The Weekly 2000AD Prog 2165: Join The Feeding Frenzy In Proteus Vex

It’s The Weekly 2000AD at Comicon, week after week of covering the Galaxy’s Greatest – packed full of great comics since 1977 and still going strong.
This week it all kicks off under a spectacularly good D’Israeli cover from Proteus Vex:

(Cover by D’Israeli)

Inside Prog 2165, it’s all the same, but seeing as we’re in the middle of five particularly good strips that’s not a bad thing at all. And artistically, it’s superb, with Dan Cornwell doing a great Judge Dredd, INJ Culbard on Brink, Henry Flint on Proteus Vex, McCarthy and O’Grady on Zaucer of Zilk, Richard Elson on Feral & Foe. It’s a bit of an art-fest in 2000AD right now, isn’t it? Five great artists, five great looking strips, all different and all great in their own way – 2020 certainly starting strong in 2000AD.
Prog 2165 is out in the UK and on digital from 22 January, with international copies coming out later – ask for it by name at your local comic shop. On we go…
 

JUDGE DREDD: KILL BLOOPY – PART 3 – Kenneth Niemand, Dan Cornwell, colors by Jim Boswell, letters by Annie Parkhouse
It’s all kicking off with the imaginary friends with Dredd, babysitting a VIP’s current imaginary friend, Bloopy, and trying to track down the VIP’s last imaginary friend who just wants to ‘Kill Bloopy’. But this particular imaginary friend is leaving an impressive body count behind.
Oh yes, tons of fun going on here, Niemand with tongue firmly in cheek, Cornwell doing great things with his art – definitely a Dredd artist we’re going to be seeing for many years to come.

 
BRINK BOOK 4 – HATE BOX – PART 16 – Dan Abnett, INJ Culbard, letters Simon Bowland
Five pages, one interview between Bridge, the rookie, and a rather disturbed Mr Martine, and yet another exercise in how to do suspenseful, claustrophobic, spectacular comics from Abnett and Culbard.
Culbard spends the time panning around the tight room, different angles, different expressions, intense stuff, incredible colour palette. Whilst Abnett takes a moment to set it all up before hitting us… first the idea of the clip, the vid that’s sending viewers mad, and then the really big reveal…

Oh yes, the Mercury event, all of it tying together, the madness spreading through the clip and now it’s coming home to Bridge.
Spectacular, amazing, beautiful work in Brink, as always, and it’s building up now to the end of this latest book in perfect fashion.

 
PROTEUS VEX: ANOTHER DAWN – PART 4 – Michael Carroll, Henry Flint, letters by Simon Bowland
Proteus Vex of the Alliance, tracking down the fugitive Alliance Chancellor, on the Scorcher planet, and that egg-shaped beauty on the cover of this Prog has just covered the inside of his ship with the insides of another strange alien thing.

Strange, alien thing… could be an apt description of Proteus Vex really. But it’s also a really good, enthralling, strange alien thing, one of those strips that doesn’t do the work for you, just lets you absorb it all, worldbuilding and storybuilding going together. In that, it’s Brink-like, and just as with Brink, has rather split folks online and in the various groups. But for me, Carroll and Flint are onto something quite brilliant, with Flint’s artwork looking so good, full of detail, full of the strange, organic sci-fi, great use of backgrounds, flashbacks in near sepia tones, yes… it’s a hit.

 
THE ZAUCER OF ZILK: A ZAUCERFUL OF SECRETS – PART 4 – Script by Peter Hogan, art and story by Brendan McCarthy, colors by Len O’Grady and McCarthy, letters by Jim Campbell
It’s Zaucer and Craggaknock facing off, wands at the ready. Harry Potter this isn’t. Potter never looked this eye-poppingly wonderful. But, as you’d expect, with Zaucer things are never simple, part of the fun of how things develop here.

And across in Zilk, T’Tooth and Smarty Pants are busy causing chaos and the Zaucer is nowhere to be seen.
As with the last series, Zaucer is a somewhat disconnected thrill, the visuals dominant with it for sure, but there’s always a story percolating in the background.

 
FERAL & FOE – PART 4 – Dan Abnett, Richard Elson, colors by Richard & Joe Elson, letters by Annie Parkhouse
And to end the Prog, the slightly silly fantasy of Feral & Foe, a marvellous contrast to the intensity of all before it.
Last time, we had Wraith and Bone getting together with a new Tank. And now the Tank is thumping his way through things with aplomb. And talking, talking, talking… much to Wraith’s displeasure.

So, two ex-evil minions working for the good guys now, tasked to track down those they once fought alongside? It was never going to be that simple, was it?
It’s fun, it’s funny, Elson’s art looks great on it. And it’s exactly the sort of balance that the Prog benefits from. All in all, a perfect way to finish another great Prog.