2000AD Prog 1510 - 18 October 2006
	Judge Dredd (Wagner / Ezquerra) Chiaroscuro (Spurrier / Smudge) 86ers (Rennie / Holden) Harry Kipling (Spurrier / Cook) Sinister Dexter (Abnett / Williams) Synopsis by Gavin Hanly 1st opinion by Ryan Hickling 2nd opinion by Marcus Nyahoe Summaries and reviews contain spoilers for this issue. Cover: John Higgins

Cover Review

RH: Quite a tasty cover this week, though I’m slightly unsure on whether or not it actually relates to anything in this week's Dredd strip. Still, lovely artwork. I've always liked a bit of John Higgins work, especially the colours. Oh, and huzzah to Tharg, it seems our demands for logos that are not covered up with drawings have been met! Hurrah!

MN: There have been some good covers his year, but unfortunately this is not one of them. A good cover should make a title stand out on a shelf, and entice the reader inside. This does neither. The sickly green hues that make up much of the picture ensure that it will remain unseen on amongst the hordes of other magazines in the newsagents. It is also unlikely that anybody is going to be intrigued enough to want to read a story which seems to be about Dredd being stalked by the freaky looking kids from Bonnie Tyler’s Total Eclipse of the Heart video.

Origins - Part 6 - The New Deal

Dredd decides to antagonize the fanboys...

Synopsis: Dredd and the other judges continue watching the potted history of Fargo. It shows him excelling at both American Football and Law at university before turning his hand to politics. Fargo uses his position as Government Special Prosecutor for Street Crime to attack the lawlessness that has infected the country - even the White House is attacked by gangs and the President only just whisked to safety. Hundreds are arrested following this incident, but through intimidation and murder, most of them are freed.

Fargo says that it is time to take instant justice to the streets, but senators are appalled by this idea. But the public didn't agree, and once President Gurney was returned with a massive majority and bill went through, as the protections in the constitution were replaced with a stringent new Judicial Code. Fargo set up training centres to train the first batch of judges, with Academies coming later which would take 5 years to train future judges. By April 2031, Fargo was appointed the first Chief Judge and led his judicial force onto the streets.

At this point Dredd orders the curator to switch off the film. He says that it has been doctored and that all mention of Ephram Fargo, Fargo's twin brother had been left out. The curator says that he is forbidden from mentioning the name - but under pressure from Dredd says that he was kicked out of town as he went bad. Logan suggests to Dredd that the tissue sample they received could be Ephram's and they head outside. However, they are immediately surrounded by the townsfolk. Logan is shot and the townsfolk decide that Dredd must pay for defiling the memory of Fargo...

RH: Well, Origins is turning out to be quite the thriller indeed, lovely artwork, always nice to get a treat from Ezquerra, and this week is no exception. Still not too sure where John’s going with this storyline, but a good read nevertheless, and it's interesting to see the history laid out with some great storytelling.

The only improvements that I could think of would be speeding it up a bit so we can have another 20 issues of madcap, extreme and excessively pointless violence. A man can dream.

MN: I seem to be in the minority, but I feel that the Origins saga has been resolutely awful up to now. It has felt lazy, and you can’t help but feel that if different names were in the credit box, this would have been absolutely panned. This issue is much better, although it still is a long way from the quality expected. Some of this may be down to the storytelling problems that have dogged the previous five instalments, such as the lack of anything resembling a personality for the accompanying judges, not helped by Ezquerra’s almost perverse attempts to virtually never show the name badges.

Having said that, Carlos Ezquerra is much improved in this issue, particularly with the page designs for the four pages with Dredd watching the film. Unfortunately this improvement is not matched by the writer as Dredd continues to act out of character, together with strange behaviour from Logan on the last page, when he appears to be going for his gun for no reason other than to move the plot to the next scene. It’s difficult to review one part of an ongoing storyline in isolation, but at the moment this just feels like a very thin plot dictating the actions of the characters and stretched out way too far. That’s a fairly damning indictment when you’re only six instalments in.

Elvy gets nowhere...

Elvy flashes back to think about his father who was obsessed with furthering his position in the film industry at the expense of looking after his family. His father died the day after the young Elvy caught him sleeping with one of his actresses and told him that he hated him.

Back in the present, Elvy goes through his father's stuff and tries to track down the crew of Chiaroscuro, which his father was financing. He can't seem to find any of them until he meets up with Slim again who identifies one of them - Dianne Jones, a sound recorder who now works for the Vatican. They need to go to Italy to find her.

RH: Not bad, it’s getting there. What this story lacks is a femme fatale. The artwork's not bad, though. It would look a lot better in something like Rogue Trooper, but it’s still impressive, especially the dripping liquids from the fat mans mouth, and on that note, let’s stop talking about the artwork…

So yes, the story wasn’t great, not bad as it has me interested, but only slightly. As mentioned, this story needs a femme fatale as I'm not happy with his sidekick being a grubby death enthusiast. The only real problem I’d touch upon is the fact we’re given all this information that his father is in some way connected with snuff movies, and some mystical force is killing people off, but it fails to hook people as the character is an unknown to readers. A bad start might be a good finish.

