Cover: Charlie Adlard and Chris Blythe	2000AD Prog 1455 - 7 September 2005
	Judge Dredd (Wagner / Walker) Savage (Mills / Adlard) Leatherjack (Smith / Marshall) Breathing Space (Williams / Campbell/ Townsend/ Doherty) Robo Hunter (Grant / Gibson) Synopsis by Gavin Hanly 1st opinion by James Mackay 2nd opinion by John Amans Summaries and reviews contain spoilers for this issue.

JM: I'm sure that there's an intelligent comment to be made about the trouserless woman in a tight leather jacket and knee high jackboots, sitting atop a tank and cradling a gun. Something other than 'Hrnnnnnn', anyway.

One could talk about the delicacy of the linework, or the extraordinarily good colouring job that Chris Blythe's done. Maybe one could discuss the intelligence with which the overt sexism of this cover is subverted by making it a propaganda leaflet for a fascist regime, and the implicit correlation that Adlard and Mills are making between power, sexuality and corruption. It's possible that something could be made of the design of the gun, or indeed the tank. Or one could say that it's a shame nothing was done with the www.newvolgrepublic web address, still available to Savage fans at the knockdown rate of £70.

Yes, there should definitely be some comments made of that type.

Hrrrrrrnnnnn...

JA: Hot chick with knee length boots, leather Volgan tunic, armed with a machine gun perched on an APC. Hmm…works for me!

Nuff said.

Mandroid - part 3

A rare sign of compassion from Dredd

Synopsis: Slaughterhouse pulls Tommy away from the door and punches it off its hinges. Passers by see his hand on fire as slaughterhouse discovers the perps are long gone. Dredd pays a visit and says he'll look into the protection racket while Slaughterhouse cleans up his arm. He tells Dredd that the skin will grow back and how he's a "Mandroid". He mentions to Dredd that his wife has gone missing. Dredd recalls her from their previous encounter and sends out a missing persons alert. He gets a feed through of an unidentified female with her throat slashed - Slaughterhouse looks at the picture, but it's not Kitty.

Dredd arrests Charming O Fletcher, but the lie detector shows that she believed she was working for a legit business. He meets Denzo Shultz, owner of Gaffney Life, with his robotic bodyguards - who had his voicebox removed to fool lie detectors. Dredd takes him in for questioning, but they couldn't hold him either.

The next day, Slaughterhouse visits the local sector house to file an official report. Dredd catches up with him and shows him spy in the sky imagery. Kitty seems to disappear between cameras, but they can't pick out the exact moment. Dredd suggests that it is still best for them to move to a safehouse.

Elsewhere, Shultz is enraged at his arrest during which he had an allergic reaction to the drugs they gave him. He swears revenge on Slaughterhouse.

JM: I really didn't like Sin City. To take Wagner's joyously inventive script for that mini-epic - which clearly called for Glenn Fabryesque levels of detail in every panel - and assign it to Kev Walker and his radical new style, still seems like such an incredibly wasted opportunity. I mention this because I think that Mandroid absolutely proves the point . When you want depraved sex and sensuality, leave Walker's card in the rolodex. When you want despair reaching off the page, that's the time to call on him.

The rank, dripping walls of the skrungy apartment the Slaughterhouses are forced into, along with the stench in the stairwells and the suspicious, twitching and possibly mad neighbours: it all hits one with an almost physical shock. (I was reminded of some of the grungier parts of Coventry). We're watching Nate slowly lose his already weakened grip on sanity, and with this art job we can completely understand why.

Wagner's script, meanwhile, shows one of those little-used sides of Dredd: his willingness to help out other "hard men" like himself. I'm reminded of the crossover with Rogue Trooper, where Joe came close to breaking regs to aid his fellow-clone, or the recent Prager tale. And Slaughterhouse is very like a civilian version of old Stoneyface, to the extent that I keep forgetting who says the excellent line - "No. Charming all the way."

In short, while "bleak" isn't normally a word of praise when it comes to Dredd stories (I'm thinking Dredd-helps-a-drug-addict stories), this bleak actioner is just about as good as it gets.

JA: We’re in a golden age for Judge Dredd, people and Mandroid keeps the good times rolling. Not only do we have some excellent art from Kev Walker but also a taught plot which is only now showing its strength. This has drawn in a lot of other story strands from the last couple of years to really enhance the overall plot. I think some of the best Dredd tales are when he is not the central character. He’s best as a peripheral figure that comes in now and then to add the judicial element. In this you can see the more mature, understanding, though still dedicated upholder of the law, Dredd. Wagner strikes the right kind of balance and cranks up the tensions. I’m even wondering what has happened to Kitty! Wagner shows the full spectrum of MC-1, the best, the worst, the hope, the despair and the hopelessness.

