2000AD 1407 - 15 September 2004
Cover by Frazer Irving

Synopsis and 1st review by Gavin Hanly
2nd Opinion by John Amans

Summaries and reviews contain spoilers for this issue.

GH: A fine cover by Irving which works well due to the odd choice of colour and the peculiar angle. But when are we going to get a Dom Reardon cover? Surely it's long overdue?

JA: Not a bad cover, but it just doesn’t grab you. It has a nice purple tinge to it in the middle, but doesn’t do justice to some of the better Caballistics covers of the past. It's just a little low key compared to what is inside!

B*w*tch*d

Dredd and Toots ride...

Synopsis: Toots Milloy, a private eye, is searching for a runaway wife and finds her impaled on a broomstick. She calls the judges, and tells Dredd that the husband said she joined a cult that trained wannabe witches. She leads Dredd to the school, where they are met by Samantha, the owner. She performs what appears to be magic by twitching her nose, turning a cat into flowers and making broomsticks rise in the air. She can do this due to the remote in her nose that runs anti-grav motors and a molecular disassembler. She says that the wife must have lost control and impaled herself during training. But Toots finds a control room full of overrides and Is caught by Samantha’s accomplice, Darren. Toots twitches her nose and Darren’s gun turns into a snake. Dredd knocks him out while Toots punches Samantha. Unfortunately, this breaks her remote and she’s impaled by her own broomsticks, Dredd asks Toots how she did the trick with the gun – and she replies it was magic, before twitching again and disappearing.

GH: Unlike his Megazine work, Grant has been really struggling with his one-off Dredd tales in the comic. A Bewitched parody? Have the majority of the readership ever even watched the programme? Unfortunately, Grant's heroine doesn't come off particularly well either. Toots Milloy has nothing particularly outstanding about her character to help lift this story above the depressingly average. Grant can do much better than this and he needs to raise his game.

As for Roach, while he manages to pull off some good artwork here, particularly in the characters of Milloy and the head witch, there's something about his Dredd that seems lacking. I'd love to see him working on a tale that was a little less sci fi, and more down the Caballistics route, as his strength appears to be in characterisation. But even he can't rescue this rather pointless tale.

JA: Have all of the 2000AD Judge Dredd writers run out of ideas? I remember when we had some great 3-4 part Judge Dredd stories that had a dash of humour but were in essence snappy, direct and above all quality stories. Apart from a few exceptions, I’ve been disappointed with the level and standard Dredd stories for a couple of years now. This week episode is just another one of those “one off” quirky fun Dredd tales that goes nowhere and achieves nothing.

The whole thing is a pastiche of the 1960’s Bewitched TV series that I'd occasionally catch on C4 at 09:30 in the morning. I don’t see the point of the female private eye either! The whole episode, though nicely drawn and scripted just screams; “mediocre, conveyer belt filler”.

The best bit of the story was reading “Next Prog Total War” at the bottom of the page!

In short: disappointing.

Creepshow - Part 7

Chapter gets close to her film studies...

Synopsis: The zombies and other monsters attack, the first one getting through is a Werebeast, which Chapter easily dispatches of. She realises that Drako has built his studios on cursed ground to give him the energy to crate the illusions, and Brand needs to use Jenny to find him. Jenny and Brand walk through the house witnessing various terrors from hell, until finally they come across Drako himself.

GH: Caballistics Inc still provides a fun tale, along with some particularly fine artwork from Reardon. He really is coming on in leaps and bounds, with some of Drako's visions of Hell being particularly disturbing. But I still find myself wanting more from this latest tale. After such a long wait since Krystallnacht, I was expecting more than this long chase scene. If Caballistics appeared more regularly, I could be more forgiving, but I could read this in less than a minute and seemed vaguely unsatisfied.

JA: Just when you thought this couldn’t get any better, it did! I’ve loved the whole theme and tie in with the Hammer Horroresque Ludgate studios. Never has the black and white artwork suited a story like this. It has atmosphere and great dialogue. This has got the lot, monsters, Nazi zombies pitch forking naked people into ovens and sadomasochistic surgeons! Boy, it doesn’t get much better, does it? This episode is obviously a big setup for the showdown with Drako in next week’s prog. It’s a sort of a prequel filler, but one that works.

Simply the best thing in 2000AD at the moment!

The Furzt Case - Part 2

Samantha swings into action...

Synopsis: Samantha and Sam argue about going after Stiv, until she finally agrees. She hails a cab, pretends she’s a cop by flashing her wallet and asks him to head for the docks, as Sam realises the quickest way to get away with Stiv is by sea. They break through a police checkpoint before the cab is pulled away by a crane. Samantha climbs up the crane and finds one of the girls who kidnapped Stiv at the controls. It turns out that the girls are robots, but Samantha manages to destroy two of them – before being arrested…

GH: This still feels like some terrible mistake to me. Part of the problem is that Samantha appears to have no discernable character of her own. At least Sam had all his catchphrases, his complete disdain for his sidekicks (Stogie aside, occasionally) and he felt like a hero. Samantha, however feels like a character that wishes she was in another strip. It's almost like watching a bad b-movie featuring a down-on-their-luck, once-great actor. They're vaguely embarrassed and want to get it all over as soon as possible. Give Samantha some character of her own, stop trying to foist Sam's companions and characteristics on her, and this may yet be salvageable.

