Prog 1367 - 19 November 2003
Cover by Mark Harrison

Synopsis and review by Gavin Hanly
2nd Opinion by Paul White

Summaries and reviews contain spoilers for this issue.

GH: Mark Harrison provides this week's fetishistic Durham Red cover in a pose to get the teen fanboys salivating. It's well drawn and the like, but curiously unimaginative and doesn't quite come together for me.

PW: I'm not too keen on this for a number of reasons. a) it takes it's inspiration from the tried and tested 2thou 'stock' covers, where a character stands there and, erm, does nothing. b) the 'dark muddied art' ((c) Progs 700-1000ish) does nothing to make it stand out. c) the pedant in me thinks that her mouth looks really really weird. Anyway, there's a lot more to say about Durham Red, so i'll save it for later

Meatmonger - Part 3

Dredd vs the starborn thing

Synopsis: Dredd revives the citizens and tells them to run as more aliens appear. Dredd realises that the operation is interplanetary as he comes across a number of alien species all lined up for the abattoir. He heads for the garbage chute, closely followed by Lundstrom who credits Dredd with saving his life. They land in sewage only to find out it's populated by "starborn things" - a parasite that Dredd has come up against before. They manage to fight them back before they are flushed out onto a conveyor belt - which is heading straight to an array of mechanised blades, ready to rip them to pieces...

GH: As mentioned before, this storyline is proving that the recent Meg Devlin Waugh strip really belonged in the weekly. Like that strip, this moves along at breakneck speed and is little more than a rollercoaster for Dredd readers. But Smith is proving to be very adept at this indeed, in a way he hasn't shown in the past to my recollection. Is he starting to envy the kind of money made by Morrison and Millar and wants to show that he too can make a damned good action tale? If so, then this is certainly a good showcase, as he weaves in the odd element of Dredd history (the "starborn thing") into a fast moving tale, even managing to get Lundstrom into the story as the wisecracking sidekick. Rennie has often been hailed as the best "non Wagner" Dredd writer of late, but Smith's giving him a good run for the money here with this class act.

As for Siku, his art is still a welcome change to me, but does occasionally suffer from the odd jarring panel. Yet he seems ideally matched with Smith to handle this action based tale, and I'm impressed that he even manages to give the helmeted Dredd an effective "one eyebrow raised" look in one scene. Not an easy job in a character whose face is half covered up....

PW: I don't know how long it's been since John Smith has written Dredd,but I'm more than glad to see him back in the prog. He's personally responsible for some of my favourite strips (Indigo Prime, New Statesmen, early Devlin Waugh) and although I couldn't see him as a regular Dredd scribe, I feel he always has enough different ideas to come back with multi-parters.

Much has already been said re Siku, but here's my 2 creds worth. I love the art, I particularly enjoy his 'stylised' view of Dredd, and especially like the 'unfinished' aspect and colouring - The low-lighting and blood-red finish conveys the nightmare scenario Dredd et al find themselves in. After all that however, nothing much happens storywise this week and I'm hoping that this slight lull is the calm before 3 or 4 more cracking episodes. I enjoyed the 'Starborn Thing' cameo and hope that more is made of this later on. Oh, and I loved the last panel on page 3 where Dredd manages to silently convey the phrase 'yeah, right!' or even 'Watchoo talking about Willis?'

Part 6

The governor reveals her "don't get out of jail free" card.

Synopsis: Morgan chastises Jude for not killing him before he became a zombie. He tells her he had a heart attack back in his cell, the last of many, and finally died. He said he heard a voice in his head telling him what to do, but before telling her more he dives off the side of the building so he can be crushed and never resurrected again. Back in medbay, Proctor tells the Governor that the zombies are starting to become aware, and that there are zombies gathering outside the prison walls. The governor says she has a flesh eating virus on standby should the zombies get out of control.

Back in her cell, Jude gets Archer to cover for her as she blindfolds herself, and pulls out a communications device "This is undercover officer Jude calling the galactic justice authority" - but before she can contact them, Dreadnought bursts in "Archer is dead. You're next."

