The Weekly 2000 AD Prog #2327: Is It The End For Durham Red?

Since 1977 2000 AD has been the UK’s greatest sci-fi weekly comic, and every week we give you a glimpse inside the new Prog… it’s The Weekly 2000 AD.

Nearly the same as last week for the contents here – so it’s more Durham Red, more from The Order, more Enemy Earth, and more Rogue Trooper. New this week we have a done-in-one Dredd from the Kingmaker team of Ian Edginton and Leigh Gallagher.

2000 AD Prog 2327 is out now. Which means that, yes… AGAIN, I’m late getting this one done. Ooops. Sorry all, but better late than never, eh?

Anyway, shall we have a gander at what’s inside?

 

JUDGE DREDD: DOWN BY LAW – Ian Edginton, Leigh Gallagher, colours by Peter Doherty, letters by Annie Parkhouse

37 dead high-rolling cits, including a breakfast news anchor and her hubby, a tech tsar, and a scandi-rapper. It’s a headline-grabbing killer leaving a note written in expensive sauce from the restaurant… and we discover that not all Judges live Dredd’s life of justice, justice, justice. Some have interests outside the Justice Department…

 

You have to love that gag, made all the better with Gallagher’s great expressions and body language.

Figuring the perp’s still in the building, we get a glorious page of Leigh Gallagher artwork with a particularly tense lift ride before Dredd does his Dredd thing.

A lovely little 6-pager Dredd, great art from Gallagher and tight writing from Edginton. Just another day in MC-1.

 

DURHAM RED: MAD DOGS – PART 2 – Alec Worley and Ben Willsher, letters by Simon Bowland

After being found very guilty last episode, the most feared of the Search/Destroy agents finds herself staring down the needle. Except we had the tease last episode that there was somebody governmental waiting for her, someone with a proposition.

 

It’s all to do with the situation on Metronexa-Septem and the cartel bloodshed we saw some of last episode. The target happens to be a name Red knows, Rudo Kanka, someone she’s crossed paths with before. He’s working for the Oathbreaker cartel, cooking up narcotics for them in an earthquake-devastated wasteland of a city. Seems he’s invented a particularly popular new drug that’s proving popular amongst the middle classes… and you know how government hates it when things threaten the middle classes.

So, it’s the government putting Red to work, they’ve done the search, she’s doing the destroy here. But she’s not going in alone. Nope, the government have her teamed with another Mutant they’ve repurposed after catching her on 97,000 counts of tech-activism.

Red’s back on a mission. Succeed and maybe the government will drop the death sentence – if they’re true to their word. Fail and… well, she’s probably dead. We’re going to be along for the ride to find out.

Worley and Willsher really do have a great partnership going here on a strip they obviously love. It’s a good old-fashioned Durham Red tale, give her a mission and set her off, and it works really well.

 

THE ORDER: HEART OF DARKNESS – PART 10 – Kek-W and John Burns, letters by Jim Campbell

We’re racing towards the ending of what I was convinced was the finale to the entire The Order series. But I can’t find where I read that, so I could be wrong – it has been known.

 

Anyway, it’s all kicking off here in typically weird and wonderful and confusing fashion. We have multiple Armoured Gideon-type units, multiple Order agents, the final attack of Francis Bacon, and a lot more.

Just as with the last few series of The Order, I’m reading this with abandon, not really worried that I’m not completely sure who everyone is and what side they’re on anymore… but that’s almost immaterial now, it’s just a case of look at the gorgeous John Burns art and let it wash over you as things explode on the page.

 

ENEMY EARTH: BOOK II – PART 2 – Cavan Scott and Luke Horsman, letters by Simon Bowland

We’re back in the world where nature turned against humanity, where people are all but wiped out, and where the survivors aren’t having too great a time of it.

Two of the survivors are poor Zoe and Jules. She’s lost everyone she loved, he’s got the faint hope that his dad, the Prime Minister, is to be found in Scotland. So that’s where they’re headed, just them and the head of Jule’s protector mech, Nanni.

But things haven’t really been going too well for them. First Zoe lost her arm after being infected and now Jules has picked up a stinger bite, something Zoe knows will turn him in a short while.

 

For a series that began as a Regened episode for all-ages, Scott and Horsman aren’t shying away from the nightmarish in here. As Zoe and Jules race away from the trouble they found last issue, it’s all doom and gloom, darkness engulfing everything in Horsman’s incredibly effective artwork. You just don’t hold out too much hope that all will be well for the pair.

 

ROGUE TROOPER: BLIGHTY VALLEY – PART 2 – Garth Ennis and Patrick Goddard, letters by Rob Steen

And now to end the Prog with the big one, Ennis and Goddard bringing their talents to Rogue Trooper, one of the original greats of 2000 AD, but one that’s suffered over the years from a storyline that’s constrained and limited what can be done.

So, instead of trying something new here, they’ve gone back to the basics… albeit with a strange twist.

We’re on Nu-Earth. It’s just Rogue, Gunnar, Helm, and Bagman in the middle of their quest for the traitor general.

But this isn’t the Nu-Earth we know, thanks to the mysterious Night’s Horizon, where the planet gets closest to the black hole both the Norts and the Southers use to warp in and out. When it’s this close, strange things happen.

How strange? Well, how about this from the end of the first episode?

 

Yep, Ennis takes Rogue back to another war and we’re all left to enjoy the hell out of this one. After all, Ennis does write war so very very well. And Goddard’s art is just that perfect classical clean look that suits Rogue perfectly.