2000AD Prog 1577 - 12 March 08

Cover by Patrick Goddard and Chris Blythe

David Knight: This has an ‘old school’ feel to it, like a 2000AD cover from the early ’80s, so it’s got that going for it. Patrick Goddard’s got the figure perfectly proportioned and the perspective right, and Chris Blythe has got the colouring spot-on as usual.

However, whilst the image can be read symbolically, it can’t be read literally at the same time. Savage, a man of average height, is seen apparently jumping through a blast hole just 17cm across in the cover of a comic book. He’s either a 6ft tall man or a 6 inch tall action figure; he can’t be both. I know I’m over-thinking this, but it’s what looked ‘wrong’ about it to me when I picked it up off the shelf to buy. One more negative thing I’d add is that for a cover image of Bill Savage, it lacks character and distinctiveness. Charlie Adlard’s Bill Savage had a stone-cold look of menace and looked like a real person. Goddard’s cover image looks like any generic plain-clothes hero. He looks bland enough that he could easily be a 21st century maverick cop or one the newer X-men. 

Robert Frazer: Journeyman fare this week - not particularly memorable, but adequately advertising the comic. The bursting-from-the-page motif is simple and straightforward, but nonetheless suitable. It also works well with the new banner - there'd be too much empty space on the page if it was just left to the logo in the corner to title the comic. The folds and creases in Bill's jacket look very naturalistic (but what's that grey blotch over his shoulder?), but beyond some attractive lighting effects with the zeppelin's searchlights there's little distinctive about the background.

There's one potentially critical oversight that defaces this cover, though - is that header-strip revealing a spoiler for the direction of future episodes of Dead Eyes? Far too careless.

Martin Charlton: Not a bad effort here, although it does give the unfortunate impression that the helicopter is on the same side as Bill, ‘crossing the line’ so to speak. As such, this loses marks. Not sure he needs to be bursting through the pages either. 

...Regrets - Part 1 Script: John Wagner Art: Nick Dyer Colours: Chris Blythe Letters: Annie Parkhouse

Tsk... guns & kids, eh?

Synopsis: A boy is kidnapped and the blame is laid at the feet on mutants - now slowly being allowed into the city since the repeal of the mutant laws.

Meanwhile, a judicial contingent is sent out to the Fargo tribe to invite them back to the city - giving them a present of two lawgivers as a peace offering.

Back in the city the judges discover that the boy has actually been kidnapped by Total War - who want their operatives in custody released, or the boy will be killed...

DK: Oh, cool! After a couple of years of readers salivating over Nick Dyer’s Mike McMahon and Cam Kennedy influenced artwork in Rapid Fire and Zarjaz, they finally get to see it in the hallowed pages of 2000ad, and on the Judge Dredd strip itself. Well, where else would one expect? And very serviceable artwork it is too – I’m sure they are many readers like me who look forward to seeing Nick’s style develop in the coming months and years, and how he may surprise us in time to come. As an aside, is that a Nick Dyer self portrait in the person of one of the Fargo kin in panel 4 of page 4, and at the bottom of page 2? 

As to the script, a fine job by John Wagner yet again. I wasn’t sure about Dredd’s willingness to upset the apple cart by championing of the mutant cause, but if that was the direction Wagner wanted to take the story, then I was willing to trust him on it. This episode is just superb, with some nice devil may care touches: the Scandinavian Federation casually dropped in without to my knowledge ever being mentioned before, and the boy’s heat-seeker arm injury barely registering a flicker with the hardy Cursed Earth men folk, who look on the bright side rather than dwell on the narrowly avoided tragedy. 

The Scapegoating and witch-hunting elements of the story resonated for me because only last week I had to teach a sociology class on the very same subject, using excerpts from Witchfinder General and Peep Show (“Oi, mate; are you a paedo??”) as audiovisual aids. As ever, this is Judge Dredd at its allegorical best, with mutants standing in for the eastern European immigrants that are the tabloid papers’ bogeyman of the moment. 

RF: Democracy and mutation have been two of Judge Dredd's abiding themes, entwined around the strip almost as the double-helix of its very nature - it was perhaps inevitable that the two would twist together at some point, and "...Regrets" is the strip to provide it.

