2000AD "Prog 2006" - 7 December 2005
	Judge Dredd (Wagner / Staples) Caballistics Inc. (Rennie / Reardon) Nikolai Dante (Morrison / Burns) Slaine (Mills / Langley) Sinister Dexter (Abnett / Davis) Low Life (Williams / Coleby) Judge Dredd (Morrison / Avon Oeming) The Ten-Seconders (Williams / Harrison) Strontium Dog (Wagner / Ezquerra)

Synopsis by Gavin Hanly
1st opinion by James Mackay
2nd opinion by Ed Berridge

Summaries and reviews contain spoilers for this issue.

Cover: Kev Walker

JM: A stock pose of the Galaxy’s Greatest’s greatest thrills (and Sinister/Dexter), in Kev Walker’s subdued colours, makes for a stark, classic cover. Certainly, this lets you know what 2000AD’s all about – unsmiling men in silly costumes. The more I look at the subtle facial expressions, the way that the forms of the three principals relate to each other (and the way that Tharg appears to have been speared through the throat), the more I like it.

EB: Montage covers are often a problem for many people – they can seem a bit slap-dash – reeking a bit too much of ‘hey, it’s our zany Summer/Winter Special, and we want to promote all the wacky characters that we’ve got on display’. However, this cover by Kev Walker displays why they’ve still kept in vogue – when they’re designed well, a character montage can make for an extremely attractive cover.

Apparently designed around the look of Soviet-era propaganda posters, the layout is both dynamic and striking, immediately catching the reader’s eye. The somber autumnal colour scheme might not be to everyone’s taste, but to me it indicates why Walker’s move from paint to line art has become such so celebrated with the popular readership.

A great start to this seasonal bumper crop of thrills, especially when it seems that the artist is already bound for success in the Americas…

Class of 79

Christmas with the Dredds...

Synopsis: Dredd takes out a gang of drug dealers and runs into one of his old classmates from the "Class of 79" - Judge Kimble. After sharing a few memories, Dredd goes on his way to check out a domestic dispute, followed by a number of crime scenes around the city. He finds time, together with Rico and Dolman to visit Vienna for a Christmas visit. Vienna gives him a present, but Dredd can't reciprocate due to Judicial rules. The get-together is stilted and Dredd can't wait to get away.

Later, Dredd visits Justice HQ and has to sign off some paperwork from the Dealer that he and Morty brought down. Dredd sees a discrepancy in the belongings of the perp that was killed and goes to see his accomplice who confirms that his partner had plenty of money on him. Dredd suspects Kimble of being on the take and checks out his belongings finding a Christmas card with a hint of perfume. He finds a key stashed in a spare boot and tracks it down to an apartment where he finds Kimble giving presents to a family of orphans - having siphoned off the money to help them. Despite this, Dredd still has to bring him in. He opens Vienna's present and sees a picture of the class of '79 - only a few of them are still left on the streets...

JM: Before I review the story, please indulge my letting free a long-suppressed rant.

I remember when Greg Staples was starting out as an art droid, there were two things that you looked out for each week: firstly, what the new style would be, since he changed his way of drawing week by week (check “Babes in Arms” if you don’t believe this); secondly, where he would manage to insert a can of “Greg’s Real Sexy Brew”. It seemed to be consciously encouraging a cult of celebrity wholly at odds with both the talent on display (he’s good, but so are a lot of other 2000AD artists who don’t seem to need to throw this kind of stuff onto their pages) and with the function of comic book art – telling stories. I don’t mind the artist or writer breaking through the “fourth wall” occasionally, but I would definitely prefer it not to be in this kind of hamfisted, lumpen, “look at me” way. And now, just because Mr Staples has had some success away from the comic, does that mean that he’s allowed to get away with drawing in a (presumably unscripted) “Judge Staples”?

The story itself is bog-standard Dredd, with a pretty tired premise. Another one gone bad? What’s that – three or four, now? It’s a bit uninspired, isn’t it? Also, what does “Class of ‘79” mean, given that there seem to only be about 15 of them? Surely there should be about 10,000 judges graduating each year? However, at least there’s a truly wonderful scene of “The Dredds at Christmas”, which raises the quality of the script a long way.

