Prog 1368 - 26 November 2003
Cover by Boo Cook

Synopsis and review by Gavin Hanly
2nd Opinion by Edward Berridge

Summaries and reviews contain spoilers for this issue.

GH: Boo Cook seems to be cover artist of the moment for 2000AD, with only 3 issues since his last Dead Man Walking offering. Unfortunately, that was miles better than this one. This is just way too confusing to work as a cover image. The only recognisable section of the cover is the eye, whereas the rest just looks like a mess. It makes a small bit of sense if you know the strip, and read inside to find out what happens, but not much. I'm still not 100% sure what the jagged vertical thing is - is it the chainsaw? What are those rectangles? As a cover image this does everything wrong as it's too busy and abstract to do the job a cover needs to - i.e. attract attention and make people pick up the comic. Cook's certainly better than this and the Editor should have scrapped this at the idea stage.

EB: This is the second cover for Dead Men Walking, and you can’t help but think about editorial bias when more successful recent series, such as Leviathan or from Grace, have only managed to grab a solitary cover. That said, this is quite a striking cover, guaranteed to grab attention. A nice use of pinks and purples on grey here by Boo Cook, but I’m not sure it will mean much to the casual passer by. Still, sod them, it's a lovely little cover.

Meatmonger - Part 4

Dredd vs machine

Synopsis: Dredd tries to jam the blades, reminding Lunstrom he still has time to serve. Using his helmet, he manages to deflect a buzzsaw, destroying the machinery. Another survivor beckons them to follow him. Back in Mega City one, Dredd is confirmed as abducted as the situation gets out of hand, but they still feel Dredd is their best chance.

The other survivor introduces himself as Walfred Speers, a Brit Cit Photo Journalist also implanted with bionic eyes. Dredd asks Speers to take him to a teleport pad, as Lundstrom complains about being hungry. Speers shows him the only food source - human bodies. Elsewhere, the parasites emerge from the darkness and a "Skike alert" is called. Dredd and crew come across another assembly line to discover that the aliens are slaughtering Kleggs too - but the Kleggs are starting to revolt.

GH: I have to admit to having a problem with this episode at the "skike alert" part. I simply have no idea what that's all about, as I can't work out what is being trodden on to make the "chance discovery". This has somewhat spoiled an otherwise entertaining story in that I became thoroughly confused for the second half, thus grinding to a halt on what should be a speedily read piece. Much as I have been unwilling to add my voice to the anti-Siku brigade, a considerable amount of responsibility for this confusion rests at his door. He still draws a wonderfully exaggerated Dredd, but the latter scenes are simply too incomprehensible. The dialogue tells us that "They got those freaky bagpipe things riding pillion" but the art makes it particularly difficult to work out exactly what Lundstrom's referring to. Hopefully things will become clearer next issue.

EB: And so the great Siku debate rages on… I must be one of about only two people who actually enjoy the art in this tale. So before I’m branded as a dirty Thrill Sucker and run outta town, I’d better explain myself. While I won't try to pretend that this is the best depiction of either Dredd or his world I’ve ever seen, I would argue the case that 2000AD, and Judge Dredd in particular, lends itself to being depicted in a varying number of styles. One of the things that attracted both readers and creators back in the early days of the comic was the fact that there wasn’t a set house style which subsequent artists had to follow, allowing instead for artistic expression and freedom of ideas. What I enjoy about the art is the fact that it doesn’t take itself seriously. Just like John Smith’s story itself, it knowingly knocks the traditions of Dredd strip, while containing the whole thing in a humorous action movie style plot, featuring a cast full of special guests like Starborn Things and Kleggs.

The strip is aided by a rich seam of black humour, which will undoubtedly be yet further enriched when the chap with the metal teeth comes to the fore. Its throwaway entertainment of course, but then it doesn’t pretend to be anything else. Where other people see sloppy or confusing layouts, I see freaky looking aliens and outsized shoulder pads. Where some people despair at the pointy chin, I find that it amuses me. One man’s meat, as they say…

(Although I have to admit that I found it quite hard to recognise the Kleggs at the end).