In "Emphatically Evil", Wagner struck on the method of having a relatively low-key subplot of a murder mystery drop down before and take priority above the major maneouvrings of the mutant laws. Despite early hiccups when this method wrongfooted expectations, in the end it proved very effective, allowing us to enjoy an adventure without being browbeaten by meandering worthiness over the rights issues; in "...Regrets", the balance at first seems to be more evenly spread, but whereas in "Emphatically Evil" the plot threads ran parallel to each other with no real relation, here they do have a link, even if it's only an incidental one in the witness's false testimony. Whichever way the story pans out in later episodes, though, it'll definitely provokes interest into how the Regrets might be Related, encouraging us to pay attention to future instalments. The gift of Lawgivers to the Fargoes is an unusual one - but I expect that it's a portent indicating that their excursion to Mega-City One, in the climate of suspicion that hangs over the mutants, is going to turn into a Holiday From Hell...

There's some attractive dialogue in this strip - the declaration of the sexes' equal rights to express racism during the talk show shows that Wagner still has a fine ear for irony. Some might complain about the lack of explanation about Total War would perplex new readers, but it's an improper criticism as not everything needs to be spelled out - what you need to know is effectively and economically conveyed by Dredd's declaration of "terrorists" and the picture of a weeping child in the midst of a mushroom cloud.

Leading on to the art, the choice of Dyer is an interesting one, seeing as Wagner usually falls upon old dependables like Ezquerra or MacNeil for Thrills that deal with his favourite themes. The more cartoony appearance certainly suits Blythe's colours a lot better than they ever did MacNeil's, and the character design (particularly with the newsreader) seems... rubbery. While the extended shoulders of the Judges seem out of proportion, it nonetheless helps to give them a suitably stocky, stout and strong broad-chested appearance. The curious eyes also remind me of Jacob, the artist for the elder Thrill, Armoured Gideon - something which has particular resonance with me seeing as that was my very first experience of 2000AD, when I was a wee lad! My poor mistaken mother believed that anything with robots on the cover was the same as Transformers, to her cost...

In both story and art, then, "...Regrets" intrigues, and I'm interested in seeing how it develops.

MC: A typical Wagner first parter, with many threads, some of which will prove to be red herrings (and probably not the ones we expect. What spoils this for me is the art, and it’s not the quality of it at all, as Nick Dyer can (mostly) draw a decent enough Dredd. The problem here is that if you’ve read Zarjaz at all you’ve probably got the sense that Dyer needs some time to sort out his panels/perspective sometimes, with his oversize eyes being a particular sticking point.  

Much promise, although I do think that a more regular Dredd artist would be useful here.

England's Glory - Part 12 Script: Ian Edginton Art: D'israeli Letters: Ellie De Ville

What the..?

Synopsis: The battle ensues and it looks like Stickleback's crew is doomed - but Stickleback has called on the help of the White Lotus Empress. She has a dragon of her own which destroys Cody. She takes the dragon egg to use as a mate for her own dragon and tells Stickleback that he can still meet "our son" at the usual day every year. Everyone lives to fight another day, but some of Stickleback's crew wonder if they should be looking out for themselves for a change...

RF: I think the last time I reviewed Stickleback was on its debut appearance last February. Back then I was a bit underwhelmed, and speculated that I would enjoy volume 2 more than Stickleback’s first adventure. Well, it turns out I wasn’t wrong. Pitting Stickleback’s gang against the fake Buffalo Bill traveling circus worked for me, and I found myself not only able to keep up, but also interested this time. 

It was a bold move of D’Israeli’s to experiment with his artwork to the extent he has, but it detracted from my enjoyment a lot. For me it was a bit like having an album full of photographic negatives instead of prints, and I found myself having to scrutinize every panel to work out what was going on. 

The writing was a bit iffy here and there. Not in the characterization, the plotting and the way the dots were joined up, but in some of the details and the needless ornamentation with references to TV sitcoms, and anachronistic figures of speech. Altogether, though, it was a well-crafted story. The coming of the White Lotus Empress was absolutely magical, and so well paced and beautifully rendered by D’Israeli that I felt almost as if I were there to see it in person, and it felt dangerous. Fantastic! 

RF: People will inevitably complain about the deus ex machanae inherent in this strip, but it's honestly hard to make any criticism last when its conveyed with such verve and aplomb. It's rare in the pacy world of British anthology comics that we're allowed such broad indulgences as a double-page splash, and when its combined with D'israeli's art (interesting to see that Gay John curtsies... probably says a lot about him) the effect is lovely and luxurious. Stickleback himself is right, too - it is indeed quite an entrance, from the steady build-up of the Empress's entourage to her own collected comportment!

The arrival of the Empress isn't solely a deus-ex device, either, because with the discussion about hers and Stickleback's son we can see it opening new doors just as it closes old ones.

