2000AD Prog 1579 - 2 April 08

Cover by Cliff Robinson

Richmond Clements: It’s Cliff Robinson, so you know it has to be good. Brilliant moody image that should be a good pull for the casual reader, and a great introduction to a new character. But, as has been said many times before and no doubt will be said many times in the future- get that droid a strip to draw!

Alex Frith: It's a solid cover this week, showcasing a new character who may or may not last - judging from the design alone he deserves to last I'd say. To me he looks like a development of the Midnighter or Nighthawk, both contemporary and more vicious versions of Batman. The difference here being that he's carrying a rifle. It's certainly imposing and intriguing, especially as it's an entirely new face. Good colour scheme this week, too, with the black, white and green providing a sinister tone. 

...Regrets - Part 4 Script: John Wagner Art: Nick Dyer Colours: Chris Blythe Letters: Annie Parkhouse

Wildy picks up the scent...

Synopsis: Wildy follows the scent of the kidnapped child but loses it at the same place that the robot sniffers did. Later, the Fargos get ready to leave, after being given honorary citizenship by Mayor Ambrose. However, as they prepare to set off, Wildy picks up the scent on the wind and leads the judges to the hovercar, where the kidnappers are preparing to kill the hostage child...

RC: Wagner is really on a roll at the moment, ain’t he? I love the way he’s using Dredd as a character at the moment. That is, barely using him at all and focusing the tale on the characters around him, with Dredd kind of drifting in and out of the tale. This particular episode opens some interesting possible futures for the Dreddiverse. With Hershey sending the Fargo family a gift of Lawgivers, and Dredd using Wildy (what a great character he is too!) to track the missing child, could we be seeing mutants serving in the Justice Department some time soon..?

I’m loving this story, and loving the fact that I have no idea where its going.

So, the art... I’m bewildered who some people are finding it a strange choice for the strip. One of the things that has always set 2000AD apart from the crowd is that there has always been an admirable policy of experimenting artist styles and strips. For my money, Dyer is a cracking artist. It’s ludicrous to claim he somehow doesn’t ‘deserve’ to draw Dredd. Ludicrous and insulting, in fact. But then, that’s what the internet is for- explaining how you know better than the director/writer/editor of your own particular World of Nerd! 

AF: Nick Dyer's art is getting better with every episode. This week it's particularly vibrant, and he does a brilliant job of showcasing Wildy Wilde as he picks up the scent and lets loose. He's fast becoming the good version of classic villain Fink Angel. There's a welcome hint of Ian Gibson in the movement he draws out of the vehicles, which fuel the urgency of Wagner's script. It's genuinely thrilling stuff, and I'm really not sure whether Dredd will reach the hostage in time to save her. I hope he does.

The Guv'nor - Part 4 Script: Pat Mills Art: Patrick Goddard Letters: Ellie De Ville

Tsk, those Frenchies...

Synopsis: As Savage's men break into the trainyard, the General starts to suspect something is up, and increases security on the perimeter. However, Savage is using the sewers to gain entry and the General realises this almost too late. He sends in the Spetznatz...

RC: I lost track halfway through the last book, but from what I understand that doesn’t matter, as apparently, the series has had some kind of ‘reboot’ and the events at the end of the last series no longer are relevant...

I’m still not really sure what’s going on. Bill and his gang are infiltrating a base, thanks to the brave actions of an inside man, and there’s an Evil Warlord type bad guy.

There are things I am liking though- I like the recurring comedy club moments, though they suffer a bit from not actually being funny- but perhaps that’s half the point. I’m liking Goddard’s art too. While not quite possessing the gritty rough edged style of Adlard, Goddard’s work is a great choice for a replacement, and he’s another artist who, like Robinson, does not do half enough strip work for the comic.

And naturally, there are some glaringly ridiculous plot holes in place to annoy me. The main one being the ease with which Savage and his men infiltrate the base. I mean- a manhole?? For god sake- manhole covers are welded shut along the route of the President’s car as a matter of course, so the chances of them being left alone in the middle of a high security military base are next to nil. And am I the only one who can’t see a scene like this one- with a group of terrorists sneaking in through the sewers- without thinking of The Life of Brian?

I’m also having a bigger problem with the indestructibility of Savage as a whole. I mean, the whole point, I thought, was him being an ordinary Joe, and everyman. But here, with his mysteriously vanishing Big Gun, that he can somehow conceal below his overcoat, he seems to be turning into the Punisher.

