2000AD Prog 1496 - 12 July 2006
	Judge Dredd (Spurrier / Marshall) Future Shock (Ewing / Bamforth) Go - Machine (Ewing / Elson) Red Seas (Edginton / Yeowell) Cover: Cliff Robinson

Synopsis by Gavin Hanly
1st opinion by Joseph Saxton
2nd opinion by Mike Nye

Summaries and reviews contain spoilers for this issue.

Cover Review

JS: Three progs after the last one we have another image formerly used as an advert. There’s nothing wrong with the image as such, but this strikes me as rather lazy, particularly as it gives no indication as to what’s inside and why you might want to buy it, surely the main purposes of a cover image.

MN: Firstly, let me just say that I really like this piece of artwork when it appeared as an ad a few weeks back, but to recycle it as a cover seems a bit cheap to me, especially when you consider that it follows on the heels of the alien family - another cover that has nothing whatsoever to do with this weeks content.

Neoweirdies - Part 1

Dredd gets camera shy...

Synopsis: The Neoweirdie awards are in swing and Citizen Snork - the one with the big nose - is complaining about the standard of contestants on a talk show - he's also one of the panel of experts deciding on the winner. He's being accompanied by Dredd who is acting as his bodyguard. Dredd thinks the Weirdies are being targeted by a maniac and his suspicions seem confirmed when they find one of the panel dead. Dredd decides to release the news of the death in the hopes of drawing out the murderer. However, one of the other panel members has already been targeted, Relivent Rheer. her judge bodyguard is killed and the seemingly faceless killer goes after Rheer - "let me teach you about art..."

JS: Spurrier’s lampoon of the modern art world is pretty much what you’d expect, wordy, witty and with an eye to detail. All very entertaining, but I tend to find humorous Dredds like this work best as one offs. I can see this getting quite annoying if it continues in the same vein next week. Hopefully it’ll shift focus to the crime more than the lampoon.

Paul Marshall’s art suits this sort of story well, light and cheerful to match a light-hearted story. He also makes good use of drawing the TV parts from the view of a camera as well as having fun with the neoweirdies. Touches like the graffiti and police cordon at Kowll’s murder are welcome. He draws good Dredd with a near perfect chin, the only problem being that the judge shot at Rheer’s apartment has the same chin (something that probably confused me more than it should’ve).

MN: Ah, I feel like a young man again! There's a very old school feel to this week's Dredd, what with the reintroduction of Citizen Snork and the pleasant return of Big Meg citizens acting like obsessive weirdoes over particular fads and fashions. While I'm not entirely sold on his Dredd, Spurrier seems to have a good handle on writing the Meg and it's cits, which is arguably more important.

Optimal

Not quite golden delicious...

Synopsis: A human diplomat visits the Quillan collective. He is introduced to Optimals, creatures who can metamorphose into anything. The humans start Optima factories, using them to create food and then moving onto construction, clothes and more.

But one day, the Optimals catch Reality Flu which makes the Optimals take on random configurations. Soon, the disease jumps species to humans and only those who have come into contact with Optimals in their raw state. But more people are contracting it and the disease slowly mutates and gets closer to Earth. The Quillans sense that if unchecked, the disease will bring down the Human empire and maybe more beyond. They send one last pulse to the Optimals to change them into a total absence of matter - and everything changes - making the world as it is today...

JS: When I first looked at this I thought: ’ugh, another culture clash Future Shock about superior aliens and stupid humans’ but I have to say I was very pleasantly surprised. As inevitable as the problems arising from the use of Optimals was, the gradual spread of reality flu depicted as diary entries gave a good sense of pace to the downward spiral that beats the hell out of sudden massive mutations and monsters.

Bamforth’s art is very capable with some nice pieces, such as the illustration of how reality flu weeds out the weak, and he gives a very acceptable future world depiction. Other nice touches employed in the story include the use of a different calendar for the diary entries and the serialised surnames of characters, both of which give nice separation from the world we know. This Future Shock is an excellent example of how well a story can be told in 5 pages and shows considerable mastery of script and art techniques that make it feel much longer than it is.

