2000AD Prog 1497 - 19 July 2006
	Judge Dredd (Spurrier / Marshall) Harry Kipling (Spurrier / Cook) Go - Machine (Ewing / Elson) Red Seas (Edginton / Yeowell) Cover: D'israeli

Synopsis by Robert Cornell
1st opinion by James Mackay
2nd opinion by Adam Crabtree

Summaries and reviews contain spoilers for this issue.

Cover Review

JM: My first impression of this was that it would have been a great cover, if only the Jimp would get out of the way. That’s Judge Impersonator, grexnixes! Dredd has no nose, the chin is ridiculously extended, and the helmet far too round. But, but, but… I have to admit that it’s a grower. Although the stupendously detailed crowd behind him is great, they do need the focus provided by the judge. More than that, the elongation and stylization of Dredd’s face makes a point. Though the citizens all like to think they’re wierd (and isn’t it great that D’Israeli bothered to look at Paul Marshall’s designs?), the dehumanised, grim figure sneering down on them is in many ways the weirdest the Meg has to offer…

AC: Initally a bit of an eyesore, this grows on you like lichen on a locker room floor. While Dredd does look like Super Mario might come along and make off with his head (‘shroom crazy plumbers are a real problem in Mega City One) and he’s generally rather wonkily constructed, the background boasts all the sophistication and polish we’ve come to expect from D’Israeli.

Neoweirdies - Part 2

Death by transexualism...

Synopsis: Dredd arrives with two other judges at the apartment of Relivent Rheer to find that she has dealt with the masked intruder. The would-be assassin gets free and jumps through the window, before exploding! It seems his mission was a success after all: Rheer is dead. She had been injected with a mutagen that turned her into a man. In shock, she freaked out and swallowed her tongue.

The judges theorise that the killer was a lone kook. This theory is disproved when yet another contestant is murdered. Imelda Flebclunq died when her main equation was solved.

Outside the studio, Neoweirdie fans are becoming angry. Inside, James Snork is furious with his fellow panellists as they give high marks to pretentious contestants with no genuine weirdness. After a false alarm with a stage hand, Dredd decides the studio is not secure enough to protect the panellists – and arrests the entire neoweirdie show for "incitement to murder."

JM: Spurrier has really got the knack of writing a good Dredd story down: don’t write about Dredd. Wagner has the character development all sewn up, other writers’ amazing insights into Dredd’s psyche tend to go down like a bucket of cold sick, and – hey, isn’t that a Mega-City over there? With loads of interesting stories to be told that barely involve the big man?

The wierdies series also showcases another reason that he’s become such a firm part of the pantheon of great 2000AD writers (currently: Wagner, Grant, Mills, Smith, (Robbie) Morrison, Rennie, Spurrier): his influences come firmly from outside the rather unhealthily introspective world of comics and sci-fi. This satirical combination of the Newsnight Review, Turner Prize and the Cowell-style TV “talent” show isn’t incredibly good, belonging more in the category of ‘fun-but-forgettable’ than ‘essential’, but it has the quality that all the good Dredd stories have, of opening up brand-new vistas in a world that you thought you knew.

Paul Marshall and Chris Blythe turn in a good job of realising some difficult visuals, but I can’t help missing the days that Marshall coloured his own artwork.

AC: So, we come to the second hit of Simon Spurrier’s Neo-urbanistic uber media satire on the relationship betwixt the artistic flair of a pioneering fashionista (a), and the dire endeavours of the conked out (if you’ll pardon the post ironic punnery) exhibitionist (b). Spurrier’s typical dexterity of wordplay is present, though we get a welcome activity holiday in Brighton from his familiar usagés of dense narration. I feel the perspectives of our Monsieur Snork augmenting the piece would not quite have the same feel as Lobster Random’s commentary in that strip; indeed the device’s utilisation seems to bring out the sadistic, anarchising lib-fascist in Spurrier, and he seems to have set out to make the Snork the nice guy in this scenario.

