2000AD Prog 1441 - 01 June 2005
	Judge Dredd (Rennie / Currie) Slaine (Mills/Langley) The VCs (Abnett / Williams) Shakara (Morrison / Flint) Synopsis and review by Gavin Hanly 2nd Opinion by WR Logan Summaries and reviews contain spoilers for this issue.

GH: Oddly, I'm in two minds about this cover. The fact that it heralds the return of one of 2000AD's most original creations should be enough, but I can't help but feel there's something missing from it. Although it's a perfectly acceptable cover, with customarily excellent art from Henry Flint, it doesn't match up to the impact of the artwork inside the issue. Part of me feels that it's to do with the use of colour. If Flint had stuck with the monochromatic effect used inside the issue, I feel it could have had a far greater impact. It's still good - but it could have been far better.

WRL: Thank god for the Flintmeister, now that’s how you do a cover! It's action packed and Shakara’s ship seems like it’s about to leap straight out. Many other art droids should look at this week's cover and maybe it’ll make them think twice before churning up some of the lack lustre contributions of recent times.

Blood Trails - Part 2

Giant makes it look easy...

Synopsis: Pasha enters Mega City one after another face change, with DNA alterants to fool any scans. Once in, he meets his contact who tells him about Vienna. Elsewhere, Dredd, Giant and other judges have discovered the location where the Total War literature is being printed. They storm the place, keeping two perps alive for questioning as they want to know who’s funding the books. Meanwhile, Vienna is eating in a hottie diner when Pasha, with yet another face change, makes his approach. He introduces himself as Travis Cole, and starts a conversation…

GH: Rennie gets into his stride, in what promises to be his best Dredd tale since the very well received Gulag. The hints that this could indeed be a continuation to that series are promising, as is the clear indication that Rennie has been given carte blanche to develop the Vienna character. Wagner himself has made overtures in this direction, but it seems that Rennie is really the first to make her a little more three dimensional. The news that this series might also see a long running character knocked off is also intriguing. Surely Rennie won't kill Giant again? Or is Vienna looking like a case for Resyk? Who knows, but it's all certainly good reason for sticking around.

As for Pasha? The undercover assassin is a nice touch, and his getting close to Vienna adds a welcome degree of tension. I'm a little put off by Currie's use of well known faces to represent the main character (witness Vienna being chatted up by George Clooney in the last scene), but I suppose it adds another level of "star spotting" to the strip.

Currie's artwork in general, however, is absolutely stunning. From the action packed scenes of the judges siege to the individual characters used to populate the piece, he turns in artwork that is well up there with some of the best Dredd work I've ever seen. He stuck out as one to watch with his last appearance in Prog 2005 and should certainly prove his worth with this epic. Currie has been in and out of the comic for a few years now, but on this showing, let's hope Tharg keeps him around as a regular contributor.

WRL: Gordon Rennie is Kraken to Wagner’s Dredd and once again he gets the chance to flex his Dredd writing skills on something longer than normal. It’s been a nice slow build up as last week we saw it was Vienna who was the focus and this week we see the net closing in on her. I must admit that I’m a fan of the writings of the Judda raised Dredd scribe and have been for a number of years (with the exception of Witchworld). With Wagner slowing down his Dredd output I’m looking forward to seeing Gordon being given the opportunity to write not only more Dredd stories but longer stories and with the chance to play with more of the characters in Dredd’s world.

Whilst I seem to have gone on for a while about the writer I can be as enthusiastic about the artist. I like Andrew Currie's work and he can certainly draw but in my opinion he’s just not a Dredd artist.

Odacon - Part 6

Fomorian cuisine...

Synopsis: Odacon starts to take Slaine as his new Golamh, but Slaine resists, cutting back on Odacon’s tendrils. Slaine tells him that his people are safe in the otherworld, but Odacon says that nowhere is safe from them. He begins to absorb Slaine again, but Gael appears, cutting Slaine free.

