Cover: Henry Flint	2000AD Prog 1459 - 05 October 2005
	Judge Dredd (Wagner / Walker) Savage (Mills / Adlard) Leatherjack (Smith / Marshall) Future Shocks (Moore/Macleod/Robinson) Breathing Space (Williams / Campbell/ Townsend/ Doherty) Synopsis by Gavin Hanly 1st opinion by Markus Nyahoe 2nd opinion by Adam Crabtree Summaries and reviews contain spoilers for this issue.

MN: The cover is a huge disappointment, and it was a surprise to me that the usually impressive Henry Flint was behind it. The general figure placement is fine, but the finish leaves something to be desired. The snarling Bill Savage has what looks like a swastika in the middle of his forehead, putting the reader in mind of Charles Manson. The logo and the "P" of "Prog" are also covered by big red dots which I presume are meant to be splashes of blood. Or are they rose petals? They certainly look more like rose petals.

This cover is a pity as Henry Flint has previously been consistently good. Everyone has an off day though.

AC: My initial reaction to this cover was of extreme vexation. "Savage goes out in a hail of hot lead"; they've given away the chuffing ending to a strip I have been following for ten weeks before I've even read it. As it turns out the title was misleading; it was pretty much everybody who WASN'T Our Man Savage who went out in a leady, leady hail, but more on that later.

This week's cover is a nicely evocative one with sumptuous reds and golds and an image of stark violence letting everyone know the manifesto.

Mandroid - part 7

Slaughterhouse takes a dive..

Synopsis: Slaughterhouse watches some drug dealers from the shadows, before finally moving in. He kills two of them easily, before a judge is alerted by the gunfire. The remaining dealers flee in a vehicle but Slaughterhouse chases them down and executes them. He uses his augments to leap to an overhead bridge - only just making it but managing to avoid the judge.

Later, at home he is visited by his neighbours who console him on the loss of his wife and son - but it seems too little, too late.

Meanwhile, the judges have caught Cisco Frigg, who they have placed at the scene of Tommy's murder. Dredd slowly increases his sentence from 20 to 25 as Frigg stalls, but he finally tells Dredd that Tonio Blo gave him the order...

MN: Now this is more like it. After the disastrous cover we get sumptuous Kev Walker art. Walker combines lovely, subdued colouring, with clear panel placement that allows the story to flow. Characters are always recognisable, making it easy to follow the plot. In places there is a definite Mike Mignola flavour to the art.

The story moves things along a pace, as Wagner continues to develop Dredd's character, moving away from the two-dimensional anti-hero we've grown to love over the years. This is no bad thing as it adds an extra level to the stories as Dredd's humanity peeps through his hard exterior. There's nothing particularly new in what we're reading here - Slaughterhouse is seen in vigilante action and narrowly escapes the judges (all very Batman: Year One) whilst the authorities get closer to arresting the perp who ordered the killing of Slaughterhouse's little boy. Still, it's well written, and I'm genuinely intrigued to find out what happened to his wife.

All in all a decent, enjoyable Dredd instalment, moving us on the way to the inevitably tragic ending. Hope the next couple of Dredd stories are nice, light-hearted single issue strips though, just to lighten the mood a little.

AC: WOW. Staggering work from Kev Walker, who deserves a Droid of the Week gong in my opinion. The thrilling action sequence looks like something out of a really good animé film; Hell, I read it and I FEEL like I've watched an animation. It's the little touches like the aggressive little dust cloud Slaughterhouse kicks up as he runs, his shadow on the top of the van as he leaps onto it and the slinky trail of smoke following his gun as he leaps off the van that makes this instalment one I'll treasure.

Slaughterhouse's vendetta becomes colder and more businesslike; the commentary is short and blunt, merely acknowledging truths like approaching police sirens in two to three word sentences, and he only says three words to the men he kills with such cold efficiency. It takes an encounter with sympathetic neighbours to remind us what this guy came from.

Does anybody else feel GUILTY of all things, when they see Dredd busting his hump trying to get to the bottom of the Slaughterhouse case? Poor old guy; he stands to go to a very dark place when this affair has unravelled.

