2000AD 1376 - 11 February 2004
Cover by Cliff Robinson & Len O Grady

Synopsis and review by Gavin Hanly
2nd Opinion by Richmond Clements

Summaries and reviews contain spoilers for this issue.

GH: A great cover from Cliff Robinson who once again proves that he can provide much better cover imagery when he's not being forced into "generic Dredd pose" mode. This sets the scene well for the tale inside, as well as doing a great job of framing the logo (and not forgetting about it as many artists seem to do). In addition, this issue sees the start of the top banner listing the stories inside - a great touch that takes an element of the successful Megazine over to the weekly. Overall - a very good cover indeed.

RC: What could have been a standard Dredd cover, is saved by the unusual angle, and for once, the black and white logo fits in with the overall scheme. I'm not sure about the contents list across the top, though… do they reckon that this will pull in wavering readers?

And the promise across the bottom of the page isn’t really fulfilled either, is it?

Master of Fear - Part 2

Hunter Judges...

Synopsis: The Crystal Skull uses his cane to amplify his crystal brain, forcing images of the death of Sov citizens following the Apocalypse War into Dredd's mind, making him relive their death and suffering. Dred also witnesses the birth of the Skull as a mutant. Elsewhere Psi judge Shakta and a street judge find the dead apes. They follow his Psi trail, narrowly missing a booby trap along the way. They follow the tracks to the undercity.

Meanwhile Dredd is being force fed the images of Hunter judges wiping out mutant enclaves - while the skull looks for signs that Dredd is going to crack. But Dredd is defiant, and refuses to give in, so the Crystal Skull summons up the image of a grim reaper...

GH: A considerable improvement over last week's somewhat lackluster opening. I've always liked this "make the perpetrators relive their victim's last moments" idea (used, I believe, in the recent Spectre series too) and it fits in well with today's Dredd being slightly out of sorts with judicial activities. Indeed, it's been too long since we've had the underbelly of Mega City justice examined, and witnessed the seedier side of the judges' actions. Grant pulls out some of the worst elements of Dredd's world for us all to see including, of course, the Apocalypse war.

Indeed, the way the Apocalypse War is treated lately, it almost seems as if Grant and Wagner are trying to atone themselves for the ending to that series, which saw millions of lives lost at the unflinching hand of Dredd. At they time, the reader was pretty much behind Dredd and his actions, and it's only as time has gone on that the writers have been re-emphasising that this was a very bad thing that Dredd did, and perhaps shouldn't be forgiven. I'm still a little unsure about this Crystal Skull fellow - but he's a means to an end, I guess.

Burns again is on top form as artist and , like Grant, turns things up a notch for this episode. He excels at the more human scenes of death and despair, but also manages to paint one of the most atmospheric scenes of the undercity I've seen in a while. And those "Hunter Judges" look very nasty indeed (and are worthy of further exploration).

RC: I don't know, I'm just finding it hard to care about this tale. Perhaps this is because I cannot for the life of me remember the previous tale featuring the Crystal Skull. Perhaps.

I think it is because, yet again, we have Dredd kidnapped, tied up and tortured by a villain of the week, in yet another attempt to break his will.

It is not bad writing as the good bits are very good: the two Judges tracking Dredd down are well written and their progress is believable. As for the rest of it… The Crystal Skull's origin was, let's say, thin on the ground. His parents were killed by Mega City Judges after the Apocalypse War? Yeah, but what about the see through head? Where did he get the Dr. Strange-ish cane?

Hopefully answers will be forthcoming.

I love John Burn's work on Dante, but have always found his painted Dredd strips to be, well, not as good. He is able to imbue Dante and its cast with lovely subtle expressions, which to me, seem to be missing from his Dredds. Two individual frames to be pointed out: the undercity hasn’t looked that creepy since Cry of the Werewolf; and the great frame on page two, looking down at Dredd and Skull from the rafters. Who else thinks the bell is going to come into play later?

Cosmonaut X

Yuri comes down to Earth...

Synopsis: April 1961, Yuri Gagarin enters the Earth's orbit in a mission to be exposed to cosmic rays. As he returns to Earth he has been given extra powers - mind reading, telekinesis and precognition. He is first used to convert dissidents into loyal government supporters, and then sent on missions to visit heads of state - probing their minds.

Meanwhile, more Russian space missions do not prove as successful and the American space program comes close to catching up. Gagarin is told to sabotage the Americans' efforts, and the resulting Freedom 7 disaster grounds the American space program for good. But Gagarin has had enough, and goes into hiding - although he is warned that they will come after him. As he wanders down a lonely road, he feels something behind him as a terrifying huge spectral dog attacks. Gagarin's funeral is held - as the KGB puts their other asset, the first dog in space - Laika, back into containment.

GH: Easily one of the best Past Imperfect stories yet. It takes an important time in history and uses it to great effect without requiring encyclopedic knowledge of the actual events from the reader. It reads very well indeed, especially the second time around, and sets up a feeling of dread throughout the piece. Plus there was a twist which I genuinely didn't see coming - something which doesn't happen much these days. But it works well regardless of the twist, and proves that there may be something in this Past Imperfect concept after all.

As for the art, Laurence Campbell does a job here that puts pretty much all his Synnamon work to shame as, together with Kris Justice, he creates a look that ideally suits the black and white documentary style approach of the strip. A sterling job, and I'd like to see him try more like this before he goes back to his former co-artists.

RC: This bounced along quite nicely, like a kind of Quatermass meets Zenith tale for the first four pages. I was enjoying it, but no big wow.

Then I turned to the last page, and something that hasn’t happened for a long time happened. I was genuinely surprised by the ending. That, I think, is the best complement you can give to one of these tales.

