Reviewer: William Cooling
Editor: Matt Smith
Publisher: Rebellion
Cover by Ian Gibson
An amazing cover, that brilliantly shows off Synnamon as the sex kitten that the writer so obviously intended. Gibson is renowned for making his women extremely sexy without being gratuitous, and this is no exception (even if Synnamon does look a lot like Halo Jones).
Judge Dredd
(6 Pages)
Title: Inside Job Pt. 2
Written by: Ian Edington
Art by: Steve Pugh
Lettered by: Tom Frame
Last issue we saw Mega-City One’s premier crime family, the Lynches, who to cover their tracks as they go legit, kill two Justice Department informers. The fact that both of them died in the confines of Justice Department Safe Houses makes the murders extremely suspicious and embarrassing for the Justice Department.
This part, we see the aftermath of the second informer dying, as his girlfriend and son come to terms with his death. Judge Dredd tries to find the assassin, whom he suspects of still being near, or even at the crime scene. This builds on the tight, efficient writing of the previous part, with the reintroduction of Edington’s usual inventive ideas into his writing. Also, Edington in a very dialogue heavy part builds up the supporting characters, with the informer’s girlfriend in particular, getting a lot of development.
Steve Pugh’s art is of a similar standard to the previous part, with a very good Golden Age version of Dredd complemented with a unique style of colouring. His art though, is slightly more inconsistent than the previous part, as best shown with Dredd’s chin, which changes from smooth to rough and back again. Also, some of the panels suffer from a lack of detail that seems to be the result of corner cutting. That said, the art is still good and adds to the story.
This story has been a welcome break of the Wagner/Rennie strangle hold over the character. Edington has constructed a simple murder mystery, with an entertaining sci-fi twist, a mixture of good characterisation and efficient plotting. He plays safe with Dredd, relegating him largely to the background and in doing so avoids having him do anything out of character (although the end is slightly debatable). In this he has been complemented well by Steve Pugh’s excellent art. Good stuff!
Dead Men Walking
(5 Pages)
Title: Untitled Pt. 3
Written by: James Stevens
Art by: Boo Cool
Lettered by: Annie Parkhouse
Minster for Clichés: Good Morning, how may I help you?
James Stevens: Well I’m writing this piece, and for a bet I’m wondering how many clichés I can fit into it. Do you think you can help?
Minster for Clichés: Well I’ll try, now what is it?
James Stevens: A futuristic prison drama.
Minster for Clichés: Well that’s a cliché in itself. I assume you have, (deep breath) an angry convict as your lead character (James nods), that the prison is inescapable (James nods), that this provokes the convict to want to escape (James nods), that the guards are sadistic (James nods), oh and the angry convict runs into conflict with the current prisoners (James nods). Hmm, well that is a lot, are you sure you need more?
James Stevens: Oh yes, it is a rather large bet.
Minster for Clichés: Well, all I can think of is having the sole black man in the story be the only one who tells the truth, which means that the angry convict can confide in him, and therefore becomes friends with him in a short space of time. Oh, and setting up a prison kingpin and having the angry convict clash with him, is always sleep inducing.
James Stevens: Oh thank you, that 50p is so mine.
Minster for Clichés: Er what about the readers? Won’t they be bored by all these clichés?
James Stevens: Oh no, I’ll just throw in some random made up swear words, some sci-fi ideas, and besides with Boo Cook’s drawing everyone will just look at the pretty pictures.
Caballistics Inc.
(5 Pages)
Title: Down Time Pt. 2 ~ Verse
Written by: Gordon Rennie
Art by: Dom Reardon
Lettered by: Tom Frame
Last issue, in this six part series of one shots which show each member of Caballistics Inc. enjoying some downtime, we saw Hannah Chapter get drunk at a lesbian bar and then confront an old friend. This issue, we get to see her associate Lawrence Verse, a former Catholic exorcist from (I think) France, off the clock. We see him visit a little girl who was seriously traumatised during one of his exorcisms. His conversation with her mother is interspersed with flashbacks of the event itself, a demonic invasion of Verse’s church.