And another thing! Steak Knife. This was the code name of a spy the British Security Service had in Sinn Fien during the height of the Troubles. Whether Pat’s being clever or lazy here I don’t know- but I’m sure that the security bods wouldn’t reuse the same code name twice...

Now, that was all a bit of a rant (and I didn’t even mention how ‘General Beria’ annoyed me too), but honestly- I do kind of enjoy the strip! 

AF: I'm really not getting into Savage this time around. It's definitely not Patrick Goddard's fault, as he's adding a real grimy feel to the strip, one which belongs. So it must be Mills, then.

I wonder if the problem is that a couple of books ago it felt as if there was an ongoing storyline to this series, whereas it now feels much more episodic? Or maybe it's just that I'm not following the overall arc very well for one reason or another. Of course, episodic fiction can work very well - just look at the Dredd one-offs - and indeed this episode of Savage has some neat moments. I particularly liked the exchange with the Channel Tunnel supervisor, who tries his best to be nonchalant but isn't fooling the Volg Captain one bit. Which leads to his messy, grimy death, and then ought to invest me, the reader, with a real desire to see Savage and his team do the business. Except it doesn't.

It's like reading a much more sophisticated episode of Invasion, only somehow the maniacal fun of (much of) that strip is lost.

Part 4 Script: John Smith Art: Lee Carter Letters: Simon Bowland

Danny gets ready to break out into song...

Synopsis: As forces in the government discuss Danny being a seer, Danny and Geoff buy a car to ge them to the Lake District where they plan to lay low. They discuss the word Ragnarok, that Danny saw in his vision, and worry that it might relate to the end of the world. Elsewhere, government agents go to recover the assassin Nightingale and find his catatonic, his wrists cut and the word Ragnarok entered again and again into a crossword...

RC: As others have said, this does have the feel of something that we’d have seen in Crisis many years ago. Mainly, I think because of the fully painted art- which is superb. Just check out the figure drawing on the first page! I like the way the drab realism of the ‘real world’ is contrasted by the jarring bright, almost luminous colours of the whatever-the-hell-they-are floating around everyone.

In places the art reminds me of McCrea’s painted work on Chopper in its style. And for me, that is no bad thing. Carter, like Dyer on the current Dredd strip, is a major new find and I hope to see a lot more work from him in the future.

As for the story: I’ve got two words for you about that: ‘John Smith’. No-one does mental, bizarre and off the wall stories like John Smith. Well, Grant Morrison does, and in my book Smith is easily his match.

I have very little idea what is going on at the minute. Unlike with Savage though, this ignorance is not due to shoddy plotting, but quite the opposite. It’s because of the perfect drip feeding of information that Smith is feeding us, and I’m not even going to attempt to guess where the plot’s going. Those of us who assumed we were settling in for a, Iraq war set tale during the first episode have already been wrong footed, and I’m sure there are twists and turns a plenty on the way.

And I loved the good old fashioned parallel between the first four panels and the final four.

AF: Unlike Savage, this new series has gradually got better, and I think in this episode it's finally got going and has generally got me hooked. John Smith has packed a lot into his five-page slot, and I think the plot and dialogue is exciting enough that it doesn't matter that the series continues to be more talking heads and less flying limbs and bullets. Lee Carter does a horribly, horribly good job of introducing the inevitable Smithian villain - the old man with aristocratic connections who's into deviant sex and torture. I haven't felt that repulsed since Reardon's early work on Caballistics, Inc. And I mean that in a complimentary way.

I'm reminded of that hidden 2000 AD gem, Thirteen, and I'm hoping that in the vein of that series, Dead Eyes delves further and further into the weirdness of those alien-looking mental parasite things, and the general hallucinatory fun. I'm also impressed with the banter Smith's got going between the two 'heroes' - it's fun, doesn't feel like exposition, and has gone a long way from the crude opening exchange between the soldiers in the gulf.

Make Believe - Part 2 Script: Robbie Morrison Art: Dom Reardon Letters: Ellie De Ville

Untouchable...

Synopsis: Malloy and Harris meet a masked man Kane who tells them that the god trying to get into the downed craft is Lense. He tells them they must stop him - and they try but miserably fail. However, once lense is inside the ship, Kane blows it up - killing him. Kane introduces himself to the Ten Seconders...

