The Weekly 2000 AD Prog #2334: New Thrills With Void Runners… Worth It For The Headgear Alone!
by Richard Bruton
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.
After we said our fond farewells to The Out Book 3 last week, it’s time to welcome a completely new thrill to the Prog, as David Hine and Boo Cook bring you Void Runners.
As for the rest of the Prog, it’s same as last week – but that’s all good, as that means four great strips to enjoy – more of Dredd‘s way too close connection to the mob, more of the natural world biting back in Enemy Earth, more bloody violence with Durham Red, and more of Nu-Earth meeting old Earth as Rogue Trooper’s WWI adventures continue.
2000 AD Prog #2334 is out on Wednesday 31st May. And yes, I’m ahead of myself once more. You’re getting the 2000 AD preview as a preview again. Still, I shouldn’t crow too much, as I was so very late with the last Monthly Megazine. You win some, you lose some.
Okay, enough… let’s have a look inside…
JUDGE DREDD: IN THE EVENT OF MY UNTIMELY DEMISE – PART 3 – by Mike Caroll and Paul Marshall, colours by Dylan Teague, letters by Annie Parkhouse
It really is great to have Mike Carroll back on Dredd. He may not have all that many Dredds these days, but his work on the character has always impressed me. It’s one of the great things about Dredd in the last few years that we have a really good core of writers adding to the mythos – with Ken Niemand, Arthur Wyatt, Rob Williams, and Carroll forming the main quartet through any recent year. And all of them bring something different to Dredd, just as they should.
I’ve said before how much I enjoy Carroll’s style, playing up various aspects of the Justice Department, focusing more on the whole rather than just Dredd. And ‘In The Event Of My Untimely Demise’ certainly began that way in its first two episodes, focusing on the mobs operating through MC-1, specifically the Kindred and its secret weapon, their captive psychic with a link to Dredd, capable of putting a location to Dredd at most times.
Now though, we’re riding with Dredd, who’s aware of something being wrong, too many times the mobs have been a little too lucky. But he’s no idea how close they are to him.
Which is why his plan to assemble a trusted team around him, something that’s always worked in the past, might be failing this time.
His plan’s simple, using three promising and trusted cadets to run tech and coordinate, he’s got 46 Judges running seven simultaneous raids, with only the senior Judge on each raid knowing the score.
But when you add together that many Judges and the influence of the mob, the odds of something going wrong, of someone being dirty, go up and up, and although you can see the twist coming it still gives the story a kick and pushes it onwards.
Again, it’s Mike Carroll writing a classic Dredd, the last couple of episodes of planning and background have led to an explosive bit of action this time round, all of it captured so well by Marshall and Teague’s solid and effective art.
VOID RUNNERS – PART 1 – by David Hine and Boo Cook, letters by Annie Parkhouse
The far future… or a very long time ago, our narrator forgets. Anyway, welcome to Void Runners. So, far future. Maybe. Definitely someplace else. But still sort of dealing with the stain of humanity that’s spread itself across the galaxy and formed The Federation, originally a group of planetary systems discovered by humanity and, in a lovely turn of phrase by Hine, ‘on occasion, interbred with.’ Yeah, that sounds like us.
All of the essential background to the strip unfolds through this episode, how the Ankorites have taken control of the Federation, the thoughts and visions stimulated by their Kali’s Dust, their sole purpose seemingly to dream up new ways to keep the billions they rule under control.
After the intro to the Ankorites and their shock troops, the Subjugators, with their magnificently designed, absolutely impractical headgear – shades of Brendan McCarthy or Brett Ewins in Cook’s artwork here, never a criticism, always a joy to see. And then we meet our hero, albeit a reluctant one, and get the story driver in place.
Captain Shakari, straight away set up as the rebel, her use of Kali’s Dust seen as heresy liable to execution. But her ability to hunt down the source of the Dust makes her invaluable to the Federation. Because, and here comes that plot driver I mentioned, the Ankorites are running short of Dust and need to find more, need to find/hunt the Pleroma, harvest more dust – and that’s just what Shakari’s been called up to do. Well, it was either that be executed. Like she says…
Every page is just a visual stimulation all its own. Hine’s habit of collaborating with those artists who can really take the idea and max it out, whether that’s the perfectly grotesque of Nick Percival on Dark Judges or the wonderfully alien, organic, and strange art of Boo Cook here, means that you’re immediately entranced by the pages, the art pulling you into a new fantastic world of the strange.
So far, so strange. But strange in a good way. Possibly a very good way. It has an old-school vibe to it, all that massive evil empire, shock troops, rebellious outsiders on a mission sort of thing going on. Yes, it’s throwing all the tropes on and just going for it. It’s also got the seeds of slight silliness coming off from Hine’s characterisation of Shakari. And of course, the absolute brilliance of Cook’s artwork is the thing that’s going to really make Void Runners work. Organic, colourful, playful and inventive shapes everywhere, fabulous and outrageous designs that treat useability as an afterthought… yep, this one’s off to a fine, fine start.
ENEMY EARTH: BOOK II – PART 9 – Cavan Scott and Luke Horsman, letters by Simon Bowland
On their way to Denmark on the first leg of a potentially humanity-saving jaunt to India and the research centre, it’s four against this new nightmare world where the wildlife and plant life are mutated, deadly, and responsible for the devastation of the human race.
But right now, as they escape the wreck of their ship and onto a nearby oil rig, the main question is just what the hell’s going on with Jules. That stinger has really messed him up and the mutation’s taking effect. Although not in the usual way…
But, as has been the case all along in Enemy Earth, it’s another case of from frying pan into the fire. Sure, there’s no plant or animal life on the rig, but there’s humans there – and they can be even more deadly.
DURHAM RED: MAD DOGS – PART 9 – Alec Worley and Ben Willsher, letters by Simon Bowland
So, it’s Durham Red at the mercy of Kanka, someone who really does have an unhealthy interest in her blood and what it means for his drug.
Red, to say the least, isn’t all that happy about the situation. But when there’s all those appetite accelerants running through her veins, whats a vamp to do?
Deep into this one now and it’s switched from sci-fi-spy thriller to horror and it’s switched up so very well. Worley and Willsher, as I’ve said a fair few times already, are doing great things with a much undervalued 2000 AD character here.
ROGUE TROOPER: BLIGHTY VALLEY – PART 9 – Garth Ennis and Patrick Goddard, letters by Rob Steen
Nine parts in and Rogue reckons he knows what’s happening – it’s traveling back in time…
Except if that’s the case Rogue, how do you account for the Norts that have appeared? And the bloody great black hole above you? No, it’s not quite that simple – but it’s going to be something that Ennis is ready to spill yet. We’ll get there, we’ll get there.
Again, we’re in a familiar pattern here – Rogue off doing the sci-fi war stuff, killing Germans, killing Norts, whilst the Tommys he’s protecting are doing the Charley’s War bit of Blighty Valley. Even with their German prisoner/comrade-in-arms, there’s that sharing of normal life, the pictures of the kids, the hatred of the men who sent them there to die.
It’s a good, solid tale of a Rogue Trooper from the past, maybe the only real way to deal with the character going forward.
