2000AD Prog 1604 - 17 September 08

Cover by Clint Langley

Darren Stephens: Bit of an odd one this. I love Cliff Robinson's work and this is a great image, with some brilliantly designed bad guys, but...as a cover its a bit too busy. That strap line doesn't help. Who chose that typeface? Its horrible!

Hugh Platt: Cliff Robinson’s cover is certainly busy, but something about it just jars as awkward in my mind. Maybe it’s the amount of grey on display, maybe it’s because Dredd seems lost amongst it all, rather than merely surrounded, but this is unexciting. 

Firestorm - Part 1 Script: Robbie Morrison Art: Sam Hart Colours: Len O'Grady Letters: Annie Parkhouse

Dredd gets some new wheels...

Synopsis: Dredd has been sent to the planet Gamorra to retrieve Lucifer Bloodstone, wanted for mass murder and piracy. Gamorra doesn't have an extradition treaty with MC1 so Dredd has to go in illegally and retrieve him. He meets some resistance, but manages to get Bloodstone off planet by hitching a ride on a pleasure cruiser, along with his back up Psi Judge Nova. However, they come under attack from pirates.

DS: This is the first part of a new Dredd, which sees our (anti) hero leave the city for the planet Gamorra, to bring in an alien crim known as Lucifer Bloodstone.  The script is sadly average at best. Whenever Wagner's missing from that credits box alarm bells start to ring and this week they are deafening!  Robbie Morrison is a fantastic writer but he still has a few issues to iron out when it comes to Dredd. For example, the Dreddmobile, as someone on the forum cruelly (but funnily) referred to it. What's that all about?!

The artwork doesn't help matters. I've not heard of Sam Hart before and, although there is lots of potential on show, this is pretty weak for the prog's main strip. Even the mighty Len O'Grady's colours can't save it.  

HP: Robbie Morrison hasn’t had much of a grip on Old Stoney Face recently. Last time he had Dredd beat a perp to death in a character-jarring fit of rage, and now he’s got Dredd stomping across the galaxy, breaking local laws, just to bring in a space pirate. While Hershey’s proved she’s got a record when it comes to sending Joe on covert ops, this seems like a lot of effort for just one perp.  

Dredd’s previous off-world jaunts have been patchy at best, and this set-up doesn’t lead me to believe this one is any better The idea of Dredd operating on the other side of the law is an interesting one, but Morrison seems content to just let it be an excuse to let loose the H-Ex, rather than as an excuse to probe into anything deeper.  

Old Gods - Part 5 Script: Ian Edginton Art: Steve Yeowell Letters: Ellie De Ville

Toten gets a new ally...

Synopsis: As Toten makes a sacrifice of one of him men to wake the Jotun, dancer and his men prepare to go to Asgard. They (and Erebus) climb a mystical tree which takes them high above the planet's surface and finally to the home of the gods themselves...

DS: I gather from reading the 2000AD forums (on this site and the official one), that Red Seas is a bit of a marmite thrill. I must admit, I fall  into the 'love it' brigade. Ian Edginton's scripts are always entertaining and inventive, with this series being the best one so far.

Steve Yeowell's art has never looked better, either. Top class.

HP: When The Red seas first started, most of Jack Dancer’s crew just seemed to be a big interchangeable mob. Yeah, there was the one with the skullcap. Yeah, there was the one with the big beard. But for the most part, they were just there to give Jack someone to talk to. 

But after the panel where Billy and Tommy look down on Britain, wistfully hoping to be buried there one day, I realised they aren’t just a chorus line of cannon fodder for Dancer – they’re a gang of rogues that’s steadily grown on me during the years. Something about this panel makes me think that maybe the whole crew won’t be returning to port at the end of this tale. 

And anyone who says Steve Yeowell can’t do faces, can just look at this panel and shut it. 

Volgan War 3 - Part 4 Script: Pat Mills Art: Clint Langley Letters: Simon Bowland

Hammerstein comes a cropper...

Synopsis: Hammerstein and Steelhorn fight, and Hammerstein uses explosions to counter Steelhorn's implosions. Badly damaged, he salvages some limbs from Volgan robots and continues the fight. however, it's Zippo who finally stops Steelhorn with a Freezeburner. The anti virus is installed and Steelhorn saved. The military would cover up his crimes as the people still needed a hero...

DS: Steelhorn's story continues. Script wise... not much happens. I'm a big fan of Pat Mills, but he has this habit of stretching things out a bit too long sometimes. This means that something that could be wrapped up in one page takes up the whole episode. There is some action here, though, giving Clint Langley an excuse to draw lots of explosions and flying debris. The artwork this time around looks a little messy and hard to follow at times.  

Not terrible by any stretch of the imagination, but not quite as mind blowing as it should be, given the two creators involved....