RC: For various reasons that I won’t bore you with now, I had only read half of the first series of this, so the downloadable version was going to prove to be a godsend- allowing me to catch up before this second series began. It hasn’t worked out that way unfortunately, but thankfully the Mighty One helped me out with a nice synopsis in his intro a couple of weeks ago.

There’s a secret I have had, and it’s one I’ve only allowed myself to admit to in the last couple of year, and I want to share it with you now. The secret is this: I bloody LOVE superhero comics. I know I shouldn’t. I know I should think they’re daft and childish and all that. But by god they are enjoyable.

And I love it when 2000AD does superheroes. Like Zenith did in the past, The Ten Seconders takes the old superhero format and kicks in right up the ass. The pace with which this episode moves is quite extraordinary. And as an intro to what I hope is a major new character it words perfectly. Stuff is going on and we don’t know what it is and it’s all great!

However, as good as the writing is- why don’t we all take a step back and admire the spectacular work Dom Reardon is doing with the art? The kinetic-ness (my own word- you can’t use it) of his art is just awesome. It’s a real shame that we’re not going to be enjoying it for the entire run of the strip. 

AF: I never got into the first series, and I'm not hugely into this series either, to be honest. I'm loving Reardon's art, though - loving it. There's a lovely panel of a weirdo in a sort of bug suit surrounded by a hail of bullets and casually exclaiming "wha-?" which is classic 2000 AD. Sadly it's probably as much Reardon's fault as Williams's that I'm struggling to tell what the hell is happening.

Plus points - Williams has still got the ear for quick comedy, with Malloy and Harris firing off one liners and wry asides with consummate ease. New character Kane from off the cover looks fun. And taken in isolation, this episode is packed with thrill power. If I'd never read 2000 AD before, I suspect this would be my favourite strip just because it's so exciting and I'd want to know what it was about and seek out old episodes to tell me. The problem being that I have, of course, read the old episodes and am still not much the wiser. Perhaps this is one of those series that needs to be read in one go at the end.

The Tsar's Daughter - Part 3 Script: Robbie Morrison Art: John Burns Letters: Annie Parkhouse

Arkady cuts Kerensky down to size...

Synopsis: Kerensky shows Jena a case that he says proves that someone ordered her mother's death. Jena believes that the only way he could know that was if he pulled the trigger himself. However, before they can find out the truth, they're attacked by mercenaries, at which point Kerensky decides to run. However, once out of eyeshot, he's cut down by Arkady who retrieves the evidence. When she catches up with him, Kerensky dies before he can tell Jena if her father ordered her mother's death...

RC: What-? That’s it already? And we have to wait until prog 1589?

What kind of sick joke is this, Tharg? Man, I love this strip! It astounds me that even after all these years, Morrison is still pulling rabbits from hats and revealing even more depths and layers to the characters and their back stories. This is all the more remarkable because this story hardly features Dante at all.

The greatest strength of Dante is, I think, the one thing that also makes me sad about it- the fact that it’s going to end. We know Morrison has a Plan, and that he’s slowing and quite brilliantly working towards what I’m sure will be a wonderful (and probably tragic) end.

In summary: Both script and art are exquisite. 

AF: I've been complimentary about many of the strips above, but frankly that's because I'm kind. Morrison and Burns continue to provide a masterclass in storytelling, atmosphere, emotion and intrigue. And they don't even need Dante himself to help them do it. This whole epic has been about the side characters and the backstory, and it's worked because Morrison has drip fed it too us expertly. Another bit of drip-feeding comes to a close here, but still with a tease about who was really responsible for Jena's mother's death. I absolutely cannot wait for Prog 1589 and the promise of more to come...

RC: Despite my ranting about Savage, this is a bloody strong prog, and one in a long line of strong progs we’ve had. In fact, I can’t remember th last time I’ve read an issue and thought it wasn’t just about as good as it could be- and that’s even with strips I don’t like in it.

Good work, Tharg! 

AF: There's something about the line-up of 2000 AD at the moment that reminds me of being 13 and not really getting a lot of 2000 AD - for me, when the comic was in the 600s. You've got Wagner providing solid, uncomplicated and fun Dredd with cheery art, and Dante is providing effortless excellence. And then you've got these three strips in the middle that are all dark, grimy, full of nasty goings on, with a dose of humour and sophisticated-looking and sounding, but are kind of hard to follow and may turn out to be empty - a bit like Grant Morrison and Mark Millar.

Best Story: Nikolai Dante