The Weekly 2000 AD – Prog 2121 Previewed: It’s Happy 42nd Birthday To Tharg!

2000 AD was 42 this month. For 42 years, it’s been delivering a weekly dish of the finest in sci-fi comics from some of the finest purveyors of comics in the business. You might not always love every single strip, but in 42 years, some of the greatest characters and stories have come from these pages.

And the good times just keep on coming, with such diverse strips as Jaegir, Skip Tracer, Grey Area and the current Tharg’s 3Riller, not to mention John Wagner proving, yet again, that he’s the master when it comes to Dredd in the thrilling Machine Law series.

2000AD Prog 2121, with a cover by Steven Austin, is out in the UK and digitally on 6 March and wings its way over the Atlantic some point later.

JUDGE DREDD: MACHINE LAW – PART 7 – John Wagner, Colin MacNeil, letters Annie Parkhouse.

10 million or more come to the Grand Hall of Justice to shout as loud as they can… “No machine law”. Amongst the Judges in their way, there’s dissent, openly questioning Chief Judge Logan’s promotion of Harvey, a Mech-Judge, to the new council of five. And then there are four of the five members of the old council of five, facing down Logan, threatening him, a potential coup in the making, if he doesn’t withdraw Harvey from the council and roll back the Mechanismo programme.

And then there’s Dredd. And then there’s John Wagner. Both have been here for all 42 years of 2000AD, both are older, wiser, but both of them are still, after all this time, masters of what they do. Wagner and MacNeil’s Machne Law is, simply, classic, wonderful Wagnerian Dredd, all about the process, the city, the mechanics of this world. It’s something we all hope to see continue for many, many years.

SKIP TRACER – LOUDER THAN BOMBS – PART 11 – James Peaty, Paul Marshal, colours Quinton Winter, letters Ellie De Ville

As everything falls into place in this latest Skip Tracer, he’s attempting to find the proverbial needle in the haystack, a bomb at a concert with hundreds, thousands in attendance. But the twists and turns of Skip Tracer haven’t stopped yet, even with just these two final episodes to go.

Peaty’s writing has really seemed to have stepped up that essential little bit in the latter chapters of this third Skip Tracer, embracing the kinetic nature of this sort of procedural investigation tale and slowly picking up the pace here, dialing up the tension until the last couple of pages of this episode, where things twist once more and leave you impressed at the manner of the telling. And all along, Paul Marshal’s artwork helps you on your way, guides you, with art that’s never overly showy, just damn good.

THARG’S 3RILLERS – TOOTH & NAIL – PART 2 – Andi Ewington, Staz Johnson, colours Abigail Bulmer, letters Simon Bowland

Max Ha’s bad bad day gets worse. Sole survivor of a massacre that killed 17, everyone wants to know just who did it, and they’re not going to be too gentle in the process.

The middle part of the latest 3Riller and the action kicks in, in fine style thanks to Ewington and Johnson, with some cracking stylised pages butting up against huge questions over just where this is all going. Getting these 15 pages 3Rillers is tough, I reckon this one’s a winner.

GREY AREA – THE GREY AND THE BLACK – Dan Abnett, Mark Harrison, letters Ellie De Ville

Deep diving into the worse parts of the Grey Area, down where the criminals hide, Linguist Kymn and alien transfer Resting Bitch Face are being hunted down by the black ops team they were, briefly, part of. But, now that Bulliet and his team know the truth, they’re making tracks to get to them.

The thing with Grey Area is that Abnett and Harrison are just throwing so much into it. Abnett’s storylines are bouncing here and there, switching up issue by issue, and I’m just not sure where the hell they’re going with this one yet. And as for Harrison’s artwork, there’s so much spectacular detail here, panel upon panel just packed full of stuff, all the lines, the colours, the things, it’s something that should be a full on visual overload. Yet, with Harrison’s art, it just seems right to have the pages like this.

Beautiful, wonderful art, a story that keeps evolving with every episode, and a cast of characters that are fascinating to read. Grey Area really ticks all of the great, great strips boxes.

JAEGIR – BONEGRINDER – PART 5 – Gordon Rennie, Simon Coleby, colours Len O’Grady, letters Annie PArkhouse

Jaegir, the bad-ass Nort Kapitan, always winning, always finding a way. Which is why it was such a switch to see her negotiate the surrender of the Bonegrinder last episode. A switch but such a good one, and when you find out the precise details of the surrender, things just get better and better. Although, not necessarily for Jaegir. And, just as in every strip in this Prog, there’s no sense of the next episodes being obvious in any way.

It’s another brilliantly different strip in 2000AD, with Rennie writing a distinctly different sort of hero, a very different slant on things, all so beautifully accompanied by Coleby and O’Grady, with a magnificent look to it all.