HP: Can anyone remind me why Steelhorn lives in a cave sufficiently far away from the rest of his army again? Other than to give an opportunity for Steelhorn to be infected? It just seems so anachronistic a plot device. For once though, it’s the only part of Mills’ storytelling I’m scratching my head about, with the rest of this week’s episode being surprisingly lucid.  

Perhaps it’s a downside of such luscious art, but Clint Langley’s work has always seemed so static to me. The sheer level of detail leaches the movement clean off the page. Thankfully his splash panels are so beyond gorgeous, I’m content just to sit and scan them for all the little details.  

Part 5 Script: Tony Lee Art: Jon Davis-Hunt Letters: Ellie De Ville

A nasty bite...

Synopsis: Gibson was experimenting on one of the creatures they found, but it escapes, and bites one of the guards. The guard dies almost immediately, but it is treated as an accident. However, Gibson now sees that they can use the creature venom against the guards, as it didn't have the same effect on humans. Holland and Gibson decide to keep this to themselves...

DS: Five weeks in and it looks like initial impressions were correct. This is a straightforward world war two prisoner of war story, but in the future...and in space. The script lacks any surprises, there's nothing here to lift it above the average, apart from, erm, some space worms. Unless something great happens soon, this looks to be a bit of a filler. Shame that. This could have been really good.

Jon Davis-Hunt's artwork confuses me also. Small things are starting to annoy over time. That miserable brown pallet, presumably used to further invoke the WW2 flavour. Everyone's faces looking the same, maybe with the odd moustache or hat separating them. All the inmates having the same build. Mind you, I really like Davis-Hunt's work, despite all that. Strange.  

HP: How did Holland survive so long? Once again he’s snapping at the leash, trying to go lamp one on the camp commander and get himself killed in the process. Given the Snakes predilection for extreme and instant violence, you’d have thought one of them would’ve gutted the petulant prisoner by now. 

One again, this week all feels a bit “laying the groundwork for some big payoff later”, with the bug toxin surely due to come back later to save the day. It might’ve worked if Stalag 666 wasn’t so uniformly dull. And so uniformly brown.  

The Forget Me Knot - Part 4 Script: Simon Spurrier Art: Carl Critchlow Letters: Annie Parkhouse

Lobster knew he'd forgotten to do something before leaving the house...

Synopsis: Random drinks the rainwater and starts tripping, in an effort to find out what happened on the Vort. He remembers finding Sergeant Diaz and, after killing him, getting an urge to visit the Vort, leaving his fortune with Mrs Redd. He then sees his hallucinations are mixed up with Bless's and realises that she's been affected by the rain too. Coming out of his trance, Random is surrounded by the supposed dead Veldt and his men - all who seem to have been affected by the planet...

DS: Absolutely mental stuff from Simon Spurrier. I've never really been a big fan of Lob, but 'The Vort' hooked me and this flows nicely on from that. The script and dialogue are so full of energy and humour and sooo many great (but of the hook) ideas its incredible. Spurrier's way with words, and indeed making up his own words, make this a staggeringly enjoyable read. This is what 2000AD should be like.

Perfectly suiting this strip we have artist Carl Critchlow. I've loved this man's work since Thrud the Barbarian in 'White Dwarf' magazine. I cant imagine anyone else drawing this and making all Spurrier's crazy ideas work in quite the same way. Great! 

HP: Spurrier adds to his ever growing thesaurus of imaginary words with such sparklers as “prolapsed your brainarse”. It’s like John Smith with a sense of humour – just slippery enough so you can’t ever feel you’ve got Lobster Random pegged, but not too outer-spaced that it becomes unfathomable.  

The murky bloodstained view of Lobster’s memories, as befits a man who’s seen and spilt so much of the stuff, starts to fill in the blanks as to how our man ended up on The Vort, but stops tantalisingly short of revealing the full story. Critchlow’s eye-popping art makes it seem like we’re seeing Lob’s memories out the corner of our eye, almost as if we’re voyeurs to Lob’s own mind trip.

The return of Veldt - who’s clearly several spins round The Vort by now - is unexpectedly early on in the story, but none the worse for it. The image of him standing, knife in hand, froggie head torn and strapped round his head, is a wondrously feral end to the prog. 

DS: Not a bad prog. Two decidedly average strips and three good 'uns. Everything's perfectly readable, so no real complaints.  

Best Story: Lobster Random

HP: A weaker prog overall this week – Pat Mills continues to get away with the kind of stuff that would see a Future Shock pitch get rejected, Robbie Morrison still doesn’t get Dredd, and Stalag 666 is shaping up to be this year’s Second City Blues – it’s barely started into its (allegedly gargantuan) run and already I just want it to be done with.  

It’s left to The Red Seas and Lobster Random to save the prog. Thankfully the anticipation of things to come in the former, and the flat-out inventive flair of the latter is enough to carry the deadwood this week.  

Best Story: Lobster Random