2000AD Prog 1516 - 29 November 2006
	Judge Dredd (Wagner / Ezquerra) Chiaroscuro (Spurrier / Smudge) Sinister Dexter (Abnett / Williams) The Red Seas (Edginton / Yeowell) Nikolai Dante (Morrison / Fraser) Synopsis by Gavin Hanly 1st opinion by James Mackay 2nd opinion by Stephen Watson Summaries and reviews contain spoilers for this issue. Cover: Simon Fraser

Cover Review

JM: Even though it exaggerates the rather less action-packed confrontation it portrays, this is still one of my covers of the year for its sheer dynamism.  From Dante’s dramatic entrance to the power and menace of the cyberorganibot (or whatever Khara’s meant to have become) to the naked desperation of the Tsar, this is a seamless whole that recalls some of the great covers of long ago.  Top covering for a top prog. 

SW: This dynamic Simon Fraser cover has a lot going for it. It’s an unusual perspective with Dante in the distance and Khara drowning the Tsar in the foreground. The image has a sense of urgency and movement and certainly would warrant a second look from the casual browser. Working against it is the sketchy art especially Dante’s boots, and the fact the events never actually took place in the issue. The  ‘Falling Tsar’ tagline doesn’t work unless you accept that the Tsar is falling into the bath, except he isn’t as the baddie doesn’t actually get her claws on him in the story. The pros and cons balance out to make this a decent but unexceptional cover.

Origins - Part 12 - Firestorm

The end of the world...

Synopsis: As Dredd and the other judges take shelter from a firestorm, he continues his story - starting from 2068 when Booth was elected president.

Booth sent out troops to secure supplies of oil for the nation, immediately precipitating a world crisis and getting condemnation from all countries (with the exception of Brit Cit which was reluctant to act against its ally). The judges did not interfere, despite Booth's growing megalomania, as they had no legal right. In 2070 Special Advisor Arnold Benedict was found dead in the White House catfish pool - originally thought to be suicide, but would prove to be murder with a trail that led back to Booth.

Meanwhile, Goodman called together the Chief Judges of the 3 American Mega Cities. They argue over what they should do with Booth, but during the meeting Booth announces that he has launched the first missiles. The war had begun...

JM :Only John Wagner, given the chance to produce a great, sprawling epic, would write it as a masterpiece of compression.  Here are some of the things that make this episode great.  The letter “L”, as in “Robert L. Booth” – remind you of any other President with a prominent middle initial?  The catfish in Booth’s pond – just one word gets across so much characterization.  The echo of the suicide of Vincent Foster to make it more even-handed.  The Brit-Cit adherence to the special relationship.  The word “goulash” – just beautifully random.  An action story, a satire on current events, a moral condemnation of America… in just 27 panels. 

Ezquerra’s integration of photography is often a bit jarring for my tastes, but he just about gets away with that last panel.  The flaming dog-vulture’s a beaut, though.

SW: After what, to me at least, was a shaky start Origins has gathered pace in recent weeks with this episode the best to date. Clearly Wagner had a story to tell and the narrative device of the Cursed Earth mission is a good one. It would have been dull to tell it documentary style and I’m prepared to accept Dredd suddenly becoming a chatty Cathy if it gets the job done.

Clearly, kinks in the timeline have to be ironed out and the near suicide and suspended animation of Fargo will allow him to be in charge further down the line. There is a sense of things being shoehorned in, but I’m sure that’s partly due to us being familiar with the established story. I am looking forward to seeing the battle of Armageddon and the Judd revolt in due course, as well as the surprises no doubt kept in reserve.

The proliferation of speech bubbles is necessary to relay so many significant events, but it does slow the flow meaning the enjoyment level isn’t as high as the action fuelled mega epics such as ‘The Apocalypse war’. That said it is clearly a work of greatness and sets Dredd history on strong foundations that will sweep away previous doubts.

‘Bad’ Bob Booth is rather sketchily painted as a nut and it may have been better to further explore his motivations. Fair enough he has his defence screens but even the most rabid right winger would think twice before starting a war. The parallels to current world events are obvious although not quite as blatant as the recent ‘Regime Change’ in the Megazine. Booth was last seen in ‘real time’ during the original ‘Cursed Earth’ saga and he seemed quite contrite then - what changed? Hopefully time and Wagner will tell.

Although he gets no chance to grand stand in this episode Carlos Ezquerra’s art is of it’s usual high standard, although that final page of the World’s monuments ablaze looks like a collage put together by some school kids.

All in all Origins is the best Dredd since The Pit and it goes higher in my estimations with each passing episode.

Elvy searches for answers ...

Synopsis: Elvy heads out to Haiti to discover more about the origins of the monster.

He asks around for Madame Unguilet but gets nowhere until Gregor Marquand appears in his doorway brandishing a machete and claiming to be a zombie. He takes her to Madame Unguilet - the woman who called the monster into reality.

She explains that Marquand was drugged to seem dead and then she dug him up, so he now serves her. She also explains that Meyer came back to her and said that although they had split up the film of Chiaroscuro across several films, soon the monster would find its way back.