Simply brilliant and £1.75 well spent already

What a time to be reading 2000AD!

Book 2 - Out of Order - Part 6

Svetlana shows her claws...

Synopsis: Savage visits Sarah, the widow of a British general in a house occupied by Volgs, dressed as a gas man. It's soon clear that he's having an affair with her, and after they sleep together he looks for a secret door - behind which valuable antiques are hidden from the Volgs. Savage says that he wants to keep his shotgun in the hidden area, because one of the nights Vashkov is in London he's staying at the house. Savage recommends that Sarah leave too, and outside she sees that her road's being double yellowed - which will make her a target for the resistance. On top of that, her dog crosses the road and is incinerated. "Time to cross the line, Sarah".

2 days later, Jaksic is escorting deportees, to try and attract Savage. She shoots a person who claims to be a friend of the Prime Minister as "bait". nearby, Savage, whose beard is coming along nicely, is leading the attack. It's his way of atoning for what will happen when he kills Vashkov - as the Volgs will slaughter thousands in response. The troops spot the resistance and prepare themselves...

JM: Meester Tharg, wiz zese frills you urrrreely spoilink uzzz! Pat Mills has clearly watched too much Euro porn, going by that first page (NB to all libel lawyers, this is not an accusation), but it does provide for yet another twist on the recurring "mains explosion" jokes. And some humour lightening the darkness is always welcome.

What I really like about Savage is the way that Mills morally compromises every single character - from Bill the psychopath/hero to Lord Bantry, who only features in four panels! A more glib reviewer might even observe that in Adlard's black-and-white world, there are only shades of grey. What I don't like is what he does with women's dialogue - it always seems sort of forced and clumsy, as befits Millsworld (where women only seem to exist as either sneaky, evil dominatrices or potential rape victims).

But that's all a bit carping when Mills is keeping up this level of metanarrative. I love the protests about London traffic and "firms" mixed in with this huge conflict - exactly what must be going on on the streets of Iraq, and certainly not the simple agitprop that some people initially mistook Savage for.

JA: I really enjoyed the first book and think this new Savage is a lot better than I thought. In a review I wrote back at the start of Book 1, I commented that I didn’t like the pseudo-swearing and overt politics. Thankfully, Mr Mills has now dumped the crass language for the most part and let the story do the talking.

Ok, it still has a dash of political comment, but I can live with that as it actually enhances the story. It benefits from the black and white art provided by Charles Adlard. What gets me is that it has a very “now” feel. It doesn’t feel or look detached. Its not in the future, it’s a London I could relate to. In today’s paranoid atmosphere that’s what make it most frightening.

This week’s story runs along quite nicely building up for the bloodbath which will no doubt ensue next week.

Will look forward to that and the subsequent twist that Mr Mills will no doubt add to this excellent serial.

Chapter 6

The Dowager arrives...

Synopsis: The Shibboleth attack the Spinster fleet, but it appears to do little harm to their ships. The leaders of the Spinster attack meet with the Dowager, who has just arrived. She tells them that they have failed, as they have let the "book of Sighs" escape the planet. She tells them she intends to purchase some searchtime to help them find the book.

In his icy hiding place, Leatherjack is still hearing voices. He's remembering his life, and potentially the ability to read. The voice tells him to sleep as he remembers images of death from when he was a child - including what appears to be his real name - Aaron.

Elsewhere, Mr Whipcord and Hartley are tracking down Leatherjack. Whipcord tells Lord Qwish that his route of Zombitronic resurrection is a far better bet than immortality as Hartley finally finds something. At the same time, both he and the Spinsters track Leatherjack to Earth - in Antarctica. The spinsters strike first: "Let slip the Expurgato".

JM: This is a much straighter story than one would normally have expected from John Smith. Compare and contrast with the Tyranny Rex epic, Deus Ex Machina, which Leatherjack resembles in some respects (particularly in that last shot of the bad things talking funny), but which is much more convoluted and difficult to follow week-by-week. This doesn't mean that one story is better than the other, but it does point to an interesting development in Smith's style. I just wish that if he is going to evolve, he'd change some of the rather too mid-1980's references that populate his scripts. Mary Whitehouse in a pulpit dragged by slavering gimp dwarves would have seemed quite radical in 1982, was already fairly tired when virtually that exact image appeared in 1992's Soul Sisters strip, and is now in danger of becoming as recondite as some of the references to 1930's pulp that Smith has been known to slip in amongst his captions.

I don't want to seem overly ungenerous, as Leatherjack is definitely good pulp fun, and the best Smith tale for a long time. But I'd really love to see his stylistic madness back in full, frothing flow, and Leatherjack's not quite all that.

