2000AD 1371 - 7 January 2004
Cover by Greg Staples

Synopsis and review by Gavin Hanly
2nd Opinion by WR Logan

Summaries and reviews contain spoilers for this issue.

GH: Greg Staples returns to full colour painted art for this cover, and it's a pretty good effort. It benefits from the clumsy action pose in the brawl, which elevates it beyond the stock "Dredd fighting" covers. It does, however, cover most of the title of the mag, so it loses points many there...

Cincinnati -Part 1

Dredd fights dirty

Synopsis: Dredd and a ship full of judges land in Cincinnati, an area of the Cursed Earth contested by 3 groups, The Rad Rats, Surf Monkeys and the Crazy 20, looking for perp whose escape pod landed nearby.

They ride through the city waiting to be intercepted and are met by the Crazy 20 - now expanded beyond their original number. Their leader, the short Biggie Little takes a swing at Dredd but Dredd calms him down and shows him the picture of the man they're after, offering them 1 mil in international paycards for information. But Little rejects the paycards and resumes fighting with Dredd. Now that the niceties are out of the way, Dredd fights back and knocks Little out.

They deploy smoke grenades and head out fast...

GH: Critchlow and Wagner team up again for the first time since the werewolf/ undercity tale back in late 2002. Critchlow's art has massivly improved sice his last Dredd outing and even, to an extent, since Lobster Random. There's a bit more colour on display here than there was in the rather gloomy undercity storyline, and a tremendous amount of detail put into the ruins of Cincinatti. Critchlow's style can be a hard one to appreciate initially, with its scratchy lines, but it suits the mood here well. And the violence of Lobster Random has prepared him for a great fight bwtween Dredd and the short and slightly Wolverine-looking Biggie Little.

As for the story, it's typical Wagner drip-feed fare, but we've been here before. Many of last year's Wagner Dredd stories started out with plenty of promise, like this one, only to fade away before the premature end. So the jury's out as to whether he can go the distance this time.

Twilight of the Idols - Part 2

Alhazared introduces Dancer to the crew

Synopsis: The crew clean up and Captain Alhazared shows them around the vessel. It's made entirely of bronze and is rowed by mechanical robots, from designs created by Daedelus and passed through the ages. The captain has a taste for acquiring legendary artifacts and wishes to find the flying island of Laputa. The crew think he's crazy, but Dancer says he saw it himself many years ago while midshipman on the Vulcan, telling no one about it. Alhazared says he has the golden map that shows the island's orbit, and needs Dancer and his crew to help him get there. he crew are worried given their last encounter with the fantastic, but Dancer decides to accept.

Elsewhere, another ship pulls the dead bodies of the Englishmen out of the water, led by a woman, Captain Sarita. She tells her crew that they must kill Dancer "before he dooms the world!"

GH: It's one of those exposition fulled episodes, where the reader finds out the main thrust of the storyline - here the search for Laputa. It's intriguing enough and Edginton continues the mix of swashbuckling pirate action with a touch of magic/fantasy that seems at home in 2000AD. There's enough here to keep the reader's interest, as well as a final scene which suggests that all is not what it seems with Alhazared. As with the first series, there is a feeling that Dancer's crew could do with some fleshing out with only Bill coming across as more than one of the crowd, but there's plenty of time for that yet.

Yeowell, as ever, is ideally suited to this tale, and manages to pull off the most important images in the episode (the robot crew, laputa and the golden map) with aplomb and ingenuity. Those combined with the unpleasant charred body of the English crewman make this a fine job.

Part 2 - Hit the Ground Vaping

The VCs attack

Synopsis: Lin Fu and Ryx have survived the crash, and decide to look for the others. They follow the a trace of another pod, but the Geeks have got there first. They kill all the Geeks surrounding the pod and find Keege, puling him to safety. Surrounded by Geek fire, they're pinned down, but are rescued by Jupe. Jupe takes over the leadership and they head out.

GH: Confusion abounds this episode, as it appears that the VCs are not quite as dead as they seemed last episode. Or are they? Is this set slightly before last week's encounter between Keege and Smith or is Smith hallucinating Keege too? One thing's for sure, the soon Abnett gets rid of the highly irritaiting Ryx the better. His exchanges with Lin Fu are toe-curlingly cringeworthy, and it's infantile dialogue like this that makes me wonder why I'm still reading the comic at all. Not much else happens to really make me understand what's going on except a couple of gunfights, so let's wait until next week's episode to see if things can improve again.

The Books of Invasion 3 - Scota Part 2

A fate Fergus wants to avoid...

Synopsis: Slaine keeps the wounded Fergus company. If his wound is fatal, he has to go into the cauldron of rebirth and become undead. Fergus eats garlic - if the druid can smell the garlic through the wound, it's fatal. Luckily Fergus' wound isn't and he can return to battle. They fight once more, but Slaine is met by Scota. He tries to tell her he wants peace with her people, but not the sea demons, and together they can defeat the demons. He realises they can't fight the fire staffs, but also that he's the only hope that Gael has for being free of Odacon's grasp. In return Slaine would want the staffs and words of power to operate them. They continue fighting, and Slaine bests Scota, but Gael/Odacon find them and attack...

GH: This week Pat Mills seems to remember that Slaine was much better when it was infused with an element of humour (usually in the form of Ukko). The first two pages where Slaine and Fergus wait for Fergus' diagnosis are funny with well timed dialogue and great art to go with it. However, once we get back to the battle it's back to the status quo. Scota continues to be alarmingly stupid with her trust in Odacon, and almost four pages ensue of a battle where little is said that couldn't be wrapped up in one or two. It's Mills' worst trait when it comes to Slaine, the inability to know when he should tighten things up a bit. It seems he's a good writer, but desperately in need of a strong editor who will tell him to get things moving faster.

Langley's art meanwhile contiues to be the best thing about the series, but it's too easy to skip over it when you don't really care about those he's illustrating.

Like a Virgin - Part 2

Samantha Slade get her first taste of robohunting action

Synopsis: As Hoagie, Stogie and Slade argue about who she is, a robot assassin climbs in through the window and starts shooting. They all jump out the window, landing on a "love boat" full of naked cavorting couples. The robot follows them, but Slade throws a life ring around it and it crashes through the hull, sinking the boat. Later, Slade tells them that Sam disappeared five years ago and the payments to her mum stopped coming. She asks Hoagie why he want Sam, and Hoagie tells her that he was working for a movie director and stumbled into the wrong room, one full of body parts. He took some evidence and left - part of the evidence being a left luggage card for the train station. They get to New King's Cross and find a box - inside is Sam Slade's head - preserved...

GH: Still somehting of an uncertainty, this one. The art alone makes it worth keeping up with although Samantha Slade looks a mite ugly in some shots - surprising from an artist such as Gibson - and after reading it a couple of times I still can't see how they could have fallen from the window into the ship. That aside, now that the group are on the run, and we're getting into the meat of the story, things are staring to improve. It was always going to be tricky to introduce another Sam Slade, but once these four issues have the matter wrapped up, I'd be keen to see a fully fledged series, with less reliance on what has happened before.