EB: There are few writers that can handle a Christmas tale that manages to be both seasonal and grimly downbeat, but John Wagner seems to manage it on an almost annual basis. As expected, this is tale is no different: lifting the title from the fansite of the same name, the story chronicles the fall from grace of one of Dredd’s former classmates from the academy – the eponymous class of ’79.

Though Wagner’s carefully crated tale provides a nice tug on the heartstrings and gives one of those rare insights into the mind and background of Old Stony Face (which bodes well for next year’s Origins advertised elsewhere in the issue), the star of the story has to be the artwork of Greg Staples. Much like Kev Walker, he’s seen a revelation since making the switch between painted and line art. His previous work on the action-led Judge Dredd strip Dead Reckoning was entertaining enough, but the more emotive subject matter of this strip produces what is quite possibly the best artwork his pen has seen yet (and almost makes me forgive him the rather cheeky appearance of a certain full-length Judge Staples). The level of attention to detail is astounding – just check out the close up of Dredd at the bottom of page six to see what I mean – with the artwork variously reminding of John Higgins and Liam Sharp at their best, beautifully complimented by Peter Doherty’s moody colours that let the art breathe on the page rather than simply smother them as so many colourists end up doing.

All in all it makes for a perfect winter’s tale – cold and bleak but with a real heart beating at its centre.

Strange Bedfellows

A bestseller in the making...

Synopsis: Hannah Chapter is visiting a number of Goth bars in Whitby, looking for something - with verse as her backup (although not yet seen).

In Rome, Ethan Kostabi visits the Vatican and, after murmuring that the last time he was there, Michelangelo hadn't finished the ceiling, gives a cardinal some new Dead Sea Scrolls they have uncovered. He promises not to release them to the public as long as the Vatican's men refrain from attacking his employees, and threatens the pope for good measure.

Back in Whitby, Chapter manages to pick up a girl and they head off to a ruined church at the top of a cliff. She tells the girl about her ex girlfriend who had started experimenting with some of Chapter's books. Chapter was forced to kill her when she started eating the neighbour's dog and before she graduated onto something worse. She admits that she knows the girl is an Empathetic vampire, just before Verse takes the shot and kills her. Verse comes up to the cliff and berates Chapter for turning off her mike - but she refuses to tell him what they talked about.

Back in Exham Priory, Jenny visits Ravne for some fun…

JM: Hmmm… is that joke about the dead Pope a bit near the knuckle? Hope so. It makes me happy to see 2000AD’s still able to show the occasional flash of testicle and hasn’t been entirely neutered by its “maturing” readership. This is a great episode, which, as has become usual with the Caballistics one-shots, expands our knowledge of the characters while leaving us with a whole new set of questions. Is Kostabi the Devil, in the Book of Job sense of “satan” as a functionary of God’s? Will Hannah ever meet a good woman? What will Ravne and Demon Jenny get up to with the occult sex slaves? Actually, scrub that last one – I think I’d prefer not to know.

Given that Dom Reardon’s art is fairly minimalist, it seems a bit mean to give him a scene set in the Sistine Chapel, but the man pulls it off admirably. And that shot of the cigarette and the windy cliff is just sublime.

EB: Every now and then, a strip comes along that makes you really look upon the world with deep loathing and resentment. How can a strip be quite as good as this one?

Gordon Rennie proves to be a formidable lesson to any would-be writers out there as to the kind of tough opposition that they can expect to face – his expert drip-feeding of the finer details and characterisation of the strip has been going on for three years now, and yet his strip seems as fresh as ever. This time we’re treated to further exploration of both Hannah Chapter and, most interestingly, the mysterious (and rarely seen) Ethan Kostabi, whilst the possessed Jennifer Simmons drags herself ever further towards damnation. As ever, more questions are raised than are answered. Any script that finds some space to mock the literary cancer that is Anne Rice is going to find a place in my heart.