MN: This story seems to have divided opinion on the 2000AD messageboards. I have to say that I had to re-read it before the old brain got some sort of handle on what exactly was going on. That's a function of the fact that I've got used to skim reading Future Shocks, as the majority of them range from lightweight, fun filler to lightweight, awful filler. Al Ewing's script is overflowing with ideas and, even if I'm not convinced he's pulled them all together perfectly, it's good to see a one-off short story spark so much interest. Adrian Bamforth's art is excellent too.

Go Machine carnage...

After the fight, Keller has another operation to replace the eye he lost in the fight with a cybernetic one. He returns home to his disapproving wife and gets a visit from the Central Directorate. His last operation made him more than 60% cybernetics and is bow considered a robot and thus has no rights. He is to be destroyed as a dangerous weapon - but there's a way out if he wants it...

JS: It's hard to comment on this as its more of an introductory piece than the actual story. As the main character hardly speaks until the last page, we are introduced to prejudices that seem repugnant without knowing the character they are aimed at. The prejudices shown seem to be an interesting mix of racism and something akin to the old aristocratic attitude that the poor are poor as they don’t help themselves, again giving more room to manoeuvre than simple black and white racism.

Elson’s art is nice, suitably bloody in the fight and with particularly good consistency in faces. I am, however, amazed that a world so prejudiced against cyborgs allows yellow furniture in yellow rooms. This is one of the most intriguing intros I’ve read in a while because it’s left so wide open, I have literally no idea which route its going to take.

MN: Al Ewing's second script of the prog, and the man deserves a medal for taking taking one of the stodgiest lumps of cliché I've ever seen (a futuristic society where a fictitious minority is oppressed by the majority, a brutal future-sports tournament, a gruff, tough loner with the wife from Hell) and molding it into what looks like it might develop into a decent story.

While Richard Elson's art is always welcome in the prog, it's Ewing's ideas and scripting that lifts this strip above it's teeth-grindingly formulaic set-up: the commentator's remarks about cyborgs, the 60% rule and the comic-relief bureaucrat all stand out. The series could still go either way, but it's made a good start. It's also nice to see the criminally underrated WBA Supermiddlewight champ Mikkel Kessler get a bit more exposure over here in the build-up (hopefully) to his big fight with our very own Joe Calzaghe, even if it is in an imaginary future-sport with a slightly doctored name. For the record though, Al, I really don't think Kessler's style is that robotic...

The Hollow Land - Part 6

An old flame returns...

Synopsis: Isabella holds Dancer and his crew captive. His father insults her, and Dancer only just manages to prevent her having him killed. Isabella tells him that when Orlando Doyle held her prisoner and dangled her above his crew, she vowed never to be vulnerable again. When she returned, she found her father, Black Francis who sold her mother's soul in return for power, and asked him to teach her black arts. He refused, so she kept him tortured in a miniaturised cage, while she scoured the earth learning more of the black arts, and eventually reaching this world "Kor, home to a slumbering god and the means to make worlds!".

Now she needs Jack to help her, and to offer an incentive, she kills Jim. The crew attack in response, but Isabella stops them in their tracks. She says she needs Jack & his crew to steer the ship up to the Pendant Moon, which will have enough power to bring Jim back from the dead while Erebus gets his soul back from the hereafter. Jack has no choice but to agree...

JS: Edginton’s writing finally returns to full force after it picked up a bit last week, showing just how sharp the dialogue is in this series. It’s also nice to finally have direction in this run, rather than just running around on a vague mission of assassination. However, As good as this episode is, episode six of a series is too late to introduce the plot, particularly as everything was quite neatly set up at the end of the last series.

Steve Yeowell’s art is as good as ever, though Isabella with her tongue out could’ve been a bit more elegant and I was rather confused as to who the bloke in the cage was, as it didn’t really look like Black Francis. I’m also pretty sure that Jim had long hair in the last prog. But I’’m just nitpicking, a good episode of Red Seas that benefited from being double length, plot exposition is best handled whole.

MN: This current arc has really started to get going in the last few episodes after what was, despite some remarkable battle scenes in the opening installment, a relatively slow start. It's good to see it back to it's entertaining, romping self. The backstory on Isabella filled in some holes too.