2000AD 1552 - 29 August 07

Cover by Staz Johnson and Chris Blythe

Adam Crabtree: Man, I knew I remembered that arse-fluff beard! Staz Johnson was last seen gracing the cover of the Megazine during the Regime Change storyline. Though both covers see Dredd going a bit Hugh Jackman, they are also very cinematic, exciting pieces of work. The colouration in particular is a thing of rare beauty.

Alex Frith: Many have tried their hand at a 'Dredd looks imposing over a Mega-City 1 skyline' cover. This one is pretty good. Loses points for Dredd himself not looking quite authoritative enough - something about the face - but gains points for the excellent, excellent city blocks. 

Trial by Dury Script: Gordon Rennie Art: Paul Marshall Colours: Chris Blythe Letters: Annie Parkhouse

Another bunch of cits get themselves into a mess ...

Synopsis: A meeting of the Ian Dury Block Justice Club (a far future neighbourhood watch) is railroaded into darker territories as one of the members reveals he has captured an escaped convict, Sirius "Wolfman" Wollen and is holding him prisoner. Disillusioned with what they have convinced themselves is the shocking leniency of the judicial system, they launch a regressive "trial by jury" and are broadcasting it on a pirate frequency. Dredd is called in to investigate.

AC: I love this pairing on Dredd; Gordon Rennie and Paul Marshall both do exemplary work on the future lawman, and the partnership remains a fruitful one with "Trial By Dury" (what a pun...) Marshall's artwork is clean and spacious without being too safe, his talent for characterisation (and caricature) distinctive and ever-present, Rennie continues to hone his talent for emulating the mordant humour of John Wagner and allowing his rather dim worldview to eke out through the otherwise bright and beezy panels. It's also nice to see a few reverential nods to the multitude of wild concepts thrown up by Dredd over the years, picking them up and taking them forward; the "bite fighters" sequence of classic story The Graveyard Shift was one of the highlights of that tale.

AF: This is neatly written Dredd. Introduces us to more crazy cits, and showcases Dredd doing what he does best. "A reasonable man going about his reasonable business" is a classic Dredd summation panel. The story itself is a little wordy, though. Paul Marshall's art is again neat but not fantastic. 

Ashes - Part 2 Script: Gordon Rennie Art: Dom Reardon Letters: Annie Parkhouse

Chapter tells it like it should be...

Synopsis: Chaos in central Glasgow as psychic fugitive Michael Magister destroys the city by proxy, crashing airliners into buildings and possessing not only the minds but the deceased bodies of those who are sent after him. The Caballistics team arrive to confront him, and for Magister the confrontation can't come soon enough...

AC: Yikes, we gotta run of hits this week... like a paranormally hijacked plane from the blue, apocalypse descends on Rennie and Reardon's world of nightmare. The iconic nature of Reardon's work, as well as the brutally stark quality of his two-tone rendering has a unique power; the destruction on display in this week's Cabs gets you right in the pit of your gut, a feeling of suffocating wrongness that hits precisely the right note; he's a freaky little git, oh yes ;) .
 
The G Man's wordage is still building the tension with impressive skill, though Hannah Chapter remains the weakest link; the lifetime of a sun is but the blinking of an eye next to one of her smartarse comments; "So much for psychotropic protection from telepathic intereference". Yeah, cheers love.

AF: I don't think there's ever been a weak episode of Caballistics. It all hangs together so effortlessly, Rennie and Reardon are obviously very comfortable with their cast of characters. I'm a little worried at this point that the whole thing is building up to a climax that might be a bit of a let down. Villain Michael Magister has been set up as so ridiculously powerful here that it's a bit strange to think that Inspector Absolam and the Cabs team can do anything about it. Still, I can't wait to find out. 

The Volgan War - Vol 2, Ep 1 Script: Pat Mills Art: Clint Langley Letters: Simon Bowland

Blackblood gets blackballed...

Synopsis: Zippo reveals the lighter he gave his former commander (reacquired by Blackblood last week) was tricked out with several useful gadgets, including a homing device; Blackblood just manages to escape before a guided missile destroys his eyepod with the lighter within. The battle continues to turn against Blackblood on the ground as his robot troops seemingly lose their ability to identify enemy targets and promptly slaughter each other. As the battle ends, Zippo is introduced to his new commander, one Colonel Lash.
 
