The Weekly 2000 AD Prog #2261: The Tanikar Are Here

Time to head out to the land of 2000 AD, the UK’s greatest sci-fi weekly comic for four decades and counting… it’s The Weekly 2000 AD

This Prog… endings, endings, and endings. It’s the end of year Christmas Prog next week, with a whole load of new strips. So that means it’s only four strips this week and it’s time to bid farewell to the funniest Judge Dredd this year – ‘Judge Dredd: The Musical ‘(although we do get an extended 10 pages this week – joy!), plus the finale to Scarlet Traces and Dexter. The only strip carrying on through Christmas is The OUT – where things are getting truly monumental and terrifying.

Okay then… you can grab 2000 AD Prog #2261 on Wednesday 8th December. It’s a damn fine Prog…

 

JUDGE DREDD: THE MUSICAL – PART 3 – FINAL PART – Rob Williams, Chris Weston, letters by Annie Parkhouse.

10-pages of Sensitive Klegg’s musical extravaganza here – a story so big the normal 6-page Dredd just couldn’t contain it!

And oh, what a finale it is! Heck, we even get Dredd appearing, although admittedly only from page 8 onwards. Seems he really wasn’t all that concerned about the musical after all.

But just because Dredd doesn’t appear doesn’t mean there’s not a hella lot going on – Klegg’s Judge Dredd musical gets an opening night to a packed out audience, his Judge Death is very much in drink, so much so that Walter the Wobot has to step in to deliver something uniquely Walter. There’s high-kicking and high-jinx galore before Dredd makes an appearance.

And it’s all being backed by Enormo Overdrive III, the only child of the “late, revered, awesome business messiah Enormo Overdrive” – you know, the shark-headed guy with the flying city of Luna-2. Still smarting from Luna-2 being ‘stupidly blown up by the judges,’ he had his DNA bonded with a Hammerhead; totally original and he’ll not hear any different.

The plan is simple, get Sensitive Klegg to put on the show, Dredd will get so incensed he’ll come to shut the showdown, and then the sniper in the Gods of the theatre will dispatch both Dredd and Klegg, the two responsible for Overdrive Inc’s downfall.

Well, let’s just say it doesn’t quite go like that. But as for how it does go, well let’s just say it’s a bloody fabulous finale to bring the curtain down on this one. So many lovely moments of laughs in here – I’ll say no more, but look for the casual tossing aside of Klegg’s biggest supporter and the crocodile tears – comedy gold!

THE OUT – BOOK TWO – PART 11 – Dan Abnett, Mark Harrison, letters by Annie Parkhouse.

The evacuees, including Cyd, are down on Hurang and there’s a desperate rush to get down into the bunkers.

Why? Well… here’s the end of last Prog.

Yes, the Tanikar. The alien race Cyd was killed by back in book 1, when they swept in, unbelievably fast, decimating everything in sight.

And that’s why the first few pages here are just full of panic, Abnett’s writing and Harrison’s artwork accelerating everything, the sense of desperation as the evacuees make their way across the safe ground of the causeway, flanked either side by the carnivorous pink weed.

And it’s just too much for Cyd in the end. Already suffering from potential PTSD just hearing about the Tanikar, she’s rooted to the spot as the devastation kicks in and the death toll mounts, the Tanikar moving so fast that they hit with a sonic boom. That page of the explosive booms of the Tanikar and all the lives lost is just perfect, all done without Cyd saying barely a word…

And then there’s one page of sudden stillness, the chaos and the carnage gives way to just Cyd, stopped dead in her tracks by her first sighting… and our first sighting. Bloody impressive.

There’s no way out, there’s no place to escape to, Cyd’s not fast enough, the Tanikar are coming… and there’s just one last hope, one place to hide.

Thrilling? Doesn’t even come close to describing how incredible this series is as it’s coming to an end.

SCARLET TRACES – STORM FRONT – PART 11 – FINAL PART – Ian Edginton, D’Israeli, letters by Simon Bowland.

Twenty-Five years later. That’s where we’re at on the first page of this last episode. That you weren’t expecting.

But it seems that the truce, or at least the unconditional surrender of the Martians brokered by Ahron has worked. It seems that the people of Earth actually listened and found their humanity.

So, we join Human, Jovian, Venusian, and Martian in commemoration of what the Martians did and what the combined forces against them did (or didn’t do) in response. This final episode is the coda of sorts to the whole of Scarlet Traces thus far, the end to the first cycle, with the combined efforts of all life in our solar system creating something incredible, something that will travel beyond these worlds and…

Well, let’s just say that Edginton and D’Israeli can’t help but leave us one cliffhanger, along with the good news that ‘Scarlet Traces will return,’ because you get the idea that there’s plenty more to explore in these worlds. And frankly, it’s just too good not to.

DEXTER- BULLETOPIA CHAPTER 7: LORDY JORDY, KING OF EVERYTHING – PART 4 – FINAL PART – Dan Abnett, Tazio Bettin, colours by Matt Soffe, letters by Simon Bowland

Dinosaurs everywhere, Dexter and his little gang of ne’er-do-wells right in the middle of them. And then… well, as you’ll see in the preview below, all is well. That’s sometimes just the way these sorts of tales go.

Anyhow, we get to the latest pause in Bulletopia, with betrayal and more betrayal… in Downlode you really don’t know who you can trust, do you?

We’ll be seeing more of Dexter rather soon though – next week in fact, as the next part of Bulletopia begins in the Xmas Prog – we’ll see you there.