Cover: Kev Walker	2000AD Prog 1453 - 24 August 2005
	Judge Dredd (Wagner / Walker) Savage (Mills / Adlard) Leatherjack (Smith / Marshall) Breathing Space (Williams / Campbell/ Townsend/ Doherty) Robo Hunter (Grant / Gibson) Synopsis by David Knight 1st opinion by Susan Doyle 2nd Opinion by Floyd Kermode Summaries and reviews contain spoilers for this issue.

SD: A cover with all the boxes ticked. The simple titles and straight forward text, the dominance of black, the grey slash highlighting the iconic Judge Dredd jaw and helmet, sets off the silhouette of Mandroid with smoking gun and glowing eyes. Definitely a cover worth a second look.

FK: This is a grim, well-composed cover. A giant Dredd face glowers behind a moody bloke holding a smoking pistol. At first I thought that this creep was the Punisher, then I realized that what I’d thought was a skull was just shadows on his t-shirt. My heart sank at the title “Mandroid” – what, another Robocop? Oh well, could be worse. I give the cover a six out of ten.

Mandroid - Part 1

Pre-Mandroid...

Synopsis: Sergeant Nate Slaughterhouse and his unit are fighting in an off-world conflict when they are ambushed by enemy mechanoids. Horrifically injured, Slaughterhouse is the only survivor, rescued by his wife, Captain Rosson, while she waits for air support to arrive. The remaining half of Nate’s torso is kept alive in cryogenic suspension. He would never thank his wife for saving him. He would rather she had let him die than enable him to live as half man, half machine.

Plasti-skin is grown over Nate’s bodysuit so that he looks almost normal, and he receives a testosterone implant and equipment to simulate, or even surpass, normal sexual function. Nate has always dreaded ending up in one of the ‘mandroid’ units, made up of badly injured and rebuilt soldiers like himself. Instead he is given a full medical discharge after 8 months in therapy. Captain Rosson is permitted to resign to join her husband and son in civilian life in Mega-City One.

Although it was felt that Nate posed no danger to the public, time would prove that supposition to be incorrect.

SD: I had to remind myself that this was the start of a new Judge Dredd strip. The lack of background on some frames and the blues and greens gave a military, clinical feel, which with the black shading gives a very dramatic feel reminiscent of Mignola, yet still retains its own character.

The slow way it lead the reader through the creation of Mandroid and the reasons for his arrival in Dredd’s world gave an increasing tension and the real sense that these two would be meeting soon. I can only hope that the rest of the story is on par with the first instalment which gives the background, laying the foundation to what has the potential to be an epic tale.

FK: Does anyone remember Gordon Rennie’s ‘Bile duct’ column in the Megazine? He had one article about names in comics. I remembered it the other day, re-reading an old Rogue Trooper story with a Colonel Kovert who was, as luck would have it, pretty sneaky. Now we have Nathan Slaughterhouse, who just loves fighting aliens. He’s lucky to have a wife back at base who can say ‘the hell with orders’ when it comes time to rescue him. However, he doesn’t appreciate being mostly robot despite having robo-genitals and testosterone implants.

This story feels cornball, predictable and wrong. The corn starts with Nathan’s family name and never stops. Predictable, well I’m not much good at guessing these things, but I think he’s going to (a) stay resentful (b)get up to no good in MC-1 (c) have some heartache with the plucky wife and (c) finally get bumped off by Judge Dredd,who will say something regretful along the lines of “we made him this way”. It feels wrong because I can’t see why such a well-named fighting fool wouldn’t keep fighting with his new robo-body rather than choose full-time unemployment.

Here’s hoping Wagner proves me wrong. On the good side, Kev Walker’s art is a joy to behold and suits the grim tone of the script.

Book 2 - Out of Order - Part 4

Savage's gang gets poetic...

Synopsis: Resistance fighter Bill Savage’s brother Tom is a journalist for an official newspaper who fantasises about publishing the truth about the Volgan occupation of Great Britain; but it is only a fantasy. On television, the Prime Minister announces the resumption of the midnight curfew and mobilisation of Volgan troops. A blackout is also ordered, with the penalty that any points of light seen after midnight will be fired upon.

Tom’s wife remarks than their daughter, Jan, is very quiet. Unknown to her parents, Jan has gone outside. The state-controlled television broadcasts a Volgan propaganda version of the news, and anodyne films and serials to distract people from the reality of foreign occupation and the struggle against it.

Meanwhile, Bill Savage and his resistance unit are fighting against a tank column, when Savage’s niece, Jan, raped by Volgan soldiers that same evening, suddenly appears in the midst of the struggle. She picks up a dead Volgans grenade belt and throws it at a Volgan truck. The grenades bounce off and fall to the ground, whereupon Jan retrieves them and runs back toward the truck, not caring if she lives or dies. Savage throws her to the ground, shielding her with his own body, as the grenades explode under the wheels of the lorry.

Savage leaves the battle to take his niece home. When they come face to face with a road block, Savage fires at the Volgan sentries, who fire back at him, and turns his car around, only to see two Volgan armoured cars blocking the road he came down.