However, the real star of this series has to be Dom Reardon. It’s all too rare that you find a strip that has a perfect union of writer and artist, but fortunately for us Caballistics is one of these. Reardon’s deceptively simple black and white linework beautifully compliments Rennie’s tightly plotted scripts – whether it’s drawing the vast expanse of the Sistine Chapel or simply drawing a bottle of Tiger Beer, the strength of the art shines through. It’s a real compliment to a strip when you say that you couldn’t imagine any other artist drawing it, and Reardon’s work here certainly inspires this same confidence. Let’s just hope that he doesn’t inevitably get snapped up by the States before we reach the end of the series – I don’t really fancy seeing Siku’s or John Lucas’ Caballistics, Inc.

Devil's Deal

Dante gets into another scrap...

Synopsis: Nikolai Dante arrives for a meeting on a deserted Pacific beach while the crest fills us in on the story so far - that he has a bounty on his head from the Tsar, the Romanov's blame him for their defeat, that Karl and Mina are being held by the leader of the Yakuza Akita who is using them to force Dante to act against the Pirate Queen - his mother. She also tells Dante that he is being stalked as he makes his way through the island as what appear to be mutants suddenly attack. After a vicious fight, he manages to some of kill them as Akita appears from the undergrowth. She says the creatures are the future of the Empire and tells Dante that he's been wasting time on a number of adventures. She brings him Karl's severed finger and warns him that unless he brings her his mother, she'll kill them…

JM: Oh for fuck’s sake just get on with it! I know that some of the denser fans of this strip seem to find it difficult to remember what happened last week, never mind last year – but if this is such a worry then can I suggest a couple of solutions? Maybe a recap page, written in small type, that would tell you everything that happened since the end of the Tsar Wars? Maybe a series of small text boxes telling you who each person is as and when they’re introduced on the page? As a last resort, even a pointer to this very website’s useful series of plot summaries could work. Anything, anything other than having to read any more bloody strips setting the scene and helping the readers revise who’s who and what’s what.

Don’t get me wrong, this is a decent enough strip, considered purely on its own merits. There’s some jokes, some kick-ass fighting, some cold brutality. And anything drawn by John Burns is automatically worth reading, whatever the hardcore Simon Fraser fans may argue. But can we have some forward momentum now, please?

Please?

EB: Something of a mixed bag this one – essentially this serves as a reintroduction to the series for new readers, which strikes me as slightly strange, since the strip has been in the comic more this year than it has at any time in the last three years or so. There’s not much more to this story other than ‘Dante sneaks on to an island, fights some crazy super-ninjas, meets up with Akita who reminds him of the current ongoing sub-plot, and is then handed a child’s toe’. However, there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with it, and at least it hopefully indicates a return to the main storyline that brings Dante inevitably into conflict with his pirate queen mother.

On the art side, it’s always more than a pleasure to see the artwork of John Burns. He is one of the few remaining links to what could be legitimately described as the ‘Golden Age’ of British comics. What’s interesting about Burns is the way that his artwork still changes and adapts over time, where many would have just been satisfied remaining in the same established style – just take a look at the work he was doing five years ago and then compare it to the scenes here of Dante trekking through the muddy greens and browns of the darkened night time jungle to see what I mean. With Burns still onboard, and Dante hopefully returning to the plot proper, there should still be much to look forward to in the upcoming conclusion to the piratical storyline.

Carnival

Kai takes after his father

Synopsis: A gruesome carnival is on show in Albion, with a number of creatures including Estella the Sleepless beauty, the Bog Mummy and Slaine's druid son Kai Mac Roth.

The carnival is run by Ukko to whom Kai complains that Estella is being hurt as they try to keep her constantly awake. Kai says that he's taking care of her and no one is to touch her. Ukko tries to disagree, but fears Kai getting violent so backs down. Meanwhile, two of the carnival's attractions, Wardo and Sepha who are Shoggy beasts start fighting - and Kai decides to intervene. As he has no magical powers any more, he has to do it "father's way".

Nearby, Slaine spots the carnival and wonders if they have any news of his son…

JM: I had entertained some hopes that this would be the last Slaine strip ever – and given that it’s called “Epilogue”, that flicker of hope still burns in my heart somewhere. However, it should be allowed that for a concept that ran out of steam some ten years ago, this is a pretty decent strip. That’s thanks mainly to Clint Langley’s truly astonishing art, given full freedom by a script that calls for, basically, an artist showcase (“Panel 1: design a funky beast. Panel 2: design another funky beast.”) However, I keep hoping that we’ll see this art on something worth Langley’s care sometime.