Special mention to Paul Marshall, he of Leatherjack; I initially had some trouble placing the name of the artist, but a look at the distinctive way he renders the Judges, showcased in the recent Meg one shot Culling Time (nice perspective of small helmets to large bodies without making them look bizarre) and with art this colourful and dynamic, the autocue must ask what is he trying to prove?

The story itself works well as a sideswipe at the modern art world and at the basic human impulse to shock, and Spurrier is crafting a diverting and intelligently fun tale, with this week’s instalment ending with a classically Dredd moment… we’re all terribly disappointed in him… I give it nine out of ten.

Something For Nothing - Part 1

Leesha falls in with the right crowd...

Synopsis: Harry Kipling and his companions have crash landed on a desolate rain swept planet. Harry has been separated from the others.

Neesha, Flux and Makk are rescued by a group calling themselves the New Atheist Militia. They warn that there are “flockies,” Devil-god worshipping savages, about. Leesha agrees to go with them.

Meanwhile, Harry is captured by the Flockies, thanks to some beastly behaviour.

At the NAM headquarters, Leesha is offered a meal, passing a potentially deadly test when she doesn’t offer a prayer before starting to eat, proving she isn’t a spy. When she tells them she is with Harry Kipling they are awestruck but still tell her there is no point attempting a rescue mission. “If the savages have him… he’s already dead.”

Harry is brought before Ornumila the Wise.

JM: To make yourself a Harry Kipling series, take 3 parts clichéd British caricature, 2 parts religious satire (make sure you choose a lo-fat sort of satire that won’t actually upset anyone, mostly involving gods not likely to be worshipped by your predominantly English fanbase), and sprinkle with basic zombie jokes. Add in a Standard Variation #2 spunky heroine and stir. Leave to cool overnight in a fridge alongside some diluted Terry Pratchett. In the morning, remove half the jokes, but substitute with an artist so talented he’s capable of almost making Dead Men Walking look good. Slice and serve.

Just as has been the case all along with this series, there’s nothing actually wrong with this particular tranche of Kipling: it’s just that the writer is capable of so much more. The way to spot a believer is pretty funny, but it’s always bad when you reach the end and immediately start thinking how something could be improved. More Eton mess than Queen of Puddings, I’m afraid.

AC: Another all too small blast of Harry Kipling; I’m in two minds about the continuing briefness of these excursions into the remnants of the Neo-Brittanic Empire. On the one hand, I can see how this strip, as truly ingenious as I think it is, might become wearing with its pseudo-Imperialistic central character and on the other, I can also see how I could listen to the crazy old goat go on forever about E.G. in the middle of a fight with alien deities.

There is no shortage of incredible ideas on display from our young Mister Spurrier, so deservedly prominent in the weekly and Megazine these days, the latest being NAM, the New Atheists’ Militia, adding more of a human element to the wild and spaced out proceedings, and making the whole thing seem less like some crazy fever dream. It’s telling that while other areas of the Galaxy’s Greates lapse into the iciness that dogs the sci-fi genre, you can actually care about the characters when they’ve been shot down over an alien world, and wish you too were there to comfort Klux in his distress.

Still, what’s all this about drugs and suppliers? Are we on the mean streets of Miami now?

Boo Cook’s art is a class act. It’s absolutely stunning and that’s all there is to it.

The Go-machine takes a beating...

However, in the first fight, Mikel hasn’t used the device and is losing heavily. Two nearby guards are disgusted with the spectacle but also distracted enough not to notice a nearby robot. It kills them both.

JM: Goodness, but I had a lot of prejudices to get over before I started this series. Al Ewing is a small-press god known for far-out, Beat-Generation inspired scripts and his insanely whacky humour. But none of that is on display on this tight little series. And nothing drawn by Richard Elson has ever grabbed my attention: in my head, he’s filed under “dull-but-very-competent”.

