2000AD Prog 1494 - 28 June 2006
	Judge Dredd (Smith / Fraser) Red Seas (Edginton / Yeowell) The V.C.s (Abnett / Williams) Terror Tale (Wyatt / Cooper) London Falling (Spurrier / Garbett) Cover: Nick Percival

Synopsis by Gavin Hanly
1st opinion by David Knight

Summaries and reviews contain spoilers for this issue.

Cover Review

DK: I got the impression that this cover was much admired by the online community, but for my own part, I don’t like it. It didn’t make much of an impression on the newsagent’s shelf, appearing too dark and murky, and I can’t help feeling the suggestion of Judge Dredd’s helmet in the background would mean nothing to the uninitiated. The severed hand (the bit that would be obscured by the row of magazines in front on the same shelf) doesn’t communicate a great deal, and it doesn’t readily resolve itself as severed if you’re not concentrating – one could imagine it appears joined to an arm going off the right-hand edge of the page.

I’ve seen this image as a thumbnail on the 2000ad website, and I have to say it looked better as a jpeg. I think it loses some clarity on the printed page.

Jumped - Part 4

Dredd switches his lawgiver to "disembowel"

Synopsis: Reefer meets the Sov contact who indicates that Lola is still alive. The Sovs are identified as three handily deniable Sov Mercs led by Vassily Grushko, while Dredd waits for his moment. Lola and Reefer are reunited as the hand is turned over, and the match is confirmed. The Sovs get ready to kill Reefer and Lola when Dredd drops out of the cab and kills one. The one on the platform holds Lola hostage, while Moxxy kicks at the one holding him inside the cabin, and smashes open the canisters. They both die horribly while Grushko takes Lola deeper into the windfarm - in a stand-off with Dredd. But Reefer jumpjacks onto one of the windmills, swings right around and grabs Lola. Grushko slips, falls over the edge and is ripped in two. Dredd let's Reefer off with a caution given the fact that he's saved the city, but warns him not to cross him again...

DK: A few niggles aside, this has been a good Judge Dredd thriller. Its 4-issue length has allowed the story room to breathe, so that it could undergo a few twists and turns instead of rushing toward a quick and easy resolution. There’s not much to say about this final instalment, seeing as it was all action and carried off well by both writer and artist. Moxxy’s heroic exit was a bit of a surprise and gave the story a gruesome twist. Reefer rescuing Lola using Boing® rope off a wind turbine was as necessary and internally logical as it was daft – and the same wind turbine chopping the Sov mercenary in half was splendidly efficient, making maximum use of the scenery to hand.

At the end, though, there was one final niggle. Dredd forgets to sentence the perp. “You kids want dropping off anywhere?” was one of Dredd’s most unlikely lines ever, and might easily have come from the mouth of Sylvester Stallone (well, maybe not easily: “yuh kuds wun’ druppun’ uv unaware?”, maybe). True, they have suffered, and they helped foil an East-Meg plot; but Reefer went unpunished for illegal Boinging, attempted theft and criminal damage. We’ll leave aside killing in self defence here – that’s a bit complicated. Agreed, Dredd should have been lenient on the perp, but since when has he been this lenient? Someone on the 2000AD online message board came up with a good compromise, which would have been a suspended sentence.

But I won’t argue the toss when John Smith and Simon Fraser have produced such a serviceable Judge Dredd 4-parter as this. I’m happy with it, and I’d be content with more of the same.

The Hollow Land - Part 4

Deja vu...

Synopsis: The sound of the Moon Song brings agony to the crew who try to shield their ears. In a desperate move to escape, they cut the kite lines, which sends them plummeting to the ground and rips off the main mast. The chasing ships are forced to veer out of the way as the Dancers' ship plummets. However, just before they hit the ground Alex opens up a parachute ("a variation on Da Vinci's Air pocket") and this slows their descent, allowing them to land.

They lost three stenonychsaurs in the incident and Dancer Snr starts to look at the stones they've landed near, which appear to be vibrating. He is warned that they are the "Bones of the Moon" and not to touch - but it's too late as they are surrounded by giant birds and another stenonychsaur is eaten...

DK: This is a marvellous series, part of the charm of which is that each series is so different to the one before in terms of the setting and the nature of the threat faced. It has gone from pirates and the occult, to pirates and wonders of the ancient world, to pirates and dinosaurs at the earth’s core. This latest adventure picked up where it left off half way through, with a dinosaur battle of epic proportions, which has set in motion this mission in flying ships.

I find myself not really caring what happens in this story, so long as it’s entertaining. This week’s highlight was the parachute, I think; although the giant birds at the cliff-hanger were a very nice touch. The pacing and direction of this series may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it works well for the story to proceed at the pace it does. Apart from the need to include action and a cliff-hanger in every chapter, nothing is rushed or forced, and things seem to just happen that draw out the story for longer, the way an epic should be put together.

The only thing I didn’t quite understand in this instalment was what happened to the powder kegs lost off the deck of Jack Dancer’s ship. They were far below the enemy ships, yet the powder kegs appear to have collided with and destroyed one of them. Does that mean the powder kegs were falling upwards, or that the enemy ship was plunging downward after Jack’s badly damaged ship in a kamikaze dive?

