2000AD 1408 - 22 September 2004
Cover by Ben Willsher and Chris Blythe

Synopsis by David Knight
1st review by Gavin Hanly
2nd Opinion by James Mackay

Summaries and reviews contain spoilers for this issue.

GH: Another artist is allowed to play in Carlos' sandbox as Ben Willsher tackles Johnny Alpha. It's not a bad cover and Willsher can certainly do a decent Alpha, but there's something about the image that just seems a little too "by the numbers" for me. There are some neat effects by Chris Blythe thrown into the mix, but it just doesn't seem enough. And judging by this image, Alpha's a terrible shot. But, more importantly, given that it's been so eagerly anticipated, shouldn't Total War have been the choice for the cover?

JM: I wouldn’t have thought that the Willsher droid would be a natural choice to cover Strontium Dog. Nor would I have thought he’d be the first choice for such a major, landmark prog. Well, I’d have been wrong on both counts. This is a superb, dynamic cover, ably assisted by Chris Blythe’s excellent colouring job. Johnny’s gun works as a foil to the logo and the skull-faced killer looks suitably menacing and dehumanised. The slightly odd angle of their bodies creates a great sense of motion. Overall, this is the sort of cover that’d make me want to pick 2000AD off the shelf.

Total War - Part 1

Dredd without his helmet!!

Synopsis: An automated flying drone heading for the Grand Hall of Justice triggers a security alert and is shot down. A communications slug is retrieved from the debris. It contains an interactive recorded message purporting to be from the Total War pro-democracy terrorist organisation. The message informs Chief Judge Hershey that two hundred nuclear devices have been planted within the city. The devices will be detonated at intervals starting at 23:00 hours until the judges surrender power to the citizens of Mega-City One.

Meanwhile, Judge Dredd is summoned to a Justice Department applied genetics facility to decide the fate of Nimrod, a genetically engineered superjudge created from Dredd’s own genetic stock. Nimrod is modified to have enhanced senses and abnormal strength. A side-effect of Nimrod’s genetic modification is causing progressive neural decay. In desperation, nimrod has set himself on fire, burning himself horribly. Dredd is asked for permission to euthenase Nimrod, but Dredd declines responsibility, denying all affiliation to his clone brother.

GH: Coming much quicker than originally expected after the excellent "Terror" this is the Dredd story we've all been waiting for. For the first time since Dredd vs Aliens (by almost the same creative team) there's a real sense that something big is brewing in Mega City One, and here's hoping that Wagner and Flint deliver.

This is very much a scene-setting episode, but already there are key unexpected elements set in place. The existence of yet another Dredd/Fargo clone is a surprise (surely this whole clone situation is going to come to a head, someday) and it's ability to sniff out drugs and weapons is surely an indication that Total War's threat isn't entirely without merit. In addition, there are more elements of foreshadowing - the clones "moments of partial lucidity" are clearly going to be examined later on in the series (unless this is all another patented Wagner misdirection). All in all, despite the seemingly unchecked growth of the Dredd family, this new addition seems welcome given the scope of the story. It may well also tie into the other clone tales that Wagner's been feeding us this past year. In all, this is an excellent set-up for what could be a major Dredd tale - and even if it's only 12 episodes, that's more than we've been getting recently (paired with Terror, this could make for an excellent trade).

And of course, this is all matched by Henry Flint's artwork. God know's what they've been feeding Flint this year, but he's been producing an alarming amount of high quality artwork for the comic this year - and paired once again with Blythe, we could hopefully have another stunning hit on our hands.

JM: You don’t get more eagerly-anticipated than a new Judge Dredd epic even if, at 12 issues, it’s hardly like the mega-epics of old. On the evidence of this first episode, Total War has the potential to fulfil every fan’s wildest fantasies and represent the highest point of Dredd since Old Stoneyface entered the 21st century.