JA: I really don’t get this. Every so often Tharg resurrects an old (usually worn out) character. It gets brushed off, maybe given a twist and then wheeled out hoping old readers will go “Wow! XXXX is back” or new readers will go “this looks great, a classic character I’ve heard so much about!” I thought the editorial team would of learnt from the less than great resurrection of Rogue Trooper a couple of years ago.

OK, we have Ian Gibson’s lovely art but this hardly gripping is it? Sam meanders, or more appropriately, gets carried, around the story like he’s stumbled out of Futurama. Also, is it my imagination that Sam’s once great pair of sidekicks just not funny anymore? Samantha may look foxy, but I really don’t give a damn if she gets blown to shreds. This is just not funny or clever; it’s a bit of a waste.

I just don’t see the point of this re-imagination exercise, has 2000AD run out of ideas? Rogue Trooper, Sam Slade, what next, Mach One?

Part 2

Buchanan tries to get Holt to accept his people

Synopsis: Holt shows Buchanan the wreck of Asylum. He says that three days of fighting followed the crash, and many were killed. However, Buchanan says he did the right thing in protecting his people, and orders his soldiers to get the station log, count the dead, but not to fire on the aliens. One of the aliens, Run, is appalled that Holt is letting the soldiers walk around.and it seems that pro and anti human factions are breaking out within the alien groups. Buchanan tells Holt that he’s their leader and whether he asked for it or not, he has to deal with it. Megan arrives and tells them that more aliens are dying and they need supplies, but Buchanan says that Earth is unlikely to help. Holt tells them he doesn’t want to be leader after witnessing another death, but another Alien, Nayr says that Run and Spore have “gone to kill the humans”.

GH: Asylum picks up a bit this week, with the character of Holt as an unwilling leader, and the unavoidable clash with the Earth authorities keeping this one bubbling along nicely. I'm getting used to Cook's new artwork, helped by a particularly good opening shot of the downed Asylum on the first page. There are niggles, though. Buchanan seems to be acting very oddly, almost acting as Holt's conscience with his constant supporting of his actions. Would a soldier really act like this? Wouldn't he be just a tad suspicious? It's this element of the series that really sticks out for me. Perhaps it's that Asylum hasn't been given a long enough run, and Williams hasn't had the time to have Buchanan won over. Despite these niggles, I'm finding Asylum a pleasant surprise so far.

JA: I really enjoyed the first Asylum story and was pleased to see a second run. Maybe the first series was a veiled metaphor for tolerating others in our society (well, that’s what I thought it was about!) and I suppose I sort of see this as a progression or an extension of the theme. The aliens are on earth and not too welcome. Holt is struggling to come to terms with the role thrust on him and some of the aliens just want to rumble! They may have escaped the church but things have not gone smoothly. What I like about this is the lack of predictability. I have no real idea of what is going happen. Boo Cook’s art has this very gloomy, grainy feel to it that really gives it a mood.

I’m pleasantly surprised how good this is and looking forward to next week.

Traitor to his Kind - Part 2

Wulf tries to put those rumours to rest...

Synopsis: Alpha visits the old Kreelman house, now derelict and taken over by the homeless. He remembers his father beating him and his mother there, and sees where his mother died – “robbed of her will to live”. They decide to check in on the Milton Keynes Mutant Association. They are given a grand welcome at the Association’s dinner and dance, where Johnny meets Billy Glum. While Wulf enjoys himself with the women, Johnny talks to Billy about the king. Meanwhile, a mutant is informing another mutant gang that Johnny is inside the MKMA building – and they then kill their informer. As Wulf escorts his friends home, Alpha continues to discuss the situation of the king. The MKMA realise it could mean a war, but they would refuse to help the norms against their own kind to get the king back. As Alpha leaves, the mutant gang attack him, and he dives for cover – although Wulf hears the shots…

GH: There's one thing that really sticks out this week: Wulf's philandering seems like Wagner's desperately trying to say - "look, Johnny and Wulf aren't repressed homosexuals, OK!!??" Rennie has indeed wrought lasting damage with that article...

But despite this, the tale is beginning to kick off, after the rather meandering first episode. The return to the mutant ghetto and some familiar faces was fun, and Alpha's careful questioning of Glum was handled well. You can already see what side he's going to come down on (Ok - the title gives that away) but already you can see that he's going to have little choice. With the gradual uncovering of moments of his past combined with a deeper conspiracy under here somewhere, this is shaping up to becoming the Strontium Dog tale we've been waiting for.

JA: I’m glad to see Johnny Alpha back in a slightly more serious mood. After the quirky and fun set of stories over this year I’m glad to see something with a little more “meat” on it. I can vividly remember “Portrait of a Mutant” back in the 1980’s and the odd flashbacks to Johnny’s childhood evoke memories of that gripping storyline. Ezquerra’s art is as always faultless and perfect. This is growing to be a good tale but I hope it is not going to peter out with Johnny whopping everybody in sight. The “bad” mutants are there usual types with the equally usual type of “good” mutants thrown in. I quite like the fact that Johnny is keeping his intentions close to his chest and does show some doubts.

My only gripe is the way Wulf has turned into some boozy, low brow letch that seems to want to grope, fondle and just have his way with any woman that enters the room! Since when has this happened? Is it a bit of laddish sexual fun thrown in? I don’t know, but I think it’s a out of place and also pretty unnecessary.

Apart from that, good stuff.