I am enjoying this strip immensely, and I hope it continues to meander along for a good while yet.

Part 9 - Where is the Geek?

The Hoff grows some...

Synopsis: Tycho finds the downed Ryx and starts to patch him up despite his complaints. Meanwhile, Kali is being tortured by a Merc while their leader goes in search of Gaik'rr. Smith hears the scream and finds her - killing the Merc.

Meanwhile, the pack leader has found Hoff and half beats him to death as he asks "where is the Geek". Hoff doesn't give him anything, but The leader sees Gaek'rr hiding behind a rock and shoots him...

DK: The score this issue, The VCs: 1, alien mercenaries: 1.

Not quite as much running around and shooting this episode as last, but more kicking captives about and torturing with spears. I know this series has its fans, but it’s such a generic future-war-in-space that I can’t say I care for it much. I never read space war novels when I was a kid, so the original series of The VCs was a revelation to me. However, since then I’ve been exposed to Aliens, Starship Troopers and Warhammer 40,000. It seems like everybody’s going over this territory these days, so please excuse me for saying the novelty’s worn off a bit.

This is a perfectly fine strip to pad out the roster in 2000ad, but it’s not ever likely to become one of my favourites. I’ve heard that this is the last series of The VCs, and I’ve no complaints about that. The script and art do the job, and the level of suspense is maintained well, but if it were to end very suddenly with dangling plot threads unresolved, or conversely to wrap up too tidily and conveniently, mine wouldn’t be the loudest voice raised in protest. By the way, nobody really thinks that was the Geek diplomat killed in the last panel, do they?

Cold Spots

...for about 4 pages...

Synopsis: In northern Greenland, an explorer has reached a camp in search of her father, Hermann Tate, who was lost in the area. They find him frozen to death, perfectly preserved and holding out a lost artifact in front of him - presumably of ancient origin.

Later, a storm is coming in and one of the cameramen is seeing black spots showing up in his camera - meaning something that is absolute cold is there. The next morning, their snowcat and radio are smashed and they find one of their party dead - and with a terrified look on his face.

Later on, another dies and Tate's daughter takes the ancinet artifact from the body. The two remaining alive retreat to an abandoned mineshack, and for a brief second, she sees a monster. She offers it the artifact, but it says that it wants her warmth.

Later on, their bodies are found with her holding out the artifact by more explorers who see black spots on their camera...

DK: I got a frisson of excitement upon seeing the names Arthur Wyatt and John Cooper in the credits box, and I’ll admit I recognized John Cooper’s artwork by the face of Hendrickson on page 1. I stopped flicking through my prog right then so as not to spoil the ending for myself, and made this the first story I read.

As a Terror Tale it was quite standard, but the writing and drawing both showed a lot of craft. The dialogue was good, and the movement of the characters between panels, locations and time periods was smooth. It had moments of real menace that would have worked very well in a 20-minute short film: the remains of Heston Tate, the shapes on the camera, the invisible monster’s footprints in the snow, Helen’s breath showing up the monster, etc.

Arthur Wyatt’s script adheres to the Terror Tale/Future Shock conventions of being recursive and cyclical, but therein lies the problem for me. I wanted more of a pay-off than the same thing happening again with Helen Tate being discovered by a new survey team in her grandfather’s place. What happens next? How many times? And why do the Hyperboreans want the explorers’ warmth, and how long does it last them? Is it sustainable, or does it just give them a bit of a buzz every decade or so?

Aside from the problem of a never-ending story that might see an endlessly growing pile of snowcats and survey planes accumulating around the Svalbard glacier, this was a good read, and as exciting a story as any other that appeared in this Prog, and it was very nice to see a strip drawn by John Cooper in 2000AD again.

Shuck was still working on the personalised onomatopoeia...

Elsewhere, in Essex, Shuck is uncovering the heart of the worm, which was never consecrated and it is thus still possible to revive it.

Jack is leaving to join the group - later than the rest - and his wife thinks he's having an affair. He shouts at his son before he realises what he's doing and leaves under a cloud. He gets a lift from Tommy Rawhead who has something to tell him.

Back in Essex, Shuck kills Kow as Jack has already told him about his email. He uses Kow's blood to help revive the beast. Jack arrives, using some eyes that Rawhead gave him to destroy Shuck - but it's too late, the worm has been revived...

DK: London Falling has created quite a stir, with the online readership hungry for information about the assorted folklore characters assembled by writer Simon Spurrier to populate this story of bogeymen run wild in modern day London.

Spurrier isn’t the first comics writer to transpose mythological, fairytale, folklore or literary characters to a real world setting, or team them up; but with Shuck's plan to take over the world, he’s come up with a different slant on the genre and a good and satisfying justification for it all. Jack Capelthwaite’s dual role of bogeyman and devoted father – who has a knack for making his kids’ bedroom safe from monsters so they can sleep soundly – is an inspired touch.

I can’t believe this is only 5 parts long; there must be more mileage in the idea than that. Whether this tale is complete in one volume or gets a sequel, I’m glad to have seen the back of Shuck, who was becoming very tiresome. But it occurs to me there are plenty of other characters left who we haven’t seen do their thing yet, and there’s only one more part to go.