2000AD Prog 1368 Review

Archive

Reviewer: William Cooling

Editor: Matt Smith
Publisher: Rebellion

Cover by: Boo Cook

Good cover this week, with excellent art by Cook that serves as a suitably enigmatic teaser to the “shocking” events in Dead Men Walking.


Judge Dredd
(6 pages)

Title: Meatmonger Pt. 4
Writer: John Smith
Artist: Siku
Letterer: Tom Frame

One of the constants in this dire line up has been the good quality of the Dredd strips despite the two leading writers taking a breather. Well, as my teaser suggests that is not true of this part.

John Smith seems to have adopted action movies as his muse without realising that the key to action movies is they move fast, damn fast. They are in short Crash TV in movie form. Like his recent Devlin Waugh series in Judge Dredd Megazine, the story is starting to drag due to an overlong, confusing chase. This time, we are still following Dredd and his criminal buddy round the maze that is the space station. For this type of story to work, we should be seeing a new idea introduced every week, not a rerun of last week’s idea.

However, where this story really falls down is the art. Siku has been walking a fine line, between being stylised or being sloppy in his linework, and in this part he firmly falls on the sloppy. His Dredd has gone from being an interesting take on him, to a poorly rendered mess that instead of reinterpreting the accepted uniform runs counter to it, i.e. Dredd’s badge is placed in the centre of his chest. What’s more Smith’s script is basically full of Easter Eggs for long-term fans with some returning characters, but Siku cannot capture them at all, for example his Kleggs are unrecognisable without the script pointing it out for you.

A hugely disappointing part in what had been hitherto a promising story, as the writing slows down and the art comes off the rails.


This section will contain spoilers

Dead Man Walking
(6 pages)

Title: Untitled Pt. 7
Writer: “James Stevens”
Artist: Boo Cook
Letterer: Annie Parkhouse

Last week, we saw “Stevens” throw out a nonsensical swerve by revealing that Jude was a G.L.A. undercover officer. This issue, he proceeds to make it bloody irrelevant as well, by revealing that all the reports she sent were intercepted and replaced by false reports. This is irritating, as it turns the twist of having her an undercover cop pointless since it has no narrative point; it was just introduced for the sake of having a cliffhanger.

What’s more, we get evidence that Jude must be the worst undercover operative in the world, as she uses her real name for her undercover persona, and speaks exactly the same undercover as she does non-cover, which makes no sense whatsoever. This all makes me very glad when the vucker croaks it, as Dreadnought kills her in what is admittedly a well-written scene.

However, then something horrible happens. You see “Stevens” is not content to rip of Gerry Finely-Day’s, Harry 20, but he’s also more than happy to rip of a recent Pat Mills, ABC Warriors’ story. You see in that story (which as a died hard Mills’ fan I don’t count as his best) it was revealed that evil corporations were destroying Mars and now the planet (which is living) is fighting back. Well, it is revealed in this part that evil corporations were destroying an alien planet (Lazarus), and now the planet (which is living) is fighting back.

We learn all this is in a conversation the planet has with Jude (who’s starkers just for the hell of it) where we learn the history of the planet. We also learn the history of the penal colony, in scenes featuring EVIL COPORATE TYPES, that not even Mark Millar would consider fair and balanced.

This all leaves us to the crunch point. In what is the only interesting strand in the whole piece, the zombies have continued to mass outside the penal colony. Well Lazarus tells us that it is organising them, and asks Jude to lead them against the penal colony.

She accepts and is resuscitated, destroys Proctor, and then some awful action-movie-ism that would make even Arnie blush.

This is awful! I hated having to read this liberal fantasy, of an omnipotent mother-nature come back to teach the evil corporations, the first time, and certainly don’t want to read it a second time, especially with an added eco-warrior Christ. What’s more, it gives Jude another new motivation as the harbinger of Lazarus’ revenge (that is now 5 in 36 pages). It also makes plot points like the feud with the prison kingpin, the friendship with talking black buddy, and her really being an undercover cop irrelevant.

There is no excuse for this lazy, desperate, formulaic hack-job of a comic strip, especially as it cannot be blamed on the inexperience of the writer. You may have noticed the quotation marks around the writer’s name, well that’s because it’s a pseudonym for David Bishop who is certainly no newcomer to comics. Indeed he was editor for Judge Dredd Megazine and/or 2000AD for the past part of 10 years, and has repeatedly tried his hand at scripting (which on the basis of this, I’m glad I was spared). This man should know what makes a good comic script, if not when he writes it then certainly when he reads one.

What’s more, this is the man who in April said of Brian Michael Bendis’ Marvel work on Spider-Man and Daredevil, “if I want (ed) a remixed version of the greatest hits of Stan Lee and Frank Miller, I’ll just go get the relevant graphic novel.” To have written something that is so derivative of Harry 20, and various action movies, after writing that sentence on some of the finest comic books on the market, shows either a complete lack of self-awareness, or utter hypocrisy and contempt for the reader.

