teleported off-world to some meat factory ship but we still don’t know who's behind it and why Dredd's not affected. I don’t know how many episodes this is to be, but hopefully it won’t be a rushed ending with duff explanations/resolutions (something that’s been happening quite a bit of late).

The art. So the ghost of John Hickelenton's Meg work returns. Siku’s always come in for flack about his art, especially on Dredd, but here its reached almost witch hunt intensity. I have to say – what's the problem? If artists, when taking on the Dredd gig, never strayed from the norm then all you’d have would be an army of Ezquerra clones. Look at McMahon's work when he started (literally an Ezquerra clone) to his most recent Dredd work. It’s called evolution, chaps.

The way I see it, there are three possible reasons for Siku’s art here looking the way it does: (1) It's a rush job (hope not), (2) it's an evolution/experiment in style or (3) a deliberate bit of work to hack off the purists. If it's (3) then it's worked hasn't it?

Part 3

Holden gets double crossed..

Synopsis: Jude and Morgan are trapped with the Zombies, with Morgan's leg trapped in the rubble. Jude fights the monsters back with her electro prod, while Dreadnought readies a recovery crew. He arrests Holden who protests it was Dreadnought's idea, and tells the governor that Jude is almost certainly dead. "Good. I run this prison, not the inmates." Holden is brought to the medical facility where his mouth is sewn up and where the zombies are showing signs of intelligence. Meanwhile, Jude senses that one of the zombies is starting to communicate. But before it can, the rescue crew breaks through. Later Jude looks for Morgan, who refused treatment at the med bay. She finds him in a corner, eating someone - it seems he's a zombie...

GH: Well, well, well. So Morgan's now a zombie. Luck we didn't see that extraordinary surprise coming? Sarcasm aside, this week's Dead Man Walking is showing signs of improvement as the cliché ridden prison storyline appears to be giving away to something far more interesting. The intelligence of the zombies may make this series with keeping up with after all, as long as Bishop manages to keep his cheese factor in check for the rest of the series. The artwork continues to be the best thing about Dead Man Walking, especially with Cooks's rendition of the zombie "cry for help" in the medical lab. Jude herself is perhaps the most uninterestingly designed character, something of a shame, but Cook really does seem to enjoy depicting the more gruesome side of Lazarus.

EM: I've never held with the view of "why have this prison drama when the similarly-themed Harry Twenty is in the Meg right now?" That’s like saying, "why have Lenny Zero set in Mega City 1 when there’s already Dredd?" Nice plot development with the revelation that the zombies have still retained some of their intelligence plus we also get the heavily sign-posted Morgan’s demise. I wouldn’t have thought Boo Cook’s rather cartoony art would have suited a prison tale but it fits fine. Suitably gunky zombies, nice aliens and cool mecha designs. He's proven himself – give the droid a Dredd job now.

Downtime 4 - Jonathan & Jennifer

Jennifer's inner self

Synopsis: Jonathan & Jennifer are visiting Miss Temple, an old woman whose aunt used to work for the old department Q. Thy ask about her experiences - but all Temple has are some photographs and the little her aunt told her. Both Temple and her aunt had "the gift", skilled in the arts of prophecy, divination and the like. Temple says hers what not as advanced, but she suddenly stops, dropping her cup of tea. She sees the demon possessing Jennifer, but doesn't say anything. They make their excuses and leave, but Jennifer has forgotten her bag, and returns to the house alone. She confronts the woman in her demon form - "it's far too early for anyone else to find out my little secret". Jennifer returns to the car, secretly followed by the same men following the others in past episodes, who dismiss them as unimportant. But Miss Temple lies dead on her floor, her insides torn out...

GH: We catch up on one of the more interesting plot threads of the Caballistics with regards to the possession of Jennifer (first revealed back in 1332). This continues to drip feed information in a way that suggests that the Caballistics have a long way to go. Forget Sinister Dexter, this is the story that we want to see again and again in 2000AD. I'm beginning to think that if Dom Reardon can't keep up, they're going to have to find some way of keeping Caballistics around longer and more frequently. As sacrilegious as that may seem (there are some wonderful touches in the art this week, especially with the insertion of Miss Temple in the flashback scene and the dropping of the cup), I just think the series badly needs to be a staple of 2000AD.

This is the kind of strip that really needs capitalising on. But seeing as they don't appear to have even commissioned another series of Lobster Random yet, I fear that the heads of 2000AD aren't doing enough to ensure this becomes the next big thing. It looks like we've got it till prog 2004 at least - but let's do something to avoid another 6 month break after this series finishes?