She opens the door, revealing the original negative of the film which appear to be springing to life...

JM: Reviewing strips for 2000ADReview sometimes requires a careful judgement call: should the review only focus on the current issue, or look back over the whole strip?  It matters here, because these five pages in and of themselves are pretty weak, serving to do little more than get Elvy to where we all knew he’d end up.  And coming after the five pages from Origins which provided the whole run-up to a world war makes this painfully obvious.   

On the other hand, this is a wonderfully original series and the atmosphere of Haiti is crucial to its success: from that point of view the slight dip in narrative speed makes perfect sense.  And the choice to keep Carlos Castaneda’s datura inoxia on the shelf next to the LSD and the (horrors!) Bovril is one of the best jokes of the series.  Smudge’s artwork really seems to gain in atmosphere every week and now, as we approach the climax, I reckon this is as good a bit of black-and-white as we’ve seen since Frazer Irving’s Necronauts.  

SW: I have been enjoying this tale of a cursed film but I think that it’s beginning to outstay it’s welcome. It started well with an obsessed man’s search for a snuff movie that left a trail of death in it’s wake, but now ten weeks on he’s still looking! I’m all for a bit of slow build up and suspense, but when a glorified terror tale takes ten weeks and counting I start to see the padding.

I do like the premise and creepy atmosphere and the art with it’s shadowed eyes adds to the uneasy feel. The main character’s motivation isn’t that believable - you’d think with the body count he’d be heading to Blockbuster for his movie fix! This weeks episode sees our man visit Haiti complete with pretentious inner monologue ‘War, flood sickness Haiti knows loss’. He then takes three pages to find Madam Unguliet who is the predictable mad toothless old crone who speaks in riddles, before meeting with the negative which is literally alive.

To me this was a daft and hackneyed outing which sent the story further down the road of silliness. Hopefully our man will be packing a big magnet that’ll show that lousy film!

For all it’s flaws I have generally liked the story and it’s certainly Simon Spurrier’s most accessible tale to date. It’s just a bit familiar and clichéd whilst also being as slow as glacier. I assume the story will wrap in the next two weeks and I for one won’t mind hitting the ‘eject’ button.

Pros and Cons- Part 3

Sinister heads for trouble...

Synopsis: Sinister's lawyer visits him to inform him that the DA is trying to delay the trial until spring so that he can make political capital out of it. He warns Sinister to behave ands if he gets involved in a death, it will do their defence harm as they're trying to deny that he's a gunshark. He also can't transfer him to a secure wing for the same reason and warns him that the safest place he could end up in would be the infirmary.

Later, Sinister decides to help things along, and starts insulting Herman Vermin so that he gets beaten up enough to be taken to the infirmary. Once there, he draws back the curtain on a nearby bed and reveals Dexter...

JM :The colouring on the last couple of weeks’ episodes was simply diabolical, and so it’s good news that the rather more reliable Gary Caldwell is back on board, especially as he’s been given the rather difficult job of making Ian Richardson’s fine penwork blend with Simon Coleby’s rough-and-tumble.  This seems a very awkward blend of artists, but it’s to the credit of all concerned that it comes off as well as it does.  You could even argue that it adds something to the episode by going from the delicate lawyer talk to the raw atmosphere of the infirmary, but that’s just synchronicity and not worth worrying about over much. 

Abnett’s plotting is necessarily by-the-numbers here, as he brings his two protagonists back together, but as always with this series it’s the lyricism of the language that’s the real star (though “and this is visiting hour” seems a bit below the usual standard!)  The three panels in which Sinister goads the neo-Nazi into beating him up really do represent 2000AD repartee at its best. 

SW: People have long held that Tharg has integrity and when a character dies he stays dead. Is this true? No. Johnny Alpha is dead but still appears in flashback tales, Judge Giant is dead but reborn in his son. Ace Garp stayed dead but only because no one wanted him back and the Angel family? Don’t go there…

My point is that the return of Sinister Dexter shouldn’t be seen as a surprise, although the motivation behind it is another matter. There were the odd highlights in past tales and usually a scrap of dialogue that made me titter but overall they were always filler. Their dramatic ‘deaths’ were well done and it was good see them go out on a high. Well it was good to see them go anyway!

Now they are back, with a cover up and some inter dimensional gubbins getting the blame. So was it worth the reboot? No, quite frankly. Three parts in and nothing much has happened. The ending with our men reunited had all the surprise of a sun rise and we all know within the month they’ll be out and being bullet-proof all over again.

This episode was filler of the lowest grade with Finnegan speaking to his lawyer, getting beaten up and getting to hospital just in time for the reunion. That was fully one page of action spread as thin as the butter in a British Rail sandwich over five pages.

The art is OK and has a certain Yeowelly flavour, although the nutter’s Swastika looked like it had been Photo shopped in as an afterthought.

I’m hoping something will change and that I’ll proved wrong, but I can almost hear the ‘vayases‘ and ‘funts’ from here.