Having never read the original Stickleback, I can't say whether or not "England's Glory" has been an improvement on what went before, but it has been an entertaining romp of steampunk Victoriana throughout and it promises more fantastic fantasy for the next series.

MC: As Edginton and D’isreali chase the success of their previous works, the actual narrative of this tale has trucked along in the background. There’s a lot going on here, but the series is going to need a more consistent frequency if it is going to maintain its momentum. That double spread was a bit pointless, though. 

Part 1 Script: John Smith Art: Lee Carter Letters: Simon Bowland

Tsk... rendition, eh?

Synopsis: A group of soldiers is ambushed in Iraq and attacked with nerve gas. However, one of the team, Danny Redman, somehow survives and is sent to a secure laboratory at Porton Down. There he discovers that he's being kept in for tests along with an old lady and an illegal immigrant. He also discovers that while he's been asleep, the doctors have injected him with something...

DK: I won’t pull my punches: I hated this. Lee Carter did a fine job on the art, and you can see that there’s really good line work and delicate and precise use of shadow under all that wash of brown sludge that doesn’t reproduce so well in comics and was typical of 2000AD’s painted artwork in the 1990s. 

But the writing is the least good I’ve ever read of John Smith’s, so I’m hoping it gets better. I know from reading Straitgate he can right reality, and Leatherjack shows he can write fantasy; but this story seems like he’s made a bit of a hash of mixing the two. So far I don’t see the relevance of the opening scene in Iraq for the rest of the story, and the army dialogue sounded inauthentic to me, as did most of the rest of it. I haven’t a clue how soldiers in a conflict zone actually talk, and I don’t know where John Smith gets his information from, but I have seen Dog Soldiers and I suspect he has too. Mind you, I haven’t read Bravo Two Zero, so maybe it’s not difficult to research this stuff and I’m just not opening myself up to the right sources of inspiration. 

Anyway, so this guy Danny Redman survives a poison gas attack, which makes him ideal not only for research at Porton Down, which makes sense, given his remarkable durability, but also an ideal test subject for some top secret drug, which doesn’t. The reason why it doesn’t make sense is that if you were at all interested in why he survived the poison gas, you don’t go screwing with the data before you’ve even collected it by introducing a confounding variable like a new drug. 

Anybody who has ever carried out scientific or systematic research will tell you the drug trial scenario itself doesn’t add up. I’m actually expecting the whole thing to be an elaborate charade or even a dream. Firstly, the test subjects are too dissimilar for the double-blind protocol to be useful. If the subjects are an old woman, a soldier with strange powers of endurance, a psychiatric patient and an illegal immigrant, it doesn’t make sense not to give the drug to all four, because whichever two don’t receive the drug do not constitute anything like a control group. And a codename dreamt up by an undergraduate with a daft sense of humour makes no sense, because no undergraduate would ever have been allowed near the project or its design. Except that the protocols are about the sort of quality a spectacularly bad undergraduate psychologist might have come up with. 

In short, I thought all the dialogue was a mess, and I don’t believe anything that has been said so far about the experiment. In fact I don’t even think they’re real scientists. They’re just actors, and all their science speak is improvised. I fully expect all the captives are going to be given the drug, which will give them all superhero powers, or kill them. 

RF: This mainly stems from the fact that I've taken the Queen's Shilling myself, but I disliked the opening two pages. I appreciate that it's only fiction and the narrative should take pre-eminence, but while it is strong dialogue with good and natural-sounding banter, that sort of talk should belong in the NAAFI. Attention is firmly on the task in hand when out of patrol, and so the shoves and headlocks strike very false. Danny Redman also isn't using an issue respirator - yes, I know that it's nitpicking, but even so if you're going to use a real-world setting you should endeavour to be authentic.

The remainder of the strip is more interesting. The change of scene from desert skullduggery to break-room chat is an effective which complements Danny Redman's sense of dislocation, and Carter's art is positively smeared in grime, which combined with his realistic proportions creates quite a chilling atmosphere, as if you're rifling through a collection of old photos that reveal some sordid secret, one that will need to be deciphered in future episodes.

MC: Did I imagine a preview poster of this a few years ago with a different artist, or is that a fever dream John Smith painted in my brain? Either way, this seems a clear candidate for the award of ‘2000AD story that most wanted to be a Vertigo series’ for 2008. Not that that’s any bad thing. An interesting setup and some solid art make this one to watch in the coming weeks. We can only hope it isn’t lost with the return of Dante next week.  

The Guv'nor - Part 1 Script: Pat Mills Art: Patrick Goddard Letters: Ellie De Ville

Tsk... that rascally Bill Savage, eh?