EM: By light years the best thing in the Prog and Meg right now. This is how prog reading used to be back in the late 70's and early 80's – read it first of all the strips and then be desperate for the next week’s installment. It's my favourite of these stand-alone tales so far, with a nicely shocking ending. That demon effect is pretty creepy isn’t it? A significant milestone here as we get to see the actual members of Department Q in WW2. Can we please, please, please have this spin-off tale green-lighted Tharg?

The sterling work by Dom Reardon, Jock and Frazer Irving in the last couple of years has had me preferring black and white artwork over colour for quite a while now. This weeks work by Dom just reinforces that notion – page 2’s large panel and photo frame are classics of Dom’s techniques. Who the hell is the girl in the veil? I want answers!

Facing Mecha - Part 5

Syn takes time out

Synopsis: Macaulay and Synnamon fight as she tries to find out if she is infected. Macaulay almost kills her before Ascheta intervenes. Macaulay finally tells her that Kassad is on the Planet Yukon.

Back on the ship, Syn still can't tell if she's infected and doesn't understand why Kassad would want to unleash the destruction. Ascheta reminds her that it only affects humans, and that AI is immune.

As they approach Yukon, they are surprised by new sentries. They rush the planet, but the engines are hit, and they lose power - "we're going to be dead in the water".

GH: As with Dead Man Walking, this series is starting to become more welcome as the weeks go by. Things are starting to make a little more sense (helped by the quick sum-up on the first page - something that should be copied by all stories) than they used to, although a couple of readings does help, and the artwork is also showing much more signs of invention and clarity.

I still can't help feel that there's a little too much going on between the lines, though. Caballistics has kept a lot back from the reader, allowing the story to unfold gradually, and it worked really well because the first series was a simple plot at heart, and served as a way to introduce the team to the readers. At the time I was negative about this, but now it seems a very clever move indeed. I can't help feel that a much more simple storyline to introduce Synnamon would have been a better start. My suggestion , if the character is carried over to another series, would be to try a couple of simple one-offs to allow for a better introduction to the character than this series seems to be allowing. Still - I don't want to end on a bad note, as this is now showing distinct signs of promise.

EM: Not an awful lot happening this week. Two pages for a struggle and then three just getting to a planet. Still, the arts nice, invoking a real Modesty Blaise/Emma Peel/Barberella feel to it – I mean, just how sixties is that chair she’s sitting on in page three?

The Empty Suns - Book 1 - Part 5

Red dresses down

Synopsis: Godolkin uses the SD issue memory recorder to replay Red's life to her. After 10 days, it finally hits home, and her sanity returns. Her hand has also been repaired in that period.

Godolkin tells her they have a son, much to Red's surprise, but she still doesn't want Godolkin to touch her. She asks if they brought her back to hunt down the offspring. It's been a century since it was released but Red's link with it should help them to track it down.

17 days later they head to Damarkin, a human colony world where Red can sense the offspring's trail. Haema doesn't trust her, but Red reminds her that the offspring tricked her, and she wants revenge. She tells them that her son and seer are coming with them, and as one last thing grabs Haema's sunglasses to use as her own.

GH: So Red's finally back to her own self, and with her return, some of my interest in the series has gone out the window. Suddenly it feels like I have to remember more about what happened in the last series, and also like Red as a character - which I never really did. The tale would have been far more interesting with a half realised Red - i.e. one without all her memories handily restored by a clumsy deus ex machina. But this is still early days as far as the real Durham Red is concerned, so I remain open to conversion, since i've enjoyed this tale so far.

Mark Harrison once again produces some wonderful art for this series, and clearly enjoys drawing Durham Red. A little too much perhaps, as he's given her one of the most impractical outfits I've ever seen. A small gust of wind, and Red's costume isn't going to be leaving anything to the imagination...

EM: Dan Abnett takes even more liberties this week. So, Red has now gone from a mutant that happens to need blood to survive, to a full-blown immortal. No remorse for the millions she’s killed through her actions. The SD choker has conveniently recorded all her memories over the centuries. And then takes ten days to put back in place. Sorry, but this is hackwork of the highest order. If we must have Red tales, (and why do we? Is feedback that positive?) why not have missing tales from her bounty-hunting career?

Usually the saving grace with the Durham Red tales has been the art but this week I was really disappointed. The flashbacks were nice (the Ezquerra panel did stand out a bit stylistically although that was helped by the toned-down colouring) but Mark seems to have used different references for the rest. Page three and four is obviously Angelina Jolie but on five we have kind of an Anime version followed almost by Rik Mayall (by the way, that sound effect says "flik" but I see something else). Still, at least he's not using Teri Hatcher anymore.