SD: I can’t seem to find my hook into the latest story from Savage. It has all the usual ingredients with sublime art work from Mr Adlard, action packed scripts from Pat Mills and yet. It may be that the story is too action packed and I’ve not had the opportunity of getting to know the characters. Big events seemed to be skated over, with Savage saving the day again and dropping himself right back in it just to save the day again next week. Maybe I’m looking for too much depth into a pretty straight forward story?

Maybe I should just sit back and enjoy a good shoot ‘em up (with scarily realistic weaponary) but it doesn’t stop me from wanting slightly more from this strip. It won’t stop me from reading the next instalment but it may reduce the thrill factor.

FK: Speaking of proving me wrong, here comes Pat Mills. Time after time, I’ve finished Slaine thinking that Mills is just going through the motions and has nothing left to say. Savage shows just how terrific he can be when he’s got something going which interests him. We start with a journalist writing up an expose of the Volgan Invasion of Britain, in a very gulf-war tone (legality, depleted uranium, embedded reporters) and hinting at something called ‘The Black Rainbow’, which we will hear more of and then binning it because he’s a wimp - unlike his daughter who has personal reasons for hating Volgs: ‘there were three of them’.

The writing is full of subtle touches and world-beyond-the-picture ideas that remind me of Alan Moore. The two characters choosing between “the Silver Rapier movie or The Vengeance of Lord Cyboid”, one panel but it tells us the diet of escapism the Volg government is feeding the population, how Mills feels about that sort of escapism now (his own escapism excepted) and chimes with the ‘1984’ reference in a prior episode. The daughter’s picture in her father’s study. Adlard’s art seems to have risen to the occasion too, I always like him, but here he’s superb. Very good story telling in the faces he draws.

Chapter 4

Leatherjack gets lost...

Synopsis: With the library of Shibboleth destroyed by the Empire of Spinsters, and the book that holds the secret to immortality retrieved, Leatherjack, the illiterate assassin, activates the portable transmat device on his wrist and is transported out. Upon arriving somewhere else, Leatherjack realises he has arrived not on Skirl, the Khmer Noir headquarters planet, but an icy wasteland.

Elsewhere, the Spinsters ponder how Shibboleth fell so easily after years of bombardment. A transmat signal from the planet is detected as Censorships continue to lay waste to the library world. Only the Khmer Noir possess such technology, and their outposts are far from Shibboleth.

In the snowy wastes, a voice in Leatherjack’s head rekindles deeply suppressed memories of evil deeds and learning to read. He wonders how he will survive the blizzard, and hopes that Lord Qwish, Commander of the Khmer Noir, will realise there was an error with the transmat device and send out a search party.

On Skirl, Lord Quish suspects Leatherjack has betrayed him and stolen the book for himself. Qwish orders the Bonemasons and the chateauship Versailles to be made ready to be put at his disposal, and resolves to send Mr. Whipcord to track down Leatherjack.

SD: It’s taken time to appreciate this strip and now it's really coming into it’s own. I love the supporting cast of bugs, spinster sisters (who would give Mary Whitehouse a run for her money), the big suspended tub of a bloke with tubes in unmentionable places. All of them are great. However Leatherjack himself just blows them away. There is an impression that he is suppressed, that his real character will show through and that the story is about to get even wilder. All this after blowing up a library planet and getting on the wrong side of tub man, keeps me on the edge of my seat.

With such excellent artwork, especially in the portraits of the main character I can’t wait for the next instalment.

FK: As is often the case with John Smith scripts, I’m still not sure if it will turn out to be pretentious nonsense or exciting genius. On the genius side of the scale we have a well-told tale with many good moments and pretty nice art. The page in which Leatherjack starts to remember things about books, reading and a long gone atrocity is interesting.

On the other hand, the anti-book spinsters are childish, the more so for the seriousness with which they’re presented. The floating decadent fat bloke is a bit twee, he’s a comic fan’s idea of decadence. The art is mostly good, but occasionally makes Leatherjack look silly.

Part 3

King makes a vow...

Synopsis: Newly arrived Lunar Marshall Judge King scuffles with Goddard and Trent, two corrupt judges who know about his ‘unjudicial liaison’. He accuses them of accepting bribes, but they deny the accusation. Trent and Goddard resume their patrol, While King and Julius continue their investigation of the industrialist Alfred Franklin. They interview Edward Rinken, the sole beneficiary of Franklin’s mysterious will.

Edward Rinken tells the judges his alibi, and explains his knowing of Franklin’s murder before the judges informed him of it as one of the benefits of having money. He also denies having paid an assassin to murder his business rival. Rinken’s wife committed suicide a year before because her husband’s business was failing, but business picked up right after her death. When the judges ask if Rinken’s daughter, Cameron, had an alibi too, she enters the room, and says she was away visiting Mega-City One. Cameron’s perfume sparks recognition in Lunar Marshall King: she is wearing the same perfume his old flame Luge used to wear; and she says “it’s good to see you again”, which startles him.

