2000AD Prog 1476 - 22 February 2005
	Judge Dredd (Wagner / Goddard) Harry Kipling (Spurrier / Cook) Synnamon (Clayton/ Dows/ Roach) ABC Warriors (Mills / Flint) The Ten-Seconders (Williams / Harrison) Cover: Henry Flint

Synopsis and 1st opinion by Adam Crabtree
2nd opinion by Linton Porteus

Summaries and reviews contain spoilers for this issue.

Cover Review

AC: As a subscriber, I find myself beset by not one but two sets of killer robots leering at me from the front of the Galaxy's Greatest. Same principle for both; irregularly shaped windows against a brightly coloured background, depicting each of the mekanikal combatants. Henry Flint applies his usual charm, with the scratchily detailed depictions boasting a shed-load of character.

LP: I’d have preferred a wraparound to this variant cover palaver (toying, as it does, with people’s groats), but both are excellent, well laid out, eye-catching affairs that perfectly capture both Shadow and ABC Warriors. There are lovely touches, such as the hangman’s noose behind The Rev and the intricate detail on the extreme close-up of Blackblood. (Now all we need is fourteen back cover star scans to compliment the series.)

PF

Toilets of the future...

Synopsis: A distressed citizen winds his way through the human traffic of Mega City One, desperate to be somewhere, desperate to get there in time. Judge Dredd sees the citizen running in a "walk only" zone, but lets him off with a caution. The citizen carries on, finally reaching his goal; a "Public Facility" or public loo.

Due to some kind of stomach complaint, our weak bladdered hero takes an excessive amount of time and a queue builds outside the "PF". Eventually the PF itself speaks to it's customer and tries to bully him into leaving the facility, claiming he has taken up enough of its time. Our hero is brutalized by the various sanitation products, and forced to flash the queue outside, prompting Dredd to order the PF airlifted to an impound so the pervert inside can be brought to justice. The final insult occurs when the PF drops its customer as it is being carried away.

In the hospital, Dredd informs the customer that the PF was running a glitch after a reconfiguration to get faster put-through. End of year accounts, y'know?

AC: Had a little chat with my little brother this week regarding 2000AD. I've been letting him look at my copies ever since the last jumping on point of prog 1450. I asked him if he'd started noticing certain writers and artists in common, and whether or not he was developing any favourites. Too much to ask for m'afraid; he doesn't look at the credit cards.

Still, I had a good ten minutes of displaying my knowledge to him. It was nice to see the look of wonderment on his face for example, when I told him the writers of political slugfest Savage, Celtic saga Slaine and kooky robot wars epic ABC Warriors were in fact the same guy.

"But they're all so different!"

"Yeah, well, that's kind of the point, innit?"

I really hit my stride when it came to telling him of the "father of Dredd", John Wagner. He listened with growing admiration as I told him of the recent titles the Wagner Droid had put his name to; Mandroid, My Beating Heart, Caught in the Act, etc. You can always rely on this guy, was the conclusion we reached; which brings us to Wagner's latest, simply titled "PF".

It's a concept that you wouldn't automatically credit as belonging to this title, but then a lot of Dredd's most fascinating moments are like that. Typically, Dredd's "humour" has been mostly concerned with spoofs and surrealism; never more true than in the Ennis era lampoons of Blind Date and in the recent Prog 2006 example "Straight Eye for the Con Guy". These are pretty easy to do though, and it's when you get these ingenious little neo-urban fables that it seems worth the paper it's printed on.

Arthur Ranson's classic style of art fleshes out this excellent one shot; the protagonist's increasing degrees of distress and incredulity are priceless, and seemingly insignificant touches like the hot dog vendor's stance on the final page as his cart is sent into uproar add to the value. This is a gem that gets better with every page.

LP: This story can be safely logged away in the one-off cabinet. It’s quite refreshing to have some light relief to wipe away what seemed like a long run of dark material. Ranson’s idiosyncratic art is as accomplished as ever and he comfortably handles whatever Wagner drops into the mix.

Now wash your hands.

Harry arrives in expository style...

Meanwhile a mysterious figure approaches the fortress home of the family, arriving by boat and promptly lamping the bestial guards of the island domicile. Upstairs the mother has finished her story… and encouraging her children to tuck into their dinner of still live humans. Suddenly, the intruder bursts in on the dinner, backed up by an army of the descendents of those original Neo-Brits. The mother is shocked; this is Harry Kipling, the protagonist of her story, who as a human should have died centuries ago. Kipling muses on this, citing an infamous disruption in reality as a possible reason, and trains his gun on the unfortunate aliens…

AC: The prologue to what looks to be a brand new franchise. We'll start off with the obvious. Boo Cook's art is extraordinary; the level of detail on Kipling's little cyber raft and the fortress by moonlight is extraordinary and effortlessly modern and out-there sci-fi. The uniform of Kipling and his peers in the Neo-Brit force is a nice riff on classic themes; do you notice that Kipling's right leg is in tweed trousers and a clodhopper of a shoe? Kipling himself is a generally cool looking character with his wild white hair, his scrappy stature and villain's moustache.