Synopsis: With England reoccupied, Bill Savage is out on another mission. There is talk of US Special Forces arriving in Shannon - against their agreement with the Volgans - and Reconciliation Month has arrived. Savage returns to his pub - now going by the name Bill Carter - and has a drink with a Volgan general who is unaware of his true identity...

DK: Oh no! – what?? Last time we saw Bill Savage, the south had been liberated from the filthy Volgs. Now, suddenly, Savage Book Four appears and the Volgs are back again, having retaken the Beautiful Sarf of In-ger-lund while our backs were turned! 

What kind of stunt is that to pull?? I’m crying foul here. Can you imagine how many tank battles, how much bloodshed and shooter action and heroic resistance we missed while all this was going on off-screen? Maybe Pat thought: “nah, that’s boring – I’ll just start Book IV at the point when all the dust has settled and things are pretty much back to where they were before the uprising, and Tom Savage’s death will have been in vain.” 

We’re stuck with it now, so we may as well enjoy it. This Volgan occupation is a bit different, it seems. Things are a bit looser, you can criticize the regime quite openly although Big Ivan is always watching, and everyone can afford booze this time. But no cigarettes though: New Labour and the Volgan occupying force have that policy in common, at least. 

Patrick Goddard’s artwork is really nice here, and he’s a worthy replacement for Charlie Adlard on the strip. It has a vintage Future Shocks feel to it, especially the opening scene in the bar. Goddard’s Savage has a lot more character in the strip than he has on the cover, and he’s captured Savage’s grim demeanor quite well. 

RF: I must admit, I was quietly dreading having to review Savage. We all know that Mills divides the Squaxx Del Thargo like a rusty meat cleaver, and I really fall on the soiled side. When Mills concentrates on crafting a purely ripping yarn, his imagination can be transcendent - his work on Warhammer Monthly strip "The Redeemer" remains to this day one of my favourite comics. However, whenever he gets it in his head to don the Preachy Political Pat hat - more often than not, unfortunately - that glorious ascendant arc is dragged into a dive down back to earth with a sharp bump. This is unavoidable - after all, Mills is an anti-American republican socialist whereas I'm an Atlanticist monarchist Tory, and if we ever met in real life the resultant explosion would smash the planet off its axis and send us all spiraling into the sun. With Savage being a more political stallion in Mills's stable, I was anticipating a bruising dust-up this week.

Fortunately, there's little to drive me to cross swords with Mills in that respect - for instance, Goddard's Volgans look very much their own and are a great improvement on Adlard's depictions in previous books, where they were pretty much G.I.s with a different flash on the sleeve and about as subtle as a mating stag. This more restrained approach allows me to enjoy this strip on its own merits - and so this first episode of "The Guv'nor" forms an effective reintroduction to Savage's world.

There's some keen dialogue in the stand-up (sit-down? sit-in protest?) comedy stage in the opening page, and it's followed up with the news spot. The speech is contrived, of course, but we're happy to accept its transparency because we're in on the act ourselves. Harry's catastrophic blunder with the mirror seems ludicrous, but it's the sort of bone-headed blooper that you can dread someone making in reality.

The General is an intriguing figure, and one which interests me in future episodes of "The Guv'nor". His sharp design, cool manner and the telling scar indicate that the General has full command of himself and will be no trifle to deal with, and so it will be interesting to see how the two Gees face off against each other.

MC: You know what to expect, as Pat Mills does his best impression of Classic Pat Mills and Patrick Goddard weeps in the shadow of Charlie Adlard. Bored bored bored.

DK: It was an enjoyable Prog, whatever my gripes with it here and there. Three good stories and only one duff one isn’t a bad average, and there’s hope for Dead Eyes yet. It may well go up in my estimation with Part Two. If everything in Part One was for real, then maybe Part Two will be good enough to make me forget about the opening segment altogether. It was great seeing Nick Dyer’s debut, D’Israeli’s Empress, and Goddard on Savage; and Lee Carter’s art on Dead Eyes was a pleasant surprise too, if not quite a revelation. 

Best Story: Judge Dredd

RF: Changeover day for 2000AD, as new Thrills open and old ones take their bows. It's been a fine three months for the Galaxy's Greatest Comic with above-average efforts from most strips, and it will be interesting to see whether the coming Spring line-up can match it.

Best Story: Stickleback

MC: A dip in quality with a sort of false reboot given that 40% of content is the end of a story. Dead Eyes needs time to develop, while a potential natural ending point for Savage has been neglected in favour of more money in Mills’ pocket.  

Best Story: Dead Eyes