Oh yeah, just in case you were wondering Boo Cook manages to turn in some great art out of this crap.


Caballistics Inc
(5 pages)

Title: Downtime Pt 6 ~ Kostabi
Writer: Gordon Rennie
Artist: Dom Reardon
Letterer: Tom Frame

This issue we delve into the life of Ethan Kostabi, the famous rock star-turned entrepreneur, who owns and funds Caballistics Inc for an unknown reason. Gordon Rennie comes up with an interesting narrative device that allows him to give us a lot of information about Kostabi, without sacrificing the mystique of the character, namely having his lawyer Howard Slater record a video about him. This keeps the distance that Rennie has established between the reader and Kostabi intact, whilst still imparting information about him.

It also allows him to get away with what is essentially a Biography Channel feature in comic book form. One of the keys to this trick is Slater; his rationale for making the reader, gives it an edge that you wouldn’t get if the video were a straight docu-comic.

The other, is the fact that the content of the video more than makes up for any lack of action. Not only does it offer hints at a mysterious background, it’s full of some genius pop culture references (I especially like the Bowie one), but also delivers some gruesome spreads for Reardon to depict. He also delivers a great last page that perhaps answers the questions around why Kostabi bought the Caballistics Inc.

Rennie, once again, shows himself to be one of the best writers in comics today. He skilfully manages to combine dialogue heavy pages with some wonderful spreads and a very fast pace. Reardon’s art is great, as usual, and seems to have firmly shaken off the Jock influences that had seemed more pronounced at the beginning of this series. This is an amazing end to what has been an amazing series that will be missed over the next two weeks.


Synnamon
(5 pages)

Title: Facing Mecha Pt. 7
Writer: Colin Clayton & Chris Dows
Penciller: Laurence Campbell
Inker: Lee Townsend
Colourer: Gary Caldwell
Letterer: Ellie De Ville

Last week, Synnamon fought her way to what she believed to be the base of the virus that was causing all the problems, only to be turned on by her robot “sidekick”. In this part, she runs away from it.

And that’s it.

To be honest, there is once again not a lot to say about this story. The writing is efficient and compressed, with a firm grasp on its characters, and a clear idea on where it’s going. The art has a nice “pop art” style to it, but never constantly wows, because of the lack of exciting images to depict. But above all, if any word described this story, it would be boring. Any hope I had of it offering anything resembling innovation, or imagination has long since been beaten out of me by the writers constantly writing the predictable, the cliché and in the end the mundane. A series that started with much promise has become the grey blur of 2000AD, although the art trio have certainly grown through the series (Campbell’s asses look almost attractive now).


Durham Red
(6 pages)

Title: The Empty Suns: Book 1: Part 7
Writer: Dan Abnett
Artist: Mark Harrison
Letterer: Ellie De Ville

Last week, Abnett reintroduced us to the real Durham Red as she went on a one-woman rampage against one of the Offspring’s minions, a rampage that was intended as a message to her nemesis. In the closing part of this “book” (basically 2000AD splits stories with slower artists into smaller chunks rather than wait and accumulate the material to publish in one go) we see the Offspring’s response, as he is informed of Red’s return.

Abnett’s writing is again very good as he fleshes out the character of the Offspring, who had hitherto been portrayed more as a force of nature than an actual character. He gets across a mix of both destructive and regal natures that makes the Offspring a nastier, more alien version of Magneto.

One cloud on the horizon is the hints of the story tying into the continuity of Strontium Dogs, the strip that Durham Red was spun off from. This would be a horrible mistake as the whole point of the Abnett/Harrison revamp was to get her away from what had by all accounts become a convoluted and restrictive history. Not only that, but such a link would make no sense as the story we are now reading is set 1,100 years after Strontium Dogs. Making any links, especially in regards to the character of the Offspring, extremely problematic.

Harrison’s art has, like Abnett’s writing, much improved from the opening parts. This improvement is in part due to his new style bedding down, but more to do with the images that Abnett is asking him to depict. Images like space wide destruction and inside futuristic space ships play to Harrison’s strengths more than the desert of the opening parts. This is true of this part, as Harrison excels at the scenes of the Offspring’s destruction and his confrontation with Red.

Whilst sections of this part leave cause for concern, this closer is an excellent read. The writing has improved immensely since the disappointing opening parts, as the return of Durham Red has given the story focus, identity and energy. It took awhile to get going, but as it goes on hiatus it seems that this story has found its feet.


A poor Prog this week, with only two stories being of the quality usually expected of 2000AD, with Dredd and Dead Men Walking deteriorating terribly and Synnamon nearly sending me to sleep. What makes this Prog truly terrifying is what it tells us about the next Prog, which will feature neither of the two-standout stories. For the love of God, I pray that Dredd regains its form; otherwise it’s going to be a long two weeks.

A Comics Nexus original, Will Cooling has written about comics since 2004 despite the best efforts of the industry to kill his love of the medium. He now spends much of his time over at Inside Fights where he gets to see muscle-bound men beat each up without retcons and summer crossovers.