Synopsis by David Knight
1st review by Eric Moore
2nd Opinion by Richmond Clements

Summaries and reviews contain spoilers for this issue.

EM: Boo Cook’s fabbo art continues to go from strength to strength but I can’t say I’m keen on this. The angle's nifty and there’s nothing wrong with the figure but the colours seem a bit muted for a cover and the face is partly obscured by the price/number block.

RC: Another cover from Mr. Cook. The Mighty One is working this little droid hard, isn’t he? And thank grud he is, because this cover is great. Dramatic and drawn from an angle that's seemingly to make it as difficult for himself as possible, Boo has pulled out a good ‘un here.

Total War - Part 6

Dredd gets serious...

Synopsis: PSU Judge Roffman’s examination of archive surveillance footage identifies underskeds near a zoom stop in Sector 110 as the place Total War liaison Oddie Radley regularly met his contact higher up the chain of command.

Closed-circuit camera footage from an undersked mobile diner enables Radley’s contact to be spotted. Dredd arrests Chet Checkly for questioning, and Checkly cracks under threat of torture and worse.

Checkly names ‘Michael’ as the leader of the group responsible for the nuclear bombing campaign, and ‘Arnold’ as his own immediate superior. Arnold is the codename of actor Benson Keeler. Judges find Keeler in his apartment, dead of an overdose.

The judges have no further leads, and Total War are threatening a third nuclear explosion in ten hours’ time.

EM: I’ve been enjoying Total War of course but this week something’s happened that doesn’t happen very often. Every so once in a while, I get to read a story that is so well told, so well drawn and so involving that the pages have to be read as fast as possible. Off the top of my head I can include on the list: Captain Britain's final fight with the Fury, the last issue of Dark Knight returns and Watchmen, along with the Marvelman/Kid Marvelman showdown in London.

And from the bottom of page two right up to Checkly’s capture this is another example. The way it’s paced and structure of the panels made it very similar to watching a movie, with the tension really being piled on. Excellent work from both Droids. Henry Flint's art, while fantastic, seems too be going through a period of evolution on this strip. We’ve had a newer look to Hershey with almost Manga eyes (got to say I prefer his Helter Skelter version) and here Dredd’s looking older than in Dredd/Aliens. And again, there’s the odd panel that looks like a tribute to another Droid – panel one, page two is very McMahon and the last shot (no pun intended) of Keeler could have been done by Steve Dillon.

RC: It’s something we don’t get to see Dredd do very often, but it’s always welcome when we do. I’m talking about detective work. It’s a great sequence where Dredd and Roffman are piecing together the trail.

There’s a hell of a lot going on in this episode. Wagner shoehorns in quite a bit of dialogue, and at one point Flint manages to cram fourteen panels onto a page. So it’s a credit to both creators here that the story never once gets away from them, quite the contrary in fact. Wagner is leading us here and there, and leaving the reader with no idea of where the tale is going, while Flint is having fun himself, by filling up the backgrounds with the City. ‘Today’s Special. Meat Soup. No Questions.’ Nothing short of brilliant.

Is this the best Dredd epic since... dare I say it, The Apocalypse War?

Part 2

Kilquo starts learning...

Synopsis: Carl and Kilquo are in the throes of passion with her disguised as a voluptuous blonde when they hear the door buzzer downstairs. Kilquo goes to answer the door, followed by Carl, who’s afraid it may be the Inland Revenue when he sees two men in suits and shades standing on the doorstep. They know about Carl and Kilquo’s financial predicament, and make them an offer, backed up by threats, on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government. Kilquo accepts, and is inducted into a training programme for assassins, where her ability to change her appearance at will is highly valued. Blood samples are taken seemingly routinely, but unbeknownst to Kilquo, her blood is being used in a covert cloning laboratory.

EM: MUCH better than last week’s opener. Got to say though, I think it’d work much better as a more down and dirty serious piece and its not helping by the cuteness of Kilquo and the rather cartoony style John Higgins is adopting here. I know Carl’s enjoying himself on page one but - that face!

RC: I’m old enough to remember the original series of this. I wasn’t too sure when this was first mentioned, I mean, artists taking over writing duties on a previously successful series... you need only think of Skizz and its appalling sequels to see how this can go horribly wrong. But this is a worthy sequel, and isn’t it moving fast? We go from comedy sex and misunderstanding, through the super-spy training to the big twist at the end of the episode in no time at all.

There’s a lot of fun here, and it’s not only the reader who’s having it. Higgins and Newell seem to be having a ball here too. It’s great to see Higgins back in the prog, and his art on this is as good as I’ve seen from him, and that’s saying something.

I’m just wondering if there is going to be a plot here. Is the woman Kilquo morphs into significant? Or is the story going to concern itself with the cloning thing?

I don’t know, but if it keeps up this quality, it’ll certainly be fun finding out.

Tooth & Claw - part 3

Lobster's prefrences get the better of him...