Part 7

Jude comes to the end of her life

Synopsis: Thousands of zombies are gathering outside the prison and Proctor believes they are getting ready to attack - although the governor doesn't accept this. She contact Jude, now held in custody and tells her that all her transmissions were intercepted and that no one is coming. Dreadnought kills her and takes her to the med bay. Jude has an out of body experience and sees her body being dragged to the infirmary. A voice, Lazarus, tells her that a ship crashed on the planet two generations ago. They discovered the planet has rich mineral resources, but also that the dead came back to life. A mining corporation was set up but soon the dead outnumbered the living. A young executive, Rosa Karn, suggested setting up a penal colony and made the place her personal domain. The planet tells Jude that it's fighting back, but needs help. She comes back to life and destroys Proctor, telling the governor "you're next bitch!"

GH: Ah, the exposition episode, as we find out what's really going on. Not much more than we already knew unfortunately, as there's no big secret revealed yet. We still don't know why the dead come back to life, or indeed why Jude seems to have retained her sentience. The effort to portray Jude as the hard-as-nails prisoner as part of her disguise meant that we really don't care when she gets killed as we've only seen her as a thoroughly nasty individual. And if the zombies are only just gaining intelligence, why the extremely handy decision to sew up their mouths to prevent them feeding in the first place? It seems there are way too many holes in this plot that Bishop could have filled with some decent feedback before the script was handed in. As it is, the strip is a host of potentially promising ideas which don't live up to their potential. Meanwhile, Cook's art is way better than his cover with the flashback scenes being particularly well handled.

EB: So the undead zombies, controlled by the sentient planet Lazarus, are finally rising up against their human oppressors. There’s something so predictable about this series, almost like a soap opera, where one knows the ending at the start of a storyline, but must watch the months of prattling around that it takes to get us there. The problem with this story is that it labours far too hard to get where its going, when sometimes it's better to just sit back and enjoy the ride.

Characters are roughly shoe horned into a badly fitting plot. David Bishop, as a former editor of both 2000AD and the Megazine, really ought to know better. Another problem with the script is the terrible language. Stuff like "I’m top bitch now!" really seem to be from a (hopefully) bygone era where men drew women with big tits and even bigger guns and nobody ever bothered to read any stray words that might have sneaked in somewhere. Likewise, use of language such as "What he saw scared the shiv out of him…" is pretty poor. Even three year olds and half blind geriatrics realise that he means shit, so why not either just use the genuine word, or else invent something entirely unique, such as "Drokk" in Judge Dredd for example. "Smux!" or "Vrillge!", thinking off the top of my head, might work equally well, if not better (as in "Smux! I already ate it!" or "Keep your hands off, vrillge-hole!").And are we really supposed to believe that the term "electric boogaloo" is going to survive until however many hundreds of years in the future this series is set?

This all seems to smack of lazy writing, which is unfortunate since it does contain some rather nice ideas. The prison planet of Lazarus and its reanimated population is an intriguing idea, and there have been some interesting characters, such as Proctor or the warden. But there are too many inconsistencies: are we supposed to believe that the warden is so bloated and leaden with power that she ignores ALL the warning signs about the massing zombies until, presumably, it is now too late? Too much of the dialogue and character motivation is clichéd and far too recognisable when what this strip is crying out for is an original format to convey a potentially interesting environment.

However, it is unfair to lay all of the blame at David Bishop’s door – much of what is wrong with this series could have been worked out during the editorial stage of the proceedings, and the fact that this wasn't seen is why they are, in part at least, as culpable. The one saving grace of the strip has been Boo Cook’s artwork, completely unique, yet definitely fitting in with the style of 2000AD in a kind of Ian Gibson, Massimo Belardinelli way. The planet communicating with Jude after she dies has a kind of heat haze unreality to it, segueing nicely into a sepia toned flashback. At the end of this we see a younger, slimmer warden Karn, whom Cook has drawn with a smile on her lips that tells us everything we need to know about the character. With a bit more effort and a more certain narrative style this could have been something of a minor classic, instead of which it is something of a curate’s egg.

Downtime 6- Kostabi

Slater wrestles with his own demons

Synopsis: Slater prepares a video that details all he knows about Kostabi as an insurance against anything happening to him. Slater has helped cover up number of illegal activities for Kostabi over the years. Kostabi's real name is David Smith, and only a single school photograph remains from his early years. Later on in life he travelled with the Stones where Slater first met him, and despite being rather unremarkable, soon had a string of No 1 hits. Throughout the 70s, his career flourished, interspersed with the occasional scandal - including the suicide of his girlfriend who was pregnant with his child. Slater himself had committed atrocities, but Kostabi covered them up and employed him. It's Slater's job to spend Kostabi's money, investing it in a number of areas of research into astrology, stolen artifacts and much more. Caballistics in particular remains an anachronism, but Slater believes Kostabi is using them as "occult lightening conductors" to keep the heat away from him. Kostabi watches the recording and smiles.