Book 2 - Out of Order - Part 10 (final episode)

Savage gets riled...

Synopsis: As the waiter returns, Alison tells Savage to talk about something else, unaware that the waiter is actually bringing Savage his gun. After the waiter leaves, she tells him that Vashkov will be replaced by one of his doubles until Volgan high command can replace him - but there will be no retaliation.

Nearby, Jaksic has tracked Savage down after trailing his embassy contact. She warns Savage to leave quietly to avoid a scene. Savage doesn't have that problem and immediately kills her instead. Alison panics as Savage guns down everyone in the restaurant until finally he and the waiter escape through the back alleys.

Later, Savage is in a park when he receives a call from his sister Cassie who tells him that Tom is dead. he fell out of his office building - officially an accident. Savage doesn't think it;s the work of Volgs - and decides he needs to find out who. "It's got to be sorted, sis. He's family".

MN: What to make of Savage? It's been average in parts, which is an improvement for this strip. My views of Charlie Adlard's art have been displayed on this website before, so I won't go and knock him again. As I've said in the past, it's a purely aesthetic thing - his artwork is formally competent. Maybe it's the perpetual frowns that all the characters seem to persistently wear? Adlard's art doesn't do it for me, but there's nothing intrinsically wrong with it. No, this strip falls down because of some of the laziest scripting seen from a seasoned professional writer. From Svetlana with her "And we always get our man" after some sort of clichéd talk about the white tablecloth, to Savage's closing words "It's got to be sorted sis. He's family." (and was it just me that heard that as the voice of Mike Read before those drums come in to signal an Eastenders cliff-hanger?).

I'm glad this strip is over. There are no sympathetic characters. In fact, I'd go as far to say that there are no characters at all, only ciphers that Pat Mills uses to sledgehammer his particular point home. The dialogue, when not clichéd, is laughable. There was a column on a website recently by an established writer which advised people to read out the dialogue they've written to see how it sounds. If it sounds poor out loud then it needs to be re-written. Try reading the dialogue from Savage out loud without feeling a fool! You get the feeling that if this script had been sent in by a newcomer, it would have been rejected out of hand. Maybe it's time Rebellion started applying more stringent standards to the established pros too. There are a lot of people out there who've written maybe one or two strips that have been included in the comic who would seem to be far more deserving of a chance than this.

AC: Mistah Savage's latest alt'nate 'istory cocktail of politics, partisans and grievous bodily bullet hole making draws to a close.

Ahem. Pat Mills builds on his vision of Volg-occupied Britain, even with the final part. The maudlin humour of the news report detailing cat-eating levels of famine, Alison's USA being portrayed as fair-weather friends, and Radio Liberty building up a picture of the world these characters inhabit and invest it with a disquieting plausibility.

Some of the characters do, on occasion, step out of synch with this plausibility. Savage himself is not exactly consistent; he is full of contradicting attitudes. One might hope this is intentional on Mills' part to portray the weak logic used to justify terrorism, but the thing is I'm not sure I credit him or the strip that much.

Savage's shooting of the unarmed diners in the Volg restaurant was a real shock; I'd had Savage pegged up to that point as a pretty typical dark hero, hugely violent and uncompromising, yet noble in many ways, in the tradition of Frank Miller's Dark Knight. His actions in this final part, however, are utterly despicable! I can appreciate the necessity (and, let's not kid, the entertainment value) of Savage killing engaging the Volg soldiers in slug-fests (the look of astonishment on Svetlana's face is an image that lingers long after the page has been turned) but this?

In counterpoint, the last two pages are quite beautiful, bringing the strip back down to earth; Cassie, with the plastic power shower on in the background, calling Bill to let him know of Tom's death, Savage getting teary as he visits the swings, and that succinct statement "It's got to be sorted Sis. He's family."

Reactions to this strip have been pretty visceral, and opinions pretty polarized to love or hate. Some have taken issue with the vaguely misogynistic undertones, trivialisation of issues such as teenage rape and glorification of cruel killings. Myself, and others, turn to Savage for some of the best action I've ever seen in the medium, cool character moments, inventive experiments with the format (the cell graffiti in part one, the "reports" from Svetlana) and the pimpinest hardware ever (NEEDED: A catalogue number for the Steel Storm).