• Low-key, tense opening? Check – I love the way that it starts with the slightly comic progress of the com-slug, told in tiny, exquisite panels.
• Great art? Check – Blythe has evidently become more attuned to Flint’s style and the result is somewhat more subtle than the overly primary colours of the past.
• Sinister enemy? Check – and in spades, since it’s a terrorist cell and thus can’t really be defeated.
• Contemporary relevance? Um, well, what do you think?

Less predictably, we welcome a new member of the ever more rapidly growing family Dredd. It’s interesting to see Dredd’s harsh side coming out here and to ponder on his emotional state when confronted with a less-than-perfect clone. After all, neither Rico nor even Dolman were treated as just a “cell taken from a common source”. Maybe it’s Dredd’s fascistic dislike of imperfection and intolerance of failure coming to the fore here? While Nimrod seems to have a clear purpose in this tale (after all, there are a lot of hidden thermonuclear devices that need sniffing out), I can’t help wondering if Wagner isn’t setting up something considerably more tragic than that…

Creepshow - Part 8

The worm turns...

Synopsis: The Caballistics Inc. team battle an assortment of creatures from Ludgate horror films in the House at Worlds’s End, confronting demonic horror film producer Victor Drako on the staircase of a wood-panelled hallway.

Professor Brand realises that a painting of Drako serves as a ritual locus connecting the house with the real world, and stabs at the painting with a knife. Drako is destroyed and the phantoms dissipate, and the Caballistics team are returned to the real world.

At Exham Priory, Ravne is alive again and has carried out a terrible ritual double murder.

GH: Now, don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed this latest run of Caballistics Inc. It's provided some fast paced entertainment, some clever parodies of Hammer House flicks, and stunning artwork from Dom Reardon, one of 2000AD's key players at the moment, due to his work on this.

Yet, as I've indicated in my recent reviews, there's been something rather unsatisfying about it too. Drako seemed, in the end, to be a one dimensional villain, and little was done to explain his motives. Thus his demise this week seems fairly anti-climactic. The background stuff - i.e. the fate of Ravne and Slater - has been of more interest to the long term Caballistics reader, and the series would have benefited from some more cerebral goings on back at the HQ to balance out the long chase of the past three issues.

Hopefully next time around, we'll see more of the behind the scenes machinations brought to the surface. We still need to see if the Jenny demon takes offence to the team's betrayal of her, and clearly the resurrection of Ravne will play a big part. Let's just hope Rennie can strike a better balance between the progression of the overall plot arc with the everyday demon slaying.

JM: As one great thrill starts, another draws to an end, with a rather deflating rushed ending to this story. How come Jonathan’s suddenly able to fight through all these demons when Demon Jenny has been unable to do so? If you look at Drako’s tentacles, quite a few of them are unoccupied – surely one of them could have taken Brand out?

There’s also a realisation that after 8 episodes very little seems to have been resolved: the demon is still in Jenny’s body, Nessy still has little function beyond being a Glasgow hardman and Hannah still has all the best lines (“It ain’t Kansas, even with the bad dental hygiene” is superb). And because of all the energy put into building up the tension with these characters, we’ve never really cared about Victor Drako or his Film Studio of Doom as anything more than an amusing background, so Drako’s defeat and presumed descent into hell doesn’t really feel that satisfying.

However, events at Exham Priory have certainly taken a turn very much for the worse, with Slater almost certainly dead and Ravne in control. The wonderfully controlled scene on the final page (check the bog brush standing out against the pool of blood!) suggests that our heroes may be in for a rough ride in the next installment.

Overall, this eight-part series has felt rather like filler, but in my opinion filler Caballistics is worth several books of most other strips.

The Furzt Case - Part 3

Godzilla vs Slade...

Synopsis: Samantha, Sam, Hoagy and Stogie are in police custody after a series of misdemeanours including trespass. Sam wastes his one phone call on looking up information about wealthy criminal mastermind Nippon Furzt on the Virtualnet. All he learns is that Furzt has a yacht that can turn into an aircraft. Elsewhere, Furzt is plotting to obtain Sam Slade’s head for his sinister collection. While the robocops debate freeing Sam on account of his robo-hunter’s license, Furzt sends a robot monster of Godzilla proportions to tear open Sam’s cell.