Synopsis: Lobster Random is in a bar-room brawl with bounty hunters Hogg and Pinn, who are working for Londo Dinera, whose digitized personality Random tortured during the commission of a heist. Just as Hogg and Pinn gain the upper hand, both are knocked out by Professor Cadmium Redd’s widow’s gelatinous henchman. The widow had learned of Dinera’s bounty on Lobster Random, and followed Hogg and Pinn until they found him. The widow seduces Random with her sexy robot body.

In the bedroom, she explains that her eagerness to bury her husband’s remains on N-19 has nothing to do with sentimentality and everything to do with the terms of his will, which is worth billions; and offers to share the loot with Random if he’ll help. However, there’s a snag: Lobster Random has forgotten the missile abort codes given to him by the Professor, and only a self-appointed psionic trancerawk messiah based on Utokia Prime, and protected by an army of devoted followers, can retrieve the codes from Random’s subconscious. He may also bear a homicidal grudge against Random.

EM: Yay! Lobster's back and, by the looks of it, this tale could surpass the last. Excellent character design by Carl coupled with some lovely panel compositions (but if you buy Thrud then you’d know that) – it’d be possible to get the gist of page three without speech bubbles.

Si Spurrier's script keeps coming up with laugh-out-loud lines (“scrotal flail” has almost been suppased by “whirrrrrr.. splop… I’m in”) combined with great plot devices. A joy.

RC: Now, I could go on about how and why this is fantastic. I could say it’s helped by the same trick Spurrier employs on The Simping Detective, in having a dry and world weary narration from the title character. I could say it’s Lobster himself, the loveable old torturer himself that makes it fantastic. Or, maybe it’s the cast of supporting characters that raises this above the average? Is it because this strip contains that magic streak of complete lunacy that was missing from the recent series’ of Robo Hunter? Is it the monkey?

It must be Critchlow’s art then? I mean just check out the expression on Lobster’s face on the last panel of page one.

No, it’s not even the art that makes this special.

Shall I tell you what it is?

Two words, and they’re not even words, lifted this into realms of brilliance it had not yet reached. ‘Whirrrrrrr Splop’.

That, my friend, is genius.

Part 5

Holt makes his choice

Synopsis: On the aliens’ island, despite Meg’s protests, Skunk executes one of the soldiers he’s holding hostage. Meanwhile, in Sydney, Holt shoots the alien known as spore to prevent the destruction of the entire city. Run is shot to pieces by single-seater gun-ships. Skunk’s appeal for food and medical aid brings no response, and he and Meg argue and fight about his hostage-killing strategem. Skunk shoots Meg through the shoulder. Buchanan reveals to Holt that Skunk’s terrorist action has cost the aliens any hope they had of receiving help; and an air strike is launched against the island.

EM: Can’t say I’m a fan of this at all. Only Boo Cook’s art and his excellent alien designs keeps me with it. The brilliant large panel on page three surely would have made for a better cover?

RC: Hard to believe that this strip appears in the same comic as the previous two tales, let alone follows directly after the last one. All the frothiness that you had been enjoying is swiftly dispelled by the vision of Holt actually shooting Spore.

Man, this is good stuff. This is why we read 2000AD. Forget your X-Men and their school book level of political comment. This here is the real deal. I can’t recall a script as complex in its political message and character motivations. The actions of the humans are horrific, but almost understandable, and prescient to an unheard-of degree, given our governments response to recent hostage situations involving British citizens.

And I don’t care if he dresses like Wolverine in his spare time, Boo Cook rocks.

Traitor to his Kind - Part 6

The trap is laid..

Synopsis: Johnny Alpha tries to persuade Dai the Death’s Powys Boys to release King Clarkie and put their trust in the progressive element among the norm establishment, led by First Lord Negus. King Clarkie’s capture is just the excuse the mutant-haters need to further repress the mutant ghettoes. Privately Johnny wonders if Lord Negus can be trusted. Culliver’s men blast the entrance to the Powys Boys’ cave from the air, and land troops outside. Dai decides to stay and fight the norms while Two-Face Tomlinson escorts the King to safety, followed by Alpha and Wulf. While fleeing through the undergrowth, a mutant named Cookie trips and gives away their position when his gun goes off. When three mutants are shot dead by the police and Cookie runs, Tomlinson susses Cookie for a traitor and shoots him in the back before he himself is gunned down. Clarkie’s last mutant captor is shot from above, but not even Clarkie is safe from the police. Alpha realises that only he can save the King from Culliver’s men.

EM: Not a lot happening really this week aside from the hideout being found but who cares? I’d much rather go back to this “no rush old style” way of doing things than the “lots of things happening but nothing moves along” style of, say, the last ABC Warriors. Splendid art too.

RC: And again, complex political issues sit comfortably hand in hand with big action scenes. Wagner and Ezquerra doing what they do best, and better than everyone else. There really is nothing to say about this beyond mentioning it’s greatness.

And as cliffhanging endings go, this one will be hard to beat. But I wouldn’t put it past Wagner to kill off the king, and boy would that give us a plot to chew on!