Going into this I was a little reluctant to enter into a brand new series, for no other reason than I initially thought the space could have gone to something long awaited, like Simon Spurrier's own Lobster Random, which should be due soon. But then a big part of the spirit of the comic is to introduce new ideas and concepts, and maintain a vitality of spirit. I went in expecting some kind of glorified Future Shock.

I needn't have worried. As disinclined to like it by my mood as I was, it completely won me over. The double take is masterful, with our leading man being set up as some kind of destroyer of worlds, then being shown as a quirky and unorthodox saviour. I feel like one of the "local wallahs" in the strip; perfectly willing to fall into line behind this dynamic, platitude spouting character. I want to immerse myself in this moodily lit otherworld as soon as possible and I hope this guy will get right back in that boat and get here immediately.

LP: Perspective and perception are toyed with in this introduction to a surreal universe where a cybernetic British empire (replete with Salvador Dali elephants) appears to have gone head to head with a pantheon of gods.

The fantastical back-story deliberately wrong-foots the reader before finally introducing the EG drinking, stiff upper-lipped cybernetic zombie that is Harry Kipling, complete with monocle, moustache and blunderbuss as he spouts lines of high comedy (“First one to scarper’s an atomic ponce!”).

The various characters of the gods, their strange world, the flashbacks and the neon-lit art are bright, imaginative and enthralling. There have already been negative comparisons to Darren Dead (a David Blain zombie) and Devlin Waugh (gay British vampire dandy), but I think this is a unique fish. The in-your-face visual technique, and the Future Shock style reveals have irritated some but I’m happy that something so unpredictable and inventive has arrived in the prog, the pure joy involved in its creation writ large.

Arc of Light - Part 4

Synnamon gets all moody...

Synopsis: The secret agent makes her weary way to the USE ship, with the last scion of the Arc of Light fleet riding shotgun. She warns the soldiers of the ship not to impede her as she goes to confront Cromwell. Cromwell merely chastises her for disobedience and informs her coldly that the fleet he allowed to be destroyed was nothing more than the result of a failed experiment in the creation of anti-anti-matter.

After the disastrous teleportation experiment that destroyed New York and London, USE endeavoured to harness the energies involved to create instead of destroy. This resulted in the warpgate experiment, which seemed to occur without incident but had in fact created clones on the far side of the galaxy. Cromwell makes it clear that he has no concern for what USE created apart from their never being discovered. He demonstrates this by killing the last survivor. Appalled, Synnamon rips the USE symbol from its place in Cromwell's office and, weeping, walks away.

AC: What's your beef with this one? It seems to be a lost cause to defend this retro style strip. I'll merely say that I found this conclusion surprisingly harrowing and also a highly clever one, which addresses the somewhat disorientating "there's two ships" confusion with panache and pathos. I'm fond of this one, but I'll be glad to see it go so I no longer have to read the constant whingeing!

Doesn't Synnamon's pal look just like Wulf Sternhammer though?

LP: Synnamon doesn’t seem to have much of a character arc and this story is all the more disappointing because it doesn’t tie in closely enough with the resistance movement background we got in her previous outing. It’s already been made clear to us that her boss, Cromwell, is dastardly, but in this he is foolishly so. If he wants to keep her on side as his top agent, why does he deliberately provoke by needlessly executing the duplicate colonist in front of her?

A solid three pages are set in an office, providing exposition to tie up the plot, which is a pretty dull setting for a supposed space-set spy thriller. The art, while good, is forced to provide several pages dominated by a man with a bucket of gloop on his back and an inordinately large codpiece. Even the potentially exciting scene of a spaceship crash-landing in a hanger bay is sterile and lifeless, and the final two panels are confusing.

The closing scene seems to hint that Synnamon may have crossed some emotional bridge into finally turning on her boss, but I’d rather just imagine that than see this story make a return.

The Shadow Warriors - Book 3 - Part 1

Warriors vs Warriors...

Synopsis: (Continues from Book 2) The Shadow Warriors, villainous robot mercenaries, are gathered in New Sidona on the planet Mars. Their intention? To put an end to the ABC Warriors. They converse amongst themselves about exactly how dangerous their foes are and possible methods of surveillance. One of their number, Bootleg, is simply eager to get started, envying the ABC's their fellowship.

The battle begins, and the ABC's are outclassed at every turn by their foes' outlandish and superior weaponry. Mongrol's head is sent flying from his body. Blackblood cannot help but give the Shadow Warriors their props. Hammerstein orders the watching humans into the nearby police precinct for their own safety. Deadlock regrets not bringing his mystical grimoires with him from Phobos. The group are downed, but prepare themselves for Hellish retaliation.