Til next year, Bill… you slag.

Chapter 10

Leatherjack prepares for a change...

Synopsis: The Spinsters have discovered Leatherjack who has shed his clothes and sealed himself inside a cocoon - a "paradoxical sleep" according to one of the Spinsters. Their soldiers - including thousands of Expurgato and many ships surround him as they try to find a way into his cocoon.

Elsewhere, Lord Qwish is furious at the loss of his Bonemasons, while Speiss suggests that perhaps Leatherjack wasn't trying to betray him after all. He decides to prepare shocktroops for an invasion and gets ready to send in Whipcord.

Back on Earth, the spinsters and Expurgato feel that the book might be in viral form, passing ideas from mind to mind - likening it to the bible. Then the cocoon opens and Leatherjack steps out. "I'm ready for you now".

MN: At least we have John Smith to raise the standard. As ever with John Smith, you feel like you're just on the edge of fully understanding what he's talking about, but it all makes for an interesting and entertaining tale. Not a lot happens here aside from a fair amount of exposition, but this is so cleverly executed by Smith that it's easy to forgive. I'm still not sure why Qwish was so quick to jump to the conclusion that Leatherjack had stolen the book, rather than there being, as Speiss says, a "Transmat error". This hints at further twists to come.

Paul Marshall puts in another good stint on the art front, although the figure of Leatherjack on the final page seems a little awkward. Some effective lettering from the legendary Annie Parkhouse adds to an enjoyable, if sometimes confusing, strip.

AC: Again, this strip is prone to periods of slowdown, where only bits of the story are progressing. What's the betting that Qwish will redeploy Mr Whipcord for the nth time next week without it actually occurring? We do get some good artwork, with the massive arrayment of the Spinster Empire forces and Literati Leatherjack ready for battle (will there actually be some fighting next week?).

The exchange between the Spinsters slowly becoming corrupted by the influence of LiterJack, and some exposition on how the Bible has fallen into infamy in this world provide some interest. Although the St. Whitehouse thing is a little juvenile, like much of the Spinster aspect, and this occasionally ruins the tone with its jarring lack of subtlety. It'd be better if John Smith could find a way to portray this fearful, censorious race with a little more panache.

I do enjoy the inventiveness of this strip, with last week's history of the Book being a highlight, though when read in the company of the other strips it has run with, it seems a little slow.

And Death shall have no dumb minions... (Part 1)

Sinister takes some time out...

Synopsis: Sinister and Dexter decide to confront Apellido, the clone of Holy Moses (who they killed).

Apellido returns to his home, waiting for news on the duo. He arrives at his personal quarters only to have them waiting there for him. They've shut off all the alarms so he can't call for help, and he thinks they've come to kill him. But instead they tell him they killed Holy Moses because they were paid to and tell him that they only kill for business. They suggest that he employ them as enforcers, and for a retainer they will refuse any contracts on him. Apellido accepts and tells them he wants them to take out the Tsar of the Steeltown Boroughs - and a gangster called The Mover...

MN: I'll probably get hung for this review. Not only have I trashed Savage, which does seem to be popular, but I'm about to heap praise upon Sinister Dexter, which seems to split the 2000AD readership down the middle, between those that love it, and those that hate it. Anyway, the characters make a welcome return to the comic, and the readers make a welcome return to Downlode with them. Dan Abnett and Simon Davis are the perfect partnership for this strip. The snappy dialogue and the amusing arrogance of the two lead characters is nicely complimented by Simon Davis' atmospheric artwork, his storytelling (look at the third page of the strip when Apellido goes up to his Fort Knox-like apartment, only to discover Finnigan and Dexter already sitting there) and the fact that Finnigan looks the spitting image of Ozzy Osbourne.