King and Julius discuss how neither Rinken nor his daughter could have been strong enough to be the killer. Rinken’s bodyguard is strong enough, but he has no criminal record and he has a sound alibi. King and Julius turn their investigation to the dead businessman’s other rivals in the air supply industry: Ellesmere and Duritz. First they visit the home of Adrian Duritz, the C.E.O. of Duritz Enterprises. His company also deals in computers textiles and war droids. Suddenly, a Duritz war droid opens fire on the two judges.

SD: I really looked forward to this strip because the preview artwork looked great, and it certainly does not disappoint. This particular instalment with the frame by frame throttling on the first page and amazing moon cityscapes continues the exceptional form.

Judge Marshall is on edge and it seems like he brought most of his problems with him. While I’m enjoying the concept of a Judge with human emotions, and the inability to keep his pants on, I do hope that they can expand on the other elements such as the utility cartel conspiracy and the "Judge gone bad" themes.

I feel that I’m waiting for something challenging to happen in the story perhaps the wait will be over in the next edition.

FK: Another ‘this is so good’ moment for me here. Breathing Space is grim and interesting. Yet again, I’m pleasantly surprised by how much room there is in Dredd’s world. The moon colony is falling apart, privatization has brought corruption to the Oxygen industry and the other cities have stopped sending Judges, leaving a small underpaid force. I know I’m synopsizing there, but I’m trying to think of a way to show how well realized the world is. The fact that I could type the synopsis there without groaning shows that it works for me. Our hero seems to have been sent to the moon for having an extra-judicial relationship (irrelevant fan-boy thought; why didn’t they do that to Demarco? Given the use of her in subsequent stories, they may as well have).

The art is turn-the-lights-on dark and works wonderfully. I really want to see how King gets to be dying and remembering all this. I’d also like to see more of Luna-1, it feels like a new Megacity, rather than a lame add-on to it. The characters are all well done, not a note out of place. The story is basically the marshall from out of town with the odds against him, a stock situation in cowboy movies and worked very well for Sean Connery in Outland. But it is full of fresh ingredients and strongly done.

Stim! - Part 4

Samantha catches on to what most readers picked up on several episodes ago.....

Synopsis: Working to find out why her rich client’s robot butler went crazy, Samantha C. Slade has discovered that Brit-Cit robots are using drugs. Samantha sent her robot assistants, Hoagy and Stogie, on an undercover assignment to get a lead on the drugs’ source, but they quickly became seduced by the drugs trade.

Sam fills in her client, Steve Oregon, on what she knows over dinner. Settling up what he owes her, Mr. Oregon makes an improper suggestion and unwanted advances, and gets a knee to the groin in return. Suddenly a robot of a sky board appears, carrying an energy pistol, and shoots Oregon in the back. Samantha ducks and hides being Max, an agency temp serving droid, and shoots back at the assassin. Max is destroyed by the killer robot, which is in turn blasted by Samantha.

Samantha guesses that the flying assassin was also on robot drugs, but wonders how it found her so easily. She finds a tracking device attached to her cloak, but it’s an old one: a museum piece in fact. Immediately she suspects that it was put on her by the curator at the Museum of Robotics.

In a shady part of town, Hoagy and Stogie are selling stim, the robot drug. Their supplier tells them he’s off to deliver the drugs money to the operation’s Mr. Big, and he wants them along for the ride. Samantha sneaks into the museum through a skylight, and sees Hoagy and Stogie, together with the drug-dealing robot Syke-Z, handing over the cash to the museum curator, who has one more consignment of drugs to sell in order to meet his financial target. The curator’s robot crow gives away her presence, and the curator activates a robosaurus exhibit to deal with her.

SD: Ian Gibson is one of my all time favourite artists and I have enjoyed previous editions of Robo Hunter. Sam Slade’s sidekicks are great fun and the stories which illustrate Mr Grant’s humour certainly raise a smile. This storyline however has yet to prove as memorable as previous exploits from our erstwhile PI. Time yet in the script for Slade to get dropped into trouble by her android friends but if not, not something that will leave any lasting impression. So it will not prevent me from reading the next instalment or hoping for more from the script and from Mr Gibson’s fine landscapes and unique style of drawing.

FK: It goes without saying that Robohunter is light. Everything Ian Gibson illustrates should be light (with the exception of Halo Jones) and Robohunter was always a comedy. I was never a huge fan of Robohunter myself, I came to it very late and always thought the joke was kind of obvious.

All of which is a lead-up to saying that this Robohunter leaves me flat. It has all the right ingredients but really just goes through the motions with them. Maybe it’s built in, since the story is a bit like having everyone be Walter the Wobot, with no straight guys to play against. Maybe the strip has just outlived its’ natural lifespan. Some things shouldn’t be brought back. Although Gibson’s art is a joy to behold, this story didn’t do it for me.

Speaking of art, there is one deeply odd moment. On the second page of the story a panel showing two faces in close-up is on top of another panel showing the same characters’ bodies and legs. The effect is that it looks as though Gibson has drawn Sam Slade and her clueless client as bobbleheads.