The Weekly 2000 AD Prog #2328: The Old Man’s Still Firing On All Cylinders

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.

Again, as with last week, four of the same and a brand-new Dredd. So the four of the same would be the penultimate episode of The Order, surrounded by the continuations of Durham Red, Enemy Earth, and Rogue Trooper.

The Dredd strip’s a new multi-parter from Ken Niemand and Neil Googe, a continuation of the storyline and characters of Deadworld Designs that we first met in ‘Little Shop Of Terrors‘ in Judge Dredd Megazine #447 back in 2022.

2000 AD Prog 2328 is out on Wednesday 19th April. Yes, that’s right, I’m ahead of myself once more! Whoop, whoop, throw a party. (Yes, I know it won’t last. But dammit, I can celebrate for now.)

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

 

JUDGE DREDD: THE DISCIPLES OF DEATH – PART 1 – Ken Niemand, Neil Googe, colours by Gary Caldwell, letters by Annie Parkhouse

Welcome once more to the world of Deadworld Designs, MC-1’s premier dealer in all things dark, gruesome, and collectable. It’s Moira and Callum stealing the show once more in a lighthearted and silly Dredd reprising the characters from Megazine #447.

Oh, nearly forgot. In addition to running a shop, Callum and Moira are busy attempting to summon the Dark Judges back… yep, mad as badgers…

 

So, Niemand and Googe give us the comedy Dredd from the off with the opening page of gaggery about the Cal-Hab accents when Judge Wrexler and Mech-Judge Patsy are enquiring after Callum’s whereabouts – “Barely understood a word of that, Citizen.”

And there’s more where that came from…

 

From there, it’s off to see what Callum is actually up to… getting himself into secret meetings with daft cosplaying warlocks, witches, and other idiots, and something involving a trade for the Deadworld Canticles that’s about to be rudely interrupted by Dredd.

It’s super silly, just the sort of thing that’s good to see with Dredd every so often, the sort of silly that Wagner and Grant used to do regularly and something that Niemand (and Googe, whose art suits this tone so perfectly) really does seem to get.

 

DURHAM RED: MAD DOGS – PART 3 – Alec Worley and Ben Willsher, letters by Simon Bowland

Sometimes an episode doesn’t have to have a ton of stuff going on, sometimes it can just be something as simple as Durham Red and her new colleague, Roburta Wardrowe, plummeting 20,000 feet plus from a plane wearing infiltration suits to get them inside the secret compound where the target is making new drugs for the cartel.

Yep, that’s all we have here. Five freefalling pages with nothing but giant mutated pigeons to get in their way.

 

Yep, giant mutated pigeons. What of it?

See, five pages of that sort of thing can be damn good when it’s done this way. Another excellent episode in Worley and Willsher’s Durham Red, doing the simple stuff with style.

 

THE ORDER: HEART OF DARKNESS – PART 11 – Kek-W and John Burns, letters by Jim Campbell

Only one more episode to go after this one, so Kek-W’s jumping around all his characters in The Order and giving them the appropriate send-off and resolution amongst the chaos and weird.

 

Which is why it’s space whales being ridden into battle alongside Armoured Gideon-style units against WWII-era airplanes and, back on Earth, we have Francis Bacon’s consciousness in another Armoured unit doing the whole one-last-stand thing.

Yep, chaos and madness and glorious John Burns artwork. Just another episode of The Order really, just with added endings. Unless, of course, I’m wrong about it being the final ever episode of The Order next Prog.

 

ENEMY EARTH: BOOK II – PART 3 – Cavan Scott and Luke Horsman, letters by Simon Bowland

In a world gone mad with the flora and fauna attacking humanity, young Zoe and Jules are off to Scotland to see if they can find Jules’ dad, the Prime Minister.

To say it’s not going well is an understatement. Zoe’s lost an arm, Jules has been scratched by a stinger and the infection could transform and kill him. And now one of the cannibals that they’ve recently escaped from has caught up with them.

 

For a simple strip that started as an all-ages thing, this one goes very, very dark. And the bad news for both Zoe and Jules is that it’s going to get much darker before the end.

Enemy Earth really is doing it all rather well, especially Horsman’s artwork, that’s got an angular style that really works for this one.

 

ROGUE TROOPER: BLIGHTY VALLEY – PART 3 – Garth Ennis and Patrick Goddard, letters by Rob Steen

This one really does look so beautiful. The decision to go without colour was such a good one, with Patrick Goddard’s black and white linework really does have a load of Steve Dillon in it, always a good thing.

As for the story, well it’s Ennis doing Rogue Trooper in World War I, thanks to the Night’s Horizon effect turning everything weird. So, yes, it’s a damn good Ennis war story, just with a big blue soldier fighting on the side of the Tommys against the Hun.

 

It’s just simple Rogue Trooper done well. No idea yet whether they’re going to go anywhere but here with it or whether the simplicity of Rogue fighting in WWI is all that Ennis wants to do – either way will work just fine for me.