So you can see that there was great potential for me to be disappointed by this first 2000AD series from a writer I rate very highly for his previous work. But once you get past that fact that it’s not Revenge of the Alien Go-Go Disco Hepcats, it should be said straight away that this may turn out to be 2000AD’s best attempt at a “future sports” story for years: Second City Blues was fun but too zany for its own good; Killer was, with the greatest respect, bloody dreadful; the less said about Mean Arena and Babe Race 2000 the better. But by going back to the spirit of the very early sports strips, by writing with enormous skill and control (get the way that not just each episode, but every single page ends on a cliff-hanger!), and by keeping the plot moving along at a great pace, I think that Ewing may just have cracked the formula. Elson, meanwhile, has added new colours to his palette, and produced two images (the last ones on pages 4 and 5 respectively) that are absolutely top-class.

AC: This is very clearly going to be a tiny midget of a story; things are moving at light speed in Al Ewing’s mini-epic of future prize fighting. With the central concepts being speedily and sturdily set up in last week’s opener, we follow Ewing’s cipher of a protagonist as he faces the fall of his integrity for the chance to return to normal life. Already we’re building to something of a pitch, being thrown straight into the central conceit AND our hero’s dilemma and how he responds to it AND the counter measures that intrude on the existing set-up (in the form of the robots fighting back).

It’s truly fascinating to watch; with much of the potential one shot material being spun out into tales of two or three instalments nowadays, particularly in Judge Dredd, Ewing just gets straight in there and, no messing, tells a vibrant story with speed and great relish. Simon Spurrier has some competition on his hands as the big ideas man. Legendary artist Richard Elson brings his uniquely colourful yet credible skills to Go Machine, and though his faces do still look a little monkey like, there is no denying the proficiency involved.

The Hollow Land - Part 7

Isabella takes it easy...

Synopsis: Jack is suspicious about Isabella’s claim she can bring Jim back to life. He threatens that he will kill her if she’s lying. She doesn’t seem concerned.

The attraction of the Moon is so strong that the ship is lifted from the ocean. Soon, they are close enough to see its surface. "That's no moon!" Jack realises. It is obviously an artificial construction. The crew find an entrance and go inside, pasings several misshapen humanoid statues on the way. The Moon contains many marvels including thousands of dead Ma’Hars in glass spheres. The Ma'Hars are also artificial. The crew find another creature, apparently an angel. While they speculate about its origin, the “statues” are coming to life…

JM: From memory, I think that the last series to get this treatment of squishing it up into several double-length episodes was the unlamented Valkyries, which made me wonder whether Tharg might possibly think of this series of the Red Seas as also being something he wants to get out of the way as soon as possible. But clearly this can’t be the case: Yeowell and Edginton, a fantastic team in any case, are really pulling the stops out on this one. What is so great is the sense of the team somehow daring each other on – Edginton coming up with ever more insanely off-the-wall scenarios to draw, Yeowell achieving the feat with such ease that he spurs his writer into yet further upping of the ante. Sailing ships battling in mid-air, 18th-century robot dogs – sorry, two-headed robot dogs – highly evolved dinosaurs and now dead alien angels and gigantic moons inside the Earth. What’s next I can’t imagine, but this is a series that hasn’t put a foot wrong since its inception so I have every faith.

AC: Another double length instalment ahoy; Tharg is rewarding us with these exceptional instalments in the ongoing supernatural pirate saga. After the previous week’s continuity heavy recap of that which has gone before (which did a nice job of summing things up for more recent readers; a good writer knows the value of this), we are deep in intrigue with a rich pulpy background of magic, mystery and dinosaurs to feed the imagination, combining endearingly foul mouthed savviness with an innocence and a purity that could feed the imagination of the most starry eyed child. This makes Red Seas an outcrop of unadulterated fun and excitement in a sea of darkness and sometimes all-too-cleverness of many contemporary thrills.

Ian Edington’s infinitely lovable characters are dutifully serviced by Steve Yeowell’s art, which looks to be made of sterner stuff than in previous weeks (probably due to some of the solid blacks on show), expertly crafting giant set pieces of gob smacking audacity and creativity while also managing the capture the emotional implications of events.