This is a more serious, sinister part than the previous one, with no humour in it at all. Rennie maintains a consistent atmosphere that is a mixture of guilt and fear, over what happened eight years ago. Rennie masterfully shows you enough to get across the magnitude of the event to the girl, without showing you so much that you realise that Verse has since faced a lot worse. What’s more, this event has been alluded to as the reason that Verse left the Church in previous stories, so showing this adds to our understanding of the character.
This is all brought to life by Dom Reardon’s black and white artwork, which once again excels at capturing the spirit of Rennie’s strips. The perfect Halloween strip.
Synnamon
(5 Pages)
Title: Facing Mecha Pt. 3
Written by: Colin Clayton & Chris Dows
Pencilled by: Laurence Campbell
Inked by: Lee Townsend
Lettered by: Ellie De Ville
Oh man would I hate to be Campbell. Never has a cover artist so undermined an artist’s efforts to get their portrayal of their character accepted. I bet you every single person whilst reading this (well except one who shall remain nameless) is thinking I wish “Ian Gibson was drawing this.†I mean I love the cover, but it might have been wiser to let THE premier drawer of women in comics draw Durham Red where Harrison’s portrayal has already been accepted (or come to think of it, the cover to Prog 1362 with the montage of the three women).
Anyway, in this part we see Synnamon follow her bosses last orders before he was defeated, to find a scientist called Macaulay and see if he had any connection with the attack on the E.S.D base.
All that I have said in the last two parts is true of this; the writing is still efficient with some good dialogue and the art whilst good is flawed in being somewhat static and not capturing Synnamon’s sexiness well. However, where as in part 1 there was an interesting vagueness as to who were the heroes–Synnamon or her enemies–it is now pretty obvious that Synnamon is the good guy. It did become apparent in the previous part, but it’s pretty certain now, which is shame as it leaves the story feeling kinda familiar in parts.
Also, I’m starting to doubt the characterisation of Synnamon, who with ditzy comments such as “It’s pretty†in response to a place where some weird alien holocaust happened a century ago, is turning the strip increasingly into Legally Blonde meets Star Wars.
Not a good idea when the strip is being played straight.
Durham Red
(6 Pages)
Title: The Empty Suns: Book 1: pt 3
Written by: Dan Abnett
Art by: Mark Harrison
Lettered by: Ellie de Ville
Last issue, Godolkin’s band of merry men discovered that Durham Red had a son (explaining the “fake†Durham Red) and had found the location where she had last met her protector, a mutant prophet who had foreseen Red defeating the “great curse.†In the search of her base, which had formally been the Offspring’s (the thing that is in the process of killing all humanity) prison, the now feral Durham Red attacks, injuring one of them. Now if you’re Godolkin, and you see one of your men injured, what do you do?
That’s right you use him as bait.
This part details Godolkin’s attempts to capture and subdue Durham Red, without revealing what he wants her for. This is a major problem with the story so far, as due to the fact that we don’t know why Godolkin wants Red, we don’t know whether to root for him or not. Hopefully next issue we will get some explanations.
Another problem that this story has had is the lack of Durham Red in her old sci-fi bitch character. Instead we get her completely feral and naked. That’s largely true this issue although she does have a moment of lucidity when confronted by Godolkin.
Like Synnamon, this pretty much carried on the same course that the previous two parts set. With the same tidy, efficient writing from Abnett and the same good but not quite his usual standard art from Harrison. Its good but is getting boring, and is raising my suspicions that its been written for trade. Next issue really needs to usher in an improvement if this is going to match the previous books.
One word summarises this Prog-blah. With the exception of Dredd and Caballistics Inc. all the strips tread the same ground with no major improvements in quality or variation in theme from the previous issues. What is more, Dead Men Walking, perhaps the laziest written comic book story I have ever read, manages to get WORSE this issue with the introduction of yet more senseless, tired clichés and idiotic characterisation. This is made all the worse by the fact that Boo Cook (who is an excellent artist) is being wasted on it.