GH: Another exposition episode, but one that is vastly different from the Dead Man Walking one. This is mainly due to the fact that we actually find out a great deal more information about Kostabi than we knew before, as well as uncovering the reason for establishing the Caballistics in the first place, therefore giving this episode a grat deal of weight. Rennie has timed this well, drip feeding information about the rest of the team in the earlier episodes and saving up the real goods for this issue. There was some concern about not finding out a great deal about the members of Caballistics in the earlier Downtime episodes, but this more than makes up for the less than forthcoming parts. Finally we find out just enough about Kostabi to raise our interest in him, and this also acts as a reminder as to just who's behind the Caballistics in the first place. No doubt this will prove to be very useful indeed as Ravne looks further into Kostabi's past, and as we find out more about what the demon possessing Jennifer really wants.

So these interludes have more than rekindled interest in Caballistics in time for the Prog 2004 episode (only 3 issues away) when the series starts again proper. It's been a great year for Caballistics and with the official site hinting at spin off stries of the 1930's version of the team, more great things are hopefully to come.

EB: So we reach the end of the current series, and the stage has been neatly set for the showdown in prog 2004. This week we learn more about the enigmatic Ethan Kostabi, and the not quite as subservient as we thought Howard Slater. Both Gordon Rennie and Dom Reardon have really come into their own as this strip has progressed, becoming a really dynamic creative team. Their attempt a building a conceivable, intact world for their characters to grow out of has worked extraordinarily well (see Kostabi hanging with The Experience for a good example). There’s still room for the trademark nasty violence, however, such as is seen on pages three and four. The trick here is to only show the reader so much, then leave the rest to our imagination. Whatever picture we build in our minds will be worse than anything Dom Reardon could draw (not that he doesn’t give it a good bash, though).

The art is highly reminiscent of Mike Mignola, by way of Eduardo Risso, but without stealing anything from those artists, and retaining its own sense of individuality. I get the feeling that ultimately, Lovecraftian ‘old dark gods’ will be the root cause of the mysterious Mr. Kostabi, but I could easily be proven wrong. Rennie and Reardon have made such a success of this strip by drip-feeding reader’s nuggets of information, making them hang on each word and wait with baited breath for the next installment and the next revelation and continuing mystery. Each new piece of information only serves to deepen the mystery of both the characters and the situation. The chief attribute of this series are, in fact, the characters themselves. Beautifully realised by Dom Reardon and believably scripted by Gordon Rennie, this is truly that best kind of story – one where the story itself grows out of the characters and the world they inhabit. All this means that I impatiently look forward to the return of our merry band of lightning conductors and their battle with the Golem. Roll on prog 2004!

Facing Mecha - Part 7

More acrobatics from Syn

Synopsis: Synnamon attempts to get Ascheta to shut down but with no luck.The other constructs swarm, but Synnamon makes it to her ship and breaks orbit. She heads to Mecha, but is unsure what to do when she gets there - until she has an idea. Suddenly the signal is interrupted and Ascheta invades the ship as the life support shuts down. Synnamon attempts to engage the over-ride, and rigs the engines to explode. But Ascheta easily stops the chain reaction, and the ship lands on Mecha, along with Synnamon who has completely succumbed to the Mecha virus...

GH: Another fast moving strip where very little actually happens to dramatically further the plot. Clayton and Dows do action very well, and manage to keep things moving along at a brisk pace, but a bit of story wouldn't go amiss now and again. Part of the reason for this is down to the finite amount of time the series has left to run (2 episodes max). Because of this rush to the climax, there's a feeling that we haven't really had enough time to set up a compelling storyline. Bison had the same rush to the end feel, and although this is a major improvement on that strip, there's a growing feeling that the editorial policy of short run strips need something of an overhaul next year.

EB: This series by the Bison team has come in for some of the same criticism their former series received. However, in this case, it seems a little unfair. This is not the most original series ever, but then neither have more popular series been, such as the recent Lobster Random. Series need to be given time to grow, and this one has improved immeasurably since it began. Partly this is down to the structure of the story, which has thrown us in at the deep end, pitting us in a race against time against an unstoppable robot virus. Of course, a planet composed entirely of artificial intelligences has been done before, but the ideas here are strong ones, particularly the idea of nano-technology being used like a virus to infect and control the galaxy.