GH: Nope - this still isn't working for me - although things are improving just a tad this week with both the monster at the end and Stogie in the bird cage being inventive touches from Gibson. But as for the rest of it - it still seems so old hat! And it just isn't funny either! Grant's work on Anderson and Middenface are leagues ahead of this - so much so that you almost wonder if it's the same man writing all three series. Please can we get some decent satire/adventure/chractertisation into this strip as soon as possible. On the evidence we've seen so far though - Sam doesn't deserve a third chance unless some big changes are made to the series.

JM: Samantha Slade has been given a great deal of rope by the 2000AD fanbase, and Alan Grant seems to have been enjoying the return of the introduction “Hi. Your old pal Sam[antha] C. Slade here.” But after a cracking first episode the first four-part Robohuntress slid into weak puns and outdated spoofs, and on the evidence so far it unfortunately looks as though this series may just do the same.

Ian Gibson often seems to be pulling his punches when the script is below the standard – just look at the terrible Snozzburns Dredd earlier this year – and it’s very noticeable that there are virtually no backgrounds on all five pages of this episode. Don’t get me wrong, Samantha’s a very nice-looking girl (with a very nice-looking Gibsonian ass, if you’ll pardon the sexism), but I’d like to see her in a context, rather than just against a sort of generic fuzzy grey.

Nippon Furzt, meanwhile, is on the current evidence likely to prove a cackling melodramatic villain with little or no staying power, and, judging from the scenes on the monitors, presumably some sort of fetish for collecting Robo-hunters. This is exactly the sort of hackneyed stuff that Peter Hogan’s Robohunter fell foul of in an desperate attempt to rid the world of the stench of Mark Millar’s appalling execution and return a lightness of touch to the character that Millar could never have understood. The problem being that Hogan’s Robohunter was rather forgettable.

And on the current evidence (giant stompy robot dinosaurs aside), that’s exactly where this strip could head without some serious character development.

Part 2

Holt has a crisis of faith

Synopsis: Sentries posted on the perimeter of Australia’s defence dome spot the aliens called ‘Run’ and ‘Spore’ racing toward them at ferocious speed, and take their aim; while on the island where the extra-terrestrial reception satellite has crashed, Nayr and Holt debate the inevitability of conflict between humans and aliens. Spore unleashes a mix of airborne contaminants that kill the security detail at Australia’s Gate 18, and he and Run head for the nearest city. Buchanan persuades Holt to accompany him to Sydney, manacled, for a ‘debriefing’. On the air transport to Sydney, Buchanan hints at the possibility that he might betray Holt and convey him directly to a prison.

GH: This week's episode makes me wonder if I've missed a slightly bigger game plan from Buchanan so far. The "how trusting you are" speech towards the end certainly seems about as ominous as can be, and indicates that his early wholehearted support of Holt combined with his change of heart "it's not your responsibility" this week could all be a ruse to take away the one person that could unite the aliens against their enemy. More will no doubt be revealed next week - but if this is the way things are going, then my interest in the series is about to shoot up several notches.

As for the art - my appreciation of the effort Cook is putting in here is also increasing with scenes like the decimation of the soldiers being particularly harsh, and contrasts well with the care put into the idyllic jungle scenes. This new style of his is a great improvement on some already good work, and suits the new series incredibly well. It looks like the decision to bring Asylum back just as both writer and artist are experiencing leaps of improvement in the quality of their work seems to be a good one.

JM: There would be little point in reviewing Asylum without mentioning Boo Cook’s artwork. It’s brilliantly detailed, moving, with Cook’s old semi-graffiti style developing into something unique and very special. And the other comment that has to be made is that on the evidence so far it’s rather wasted on a story that hasn’t built up much momentum in the last three weeks.

Every line of dialogue here seems to be straining for a ponderous significance. Every tragic implication is drawn out to the point of screaming. Every little nuance has to be magnified. And rather unfortunately, It’s all beginning to remind me of Wireheads. Especially the constant repetitions of people’s names:

“Holt. I’m heading for Sydney.”
“What did you do, Buchanan, before the army?”

