2000AD Prog 1499 - 02 August 2006
	Judge Dredd (Spurrier / Doherty) Future Shock (Ewing / Townshend) Red Seas (Edginton / Yeowell) Harry Kipling (Spurrier / Cook) Cover: Dom Reardon

Synopsis by Gavin Hanly
1st opinion by John Amans
2nd opinion by Jordan Smith

Summaries and reviews contain spoilers for this issue.

Cover Review

JA: I must say that this is one of those real non-descript covers. Why didn’t Boo Cook draw this and add his usual palette of lovely colours - this looks a bit scrappy and rushed and I know Dom Reardon can do better. But then again this is a filler end of season prog!

JS: I couldn't believe it when I opened up this prog, wondering who did this great cover for Harry Kipling. Dom Reardon!? It doesn't look anything like his art at all! I even skipped back to my first few progs to compare his work on Caballistics Inc and this. I just couldn't spot any similarity whatsoever! So this is his work in paints is it? Very nice, although I'd like to point out that Harry Kipling should be blue (it doesn't matter anyway, I suppose). It's one brilliantly dark cover and that's all that needs to be said. Good job Dom!

Versus

Running rings around Rico...

Synopsis: Perp Gregor Batista has broken into Mega City through the south wall, and is causing mayhem. Both Dredd and Rico say they'll take the case and Control gives the job to them both - laying a bet on which one will catch the perp first.

The perp leads Rico on a chase through Mega City One, while Dredd looks into people connected with Batista's past. Rico eventually corners Batista in a warehouse, but it's too late as Dredd was already waiting inside and brings the perp to justice. Rico orders SJS to investigate a waste of resources in control as, once they put Dredd on the case, "anyone else was wasting their time."

JA: Ah the great filler Dredd episode. The fact that this was drawn by one of my favourite Dredd artists, Peter Doherty, gave me hope as I’ve seen a couple of these turn out to be real duffers. The story is a little “throwaway” but who care as it’s a glorified chase episode which is stripped of dialogue and instead relies on visuals. Sometimes the simplicity of stories like this really shine through and its like the equivalent of watching a pop video, utterly pointless but hugely entertaining given the circumstances of the prog it is sitting within. Ok, its not one of those classic single Dredd episodes, but then they’re few and far between nowadays and are saved up for mid season not at the “fag end” of the season.

Short, sharp and to the point as well as being well drawn and scripted, can’t complain really.

JS: Why don't some people like this week's story? Is it the lack of dialogue? I didn't find that a problem at all. In fact, I thought it worked rather nicely. It's a relief to see Simon Spurrier not being overly wordy although I'm personally happy either way. And who gives a damn if Dredd and Rico look the alike? I think that's what Simon Spurrier hoped would happen. I think it was this man's intention to confuse you so that you'd go back and read it (or just think about what's going on) and understand! I understood perfectly well what was going on. It ain't that hard to understand! Dredd gathers clues and eventually corners him at the warehouse. Rico on the other hand chases him to the very end. Was that hard? I thought not.

Loved the layout of the panels this week as well. Brilliantly set out. And I was glad to see the SJS judges at the end of this tale - always liked those guys. Artwise, I'm happy to see that this was a two man show of the mighty Simon Spurrier and Peter Doherty whom I've only seen as a colourist way back in Prog 2006. And now he's the artist, colourist and letterer all rolled up in one! He done a great job too - don't know how he pulled off this, to some people, confusing tale! Poor bugger...

The Magi breed contempt...

However, the humans instead use the DNA to produce a retrovirus. Fed up of being told how to live their lives by the Magi, they instead wipe them out and take over their world...

JA: Standard end of season filler part 2, Future Shocks/Terror Tales episode blah blah blah. It’s a basic pastiche of superhero and stinging commentary on drug companies/ governments and science as well as a rather poisonous assessment of mankind. Ok, the art is functional and you sort of knew what was going to happen but in the same way that Dredd is the pop video story, this is like a funny advertisement that is quite entertaining and despite being stuffed in an ad-break for an incredibly dull piece of TV, it does its job without making us think that this prog is in fact a total waste of space and wonder why didn’t they give The Red Seas an extra 3 pages!

Shallow, meaningless, but entertaining.

JS: After the sudden end of Go-Machine last prog, Al Ewing's back with artist Lee Townsend. My thoughts in one word? It's iffy. And by that I mean, what if there was a different artist? What if the superhero dudes didn't look so gay? What if Go-Machine had continued to be a four parter and took this Future Shock's place? I think that would've been the better thing to do. Make Go-Machine five pages longer somehow and I would have been very pleased indeed. And this here prog would have four good stories. There was another option. Use Richard Elson again, please!I just hate this art. I didn't like the way the superheroes were drawn. With their stupid big smiles and garish costumes and other irritating stuff! Not too happy with the choice of colours either. It just makes it look worse - far too bright for my liking.