With a bound he was free... - Part 4

Newton and Augustus bite off more than they can chew...

Synopsis: The wolfman introduces himself to Augustus and Newton as Severus Moran Carew. Augustus tells Newton that Carew was charged with suppressing some Hindu tribesmen and when they tribesmen surrendered, he had them all killed with their families anyway. He was court martialled and dismissed, but believed he did the right thing.

He then spent most of his money chasing down the legend of Cadmus and gave himself willingly to the jaws of his corpse - so that the spirit of Cadmus now lives within him. He is determined to be emperor and offers Augustus and Newton the chance to join him.

Upon their refusal, Carew transforms into a huge wolf monster and chases after them. It catches Augustus, driving its teeth into him and throwing him out of the window, before preparing to eat Newton...

JM: Can Sir Isaac Newton escape the British major and terror of the Raj, who’s been possessed by a Roman werewolf god?  Do questions get any better than this?  That’s why Red Seas is so enjoyable – it knows it’s pulp, you know it’s pulp, and by God it does what it sets out to do.  Augustus surviving after being bitten opens up some wonderful opportunities, particularly if you consider that Newton is not, in this universe, indestructible (being dead already).  

Steve Yeowell is one of those artists incapable of drawing below an extremely high standard, and the page where Cadmus transforms into the war-wolf is just fantastic.  I’ll even forgive what looks like a slight glitch in perspective between the fourth and fifth pages. 

SW: It is testament to the strength of this strip that we can have four episodes without a pirate in sight and it is still great stuff. As is becoming more common a historical figure is reinvented in a dangerous and  different guise to fight the forces of evil. I wonder if Dale Winton will be reimagined in 200 years as a futuristic zombie hunter?

Here the unlikely hero is Sir Isaac Newton who is 120 years old at the time of this tale - bet he drinks Carling! Of course aged mathematicians are the least of the extremes on show here, with articulate werewolves with designs on the empire taking that crown.

The dialogue is great and I for one am glad there were no ‘laws of motion’ jokes when the Severus attacked!

Steve Yeowell does his usual excellent job and conveys what may seem silly events with a deft, believable line. As much as I’m enjoying things I hope Jack Dancer turns up soon to save the day - Tharg won’t sell many progs with the splash ‘Featuring Isaac Newton’!

Sword of the Tsar - part 6

Dante leaps into action...

Synopsis: Dante plummets, only halting his descent by dragging his cybernetic swords on the hull of the palace.

Meanwhile, Khara confronts the Tsar and reveals herself as one of the White Army. She says they used Dante to get close to him and now plan to take him over and use his army to take over the Empire. However, Dante crashes through he ceiling and knocks Khara out of the way. She transforms back into her normal self, begging Dante not to kill her but he realises that she's lost and kills her with the huntsman rifle. At that moment, the Lord Protector contacts the Tsar and says that they might have been misled. The Tsar tells him to use the opportunity to carry on with the purge anyway and seize their wealth.

Later, the Tsar speaks to the people and tells them that the purges will continue, that those loyal to the empire will have nothing to fear and that the safety of the empire is thanks to Dante. The people cheer Dante's name, but the Tsar wonders how long that will continue as he does the Tsar's will...

JM : Well, it’s been four great reviews in a row – can we manage all five?  Dante swoops into his father’s murderer’s bath, kills the naked mechanoid and saves the day in triumphant style, so I think that’s a resounding “hell, yeah!”  Simon Fraser has had his off days when working on Judge Dredd and Shimura strips (and Family was particularly poor), but on Dante he seems to be incapable of putting a foot wrong.  What’s so great about his future Moscow is the sheer scale he brings to the place – he simply makes the city look BIG in a way that very few artists have managed even on Mega-City 1 – and the incredibly well thought out updates of nineteenth-century Russian uniforms.   

This episode of Dante even seems to have some commentary on present-day Russia –which I think has been a lack in the script up until now.  Hopefully we’ll see a mysterious radiation poisoning in future episodes?  Morrison’s kept the strip barely ticking over for far too long, but his attention really does seem to have come back to it with a vengeance.   

SW: I’m not the biggest Dante fan, losing my interest around the time that the talking cast of ‘The Lion King’ showed up. I have however enjoyed the recent tales and was sorry to see this arc finish so abruptly. When saved from execution and given his new role I bet even the arrogant Dante wouldn’t have believed that he’d have it all wrapped up in a couple of weeks.

This episode was a worthy finale with all out action the order of the day. It begins with Dante falling out of a building (as usual) and soon moves to a three in a bath session! As a keener eye than mine pointed out, Dante is missing his rifle in the second panel but I’m sure the artist would claim that it’s down his ample pants!

Khara falls into the eternal baddie trap of over eulogising, allowing Dante to save the day but it did allow for a nice time elapsed style entrance. The art was fine and I like the bright colour palette.

With this episode Dante’s place at the Tsar’s side is assured and it’ll be interesting to see where things go from here. Dante could show Sinister Dexter a thing or two about reinvention and that’s really the only way to maintain interest.