The Weekly 2000 AD Prog #2337: ‘Azimuth’ Blasts Its Way Into The Prog

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.

 

This week brings yet another completely new series, as Dan Abnett and Tazio Bettin welcome us to the fantastical city of Azimuth. It looks stunning and promises to be every bit as weird and wonderful as the other new series running right now – David Hine and Boo Cooks’ Void Runners. Alongside those, there’s more mob menace in Judge Dredd, more blood-thirsty vamping with Durham Red in ‘Mad Dogs‘, and more classic Rogue Trooper with a new twist in ‘Blighty Valley‘.

Again, five superb strips, one great comic. It truly is one of the best times to be into 2000 AD.

Prog 2335 is out in the UK and on digital on Wednesday 21st June. In the USA things are, of course, different, and you’d be best to insist your local comic shop orders you the regular monthly bundle of Progs through the distributor. And after the last two plus weeks, we left the hospital. Well, most of us did. Time to raise a glass to an incredibly strong woman.

Okay, enough… let’s have a look inside…

 

JUDGE DREDD: IN THE EVENT OF MY UNTIMELY DEMISE – PART 5 – by Mike Caroll and Paul Marshall, colours by Dylan Teague, letters by Annie Parkhouse

Where we’re at… The Kindred organisation still have their secret weapon, one of their own with a psy-link to Dredd, meaning they usually know just where he is at any time – pretty useful in organised crime. But Dredd’s aware that something just isn’t right, although no one, not right now, can work out exactly what that is. Well, not until this happens and Cassius Santos wants to turn himself in…

 

While all this is going on, the various crime families are reeling from the recent blitz from Dredd’s taskforce, something the Kindred are determined to take advantage of, thinking that Cassius Santos seeks revenge on the Judges and Dredd. But this is the mob we’re talking about – double-dealing and betrayal are second nature.

So, Dredd rides into a stadium to meet with Santos… and, well, that’s where we’ll leave things this week.

I really hope this one doesn’t end next week with the sixth episode, as it’s proving so good. Carroll’s Dredd has a different feel to the other excellent writers steering the Justice Dept ship these days and this one is a really good example of that.

 

VOID RUNNERS – PART 3 – by David Hine and Boo Cook, letters by Annie Parkhouse

More psychedelic sci-fi from Hine and Cook in Void Runners, a new strip that’s just getting everything right. Boo Cook’s artwork is hitting a career-high here for a strip he came up with and took to Hine to write.

It’s all here, massive galactic empires, incredible vistas of glorious sci-fi landscapes, wonderful characters being introduced and fleshed out. It’s an eight-episode intro to the world of Void Runners but I’m really hopeful that we’ll be seeing much more from Hine and Cook’s psychedelic spectacular.

Here in part three, Captain Shikari and her crew have found a massive Pleroma, the source of Kali’s Dust, the intoxicating, visionary drug that makes this universe work. But a Pleroma this big has defences, organic defences first seen, brilliantly, last episode and the Federation fleet accompanying Shikari are being decimated. But not Shikari’s own ship because she does things differently.

 

Truly, this is exactly the kind of strip you only get from 2000 AD, inventive, boundary-pushing, and artistically amazing. Sure, it’s all psychedelic sci-fi but there’s so much more to it that that, with both Cook and Hine bringing in characters and situations that broaden the scope of the tale, giving us humour and the smaller stuff to really make Void Runners something to cherish.

 

DURHAM RED: MAD DOGS – PART 11 – Alec Worley and Ben Willsher, letters by Simon Bowland

Alec Worley recently wrote a really great piece on Durham Red on his substack – there’s so much of interest in what he says but it backs up what I’ve been saying from the start, that Worley and Willsher are really invested in the character, seeking to get her right where others perhaps haven’t. Just as importantly, it’s Worley writing Durham Red as a straight-up vampire, not a twinkly, sparkly one where her bloodlust is her nature, she’s meant to be terrifying, always moving, always hungry, just one who’s attempting to do a little more good than bad.