AC: Properly kooky stuff from man-with-the-demented-plan Pat Mills, lovingly rendered by Henry Flint, who distinguished himself particularly with the Total War saga a couple of years back. I'm pretty much a newcomer to the world of far future Mars, but one value judgement I feel I can safely assert is that it's a veritable mish mash of all manner of styles, writing and artistic.

Take the art for example; moodily depicted in a Schindler's List level of gloom and grey, giving it a sophisticated gloss yet depicting the most wild and, in some cases, crude designs and bizarre situations. It mixes the ridiculous with angstiness like Bootleg's tortured introspection. What does a killer robot want with companionship anyway?

To my mind, this is a holdover from a more innocent era where manufactured murder machines could have these broad, cartoonish personalities, sport robo-beards and chomp robo-cigars. If He Man and the Masters of the Universe had run for the best part of thirty years, developed a sense of "continuity" and "canon" and addressed issues, THIS is what it would resemble.

Don't get me wrong, it's strangely endearing, but there's no aid for those who haven't read the previous "books" of Shadow Warriors and haven't been a part of the ABC Warriors experience.

LP: Back in the early summer of 2003, we were introduced to Dogtag, The Rev and Bootleg. If anyone’s having trouble recognising Dogtag, that’s because he used to look like Dick Turpin, but after Joe Pineapples blew him up in the opening episode he’s apparently got a new body, and looks far more canine.

Summer of 2004 we met Deus X Machina, Mr Lovebomb, Doc Maniacus and Warmonger, plus a bunch of humes got added to the mix, under the protection of the ABCs, as a clone army (directed by the Shadow Warriors) attacked New Sidona on Mars.

Given this distant, divided back-story, and the plethora of characters, it’s no real surprise that this opening episode of Book Three concentrates on re-introducing the Shadows (billed as the Malevolent Seven) as they face off against the ABCs. It’s mostly an extended slugfest, overloading on sci-tech terminology that builds up to a combo visual/script gag as Mongrel suffers the ignominy of becoming a head on a stick.

This is clearly a western: as the Shadow Warriors emerge from the dusty, war-torn cityscape we are treated to a full page Sergio Leone moment for Bootleg (you can almost hear the Ennio Morricone score drifting eerily across the Martian landscape) before being catapulted into abstract battle splash frames of all-out mech action frozen in a literally scripted bullet-time.

Henry Flint’s art is stunning and varied, and we’re treated to reflections of the ABCs in Bootleg’s mirrored visor and close-up call-outs of high-tech bullets. It seems to lose something in depicting Hammerstein and Steelhorn in the core battle scene and becomes over-layered in the final frame (where the supposedly fragile humans appear to be surviving molten death), but that’s like criticising Bisley’s half-finished panels from The Black Hole.

The American Dream - Part 9

New York falls...

Synopsis: The UK resistance meet up with their US counterparts, who have made a church their hideout. The leader of the New York based guerrillas handle introductions and tells them about the devastation of NY when the human governments went to war with the former superheroes. The leader himself used to be a famous American football player, prior to the disaster.

Meanwhile, Malloy is troubled about being in a church; he used to be a priest before his life was stolen from him. Jen and Malloy look to each other for comfort, which does not sit well with the Scientist, whose proprietary attitude towards Jen seems to be growing…

AC: This is one that had me worried for a little while. After a strong opening it lapsed into some mildly entertaining but rather protracted action scenes; essentially filler. Then we get the crash landing of the jet, insights into Harris' conflicts, revelations regarding the Scientist and also the tragicomedy that is Damage.

The renaissance continues as the team meet up with their US counterparts and we get further information regarding the world pre-apocalypse. It's not the deepest of strips, but this instalment factors in aspects of a post 9/11 world, the notion of the little people caught underfoot as a war of attrition is waged between two greater powers, and ideas of class and privilege; all are made equal in the face of such destruction.

Culture clashes ensue for comic effect regarding the differentiation between English and Welsh ("You go north from London") and a whole new level of drama is revealed; what's going on with Jen, Malloy and the Scientist? Mark Harrison's shape shifting art gets a broader palate of colours to work with than the greys and whites of the open air instalments, and I also find that Jen makes more of a transformation from long limbed tomboy teen to vive le resistance vixen; last week her arms were uncovered and this week her tum is all over the shop!

LP: This takes a welcome break from the hectic pace of the last few episodes. In this lull before an assumed storm, there’s time to flesh out the characters a bit more as we’re introduced to the US resistance. Jen appears to have visibly aged in her journey and is now becoming central to the group dynamic: offering ambiguously platonic emotional support to the breaking down Malloy.

The art is an atmospheric mix of techniques, but it’s the final page that’s utterly breathtaking. Jen and Malloy, silhouetted by the dim light filtering in through the stained glass cathedral windows, portraying Jesus, are juxtaposed with the jealous malevolence of The Scientist, stalking them from the shadows.

The necessary grounding of the character backgrounds has built up slowly throughout this series but the core hook of the mystery of the Gods’ origins coupled with great action sequences and a pervading air of menace are keeping this taught with intrigue.