The Weekly 2000 AD Prog #2341: Dredd’s Staring Down A Fallen Man

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.

 

Well, the fun and the thrills never really stop at 2000 AD do they? Another week, another couple of debuts. This week it’s the return of Ken Niemand and Tom Foster’s Kyle Asher, star of ‘A Penitent Man’ and’ An Honest Man’, for his third and final outing,’ A Fallen Man’ in a new Judge Dredd this Prog. Plus, we have the long-awaiting second half of Hershey: The Cold In The Bones by Rob Williams and Simon Fraser, what is meant to be the final Hershey adventure.

And of course, the other three strips are all rather excellent as well – psych-sci-fi in Void Runners, supernatural food deliveries in Portals & Black Goo, and a BIG surprise in Azimuth.

Yes, five absolute bangers this week. Is that still a thing? Bangers? Or is my Nineties showing through?

Prog #2341 is out in the UK and on digital on Wednesday 19th July. 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. It’s a quite time at Bruton Mansions (Dudley version) at the moment, but we’d like it to be louder, filled with the chat that’s missing. Oh, that woman could chat.

Okay, enough… let’s have a look inside… after Dirty Frank asking a question…

 

JUDGE DREDD: A FALLEN MAN – PART 1 – by Ken Niemand and Tom Foster, colurs by Chris Blythe, letters by Annie Parkhouse

We’ve seen two parts of Kyle Asher’s tale so far in’ A Penitent Man’ and ‘An Honest Man’. Now, time for the fall. Asher’s a former Judge who served his time on Titan and has returned to MC-1. Now he’s working for the Mob. And Dredd’s on his case.

And by on his case, I mean Dredd spends the entire episode looking at vid screens following Asher. Or at least following a helmeted perp hitting a distribution point for the Buttigieg arms supply cartel. And doing it with complete skill – skills Dredd recognises.

 

And that’s the moment Kyle Asher’s fate is sealed. He just doesn’t know it yet.

Anyway, a damn fine start – which is exactly what you’d expect from Niemand and Foster returning to the story arc of Asher. The previous two tales were both excellent things. Niemand’s just great at writing super tight Dredd, tense and taut stuff. And Foster is, well you can see for yourself can’t you? It’s moving away from his Bolland-like stuff a little, but the tight linework is all still there.

 

AZIMUTH: A JOB FOR SUZI NINE – PART 5 – by Dan Abnett and Tazio Bettin, colours by Matt Soffe, letters by Jim Campbell

Boom – there it is, page four of Azimuth part 5 and we get the big reveal. And yes, it’s a huge reveal.

I’ll say no more than just leaving these couple of panels here…

 

Do you know what it is yet? Or rather who it is?

And were you expecting it?

Okay, so moving back to the start of the episode, it’s more of the same from Abnett and Bettin, by which I mean more thrills and beautiful artwork in a wonderfully realised new sci-fi setting. Although, as you might have guessed, perhaps not as new as we were led to believe. Whatever, it’s still a blisteringly good series, packed with visual invention, lovely to look at.

Suzi Nine’s in the kingdom of the Wicked Glitch of the West – yes, I think Abnett’s really enjoying coming up with the names and the ideas on Azimuth – and we get mention of ‘Anicca’, who seems like the intelligence behind Azimuth from the conversation here. And the Glitch is troubled by dreams of horses… again, tying into the surprise appearance at the end of this episode.

Like I say, Azimuth is yet another quite brilliant new series here in the Prog, Abnett and Bettin right at the top of their games.

 

PORTALS & BLACK GOO: NIGHT SHIFT – PART 2 – by John Tomlinson and Eoin Coveney, colours by Jim Boswell, letters by Simon Bowland

Back to the world of London in 2023, where monsters live amongst the humans and it’s the poor saps of Devouroo moped drivers who get to deliver all the variously strange food they desire.

But Devouroo is hardly a good employer, hence why poor Kroy Plemons is currently in deep doo-doo, having blown three orders and getting stuck on the night shift. Like he says, right there on the first page, it’s a death sentence.

But also on that first page, as he’s back at Magister Dain’s place, he notices a pot noodle – this from the wizard who made such a big deal about existing just on air only last episode. And that’s just the sort of fun little detailing that Tomlinson is packing Portals & Black Goo with.

Meanwhile, we get more of Mona, the female vampire we met in the first episode. She and Kroy are friends perhaps and she’s calling him up over the weird stalker creep we saw on the bus last time.

 

Anyway, it all ends up with Kroy making a particularly dangerous delivery and finding out why he shouldn’t stop on the fifth floor.

 

Oh, and there’s also a nod to the elevator game in this one – go look it up on YouTube.

There’s a lot more to him than we thought. In fact, there’s a hell of a lot more to Portals & Black Goo than I thought.

It is just really damn good, really classic 2000 AD stuff, where the satire and the horror and the comedy are all there, all packed together in one great story.

 

VOID RUNNERS – PART 7 – by David Hine and Boo Cook, letters by Annie Parkhouse

Still no sign of this one finishing – for some reason I had it in my head as a six-parter. But damn, I’m glad it’s going more than that, a chance to get even more of the absolute out there stuff that Hine and Cook are doing here. I’ll keep saying it till you all agree, this is Boo Cook’s finest work to date, and that’s in a body of work that’s been spectacularly great for so many years.

 

So, after the enlightenment of last episode, Capt Shikari and the Pleroma are under attack from the Subjugators on the outside. And meanwhile, the three Subjugators inside with Shikari are having a bit of an existential moment – but then again, in Void Runners that’s pretty much the standard.

At the end, it’s a massive explosion, the fate of Shikari and the rest of the crew uncertain, and it’s every bit the brilliant bit of psych sci-fi that we were promised all along. Such a damn fine series.

 

HERSHEY: THE COLD IN THE BONES – PART II – EPISODE 1 – by Rob Williams and Simon Fraser, letters by Simon Bowland

Well, we left Hershey in Antarctic City with the joy spiders on the march, all that Enceladus energy being used, once more, for nightmare beasts.

Now, with the second half of the story kicking off, we’re right back into it, all the action, all that wonderfully toned art from Simon Fraser, back with Hershey, back with Frank, back in Antarctic City where there’s a cold doom waiting for Hershey – or so it seems.

 

This one looks, as you’d expect, so good. Fraser’s physicality, his sense of how to construct a page of action – just incredible stuff.

Williams is, quite sensibly, letting Fraser take the strain, keeping the plot and script tight and simple on this one.

The end of Hershey begins right now, right here. And it’s a cracking read.