Odacon makes a break for the surface, and jumps on a horse, taking it as his new Golamh. He also chastises the demon slave that the humans have caught, who breaks loose and kills Fergus, but is soon killed himself by Slaine. Odacon meets a fellow Fomorian and passes on the news that Magenta Chill is dead. He orders the other Fomorian to hold Slaine off while he escapes to the sea where he can plan his revenge. The humans catch up, but are only held back briefly by the Fomorian, which is quickly killed by Fais. They continue the chase after Odacon.

GH: As suspected, Slaine's cliffhanger predicament of last week was an easy one to wriggle out of this week. And that's something of a shame, because Slaine as the Golamh could have surely been dragged out for a couple more issues and ushered the strip down a new path. Wouldn't it have been more of a personal loss if Slaine himself was forced to kill Fergus while under the control of Odacon? And if Slaine managed to break free by eventually going into warp spasm? There are a number of other possibilities here that are unfortunately dropped as the strip turns into another chase, annoyingly letting go of the intrigue that had been allowed to build up until this point.

Once we get past the first couple of pages of fairly tedious Slaine vs Odacon preaching (there's a part of me that wishes Gael had killed both of them just to get some peace and quiet), the chase sequence is entertaining enough, and it certainly doesn't reach the depths dredged by the last series. But having recently started reading the first Slaine tales in the recent collection, I can't help but have the feeling that Mills has his own agenda to get over with Slaine, and that entertaining the reader isn't necessarily part of that agenda.

And yes, much of the art is lovely. But equally, with much of it, it's extraordinarily difficult to fathom out what was going on. Slaine still remains the only strip in the comic where I occasionally have to squint at the pages and wonder just what's happening...

WRL: After some glorious artwork depicting Slaine and his followers tracking the spawn of Odacon through the snow, Clint Langley’s artwork took on a whole new look as the artwork seemed so much clearer. While I can appreciate the technical skill in his artwork, at times it has been very hard to work out exactly what has been happening in each panel. The episodes in the snow had started to win me over but in this week's Prog we're back to unclear panels and far to much detail crammed in to such a small space. I’m sure if it can be reprinted for the European market on glossy oversized paper it’ll look fantastic and sell loads but, as its first printing will be in my weekly prog, I’d like to be able to read it and enjoy it on its first appearances.

As for the story, I gave up with Slaine ages ago but just try to think of it as something new and not linked in anyway to the wonderful early Slaine stories. I treat these latest adventures of Slaine in the same way as I do the Mark Millar Robo-Hunter stories, I know they exist, I know I’ve read them but I have no memory of what they were about and in the future I expect to have no memory of these recent Slaine stories.

Part 10 - Enemies

Humanity draws a line in the sand

Synopsis: The VCs' ship pauses in the shadow of the huge Polity vessel. They wait for a Polity response, but the other ship does nothing but study them and eventually disappear into warp. Smith muses that the thing which worries him most about the Polity is that they are so huge, humanity is barely worth their consideration. They head home, and are debriefed.

Smith suggests that the Polity may well have engineered the current war with the geeks, and that his flashbacks and geek interrogation have messed with his mind so mush, that it could be the reason why he was able to break from stasis. GCC has now decided that the Polity is a big threat and needs to be told to “back off”. They need friends to get the Polity to take notice, however, so they send in Smith to talk to the Geeks about a possible alliance.

GH: More of an epilogue than the last part of the series, this wraps up a very successful run for Abnett's retooling of the VCs. After a couple of ultimately disappointing series, Abnett has finally found his feet - mainly by having a much stronger plot running throughout. He's also pared down the VCs into manageable numbers, meaning that we are actually starting to empathise with a few more of them. I've enjoyed every episode of this run, and have been actively looking forward to each installment. The aliens that viewed humans warmonging for their entertainment may seem uncomfortably close to the underlying plot of Second City Blues, but it works incredibly well here because of the pay-off: a potential alliance between the humans and the geeks.

The art has also continued to improve. In the earlier books, Williams was victim to the common pitfall of artists trying out computer colouring and his strips looked more and more like a collage of photoshopped effects. Throughout this series, he has learned to hold back, using effects to enhance his linework as opposed to overwhelming it. I'm not convinced by the Polity ship in this week's installment, but elsewhere he brings a good deal of gravitas into scenes which are little more than talking heads. His spaceships may need work, but he's proving to be more and more a good match for the script.