EB: Slaine’s a funny old strip, innit? I mean there it is, trudging along for years, no one’s paying any attention as it slowly dwindles away to nothing. And then you have the ending of the Books of Invasions, and it suddenly returns to life, like Lazarus resurrected from the grave.

Carnival (subtitled Books of Invasions: Epilogue) follows on from where that series left off as we follow the path of the Slaine’s little explored son Kai, who has rather fortuitously met up with a certain financially obsessed dwarf. This bodes well for the following tales, shifting the focus of the strip to the less explored characters, allowing an expansion of the strip and its world beyond that of its title character.

The setting of the series is also one the inspires confidence – the idea of a carnival populated by all the freaks and geeks of Albion seems like it should have been a story during Slaine’s years of wandering before he became the High King of Ireland. And the story itself contains a feel of a return to its roots – Mills’ writing revitalisation has continued apace, and he still has a great knack for character names (just see ‘The Crimbals’, Crom Dubh, The Headless Man’ and ‘Shock Head Red’ for good examples).

Clint Langley still continues to please – sometimes his work can seem a bit stiff, almost like a series of frescos, but his work here continues to show why he’s fast becoming a fan favourite, with a variety of monstrous forms to play with, and carnival vistas that remind of Breughel and Bosch that almost makes you wish that you could see the artwork blown up to wall-size in order to be able to properly take in all the detail. Perhaps that’s something for 2000AD to think about for the next issue…either way, I’ll be looking forward to reading it.

Festive Spirits

Death hasn't given Sinister any more subtlety...

Synopsis: Rocky and Wendy are cleaning up the bar on Christmas Eve and rocky seems down, while his wife says "I'm gonna miss them too". At the end of the bar, unseen by either of them are a pair of skeletons which appear to be Sinister and Dexter. Wandering around Downlode, they meet up with some of their previous, now dead, associates including Nervous Rex and Demi Octavo - who says that gunsharks always get killed sooner or later. She also says that she doesn't blame them for what happened with Billi. They both begin to realise that they may, in fact, be dead while they still have a few loose ends to tie up - and resolve to finish things. Charon comes by to pick them up. "No, pal. We ain't done here." "Not just yet..."

JM: Every year, it seems, that part of the readership represented in the online forums and review boards falls a little more out of love with Sinister Dexter. And every year, sometimes without getting the credit he deserves, Dan Abnett pulls out a cracker for the Christmas Prog. Prog 2003’s text story was astonishing, for example.

This year, however, something odd has been happening. The Sin/Dex franchise has once again become more than an excuse for pun-laden one and two episode pointlessness. There’s a real sense of plotting, of forward momentum.

So it’s not surprising that this is one of the strips of the issue. Simon Davis really does seem to have worked out something with his palette recently that means that the pages reproduced in the comic are every bit as gorgeous as the originals, and this means that the dialogue can rely entirely on the art to make its point with humour and pathos.

Triumphant.

EB: Sinister Dexter is a strip that I never had much time for – I didn’t dislike it, but I’d come in too late to read all the big defining storylines, I had no idea who any of the supporting cast were and it just seemed to be coasting along on a hiding to nothing.

But, as with many other readers, all this changed with the last run. For once, there is an entertaining backstory to the strip that actually made you eager to read it each week, I even managed to remember the names of the various characters who were reappearing, and it seemed that the twin leads were in danger themselves of meeting with the deadlead. This Christmas tale (something Dan Abnett seems to be rather adept at writing), follows on from this, with our heroes either dead or critically wounded and their whole world shot to hell. This strip, in which our erstwhile Gunsharks contemplate their retirement, oblivious to the fact that they are quite probably already dead, makes for both a humorous and touchingly poignant story as the duo wander the streets of Download, running across various friends and acquaintances, both living and dead (I had a little chuckle at the appearance of Charon at the end).

