2000AD 1405 - 01 September 2004
Cover by Henry Flint

Synopsis by Gavin Hanly
Review by Eric Moore
2nd Opinion by Iain Nixon

Summaries and reviews contain spoilers for this issue.

EM: Nope, it doesn’t work for me. Normally a Henry Flint Warriors' cover would be something I’d want to see but I think he’s bungled here. Blackblood and Pineapples are barely discernible, while all we get of Deadlock is his head. Mongrol doesn’t fair too badly but Hammerstein right at the front is overawed by his knuckle guns. Odd colouring too – since when does Hammerstein have green trim?

IN: Better than the last prog's, but then, that’s not saying much. It’s by Henry Flint, so there’s no complaint about the drawing, it’s bold and action packed. It’s really the colouring that got me and it’s really a bit of a niggle I think. Mongrol looked a bit too bright compared to the others I thought, and the light from Hammerstein’s fist didn’t look right, surely you shouldn’t be able to see all the details of his fist, all you should see is the heat? Small niggles though, It’s a good cover, the 2000AD logo stands out well as it against a patch of black.

(This is not a) Mega City Love Story #1 - Callista

Dredd's funky new wheels...

Synopsis: Seymour Sassoon finally gets a job after 22 years of trying, as a shop window dummy for Schmutter Clutter. There he quickly falls in love with another window model, Callista, in the shop across the street. Seymour impresses her with his pose work, and finally they start meeting at lunchbreak. But soon seymour's excessive posing gets him fired. After getting the sack, he spends his time loitering outside Callista's window until Dredd gives him an official warning for loitering. But later, Seymour breaks the shop window and spirits away with Callista to his apartment - and only now do we realise that Callista is an inanimate shop dummy, and Seymour has been imagining everything. His fantasies take one step further and he imagines himself having a fight with Callista, after which he chops up the mannequin. Dredd bursts in, and is attacked by seymour who believes he has killed Callista - but Dredd takes him down easily and packs him off to the kook cubes.

EM: A nice, fun stand alone tale from the Rennie droid. I must say, I didn’t get the twist until the reveal and had to go back and re-read it to appreciate the slyness of it all.

Ben Wilsher? Isn’t he the fella that did that Sin Dex where everyone had enormous lips? If so, I’m glad he’s reigned back here. Some fun stuff, including Vienna on page one, Max Normal on page three and the nifty redesign of Dredd’s bike. Odd to see Dredd in only eight panels though.

IN: Again, I can’t really complain about the art. It does its job even if it isn’t inspiring and the bright colours suit the tone of the strip. I just didn’t like the story that much, to be honest. At the conclusion, I was a bit confused. She was a dummy? But she was lounging with the guy? Then I realised that the green hues of that panel where supposed to show that it was the guy’s imagination. To me it read like a poor future shock, and Dredd’s final line was hardly amusing. I guess even people of Rennie’s calibre have their off days too.

The Shadow Warriors Book 2 - Part 6 (final episode)

Junkie Zombies

Synopsis: Neuropeptide A is a brain chemical that gives humans courage, produced under severe stress, given to combat troops to make them ultimate fighting machines. It is extracted by "lovebombing" . Clones are grown in pairs, until one of the clones is killed in front of his friend by a robot, which extracts the Neuropeptide a produces by the shock. The clones become emotionally attached to the extractor, in this case Mr Lovebomb, and the chemical continues to be extracted from the clones' nostrils, even when in battle.

The clone soldiers and Mr Lovebomb are tracking the Warriors, while Deadlock's bug i revealing nothing to them. Jeremiah Terrasand, leader of New Sidonia, believes that the confederates have won and creates a parade to meet them, only realising his mistake when the Warriors appear. Before they can tell him about his son's death, the clone warriors attack, and Deadlock realises it's a trap. The Warriors fight back the clones while dozens of talk cones with bombs attached approach them. Mek Quake rides over them as they explode, protecting the rest of the Warriors. The remaining Shadow Warriors prepare to attack...

EM: Seventies-era Pat Mills, where are you? Remember the very first Warriors story? Very similar to these Shadow Warriors in that each character was given a solo spot in the way of an introduction. But seventies Mills had fast paced, action packed vignettes that lead very quickly into the bigger story. Not anymore - here we are at the end of book 2 and the bad guys have only just formed. The double episode this week just seems to reinforce the notion that so much of this is padding, which is a shame. Still, at least we get double helpings of Henry Flint. I especially like the ABC’s grouped on page 5 and the Shadows on the last. Am I reading too much into it, but don’t each ABC Warriors' position in their group shot match their adversaries in the Shadow’s line-up?