JA: Having read a lot of John Smith’s work over my 28 years of reading 2000AD, i have found you tend to reread a lot of his stories to really get the gist of what is going on. There is usually a lot of depth to his work and Leatherjack is no different. I was a little sceptical at the first reading of the opening episode. However, now we’re into this, it is probably some of his best work for ages. Paul Marshall’s art is not spectacular but as this has a lot of character and plot, the simple uncluttered art actually suits it. I won’t lie and say I know what is going on, but will sit back and enjoy this.

I somehow think that the best is yet to come.

Part 5

King gets mysterious...

Synopsis: Judge King has requested information on his ex flame from Mega City One. However, he has decided to bury it in the open grave dug for all Luna 1 judges when they start.

King sees that the Luna Module paper has the story of Duritz's murder - and he also tells Julias that he recieved a message about the Earth Murderer - although he doesn't tell her the exact contents of the message.

He starts questioning his suspects, with Trent and Goddard present, who have brought someone called Bartram. The lie detectors are turned on while he confronts Breeze-blok, Ellesmere and Rinken - asking them where they were at the time of the murders. The lie detectors show that someone is lying so King asks Bartram - who turns out to be a Psi judge to find out who. Bartram tries to see if anyone has committed a crime in the last 24 hours - Bartram says that someone's blocking him. He tries to break through and as he does, Breeze-blok bursts through the class of his iso cube after Bartram.

JM: It's good. Classy colours from Peter Doherty combine stunningly well with the odd points of view from the ever -original Lawrence Campbell. The type of strip - police procedural/detective fiction - isn't one that we see too often in 2000AD. The character of a irretrievably tarnished but essentially decent Judge isn't something we've seen that often, either. And it's fantastic that the story's revisiting Luna-1, one of the most underdeveloped corners of the Dreddverse.

So how come I always have to strain to remember that this story's in the Prog? Maybe (and I normally hate this phrase) the individual episodes do need to be read back-to-back, as one continuous epic. Maybe it's because I don't care about, or even remember, any of the characters apart from the lead (though the seedy psi-Judge was a nice touch). But whatever it is, this muted story seems to be in danger of becoming rather forgettable.

JA: Some of the MC-1 spin off series are good, some are not so good. This is sort of in-between. The dark, frankly depressing tone doesn’t help and it’s quite a heavy read. Though it’s a glorified whodunit, it has its faults and merits. I’m just having a problem getting into this and giving a damn about both the principle character and the victims.

This is not all bad, I like some of the deep and meaningful stuff, but it’s a little dour and not as intriguing as interesting as Leatherjack. Now things have hottened up I might think different next week.

Stim! - Part 6

The Curator becomes a relic...

Synopsis: The Robot of the Year show is taking place at the Crystal Palace, with Pavarobi as the special guest. The Curator and his robots arrive as they reveal their plan to Stogie - to use the palace to amplify Comrade Lennon's signal to send out the call for rebellion and to "show no mercy". When the curator questions this, Comrade Lennon kills him.

The robots start revolting throughout London after receiving Lennon's signal. Soon London is in flames as the robots take over.

Back at the museum, Slade starts to come round - wondering why she isn't dead. It turns out that Hoagie reduced her gun to the minimum setting so that she was only knocked out. Hoagy tells her that the curator was headed for Crystal palace, so they steal a taxi and head there through the chaos of London.

JM: What a difference a week makes, as Renee Olstead nearly sang. One prog ago, I'd have forecast that the attempt to revive the Robo-Hunter franchise was doomed and that, after three fairly poor stories, it might be prudent for Tharg to think about re-re-retiring Sam(antha).

But with the family Slade out of the foreground, Grant and Gibson take their chance to develop some world around them - which has been, frankly, lacking - and suddenly there's a sign that they may be approaching something like their old form. I really dig the Robo-Pavarotti, Lennon's line "Change of plan, wack", and as for that beautiful work on Brit-Cit in the third page (particularly the sight of massed droids moving up the Mall: well, it's not "Play it Again, Sam" quite yet - but it definitely well on the way. Most encouraging! Oh, and I bet that Stogie fiddled with the charge, and is still a pro-Slader after all.

JA: After the usual dodgy start with a flimsy plot dragging down the usual peerless Ian Gibson art this has improved out of sight this episode. OK, we know that the robot revolt is coming and now it has got going the accelerator has been pushed.

This is remarkably enjoyable. Ok it’s a bit shallow compared to the depth of say Leatherjack. But, 2000AD is at its best when it’s a “buffet” so to speak. This lightweight, yes, buts it’s also witty, well drawn and basically entertaining!

What more do you want?