GH: Ok - i'll admit that I didn't see the end of this episode coming, and this does rather annoy me because in retrospect it should have been glaringly obvious. So reluctant kudos to Bishop for getting that twist past me, even though he does rather cock up the last line. The episode should have ended with this sudden revelation of what Jude really is - but the shock is mitigated by the fact that Jude herself has revealed that she was undercover a few panels earlier. Sloppy work there that should have been cleared up at the editorial phase. Oh, and transmitting "this is undercover officer Jude" wasn't going to make it very hard for the guards to track down the source of the transmissions, was it?

But despite my infernal nitpicking, the story is improving now that it's dropped the deathly dull "space prison" storyline for a more interesting plot regarding the growing intelligence of the zombies. I'm looking forward to next week's episode with mixed amounts of interest and trepidation to see just where this is heading next...

PW: This has been pretty entertaining without being spectacular, and the story quickly moves apace as we find out what Jude's true intentions are. Boo Cook does a good job again and he seems to be there in the 'pretty good at aliens' category along with Richard Elston - I know he made a cameo the other week, but if Ace Trucking were to return, Boo would be the man to do it right. The quick turnaround in storyline this week leads me to believe that DMW has a very short life-span, or that there are twists-a-plenty to come with the action cranked up. I truly hope it's the latter, but if the 2thou message boards are anything to go by i'll be in the minority there. By the way, I love the indiscriminate killing that goes on in DMW, but surely the zombies should outnumber the living by 10-1 by now?

Downtime 5 - Ravne

Billy before his makeover

Synopsis: Edinburgh 1737, A "Mister Raven" meets a cart carrying away victims of the plague. He says he's looking for "fresh flesh" and is told of William McKenzie, a thief who died only an hour ago. He pays them to take the body to his lodgings by surgeon's hall.

Sussex 2003, Slater tells Ravne that a large crate has arrived for him from the Netherlands, and says he has concerns about his spending. But Ravne tells him he has been given greater allowances for expenditure than his colleagues. He visits Billy (the reanimated copse from 1737 who we first saw in issue 1337) in another room and tells him he will finally let him die when he's found what he's looking for. He wants to know about Kostabi - but Billy says something about him is frightening him off - but he sees that there will be death in the house very soon.

The soldiers we have seen in previous episodes are watching outside - ready to storm the place...

GH: Kostabi aside, Ravne's the character that we really want to know more about in Caballistics, and Rennie gives us just a small taste of his background this week. Of course, this is as it should be, since the drip feed nature of Caballistics is what makes it one of the most outstanding hits of 2003. The clearing up of Billy's origins is very nicely handled though, and all of this leads us to believe that there's an awful lot more to be revealed about Ravne (or Raven)'s past in the future. It looks like that's it for the downtime episodes, though, so next week the action should kick up a gear or two.

Not much to say about Reardon's art except that it's still getting better and more innovative with each issue. He's also playing around much more with panel layouts and "camera placements" that are beginning to enhance his work even more.

PW: There's something about Gordon Rennie I don't particularly like, and this probably comes from his monthly column in the Meg. However, his writing on CI beats the pants of everything else in the prog most weeks. It truly is a joy to have real characterisation and back-story, and this drip-feeding of information leaves me wishing for more every week - and when there's an hiatus..? Well everyone is pretty well pissed off. (GR's status as a 'main' writer on the prog obviously means that he can write CI in this way - something that doesn't seem to be afforded to many other writers. It works wonderfully well, but then maybe other new series would too if they could build plots and characters at a speed that suited.)

Then there's the wonderful Dom Reardon art. Some compare it to Jock's hoping to compliment it by way of a comparison, but I feel it should be judged on it's own merits, and for me it's outstanding in a scratchy / macabre kind of way. GR does a lot each week in 5 pages, and we move tantalisingly closer and closer as more is gleaned about the expanding cast, and the fact that Ravne is building up to be a very very bad man indeed. My wishes for the continued success of CI? 1) never let Dom have his work coloured. ever. 2) Keep it short but often - 6 to 8 episodes per assault would be ideal and, although we would miss it in the meantime, it would leave us gasping for more.

Facing Mecha - Part 6

Syn "meets" Kassad

Synopsis: The ship hits the ground hard, and Syn head for Kassad's compound - which they've landed nearby - a coincidence that makes Synnamon think they're walking into a trap. She heads in and a group of spherical balls, looking remarkably like Ascheta, attack. Ascheta starts to lose sensory input as they head further inside, finally reaching Kassad wired up to a chair at the centre of the room, linked to the machinery around him. Syn recognises the AI waves around the room, as Ascheta grows quiet. She turn around and seen that Ascheta has linked to Kassad. She immediately blows Kassad away - telling Ascheta it needs a diagnostic. But Ascheta hovers menacingly - "No. I don't think so."