Blackblood, threatened with retribution from Volkhan as regards to his "negligence", confronts the robot-designing Zhugonovs (parents of Lara Zhugonov), who claim ignorance of the fault and deny sabotage; Blackblood's heart-rate sensors indicate otherwise...

AC: I'm happy to say I'm beginning to mellow to Pat Mills. I was fine when I first started reading 2000AD, Slaine being one of the things that enticed me in the first place (though I was in a heroic fantasy kinda place at the time anyway)! Somewhere along the way, between all the back and forth about his work, his oeuvre, even his temperament as a creator, something important became obscured to me; that Pat Mills can write a damn good romp when he wants to!
 
After a run of duds, it's taken the brilliant Defoe, the awesome Savage and this fantastic second book of The Volgan Wars to put me back in a fully receptive state of mind. The recycling and overly sober nature of the first "book" is one, replaced by seriously funny (if punny!) writing and wonderfully cavalier blood(oil)shed to complement the transcendent Clint Langley art.
 
And it feels so good...

AF: I'm not really sure how I feel about this strip. Flashy art, the story ticks along nicely, there are some fun cameos from old friends like Colonel Lash, and is that Richard 'Jaws' Kiel in the role of the Volgan General? But it's not grabbing me by the throat in the way that 'Shadow Warriors' did with it's page on page lunacy. 

The Harrowers - Part 2 Script: Ian Edginton Art: Simon Davis Letters: Ellie De Ville

"TDIs" - remember that, it'll come up a lot...

Synopsis: Harry and Sara's new military liasion briefs them and a collection of similar individuals on the global situation since the Trans-dimensional incursion. The TDIs (Trans-dimensional Insurgents) used penal facilities to nurture and activate their human "gateways" (as documened in the first story), then swiftly began terraforming the Earth to make it unliveable for life as we know it. The gathered individuals are uniquely resistant to these inhospitable conditions on account of their experiences with the TDIs. The brief concludes as the captured David Sorrel, human gateway featured in the first story, is revealed to be their point of entry to the other side...

AC: So far, so good; I'm allowing myself to become engaged by The Harrowers. The return of the mad-as-a-bag-of-arseholes Sorrel Crucifix set-piece that precipitated the first tale's divorce from sanity is a mite off-putting, but I find the idea of THIS being what the "hero" of Stone Island has come to a genuinely subverisve one. The set-up also boasts promise; more oppurtunities for brilliant Davis splash pages when they reach The Other Side....

AF: Another exposition episode; Edginton uses far too many of those, I feel. However, the set-up here looks fun - a team of prisoners, cops, soldiers, mutants and hard women get ready to jump dimensions and battle beasties. Although if I'm being honest, I'm being very forgiving of this series because I absolutely love Davis's art. His design for Rivers and Walker - the two alien/human hybrids - are amongst my favourite 2000 AD creations. 

The Hitman's Daughter - Part 1 Script: John Wagner Art: Frazer Irving Letters: Ellie De Ville

He'll turn up soon enough...

Synopsis: Adele is traumatised by the murder of her father, rendered mute for months thereafter, availing the inquiries of the police nothing. One of her first questions upon emerging from this state, is of course "Who is Harry X?" Her visiting uncle Max, a shady character looking to keep police involvement to a minimum, is unnerved by the question.
 
Years down the line in 2005, on the anniversary of the shooting, a full grown Adele confronts the only man that went down for her father's murder at his new job, Minton, asking much the same sort of questions.

AC: This reviewer is given to wonder if experiments with chronology will come to very accurately date the comic (and indeed televisual) works of this decade! Still, The Hitman's Daughter remains a tightly scripted and beautifully drawn story with a crowd-pleasing spirit of enterprise; loving the full page newspaper report that opens this instalment. Button Man IV is still in the warm-up stages, but the nerdcore comics fan in all of us salivates at the promise of the thing...

AF: Mean and moody. Deeply British. A bit like watching Get Carter. Oozes menace and revenge on every page. Nice. 

AC: Alright, pop quiz; how many times did I use the word "arse" in this review? I didn't mean to, it just played out like that. It's ironic too, because this prog is anything but; representative of the very best of Tharg's stables, with sniping satires, uncompromising stories and the run-off of multiple diseased minds make for a damnably heady brew.

Best Story: A tie- Cabs and ABCs 

AF: In many ways a classic prog with a range of humour, horror and hardness, but also a rather expository prog in which each story is building up to something bigger that hasn't happened yet. Also a rare example of Judge Dredd being the worst story - or rather, least good. 

Best Story: Button Man.