So, when Red discovers that there’s a deal on the table meaning that the GIC want Kanka, no matter what terrible things he’s done, it doesn’t go down all that well.

But if she doesn’t go along with it, Red’s deal with the GIC is gone and she’ll be back on death row.

Well, seeing how Worley is writing her – all that trying to do a little more good than bad – we all know what’s going to happen next…

 

“What kind of monster are you?” – that’s the line Kanka throws at Red as she’s possibly about to put the bite on him right at the end of this episode. And that’s exactly what Worley and Willsher have been asking all the way through their time on Durham Red. It’s the vital question to ask and, with W&W at the helm, it’s one that’s being explored perfectly.

 

AZIMUTH: A JOB FOR SUZI NINE – PART 1 – by Dan Abnett and Tazio Bettin, colours by Matt Soffe, letters by Jim Campbell

From the moment I saw the ‘coming soon’ image a few Progs back, just the art from page 1, panel 1, I had high, high hopes for Azimuth.

After just one episode, I don’t think I’m going to be at all disappointed.

Here’s how it’s described in the contents page:

“Welcome to the city of Azimuth, a data-driven metropolis, where anything is possible. Ruled by an aristocracy of the New Flesh, such concepts of life, death, and body forms are fluid. Anyone can take any shape, if it can be conceived by the imagination. Suzi Nine Millimetre, for example, is a cadavatar, whose existence is given purpose by the jobs she undertakes for her New Flesh masters.”

Now that sounds fabulous. And the first episode doesn’t disappoint in the slightest. Bettin’s worked with Abnett before on Sinister Dexter but here he really opens up, kinetic artwork as always, but packed with detailing, so much going on, so good.

And Abnett’s writing alien worlds here, something he’s done so well all the way through his career, most recently, brilliantly, in The Out. It’s immediately, perfectly out there alien, a strange world, a strange city, inhabited by strange ideas and strange beings.

 

Suzi Nine Millimeter awakes and looks for work, as a cadavatar her tech might be old but her body doesn’t die and her work scares people.

So the search for work takes her to the Twins, Lords of the New Flesh, and immediately into conflict. Azimuth might look beautiful, but it’s immediately deadly for Suzi Nine.

 

The Twins are after data, their dreams have gone bad and they want to know why. So Suzi’s their go-between to other Lords who might have answers.

As with Void Runners a few Progs back, Azimuth has the feel immediately of being something great. Another brilliant new strip in the space of a month – that will be 2000 AD.

 

ROGUE TROOPER: BLIGHTY VALLEY – PART 11 – Garth Ennis and Patrick Goddard, letters by Rob Steen

And to end, the strip that’s taken a classic 2000 AD character, a beloved character, and finally managed to find a way to make stories about Rogue Trooper enjoyable again.

Over the years Rogue’s tales have been one-dimensional things and once that initial blast of great storytelling with the quest for the traitor general was over, pretty much so was a lot of what made Rogue a compelling strip. Ennis has completely avoided all the post-Traitor General troubles by giving us a story with a simple through line – put Rogue into a strange situation and have him get out. Of course, along the way the relationships with the lost Brit soldiers and the WWI setting has allowed more characterisation and emotional depth to come into the strip, giving it something of a Rogue Trooper does Charley’s War feel at times – to its benefit, I should add.

 

Anyway, we’re still down on Nu-Earth for the strangeness of Night’s Horizon, with Rogue dealing with the Norts. But the Tommys aren’t content with just staying safe where they are and waiting for Rogue to do his stuff. As far as they’re concerned, he’s one of them now and they’re determined to back him up, no matter what he has to say about it.

And then, well then we get a shift… maybe one that will end up taking them home, wherever and whenever that could be.

 

Again, I spend a lot of time talking about Ennis’ writing here but it would be wrong not to talk about how much Paddy Goddard brings to this latest Rogue, the best Rogue for decades possibly. His art is just so clear and sharp, beautiful in black and white.