MN: Ever get the feeling a writer’s spreading himself too thinly? Simon Spurrier was the fastest rising star on the comic at one point, but just recently he seems to be everywhere, and his work appears to be suffering as a consequence. Chiaroscuro is a case in point. It’s not a bad strip, and is technically well executed. In this instalment some of Anthony Elvy’s back-story is revealed without it feeling like the story is being held up. Smudge does a good job of getting the story across (although he seems to have wasted a good opportunity to show what he is really capable of in the flashback scenes – rather than frame these in something that makes the reader gasp, he settles for some vague lines. Even framing the panels with filmcans would have been more interesting).

It’s all very fine, but I’m just left with a feeling of “so what”. I don’t care about the main character, nobody else has much of a character, and the whole affair feels like somebody has bee watching Ring and Videodrome back-to-back.

Interference - Part 3

Something for the future...

Synopsis: 3 years ago, Becca Hunter is being reprimanded for firing on an surrendered enemy vessel, but she only says that they were "Norts and deserved to die".

In the present day, the attack on the Nort raider continues. Hunter beats the Norts to the ship, and is ordered not to destroy it. This time she obeys, only disabling it. However, the raider self-destructs anyway as it clearly wanted to keep something quiet (probably the Nort that was ejected into the citadel).

Back to 3 years ago, we learn that Hunter's death sentence has been revoked and that Colonel Kovert has recruited her to help him.

MN: This story finishes rather abruptly in this issue, with a very dissatisfied feeling. Nothing seems resolved, and the reader is left with the impression that this has just been cut off, rather like trying to fit an album that’s forty five minutes and thirty seconds long onto one side of a cassette (back in the days before mp3s). However, I’m hesitant to criticise Gordon Rennie for this as it was exactly this feeling I had with the early Cab Inc stories. You feel that he’s building to something that will be very satisfying given time.

PJ Holden’s inconsistent artwork on this continues. There are times when his dogfights read extremely clearly, and times when you just can’t make head nor tail of what is going on. If he could just get this sorted out he could turn into a 2000AD favourite.

The Hitman and Hermoth - Part 2

Klux stays behind...

Synopsis: Kipling disguises himself to get taken aboard Hermoth's ship, but Neela tells him that he has to leave all his weapons behind. The bird god has to smuggle them in whole Klux remains behind to keep an eye on him. As they are taken up to the ship Neela wonders what they do with all the humans. Kipling reckons that it's a status symbol for other gods but Neela isn't so sure. They soon escape, however, and start exploring the ship. After arguing, they are soon caught by a troup of Norse gods...

RH: An excellent shot of thrill-power from the Kippers. Amidst all the mumblings of how to trump gods, this was a great episode, Artwork was forever excellent, and there were some killer lines, even if there was not too much of an exciting story. However, the real winner was the artwork, courtesy of Boo Cook. Looking forward to seeing more.

MN: Sorry but I can’t review this properly. I stopped reading after the second page. This is what I mean about Simon Spurrier spreading himself too thinly. There’s nothing to this. The plot is just too boring and the characters fail to engage on any level, which is a shame because the very first glimpse we got of Harry Kipling (was it earlier this year) promised much.

All of this would be bearable if it wasn’t for some of the worst artwork to grace the prog since its mid-nineties nadir. Simply put, I have no idea what is going on. Boo Cook, after showing some signs of genuine improvement has slipped back into artistic illegibility. This strip just takes too much effort to read with no cerebral payoff whatsoever.

Places to go, People to do - Part 3

Kal lends a hand...

Synopsis: Kutter and Broadus meet the Mover. The Mover is interested in the whereabouts of Sinister and Dexter. Croak personally hates them - even though they are supposedly dead. Kutter asks the Mover if he is Moses Tenenbaum. The Mover confirms it but also says that he has used a D Jump to move from an alternate reality. He bought the rights to the technology from a scientist called Rampton and used it to find another Downlode - that was ripe for exploitation. He's called the Mover because he moved to this Downlode. Both Croak and Moses never died in their realities, but Sinister and Dexter did.

Later Broadus makes it clear that he believes none of it, but Kutter feels it might be the truth. They head for somewhere to eat and as Broadus goes the the toilet, Sinister sits down in his place...

RH: What the hell, just when you think you know where you stand with your favourite world of gangsters and hitmen, then it’s gone and spoiled with cross dimensional villains. I kid! I kid! The plot was a bit dodgy but on the whole, but as a fan of over the top plot twists, I found it rather entertaining. The artwork was simplistic, but luckily, it fits well with Sin/Dex. All I hope is the next part has a lot more madcap violence and drunken hilarity.

MN: In all honesty, this is probably the only strip I’m really enjoying in the prog at the moment. I wasn’t too sure about Anthony Williams to start with, but he does a great job here, his work seeming very cartoony but managing to make Moses Tenenbaum extremely intimidating, mainly by his use of heavy shadow and the page layouts on page two, where we see Moses dark, almost unflinching expression in close up all down the right hand side of the page. Dan Abnett cleverly fills in any new readers on what has been going on, without boring those of us who have been with following the story for some time.

Kal’s loyalty to Sinister and Dexter was quite touching, and it’s going to be interesting to see what happens next after Finnigan surprises him in the bar.