2000AD 1546 - 18 July 07

Cover by Colin MacNeil

Adam Crabtree: Fine work, reminiscent of Macneill's work on Fiends of the Eastern
Front; just as well that the artwork can be won within! 

The Facility Script: John Wagner Art: Colin Macneil Colours: Chris Blythe Letters: Annie Parkhouse

Dredd uncovers the truth of the mutant camp...

Synopsis: With his revolutionary proposal regarding the mutant laws shot down, it is with resolution (and a crappy mood) that Dredd rounds up Rico and Cadet Beeny (from America III) and heads out to a mutant resettlement
camp in the Cursed Earth.

Arrests are made from their arrival onwards, with signs of criminal neglect and abuse everywhere. The wardens protest in outrage that it was indeed the judges who sent the mutants there; a point noted with solemnity by Dredd.

AC: KICK. ASS.

I, Jailbird - Part 2 Script: Alan Grant Art: Ian Gibson Letters: Annie Parkhouse

Dangerous knitwear...

Synopsis: Samantha has a hallucinatory dream of her grandfather and the robo-playing card who framed her, which incites paranoid specualtion about their being in cahoots. Her solitary confinement comes to an end and her
robo-lawyer speaks to her, warning her to be on her best behaviour as her appeal looms; with her fellow inmates baying for her blood it doesn't seem likely. Luckily, a friend of hers knits her a robo-scarf that puts the robo-smackdown on them.

AC: I've gotta be honest, and it's hard because dissing Robo-Hunter is like kicking a poorly old basset hound, but I rather thought we were getting a longer break from Robo-Hunter. On returning to my progs after a two week hiatus, my face fell as I saw not new Nikolai Dante or Sinister Dexter, but Samantha Slade.

But all is not lost though, because (whisper it) "I, Jailbird" is quite fun. After Casino Royal's heinously creaky attempts at satire (a Tom Cruise caricature who is a bit short), it's a relief to see the strip content itself with storytelling and invention, with Gerald the scarf being a noteworthy highlight. It's also so much easier to like in the absence of
Hogie and Stogie, who were apparently decommissioned in the last story (Hallejujah).

Project Monarch - Part 7 Script: Pat Mills Art: John Higgins Colours: JH & SJ Hurst Letters: Ellie De Ville

Really a very bad idea...

Synopsis: Blake infiltrates the sex traffickers club, using the password of"porcelain" to discover the network of child running; the turbulent overturning of his greysuit programming is the catalyst for a massacre of the patrons and proprieters. He interrogates maitre'd Bathory, who gives him a lead on Namcorp, key players in the "porcelain trade".

News of the incident reaches Blake's superiors, who have killed the reporter Kate and are pondering their next course of action...

AC: The chops are there for something quite impressive, but veteran Pat Mills' hi-tech espionage story comes across somewhat like something written by a teenager... a proficent teenager, I hasten to say, and as such there are no real "slip-ups" but just a bit of a mixed-up approach to the storytelling; like the ingredients are there, but haven't been stirred well enough.

The opening of this week's is a good example; the captions, they have nothing to do with what's going on the panels! Mills has created a very intricate world but is letting the exposition spill over into other parts of the story. Blake can't walk from A to B without the journey being used as space for six or seven dense captions, telling us stuff that (with a little more finesse) could have and should have been dealt with earlier (if it's relevant to the story; I mean, are we even gonna see any Omega Class agents in this story?).

Let me re-emphasize that the material is most certainly there, it's just that it's drifting around a bit... it's often said, and quite true, but Mills could really benefit from tighter editorial control...

Grendel - Part 3 Script: Gordon Rennie Art: PJ Holden Colours: Eva De la Cruz Letters: Simon Bowland

Good guy? Bad guy?

Synopsis: Back in "Six years ago" territory, it is revealed that Milosa, one of the Acoma Norts, is the former clanlord of those who planned the thwarted coup.

In the present day, Milosa and his men appeal to Rafe as fellow outsiders to help them catch the Grendel; caught between the advise of Kristos and the apparation that has taken root in her mind, Rafe decides to take them up on it.

Meanwhile, an 86ers squadron finds and destroys an enemy jump gate, but not before a Nort recon crate makes it back through... to an assembled armada of warships...

AC: We all talk about our favourite writers and artists when it comes to comics, but to specifically have a favourite colourist? Well, I'm right there. The work of Eva de la Cruz makes every page positively DRIP with atmosphere, and form a damn panoramic puddle in your lap; coupled with PJ Holden (who, scarily, is still heading for his peak), it's very easy to get immersed, five pages it may well be.

The story's pretty rockin' at the moment as well, though it remains that there are a lot of characters, most of them are very similar in attitude and (bad) temperament, and the only genuinely likeable character is the Commander (with Rafe being a bit impenetrable). Also, it doesn't do it any favours to hang on so tightly to the Rogue Trooper legacy; it really only impedes its progress in establishing itself as an original work.

1666 - Part 7 Script: Pat Mills Art: Leigh Gallagher Letters: Ellie De Ville

Pleasant work...

Synopsis: At the secret lab of Sir issac Newton and Robert Hooke, who are discussing alchemy and dissection when Defoe, Ketch and Mewes arrive with a new sample of zombie tissue. Defoe tells Newton of how his old colleague Jack O'Bite is leading organised forces zombies, apparently controlled by a higher intelligence... meanwhile, on a pole twenty five feet above
Westminster Hall, the severed head of Oliver Cromwell ruminates on its holy mission to abase the flesh of the populace... hmmm...

AC: Top drawer stuff from Pat Mills, the same drawer the Wyzard of Wyrd might well have taken Savage from in fact. It struts with the typical confidence of a Mills work, yet is also one of the precious few that deserves that confidence. It's darkly exciting, fiendishly creative, and often riotously funny, and nothing could ever compromise Mills' pitch black sense of humour. I love it, and I await it eagerly each week.

AC: I see from the last Input page that they're bringing Stone Island back in Prog 1450, then. Fantastic. Nonetheless, we have a veritable treasure trove of thrills at the moment. You remember that feeling of significance, of a defining moment in a strip's history that WASN'T in Origins? It's here, and better late than never! We also have a Pat Mills strip that is an unambiguous sucess (and one that, if nothing else, is a good foundation to build on). And 86ers, you dark horse!

Best Story: Judge Dredd