GH: Synnamon, like Dead Man Walking, continues to improve with every episode as we learn more about the character, and a teeny bit more about the plot (which doesn't advance too far this week). I'm starting to warm to the character in a way that I hadn't thought possible earlier on, and it does seem that the writers have put a good deal of thought in to the planning of this series.

There are a few wee problems though. The "twist" this week, isn't quite as obvious as I'd have liked. Synnamon remarks on how "they look familiar" when confronted by the other orbs - but the art doesn't quite make this clear enough to us - something that is due to the fairly unremarkable design of the Ascheta combat unit. Related to this is the fact that we're moving to a fairly big twist in the next issue which looks intriguing, but I don't think we know the characters enough for such a twist to have meaning. This all brings me back to the previous argument that it would have been better to introduce Synnamon in a less serious and plot heavy series to begin with, and then get to the machinations behind the scenes later. This seems too much too soon. Still - we'll see how things turn out next week.

On the art note, there's some very good stuff here, like the body of Kassad hooked up in the center of the room and the ominous last page. I'd like to see much more of this as opposed to the generic action sequences that populate the earlier part of the strip.

PW: I like this lots, and I'm pleased to see the Bison team get another crack after the overly hysterical and bandwagon-jumping abuse Bison received. As a big Iain M Banks fan, Synnamon seems to borrow heavily from his work, and this is probably the main reason I enjoy it. Okay, so we have a 'tough' female character with a pun-like name, but so what? I'm enjoying the fast-paced space romp and hoping that once it's settled down and we get to see some back-story (and much has been hinted at), then it'll be a semi-regular in the lineup.

Unfortunately, I don't think many others feel the same and I fear that once this 'arc' is done, then so too will the Synnamon character. Anyway, this week it's non-stop action as Synn crash lands on Yukon and battles her way to her quarry as the realisation dawns on her that things aren't quite right... almost mimicing the readers in stating 'a planet twice the size of earth... and we manage to hit the building we've come to search for?' Has Ascheta been the baddie all along, or is this a temporarily blip..?

The Empty Suns - Book 1 - Part 6

Red causes mayhem

Synopsis: Red and the others head down, cloaked, to Damarkan - she insists on going in alone. She jumps out of the ship in a grav chute and starts walking into the city. She knew the offspring wasn't there but that the planet was tainted by it. Getting up close to a building that stank particularly of the offspring, Red disengages her camouflage and starts taking out everybody she sees. She blasts her way into the command centre and finds "Pelquin" the offspring's sentinel and given part of its power. Red continues to wipe out all his minions and finally rips Pelquin apart. "I sent a message Goldolkin. Let's hope the snecker's listening".

GH: My concerns about not liking the character of Durham Red have creeped into this week's review too. Here she does little more than blast her way into a heavily guarded complex and take everyone out inside. All while still "wearing" clothes that are the most ridiculous excuse for T&A I've ever seen in 2000AD. The art is good as ever, but as the action hots up, it gets incredibly confusing and more than a little difficult to work out what's going on. It's not bad, it's just that it seems to have thrown away a potentially more interesting storyline in order to get everything back to the status quo as quickly as possible. Maybe when Red's intentions become clearer, my interest will be rekindled, but it's disappointing to stop caring in a series when I enjoyed it so much at its outset.

PW: Dan Abnett is another writer that seems to be loathed by the 2thou masses and, although I'm not one of them, I'm not too sure where I stand. I truly want to get into this story as I'm a big Strontium Dog fan (although I acknowledge that this owes very little to the Durham Red of old). The muddied art doesn't help, neither does the ridiculous clothes Durham wears or the Harrison (tm) music that populates his art. I wasn't around when Abnett first got hold of Red and changed the character, but I'm left hoping that i can grab the back issues to make more sense of it all (especially when the Mills-esqe 'Book 1' appears around the title'). All I can say is that I hope it's a better read once it's complete and I can devote more time and brain power to it... I felt the same about 'From Grace', and found it 100% better when read in one go. For Durham Red, I can only hope for the same...