Can this clunking dialogue really be coming from the same man who only a few weeks ago was bringing us the snappy comebacks of Low Life? For that matter, can this miserably downbeat tale be set in the same universe as the infamous “shitting vicar” of Asylum I? More than most 2000AD readers, I believe that asylum is the defining political issue of our times, and that a story that could do something with the miseries of the asylum system could be one of the greatest ever to run within the pages of 2000AD. However, I’m rapidly coming to the conclusion that this just ain’t it.

Lovely artwork, though. Amazing artwork. Did I mention the artwork yet?

Traitor to his Kind - Part 2

Alpha thanks Grud he kept his optician's appointments..

Synopsis: While in Milton Keynes Mutant Ghetto searching for the kidnapped King Clarkie, Johnny Alpha comes under fire from Razor Blades’ hostile mutant gang. Wulf comes running to Johnny’s aid, but Johnny already has things under control, using a flare to blind his enemies before shooting them all. All available evidence suggests that Kreeler-era elements among the police, under control of the illiberal Home Secretary ‘Hanging Jack’ Jackson Hayes, released Razor Blades from prison on Mutie Island to run interference against Alpha.

Johnny convinces Billy Glum to share his inside knowledge on King Clarkie’s abduction. Billy Glum reveals the St. Albans faction of the Mutant Liberation army was responsible, and advises Johnny and Wulf to disguise themselves as mutant religious brothers to go incognito in St. Albans. However, the next morning, Johnny and Wulf’s vehicle is under surveillance by the office of Chief Superintendent Nelson Culliver, head of the Anti-Mutant Squad.

GH: Everything's still building up here, and no matter what Alpha thinks, I'm still not sure that I trust Lord Negus. Whatever's going on, this is getting better by the week, with Wagner both starting and ending the issue with two excellent tales.

Although I have to be honest, I'm at something of a loss with regards to how to review this tale. The art is wonderful as ever; it's getting hard to criticise Ezquerra's art when it's of such a consistently high level week on week. Perhaps one thing to highlight was the use of the flare and the residual effect for the subsequent panels - a very inventive use of the computer, there.

But in general, this series has an overwhelming feeling of foreboding, from Glum's assertion that Alpha would never "do the dirty on his own kind" to Culliver's involvement in all of this. And there's also the chance that all of this could link back to Nelson Kreelman.

One thing's for certain - like the Dredd tale before it, this is what we really wanted from the series all along...

JM: After the fun and sparkle of The Tax Dodge and the rather forgettable Road House and Headley Foot Job, questions might have been raised like “what’s the point?” What, after all, are we getting from the return of Johnny Alpha & Wulf?

Traitor To His Kind answers all these questions triumphantly. It deepens the story of Johnny Alpha, and, in a real masterstroke of plotting, makes up for the fact that we know Wulf and Alpha will survive this adventure to meet their future deaths at the hands of, respectively, Max Bubba and “a giant flying dragon thing”. What’s at stake here isn’t life and limb, which is why stories about the pair’s bounty contracts can never again be serious and scary, but Alpha’s reputation and, in a way, his soul.

The moral swamp that Johnny finds himself in has political resonance in this age of spin doctors and New Labour, something Wagner points up delicately with the name of the Home Secretary Jackson Hayes. At the end of this episode we still have no idea of who’s to be trusted and who isn’t, other than the heroes and, of course, Billy Glum, whose innocent comment “You’re the last guy who’d ever do the dirty on his own kind” is given real bite.

One tiny little error can spoil a page, though, and there’s an extremely rare error from Annie Parkhouse on page 4. The speech balloon in the third panel completely covers Alpha’s jacket, which he’s taken off to dress his wound: in consequence, it does look rather as though Ezquerra’s pointlessly drawn Johnny bare-chested for a single panel in a continuity error. But when the errors are that slight, who’s counting?