Okay, so you now know I hate the art. Story? Brilliant. Perhaps the only thing I enjoyed about this apart from that cool last page. They totally deserved that! The story to me is clearly the best story for a Future Shock in quite a while. Art just holds it back making it an annoying read. But the story is well worth it. Great and kinda sad. I think this is the kind of thing that would happen if people from a perfect world came to ours and saw the suffering, murder and other crimes. So very sad. <Sniff!> A truly brilliant story but not that art!

The Hollow Land - Part 9 (Conclusion)

Hnau takes Jim's place...

Synopsis: The sphere appears to be a machine and introduces itself as a "Hnau-caste world engine" and tells its story...

The alien Seroni came from the planet Mars - sending their worldship to Earth to hide. The ship smashed into Earth creating a huge crater, which the world engine then healed over and created a new world in the centre of the earth. It hatched labourers - the dinomen - to look after the world and then created new life to replace the Seroni who had died in the crash.

Bill asks the machine if it can bring Jim back to life, but it refuses. However, Isabella goads it into doing something to help and it resurrects Jim by taking over his body. However, Isabella uses this to torture Hnau through the body it now inhabits. She says that she wants the world, so Hnau gives it to her. He sends her back to Mars, where she appears to die, suffocating and surrounded by huge spider-like monsters.

The mission now over, Jack Dancer appears maudlin, especially when he thinks of all his crew that have died over the years. He brings Jim back to Tom who realises that his son is dead and that "thing" doesn't replace him. Dancer Snr decides to stay in the new world and act as companion to Hnau - while the others leave. They can feel change in the air...

JA: While sitting in the cinema watching Pirates of the Caribbean pt 2 I couldn’t help but thinking is Part 3 is going end up being like the Red Seas? Trips to the under world to recover Captain Jack’s soul……..seen all of that voodoo, black magic somewhere before haven’t I? Well, the Red Seas current story arc is nicely wrapped up this prog. I sort of lost real interest in this a while ago. It’s just been a little underwhelming and a little predictable. Steve Yeowell’s art is as good as ever but in places looks a little rushed and lacking detail. I suggest it might have been a good idea to have this whole underworld section of the story in colour to make it really different from the other series. It all ended nicely with evil Isabella on Mars being ripped to bits by squidgy martians (is that a nod to the War of the Worlds I see?) and the crew lamenting the death of Jim.

If the Red Seas does return, let’s do something different please Mr Edginton. This was good but is now facing a real possibility of ending up repeating itself into terminal decline.

JS: Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't this an adventure story about pirates? So why has it decided to turn sci-fi with aliens and the like? It's still great, but as an adventure story it's brilliant stuff. I don't want to hear about Mars and aliens in a story like this! And I certainly don't want to see anything close to The War of the Worlds again which had a tripod like thing on page eight! Although I'm sure we'll see them again one day anyway - Isabella ain't dead yet methinks!

Other stuff I feel that's worth mentioning as well is the "new Jim". I'd have loved to see this dude again with the Hnau guy inside him. That'd be my favourite character instead of Bill. But Ian Edington has made his decision and no more Jim or Tom or Simeon will be seen again. Well, at least for the time being...Hint hint? On the subject of art I think Steve Yeowell has done an excellent job throughout this story and is now one of my favourite artists. Not so good in colour as seen in Heist, he dominates the world of black and white! Let's hope we'll see more of The Red Seas later this year huh?

Something For Nothing - Part 3

Kipling, not entirely 'armless...

Synopsis: The fighters of NAM attack the Flockies, but Kipling knocks down their leader, who tells him that Kipling has betrayed them. Kipling kills him before he can get off a shot. The damage has been done, however, and the great Orunmula has shrunk down to a sickly size. Kipling asks where the pink disks appeared from. They appear ot be some sort of drug left by a man called "Hermy" or "Hermat".

Later, Kipling identifies the problem on the planet - that the Athiesm and denial has brought on an Anti-god, which has driven the NAM group insane. Later still, Kipling tells Neesha that throughout the galaxy, it's only the Humans who have brought about the gods...

JA: Firstly I must say that I like Boo Cook’s art, if one thing is for sure, his colour- packed frames suit the story. I like the characters, I like the script, and I like the dialogue. Why don’t I go a bundle on this then? I should like it but it’s just that it has been a little bitty and just not enough to grab me and really grip my attention. I’ve reread this and tried to get into it, but every-so-often something comes along which despite good artwork and a good script is just not for me. To me it was just a little too stop/start from the beginning and just didn’t have enough oomph!

Not bad and it has its fans its just not done not tickled my fancy, apologies for M’Frog talk!

JS: This is one of those stories that gets better by each story, either because of its incredible art or because it's an extremely fun story! This clearly gets better either way. The art is always improving - Boo Cook is clearly the best choice for this and I just hope to god they don't change this story's artist. It's like Lobster Random - I'd be devastated if they replaced Carl Critchlow with a different artist.

As for the story, Mr. Spurrier, you're makin' me proud! Where in the name of god did you come up with the idea behind this? Where in gods name did you come up with the idea behind your other creations? They all rock! Keep this up for a long time and you'll be my fave writer for may years to come!