The art compliments these ideas; featuring particularly strong craft and AI design, almost Matrix-like in its robot/insect appearance (see page 4). The character design is also particularly strong, with Synnamon being the most obvious example, in a kind of more serious Barbarella/Emma Peel kind of way. In the heavy use of blacks, the art is reminiscent of the third book of Steve Yeowell’s Zenith. Both artists and writers combine here to give us a top notch cliff-hanger, one of the best I can remember for some time, where I genuinely cannot see how Synnamon can get out of this, and am more than a little disturbed by the final picture. I surprise myself by saying that I would welcome seeing another series featuring Ms. Synnamon (assuming she survives the current one).

The Empty Suns - Book 1 - Part 7 (last episode)

The offspring retreats from reality

Synopsis: An idyllic Oxfordshire countryside scene shows a man wandering happily through a meadow. However, it's simply the Offspring creating a temporary perfect reality for itself. It's interrupted by a communique and The offspring returns to the ruins of Latara as he is told of Red's actions. It decides to investigate.

Back on ship near Damarkan Red is creating more weapons. She tells Godolkin that she wants the Offspring to come searching for them. Godolkin is worried, but Red tells him to trust her when they are suddenly called to the bridge. Syte, the old man, is having a fit - he explodes with sparks as his spirit is taken over by the Offspring. It tells Red to "disappear", but Red isn't going anywhere. The Offspring reminds her of what created them and invades her mind, taking her back to 2170AD, post atomic Milton keynes. Johnny Alpha comes out of the shadows, pointing a gun at her...

GH: It's over already?! This reminds me of the last episode of Slaine, with its clumsily handled cliffhanger. You're left wondering if you've missed something, as the story appears to have ended right in the middle of a scene. This isn't a cliffhanger, it's just a normal end of episode with an unfeasibly long break before the next one. Cliffhangers have to be shocking, while still offering a certain amount of closure on that section of the story. Abnett managed this quite well with the last VCs book, so the hamfisted approach here is surprising to say the least.

Otherwise, it's a better episode and a large improvement over the messy action of the previous one. One thing this week particularly highlights is the versatility of Mark Harrison with some spectacular opening shots of a "normal" English countryside. It's left me thinking I'd like to see Harrison tackle something outside of the science fiction genre as the work on these two pages is a remarkable break from his usual style. That said, the juxtaposition to this ideal reality to the desolation caused by the offspring is also highly impressive and Harrison hands in possibly his best work on the series to date.

But what of this Durham Red book as a whole? The use of the Offspring as a bad guy makes for a much more interesting series than the Vermin Stars which seemed little more than a humdrum soap opera with no real purpose. Here's the villain of the piece is clearly mapped out, and the confrontation is something that is eagerly anticipated. I'm still not keen on Durham Red as a character, and believe Abnett made a mistake in giving her back her memory so easily, but I have been surprised at how much I'm looking forward to each episode of this. If he can avoid duff episodes like the two preceding this in the next book, It should be worth waiting for.

EB: I have to admit that I was not looking forward to this series at all. I had scanned a bit of Mark Harrison art for previous series, which I took an immediate dislike to, and I read some of Abnett’s Scarlet Cantos in the Megazine. But for me, the last time I really remember caring about reading Durham Red, she was taking showers with Ronald Reagan and Johnny Alpha. So the fact that I have actually been enjoying this series has surprised me no end. Despite having no real knowledge of the two previous series, I have found this pretty easy to pick up, perhaps because the mutants vs. humans theme was already so prevalent in the comic. I can’t really predict this story, can’t see where the light bends around it. I suppose, to make a simple analogy, it is the sf equivalent of Slaine – either you get something from it or you don’t.

The big star of this series has undoubtedly been Mark Harrison’s art. It appears to have evolved from his previous stuff, not relying quite so heavily on the use of a computer. On the other hand, I have had more time to spend soaking in the genuine quality of the art produced – take, for example, the beautiful transition from Oxfordshire the world of Latara, all in the twisted mind of the offspring. Harrison and Abnett are another pair who have a flair for creating worlds, right down from character and vehicle to architectural design. The only slight niggle I have is Red’s costume – she’d be in real trouble if she got caught in a strong updraft! Without wishing to sound like a prude, but perhaps something more practical might be in order. It just annoys me a bit that every representation of women in comics has to be as some luscious male fantasy sex object.

However, slight niggles aside, I have enjoyed this series, and with the creative team leaving it in a particularly intriguing cliff-hanger, I’m just annoyed that we aren’t going to be seeing any more for a little while.