2000AD Prog 1594 - 9 July 08

Cover by Luke Preece

Charles Ellis: Simple enough – “there’s this tough guy in black and he kills zombies”. It works.  

Steven Watson: I’m on the fence a bit about this effort by Luke Preece. It is a decent image and probably quite attractive to the right sort of browsing reader. On the other hand it’s not too detailed and not in the same league as strip artist Leigh Gallagher. All things considered I’ll give it pass marks, but only just!

The Edgar Case - Part 6 Script: John Wagner Art: Patrick Goddard / Lee Townshend Letters: Annie Parkhouse Colours: Chris Blythe

Ramos grows a pair...

Synopsis: Garcia admits to Dredd that he was scrawling when he witnessed the judges execute a perp on behalf of the Citizen's Court. He was forced to change his story by ramos and Kubitts. Dredd orders the arrests of the judges involved. Masterson is brought in but Eade kills himself. Meanwhile Dredd follows Ramos to a meeting with Kubitts. Ramos tries to bring Kubitts in, but Kubitts resists arrest. Dredd shoots Kubitts, the resulting shot sends Ramos over the edge of the building...

CE: Gripping stuff – we’ve had investigations, extreme violence, and a nasty little conspiracy, and just when you think it’s going one way Wagner pulls out a twist. Did you expect that Ramos was going to meet Kubitts to arrest him rather than silence him? I didn’t. It’s a shame Ramos seems to be doomed after this story, because he’s suddenly become quite interesting. There’s also a very nice little character bit when Dredd says he isn’t interested in arresting someone for a thirty-years-old minor crime – in the old days, of course, he would have.  

It’s strong, controlled and clinically-written stuff. So it’s in complete contrast to our next strip… 

SW: I’m not sure if this Dredd outing is a slow burner or just plain slow but at least things are staring to motor now. A well laid conspiracy has been methodically dismantled by Dredd and the pieces are starting to shatter. We have been down this route before and all the surprises so far have been small ones. It is however a great example of the Mega-City police procedural, and given Dredd’s advancing years it’s maybe the most realistic use of the character.
 
The Goddard/Townsend collaboration on the art duties is working well with the story told is a clear and uncluttered fabric. There is not a lot of dynamic action to show so it speaks volumes to say that the strip zips along. As always Wagner is hard to fault, and if I had to it would only be for treading a similar path to previous Justice Department conspiracies. Of course it’s hard to be surprising and exciting every time and even a routine Wagner is miles ahead of the competition.

Brethren of the Night - Part 6 Script: Pat Mills Art: Leigh Gallagher Letters: Ellie De Ville

The Bishop goes to work...

Synopsis: Bendigo is overwhelmed by the zombies and killed by Defoe as he turns. Tonge destroys the queen's nest and the crew go down to investigate what's left. They discover that the queen has laid her eggs in the body of a boy, so they cut them out and excorcise them. They burn the temple - and prepare to deliver the captured zombies, watching the flying Vizards around Nelsons Column as they go...

CE: On the 2000AD Review forums, poster Tempest gave a very breathless description of this part ending with “Pat Mills is INSANE! AND I LOVE IT!”. I linked other people to that post, and one immediately decided after reading it that he was going to buy this prog the next day. That’s the sort of strip we’ve got here – it’s completely insane, it only works in comics, and you’ll only find it in Pat’s 2000AD strips (unless you can read French).  

And you know, beyond the madness – and accepting some rather blunt and crude expositional dialogue – there’s quite a lot of world-building and character set-up. From these six pages, we now have met two more of the Brethren and seen others fleshed out; we know more about the zombies and the secret “angel” goings on; and we’ve got magical superheroes flying around. (It seems magic and alchemy is more common knowledge and accepted in 1669 than last year, when the alchemists wanted to keep it secret) It’s good stuff. I especially like the character’s reaction to the dreaded Catholicism (Defoe’s clipped “whatever it takes” says a lot about him) and violent pirate Scarlet’s admiration for Mrs Hopkins (and I love Mrs Hopkins going from prudish embarrassment to clinical zombie execution).  

There’s a lot in here, and all backed up admirably by Gallagher’s art; if you want messy dirty horror, he’s your man. 

SW: I didn’t take to Defoe at first seeing it as a pretty poor Canon Fodder knock off. It also featured the flavour of the month in zombies and the whole enterprise seemed somewhat lazy. I’m happy to report that my opinion has changed for the positive, although the reasons may not speak highly of me. Last week’s outing with the stomm farmers was great and the pace was maintained in this episode with some grisly deaths and funny dialogue.
 
The previously straightforward villains, the zombies, have come on apace with all sorts of nuggets of interest revealed. The evolving myths and background are great, and although the appearance of the vizards points things worryingly in a Harry Potter direction I feel we have to trust Pat Mills on this one. The black and white art is stunning with some scenes striking in a peep through your fingers kind of way. The direction of this strip is a total mystery to me but I’ve certainly signed on for a full tour of duty in Defoe’s company. Given how he treats his workers, pray for me!

Part 6 Script: G Powell Art: D'Israeli Letters: Simon Bowland

The Vort goes from bad to worse...

Synopsis: Veldt is in command, taking the group north and towing the rocket with them, heading towards the vortex. As they continue, they are constantly attacked until one day they come across the spawning grounds. The humans' eyes turn red and they are gradually going mad - with Veldt the latest as he knocks Bless to the floor. She goes to Crispy for help...