The union of Abnett with Simon Davis on this strip is again another one of those perfect teams that you hope will never be split apart. Davis has such a hold on these characters now that you could almost believe that he had created them himself, and it’s always a disappointment when you see another artists name attached to a Sinister Dexter strip other than his. Just take a look at his almost too racy for words Demi Octavo or the They Live-style undead Finnigan and Ramone and try and tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about. From being a mortally wounded lame duck in the comic, this strip has become one of the absolute must-reads. I’ve no idea who’s alive or who’s dead, or indeed what’s going to happen next, but I can’t wait for Moses Wars next year.

Sinister Dexter isn’t done here – not just yet…

He's Making a List

Dirty Frank needs a new santa suit...

Synopsis: A monster called Mr Claws stalks the orphanages of the Low Life stealing children and the undercover team are brought in to find out what's going on. Dirty Frank and Aimee Nixon are disguised as Santa and his elf and are to investigate the orphanage to find out what is happening.

At midnight, they see "Mr Claws" arrive and steal one of the children. Dirty Frank makes them follow him as they need to know what happened to the other children. They follow him easily and find them all inside cages. Aimee goes after Mr Claws while Dirty Frank frees the children. Capturing him, they unmask him as an ex toymaker who was fed up at children stealing from his store and vandalising it. He decided to create a legend to make the kids behave and started abducting children to back up the story. They arrest him, although Aimee Nixon stays behind at the orphanage to help comfort some of the children who have been abducted.

JM: “He’s making a list / He’s checking it twice / Those who are naughty he’ll slice and dice / Those who are good will see the next morn / Major arteries intact and untorn. Dirty Frank suggests we nuke the place.”

Now, there are some ungenerous souls out there who won’t find that speech, nor the silent reaction panel, nor Thora’s eventual reaction, side-splittingly arseachingly pantswettingly funny. Dirty Frank suggests you may be dead inside. The Low Life, especially coupled with the Simping Detective, has given us a real golden seam of comedy of late. For Dirty Frank’s money, you would need to go back to vintage Ace Garp or Robohunter to see a similar strike rate of gags per panel.

And I’d never have guessed that Simon Coleby would be the artist to deliver it. In his interview elsewhere on this site, Simon says that he doesn’t look back at the first work he produced for 2000AD with any great fondness. Well, without wanting to seem too harsh, I completely agree with him – it was pretty substandard, and wasn’t helped by garish colouring from Gina Hart. Just as Gina has gone on to do great things with Rupert the Bear, so Simon has continued to develop into the man to turn to for muscle-bound Dolph-Lundgren-alikes. But until his work on Low Life, I hadn’t realised just how pretty and light his stuff could also be. 2 panels in particular jump out – a really beautiful, delicate portrait of Aimee Nixon on page 4 (panel 5), and the beaming Dirty Frank – a character Coleby has really nailed - on page 7.

Though I would like to see the team replace the dead Link and have another “serious” adventure at some point, this Christmas tale really did shine.

EB: Beauty, they say, is in the eye of the beholder. Perhaps this is even truer of comedy. Whilst I’m sure that many readers will find this tale a splendid little seasonal treat, I have to rather sorrowfully admit that it really did nothing for me.

Rob Williams is one of those writers who, though I would never question his undoubted ability as a growing literary force to be reckoned with, seems to run hot and cold for me. Low Life has been one of those strips that, while I didn’t really mind its presence in the weekly, never really gave me the buzz of anticipation that I really long for, possibly because of unfortunate scheduling that meant that it appeared at roughly the same time as the Megazine’s arguably superior Simping Detective made his debut. That said, the last series of Low Life, featuring more ‘Rock’ clichés than Spinal Tap playing Ozfest in Japan, won me over to the series.

Unfortunately this story, for me, reverses that emergent trend. First off, it commits the cardinal sin of playing the yuletide card, wherein a story and it’s characters are thrust into an amusing tale featuring Santas, reindeers and peace on Earth because “It’s Christmas”, as former Slade frontman Noddy Holder in known to bellow annually around this time of year. The story itself is pretty simple too – essentially it’s simply ‘Aimee and Frank sent into orphanage, follow bad guy, shoot him and rescue the tiny persecuted orphans’. And that’s not to mention the fairly painful reference to Aimee’s past as a tragic orphan, presumably to remind us of her ‘troubled’ character.