In all, a great success of a series and one that has me eagerly awaiting the next book.

WRL: I’ve quite enjoyed the return of the VCs. The stories haven’t been anything earth shattering but have managed to keep my interest through the four books. The problem that the VCs had was that Henry Flint drew Book One and since then Anthony Williams art has lived in its shadow. I quite like Anthony’s technology and he draws a mean VC when they are suited up but what lets down his art for me is his depiction of the human form and especially faces.

This week’s episode does a good job of tying up Book four but actually makes me want the VCs to return soon to find out what happens next.

Chapter 9

The assassin returns...

Synopsis: World War Incorporated is producing a promo video to show how they’ve remodelled some worlds in the Aries system to act as War Worlds, where combatants can wage war without destroying their own homes.

The Draganians and Skazarians are currently waging war. An impartial field hospital is helping the wounded on both sides, but with a survival rate of 13 percent, they have their work cut out. An unidentified ship enters the system, and doesn’t respond to hails from either side. They ask him to declare which side he is on or be fired upon, and the pilot of the craft responds with one word: Shakara. Shakara’s ship starts destroying everything in its way and the hospital administrator, Dr Procopio, orders an evacuation. Both sides are laid waste as Shakara reaches the hospital.

Procopio recognises Shakara, and says that she was involved in the Shakaran genocide, creating a virus that corrupted their genetic structure. She thought the Shakara were tyrants, holding everyone back, when in fact they were the only thing preventing war. The Great Terror began soon after their genocide. She says that she has tried to atone, but nothing seems to help, and says that she deserves death. Shakara pauses, but grants her wish.

GH: After a timely reading of the recent trade collection, this series of Shakara thankfully makes much more sense that perhaps it might have done otherwise. Having said that, the character of Procopio fulfills the much needed role of exposition as much of the revelations of the last episode of book one are repeated here - namely that Shakara is the last member of a long dead race. Interesting new titbits are let drop too, chief among them the indication that the Shakara were deliberately wiped out as they were holding back the universe. Now, if the Shakara were so powerful, one might wonder why no one seemed to have heard of them in the previous series, but perhaps that's a moot point.

This is still a highly entertaining ride at breakneck speed. Even a though there are couple of previously explored ideas (the idea of a warworld has popped up in at least one Future Shock), Morrison still manages to give them greater impact simply through better and more intelligent dialogue.

But much as the script still throws up interesting conceits, it's Flint who is clearly the main draw here. His art on book one was excellent, but he seems to have really gone up a gear since. The most interesting evolvement is Flint's use of shading. The book is much less simple greyscale this time, with some wonderful effects in the shading that weren't present the first time out. This immediately gives book 2 a richer feel, and while initially a little offputting coming directly from book one, it adds something new to the experience of Shakara.

In general, this is a complete tour de force. Flint is now one of my favourite comic artists working today, and I do feel that only working for 2000AD is he in a position to let his imagination fully run riot in this way. For instance, the design of the doctors is arresting, and the final page where Procopio meets her end is astounding both with the panel set up and the use of spot colour that has become one of Shakara's trademarks.

An astounding start to a classic in the making.

WRL: Possibly the best new character 2000AD has introduced in recent years with undoubtedly its greatest artist since the likes of McMahon, Bolland, Gibbons, O’Neill and Dillon graced the pages of TGGC. It has to be some miracle that the twisted genius of Henry Flint has never caught the eye of the Americans.

Robbie Morrison seems to be one of 2000’s writers who has always been better at writing his own characters. I cant say that I’m a big fan of his Dredd stories, but with Dante & Shakara he’s created two of the best characters to appear in TGGC.

Where Dante has had two artists that have made the Russian rogue their own, I can't Imagine anyone but Henry doing the art chores on Shakara and it becomes hard to say whether it would have worked with any other artist. I loved the first book and for the next few weeks I can guarantee that this will be the first story I read in the prog.