CE: This is giving me flashbacks to Bad Company – it’s got the same nihilistic and surreal edge (with a mysterious ugly bastard in it), and as with Bad Company I’m loving it. The bleakness gets turned up a notch, and the assault on Meriden is quite shocking. Meriden’s worked really well as a point-of-view character too: as with her, we’re thrown into the mess when it’s already halfway done and because we’re not following a soldier, we’re on the outside looking in and that just makes things more disturbing. She doesn’t know what’s going, so neither do we, so everything is that little bit more alien and nasty. It all helps add to the bleakness and sense of helplessness. 

What also adds to that is D’Israeli’s art – he’s one of the best people at drawing utter despair, and he’s been doing it well. Then there’s the extremely alien Vort landscape and froggies, the bioware, that nasty image of the burnt-out soldiers, the endless rain, and the assault of Meriden made that much more horrible by occurring in a blank white panel so we can’t see anything else. Brilliant stuff. 

As a side note – there’s an alien soldier at long last. But why’s there only the one? The “Aggregated Planets’” implies there’s more than one, yet there seem to just be humans. Odd. 

SW: I shamefully gave up on The Vort after Part 3. I didn’t have a clue what was happening and I no longer felt the compulsion to read all the text heavy boxes and figure out the dense, detail heavy art. Given my obligation to the readership of 2000adreview.co.uk I went back and read through the lot, including Tharg’s recaps. Still not sure and I’m not going back again!
 
My misgivings shouldn’t necessarily put you off the strip as my tastes have always been somewhat mainstream. I do support 2000AD in trying different things in one slot at most and I hope greater things can flourish from this experiment.
 
D’Israeli’s art is always interesting and if it wasn’t for the incessantly red palette I’d be enjoy looking at the pictures at least. Obviously there is a lot of talent on show but it just isn’t my kind of thing.

The Bournemouth Identity - Part 4 Script: Dan Abnett Art: Anthony Williams Letters: Ellie De Ville

Tessa shows off for her boss...

Synopsis: Zlik is replaced with the Mover's man. Sinister and Dexter return Tessa to him, but think that something odd is happening, as Zlik has given up on his accent. They are not sure what the problem is and decide to go to Tracey for help...

CE: I hope the “Dexter’s aim is gone” thing carries on; I want to see more fallout from his years paralysed. That’s the main thing I keep getting from the current Sinister Dexter run – not enough shake-up is happening after "And Death…" appeared to shatter the whole status quo. Admittedly stuff has happened and is happening, the strip’s not standing still, but it does come off as treading water until the next big multi-parter and that we’ve had too much build-up.  

That said, the current story’s been good so far and the first page of this part is quite strong stuff. The other four pages, however, don’t work that well as the alternate-universe Zlik is far too obviously an imposter – the Mover’s plan is naff!   

SW: I’ve never been a big fan of this hit man duo, but like an old pair of slippers their never ending misadventures are somewhat comforting. Although I’ve read every strip they’ve appeared in I’d still be troubled to give you anything approaching a time line or even a memorable outing. I know they’ve went down the unwelcome road sign posted ‘alternative realities’ and for me that negates a lot of interest I may have had in their current circumstance. How do we know if anything that happens is ‘real’? That said they cashed in most of their remaining currency with me when Ray died and then didn’t.
 
Of course the whole strip and its convoluted back story serves only as a vehicle for Dan Abnett’s puns and witty dialogue and he delivers on that front at least. Teaming the guys up with a hot babe is a safe bet for some fun and whilst I don’t really care what happens I enjoy the ride. Looks like I’m doing it too! Anthony William’s art is fine for purpose and the bright colours bring the whole thing off the page - but are we to believe a Irish gun shark would wear a pink jumper? I think not!

Amerika - Part 6 Script: Robbie Morrison Art: Simon Fraser and Gary Caldwell Letters: Ellie De Ville

The White Army takes flight...

Synopsis: Dante and Jena go to a meeting with all the insurgents with the hope of brokering a deal. In the meantime, we are given some background on Futura industries - which has patented the "Futura Consciousness", an implant which lets people live wild fantasy lives while going about their daily business. However, Futura is actually an agent of the White Army and as Dante tries to broker a peace, the White Army prepares to attack...

CE: Okay. Did anyone guess that Futura was a White Army front? I sure didn’t. It only occurred to me this prog: “hang on, those devices are white… white… they’re moving away from the realities of the flesh and white and…” And then I turn the page. I’m quite sure Robbie planned it to work that way. It’d be a good enough part with enough tension if it was just Dante meeting the insurgents, but now it turns out they’ve all been manipulated by the White Army it just amps everything up. 

Also, the shiny happy Futura billboard looming over a gloomy ghetto? That’s nice work. 

SW: Despite it stealing its name from an American mini series of the 1980’s I’m really enjoying this Dante outing. Long and thankfully gone are the talking animals and what is left is a thinly veiled war on terror commentary. I don’t like soap boxing in my comics but Dante’s charm and the top notch writing has turned my head.
 
Jay-Z tops his Glastonbury headlining gig by reaching the heights of a presidency and a memorial stadium and the tributes don’t end there with the Watchmen also shown to be answering the call. Pop culture references are fine but in some cases they are too obvious and distract from the story. Thin line being walked here!
 
The momentum of the strip is great with real excitement building with each week. The naked transformations of the Brotherhood were a bit full frontal, (especially as they backed onto my letter!) but for a strip that has always pushed the boundaries it didn’t seem out of place. Dante has muscled his way into my affections and this is the one ‘must read’ strip each week.

SW: The best strip?! ARG! Don’t make me choose! 

Best Story: Defoe/The Vort

SW: A pretty good mid-run Prog with a lot of variety on show. I’d mark it two hits, two good and one not for me.

Best Story: Nikolai Dante