IN: Flint’s art is as impressive as ever. The clone in the bottom panel of the first page looks really menacing, even more so than all the Shadow Warriors on the last page.
There was quite a bit of talking about the clones, but it was value for money, I guess as it explained the origins of the clones and Mr Lovebomb, though the nurse coming up with a handy historical quote seemed a bit odd.

The turncoat sheriff was a bit amusing, really helped by the facial expressions Flint has drawn. There’s quite a bit off action (at last) including Joe Pineapples shooting a clone - this must be the first time he’s had a taste of action in this run. Mek-Quake turning into a tank to destroy the talk cones was fun as well, mirroring when he “kicked the cone” in the first or second episode.

The odd thing was that despite this being a double episode, it was quicker than the single episodes before it, if all the episodes where paced this way, it would have helped immensely, and probably could have the book over in half the time too.

I have to say, there's nothing wrong with the cliff-hanger ending, if it was the end of any ordinary episode. But as the end of a book? No way. If Pat Mills wrote books like this in any other form, he wouldn’t get away with it. In conclusion it is a good episode, but the ending and what has gone before spoil it somewhat.

Opiate of the Masses

The end of TV..

Synopsis: One day all TV comes to an end. At first everyone starts to lose their minds, but gradually people begin to read again meet their neighbours and start taking part in reality again. Some couldn't take this, and killed themselves, but others began to realise that the televisions were starting to subdue the populace. But then TV came back, and the nation went back to it's previous subdued nature. Millions of miles away an alien is berated for shutting down the "sedation field" by accident, and is warned not to lose the entire crop...

EM: Okay idea, not bad artwork, but there really wasn’t a big enough twist to make this stand out.

IN: I actual quite liked this, I guess slower, Future Shock. The colouring really works well, muted during scenes of despair, and bright during more hopeful ones. The exposition is relatively sparse, and the story seemed so grounded in the real world, the ending did come as a bit of a surprise to me.

Creepshow - Part 5

Jenny comes to her senses...

Synopsis: Verse arrives at the "Empire of Crimson". Demon Jenny is playing a countess who sits at the side of her lord, Dracula and surrounded by demons. She too is caught up in the illusion and believes that she is actually "Countess Elizabeth Bathory". The demons attach Verse, but he beats them easily until Chapter and Professor Brand (now back to his true self) arrive. She finally makes Verse remember his true self, as Brand taunts the countess, telling her that if she was such an all powerful demon, how is she caught up in the illusion too. This shocks Jenny back to reality, and she attacks "Dracula", severing his head. But a huge spectral figure of Victor Draco appears, and the caballistics "run like hell".

EM: By very, very far, this is the best thing in the prog at the moment. The riffs on existing horror films and studios are a lot of fun and a joy to read. I can’t say I’m that keen on wanting to examine the logic of whether this person or that person exists in the Cabs Inc world. I’d much rather sit back and enjoy it as Gordon Rennie plays around with established film history. You can tell he’s a fan of the genre and he offers up some intriguing ideas – I’d love to see a photo of a 60’s era Catherine Deneuve as Demon Jenny. Again, there is stunning art from Dom – I really can’t see who else could take over the art chores, he’s made it so much his own.

IN: I really like this episode, no doubt helped by the fact that I WANT to see the movie that the Cabs have fallen into. All the vampire killing looks cool especially when done by ”Ibn Mustapha Kustir-Aga “. (Why didn’t Hannah explain the truth after the fighting?) The excepts of film books (as they have been through out) are a great and characterful way to get across exposition.

Dom Reardon’s art really looks great, realistic and dramatic, while Demon Jenny looks menacing even when she is, essentially, a piece of black. The Decrepit vampires looked cool, Demon Jenny’s response to having her powers challenged by Brand was also cool (turning Orson Welles/Dracula into the malevolent head - in both senses of the word - of Ludgate studios is inspired). Countess Elizabeth Bathory truly is, it seems, a revelation.

The most annoying thing about this episode is that it got positioned right at the back. Shame on Tharg, I say!