Of course there’s always Dirty Frank to be replied upon for some genuine comic relief, something that Williams obviously has a real talent for, but he is beginning to lapse into the John Constantine fault of bringing an interesting supporting character up to leading man status too early, and thus losing some of that ineffable mystique.

For me, the real draw for this strip has to the artwork of Simon Coleby, which is genuinely something rather special. I always felt Coleby had something of a hurdle to overcome, taking the strip over from the rightly highly regarded Henry Flint, but with this tale he truly makes the series his own. What’s great about this new Coleby style is watching it grow with each successive appearance. Here, for example, he knows exactly where to eschew the use of grey tones in order to leave an image highlighted through its stark black and white simplicity, whilst his characters switch from the grotesque (Frank), to the ludicrous (our revealed Mr. Claws) and the genuinely emotionally touching (Rufus the persecuted orphan).

Without a shadow of a doubt, this is the best work I’ve ever seen the artist produce, and I look forward to seeing his work on the strip in the future. Lets just hope that next time it’s complimented by a return to some more serious storytelling.

Straight Eye for the Crooked Guy

Dredd hits the stage...

Synopsis: Dredd takes a convicted Perp, Shank into the studios of Straight Eye for the Crooked Guy, a show which is designed to rehabilitate perps.

He is introduced to the crew. Firstly, Sebastian Sweet, the behavioral psychologist works on his anger management; Zeus Seuss, Alternative therapist gives him a colonic irrigation; A speed dating evening quickly ends badly when he becomes a little too candid about his past.

But after an arse wax, Shank goes crazy and starts attacking the crew. Dredd bursts in and is forced to kill him - booking the TV crew for incitement.

JM: How boringly predictable that this would be the stinker. Oeming can’t draw Dredd’s world (criminally, he also wastes the chance at a double page spread), and Robbie Morrison can’t write Dredd, which makes them the perfect pair to deliver something that’s throwaway rubbish.

“They waxed my ass!” made me laugh, and the panel depicting that act was similarly great fun. But 6 pages for 1 substandard gag?

EB: You know, perhaps it was because I was expecting to hate this, but I actually found myself quite enjoying this Dredd strip, and was bloody surprised to do so.

Robbie Morrison, it has often been noted, is something of a master of the on-running lengthy sub-plot laden storyline, but clearly isn’t someone for whom the short one-off story was intended. And I’m still not quite certain why this story worked for me – perhaps it was the lack of focus on Dredd, instead focusing on the madness of Mega-City One, so that we were spared the usual attempts to humanize the character featuring terminally ill patients and mewling crack babies. Not that I’m claiming this as an all-time great Dredd, but it was a fairly enjoyable standard Dredd, which is the sort of strip you want every now and again, and which we seem to see all too few of these days.

My enjoyment of the strip was certainly helped along by the involvement of artist Mike Oeming – now I have to come clean here and admit that I’m quite a fan of his artwork. Now I’m sure there’ll be all the usual fan wails that he can’t draw Dredd to some particular exacting standard but, for me, it works (despite the slightly dodgy two-page spread, which would have worked just as well as two separate pages, to be honest).

I guess this is just one of those strips that, looking at it core components, should work, but for me it strangely does, and screw anybody who says different! And I’d lay serious money on Mackay chuckling at the arse waxing…

The American Dream - Part 1

A "God" revealed..

Synopsis: Jen walks through the deserted streets of London and is let into the heavily protected underground base of the resistance. She has something to give Malloy - a disk which she says tells them "where a god is going to be". Someone important has been captured and they are sending over a god from America to get him. Jen forces them to take her with them on the mission before she gives them the information. She muses about the last time she saw her father as they head out by air to the meeting point.