An often overlooked aspect of the strip, and Dan Abnett's writing, is that virtually every story arc can be used as a jumping on point for new readers. This issue is a perfect example of that, as older readers will get deeper meaning out of the events, whilst a reader seeing it for the first time would still get enough to understand what is happening. We need more like this.

AC: And this is Downlode, the city that wakes up in the morning and feels like crying because it doesn't have any friends. What's everybody's beef with Sinister Dexter? Yes, the dialogue is prone to trying too hard and falling all the harder as a result when it does fail ("Let's go educate the funt in the ways o' the street and the code o' the sharks"), but I certainly don't think it fails all the time. The characters aren't consistent; the balance betwixt their code of conduct and the callous murdering streaks seems to shift as is convenient to the narrative.

But despite its weaknesses, I do enjoy SinDex, and feel it comes out with some excellent and innovative concepts; the Vircade one-shot and the society living under Downlode's highways being recent highlights. I'm spending a lot of time defending the thrill in general here, so I'll just move right on to "And Death Shall Have No Dumb Minions".

Some snappy dialogue as the sharks break down their first claim to fame, the icing of Holy Moses Tanembaum, and their tenure under Demi Octavo. Interesting to see the tables turned on creepy Apellido so early, and him being made into an ally came out of left field, though I wonder if it'll last out the story. It annoys me that we see the boys being so adept without actually seeing how they do it. We see them lighting the scene with bullets and we're supposed to take it for granted they're hitting every mark. We see them appearing in Apellido's apartments and announcing they've covered every possible angle of security, and we're supposed to take it for granted that they're Splinter Cell x5000 when there's very little evidence to support that!

I'm enjoying Simon Davis' art, though I'm rather disappointed that it's not someone else, as I think one of the strip's strengths is the way it passes through so many hands.

Part 9 (Final episode)

Back to the beginning...

Synopsis: King starts to realise the truth. Cameron is a psychic. She had seen King around on Vermeil block and began looking around his mind - finally coming to his room one night pretending to be a judge. She used his guilt to suggest to him that he transfer to Luna One and used him as a killer while he slept. Thus, all the businesses would transfer to her father.

Rinken tells him that his wife killed herself knowing that the life insurance would save the business and his daughter used any means to help too. King realised that he sent himself the messages, subconsciously trying to warn himself but it's too late - the judges have identified him as the murderer and are on their way.

King decides he has to know if Luge was for real and tries to retrieve the datapad he buried at the gravesite. Bartram tries to stop him and shoots him. But King pulls him inside his mind and he collapses. King staggers outside and finally discovers that Judge Luge was indeed a lie - as, back in Mega City One, Cameron dives out a window...

MN: And we were doing so well too...

Leatherjack and Sinister Dexter had raised the issue back up to standard, and then we come across this. To be fair, if this strip had continued with the original artist it could have been quality as there is little wrong with the scripting. Unfortunately, ever since Campbell and Townsend came on board it's just been awful. The reason for this is simple - the artists have not displayed any sense of storytelling ability at all. Panels rarely do not flow properly, so that you can't always tell what is happening from one panel to the next, and characters are not particularly distinguishable. it was just too much hard work to try to figure out what was going on. Now I've no objection to this in the correct context, and will gladly spend hours deciphering the more obscure work in anthologies like Kramers Ergot. In a murder-mystery strip in 2000AD though, it strikes as not so much experimental as poor.

AC: The denouement is out of the way and all that's left is to deal with the emotional aftermath as the noiresque cyperpunk murder mystery draws to a close. Lovely art this week, particularly the vertigo inducing suicide panels of the Rinken women and the misty, premonitory panels depicting Bartram confronting King. The sense of desperation is a killer as King races to evade capture and discover if he was ever truly loved.

The harrowing final panels are the most effective in all the thrill's nine parts; Bartram confronting King, shooting him as he nears his goal, all is revealed as Bartram gets the truth full in the cortex, and the lovers meet their respective ends.

"No one ever loved me, you see. No one. But she did… you know I'm coming don't you... we all pay for our sins eventually."

While always technically proficient in art and script, this thrill has had more ups and downs than a rollercoaster. This last instalment however, is excellent stuff.