As far as I can tell, this is the first work by Kris Justice, and from what I see here, I would like there to be more. It reminds me in places of Yeowell’s work on Zenith, and that is not a bad thing.

The Books of Invasion 3 - Scota Part 7

Slaine and Gael united ...

Synopsis: Slaine orders Odacon to restore Gael to his former self or he'll destroy him. Sethor agrees to replace Gael as Sethor's Golamh. Odacon says the procedure may not work, but Slaine makes him do it - and he succeeds, freeing Gael. Odacon takes Sethor as his Golamh, and Sethor is more than happy to "have communion with a god!" Slaine and Gael fight the other demons back, as Slaine tells Gael it's time to leave if they're going to survive.

Later they reconvene with their armies for Scota's funeral. Gael says that the demons are marching on Tara - and that if Tara falls, the kingdom falls too. They head off to war...

GH: So another Slaine book comes to an end and I can't help but breathe a sigh of relief. Could the next one finally be the last? Let's hope so because this really does feel like it's being stretched a little too thin. While this series has been an improvement on those that immediately preceded it, mainly due to an increase in the sense of humour, I can't help but feel that I would have preferred anything else to appear in the comic in its stead. I done's care about Scota's end - Mills' female characters have always seemed a little too worthy for their own good - nor do I really care for the fate of either Slaine or Gael's tribes. This is disastrous in such a tale which is building up to a big finish, where so much, allegedly, holds in the balance. In addition to this, there's some unpleasantly homophobic tendencies on show here in Odacon's "mounting" of Sethor.

On the evidence of the last 3 "Books of Invasions" it's time Slaine was either sent out to pasture, or another writer was brought in to breathe some life into the character. And let's face it, the latter's never going to happen...

Langley's art has improved throughout the whole Books of Invasions, even if his photographic techniques can look a little too obvious at times - especially in Sethor's transformation. The last double paged spread, with the faded light approach works the best here, and the image of Scota shows just how much effort he puts in. His style doesn't always work for me, but at least it provokes a response.

As for the end "look, I based this on legend, aren't I clever!" part - it does stick out a bit, and this information would have been much more entertaining if drip fed to us throughout the series.

RC: Well, I think I enjoyed this episode. Some cracking dialogue (‘Are you insane?’ ‘Yes.’) was punctuated with illogic (release him…I can’t… do it!… oh, alright then).

But, to be fair, the good outweighed the bad. This week.

Sethor becoming Odacon’s new golamh was a good touch, and I do think that Gael will be an interesting character to team Slaine with. Also, a fantastic scene with Slaine and Gael discussing dead wives on the final pages.

Remember in Star Trek, to save money in space battles, they would have one of the bridge crew describing what the ships where doing outside? Well, why do this in a comic? Having a few dramatic frames of the army of Sea Demons marching on Tara would have been a lot cooler that just having Slaine talk about it.

Reading the main site recently, it looks as if the Langley backlash may be beginning. But it hasn’t reached me yet. Beautiful use of colour on the first page, and the layout and light effects on the final two make this the best episode he has done yet.

But the big question: Do I want to see book four? On the strength of this, I wouldn’t object to it.

Twilight of the Idols - Part 7

The Colossus attacks

Synopsis: Dancer's crew try to get Aladdin to help but the Djinn beats them back "No one lays a hand on my master". But Aladdin calms things down, using magic to bring the Colossus of Rhodes to life. It rises out of the sea, the Kraken wrapped around it. As they fight, Jim and Dancer are inside the Colossus, having retrieved the map piece. They jump out as the Colossus weakens, managing to get back on board the ship with the map. As they do so, the Colossus starts to fall, and the ship is borne away in the great wave.

With all pieces of the map in place - they now set sail for Laupta...

GH: Another cracking episode of the Red Seas, which although being little more than a fight between the Kraken and the Colossus, manages to be supremely entertaining, not least for the little crack about the colossus being "a big fella" as he rises over the boat. While the Colossus did seem disappointingly weedy and easily beaten by the Kraken, it lets Yeowell one again cut loose. Not much more to say about this one except to keep it coming!

Talking of which, when he read that script, Steve Yeowell must have thought it was Christmas again! Something that comes across on this strip, more than any other in the comic at the moment, is the immense amount of fun both writer and artist seem to be having, playing in the world they have created.

Part 6 - Home

Veto struggles to put a sentence together.

Synopsis: The ship within the caves belongs to Veto and his crew who also crashed on Charon. They tell Veto that they're trying to get to the transmitter, and that they should team up. Veto refuses until Diderot reminds him that the station might have spares that could easily repair his ship. Veto finally agrees to team up the next morning and they all go to get some rest. Ryx and Linfu finally get together and share a bed, while Kali comes to change Diderot's dressings. She finds that he's done it himself, and discovered that he's an android. But he can't remember how he was made, and thinks that perhaps the Polity created him and is supplying both sides of the war.

GH: Wait a minute. Diderot is only now finding out he's an android?? Didn't the "Diderot - you're not human!" exclamation from Kali back in issue 1372 give him a bit of a clue. And before I'm told that he might have been delirious - sorry, I just don't buy it. Once again it's another episode spent in the company of some of the most tedious creations ever to grace the comic. Please, please, please kill them off for real next time?

RC: There is a lot wrong with this episode. The convenient discovery of another ship, and therefore reinforcements hiding in a cave. Yeah, they didn’t want to help, but a couple of frames of argument soon changed their mind.

The woman character decides to have sex with the sexist arsehole character, and the one who didn’t know he was a robot finds out that he is.

Oh, there is a lot going on here alright. But for a future war tale, there is precious little future war, and a lot of exposition about a group of characters I don’t even remember the names of. Though, to be totally fair, I did remember the captain of the other ship from the last series.

Williams' art has shown great improvement this time round, but this week it has the look of being rushed, especially on the second and third pages.