Elsewhere, something is speeding towards London at supersonic speed - the Lord Mach. At the interrogation, the captured man says he does not want to return to "them", but his captor tells him that Hero has insisted that he is taken back. At that moment, the resistance attacks and Jen rushes to the captured man's aid - just as Lord Mach arrives in the building…

JM: Strangely, considering that I’m 30 years old, I recently re-read (and thoroughly enjoyed) The White Mountains, the first part of John Christopher’s “Tripods” trilogy. This was alongside a hefty dose of John Wyndham (Day of the Triffids, The Crysalids). And it really got me in the mood to enjoy The Ten Seconders. There’s just something about the British way with future dystopias that’s so much better than what the rest of the world has to offer.

It’s a bit early to judge from just one episode, but this looks like a keeper. The idea of super-fast Gods running over the Atlantic has got me hooked and I want to see much more of this world already. Are they enhanced humans? Aliens? Something else? Too early to guess, but I’ll be watching out keenly for the next instalment.

Mark Harrison’s art is joyful, clear, funny and light. The antithesis of his work on Durham Red (thank God!)

EB: What was it I was saying about Rob Williams being somewhat hit and miss for me? This is the flip side of the coin – a very promising opening to an intriguing new series.

Shades of John Smith’s New Statesmen here, with what at least initially appears to be some form of worldwide autocracy run by ‘dark’ American super-powered types, which might also play into similar territory explored by 2000AD’s own Savage. The setup of the story is deceptively simple – though we don’t really realise it, we’re introduced to a hell of a lot of characters and information in a very short space of time, yet it doesn’t feel like we’re being bogged down in lumpen exposition. It’s nice to see Willaims get stuck into his own creations, rather than get bogged down in those of Dredd’s world.

Mark Harrison also provides some stunning work here, pairing back the paint-effects of his strips, revealing a sort of Colin Wilson-like European sensibility to his work, which provides a perfect compliment to the script. Quite how Harrison hasn’t been snapped up by one of the major Franco-Flemish publishers is a mystery to me, but it was worth the wait (a year since it was first announced, back in prog 2005) to see this in the comic.

An extremely strong start that leaves me wanting more, as a good 2000AD strip should do.

Strange Bedfellows

News of Alpha & Wulf's "relationship" had gotten out...

Synopsis: Alpha and Sternhammer return to the doghouse where he is challenged to a fight by Shaggy (a hair covered mutant) after his part in the St Albans affair. After Alpha beats him soundly, Shaggy apologises and says he was just following the crowd. Shaggy tells Alpha and Wulf that he is on the track of Ecto "no bones" Jones and has tracked him to Halcyon. None of the people there has hair so they treated Shaggy like a god. He says he was in line to be a prince but didn't like the talk of marriage. After seeing No Bones catch a baby falling from a window with his stretchy arms, Shaggy knocked him out and boot him in his trunk. But No bones escaped through the keyhole. With a reward of 1.5 mil at stake, Wulf and Alpha decide to check it out especially as the statute of limitations on No Bones is up in just over a week. Alpha warns Wulf that Shaggy also has an habit of stretching the truth on some of his stories...

When they reach Halcyon, Shaggy is once again treated like royalty until loads of groups of bounty hunters come after him - after him for bigamy (12 wives, as spending a night with a woman on Halcyon is considered marriage) and child support among other things. They dive into a beauty salon for cover and decide to shave Shaggy and their own air to blend in...

JM: Heh heh heh. I’d love to have seen Senor Ezquerra’s face when he read this script. “Can you please draw the lead characters without any of their defining features?” Wagner’s clearly having a ball, and Ezquerra rises to the challenge brilliantly (see next issue’s cover for proof). This Shaggy Dog story is going to be a classic.

EB: Do you really need anything more? Anyone who has read this already doesn’t need me twittering on about what they already know, and for those that haven’t read it – what on Earth is wrong with you? Though it is nice to note that Wagner and Ezquerra are slowly building some momentum to the resurrected adventures of Johnny and Wulf, following on from A Traitor to His Kind, and forcing Alpha into the role of an outcast, even amongst a group of outcasts.

While I’d hesitate from taking the easy option and instantly branding this tale a ‘classic’, all the details are present and correct for this opening episode, and it’d take some almighty cock-up for it to turn out anything less than the usual entertaining faire met by the last few Strontium dog tales.