The Weekly 2000 AD Prog 2343: Hershey’s Last Stand In Antarctic City?

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.

 

Four stay the same this week – with more from the last days of Kyle Asher (presumably) in Judge Dredd: A Fallen Man, more eldritch escapades for a poor Devouroo delivery grunt in Portals & Black Goo: Night Shift, more nightmares for the final days of the ex-Chief Judge in Hershey: The Cold In The Bones, and the continued question of what the hell is going on (in a wonderful way) in Azimuth: The Stranger.

But after saying farewell to the excellent Void Runners last Prog, we’re now saying hello to a return of the magician Herne and his dog Shuck, last seen in Prog 2297-2299 with the 3-part Tharg’s 3Riller The Crawly Man. Well now David Barnet and Lee Milmore return to the characters in another 3Riller, Maxwell’s Demon.

So, as one excellent strip leaves, another with incredible promise takes its place – it’s the 2000 AD way!

Prog 2343 is out in the UK and on digital on Wednesday 2nd August. 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. We’re still here at Bruton Mansions (Dudley version) and actually went out for something that wasn’t death or funeral related this week. It was weird.

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

 

JUDGE DREDD: A FALLEN MAN – PART 3 – by Ken Niemand and Tom Foster, colurs by Chris Blythe, letters by Annie Parkhouse

More in the slow fall of Kyle Asher means more build-up done perfectly. Niemand and Foster are very hands-off for Dredd here, showing the world of MC-1 and another day on the job for the Judges.

Dredd’s getting closer and closer every day though, something that imbues ‘A Fallen Man’ with that sense of tension, we’re all just waiting and waiting as Dredd slowly but surely circles in ever closer to Asher.

Meanwhile, Asher’s not exactly helping himself. The work for the mob is weighing heavy on him and like it says at the end – ‘Too many mistakes – maybe this is where he starts paying for them.’

 

It’s excellent work by Niemand and Foster. Foster’s developing into such a great Dredd artist. The shot on the Lawmaster in the final panel is just so damn good, equal parts Cliff Robinson and Bolland.

And yes, he has a very distinctive look, yes, the fine line, the hatching, the style, it’s very much like Bolland. But it’s also very much Foster’s own style, and it’s a style that looks absolutely perfect here. And is it just me, or does this look like Bolland himself from somewhere?

 

Likewise, the way Niemand writes Dredd is great, never more so than here, the way he focuses equally on things going on around the investigation, the work of other Judges, the shite that goes down every day in MC-1 – all of it acting as glorious background to the slow thrust of the main storyline.

Perfection for a Dredd tale that isn’t your classic Dredd epic, just another case for Dredd, the sort of thing that often gets overlooked in favour of the big epic tales. But when you go through Dredd history, some of the greatest Dredd tales come just like this, the man and his city, one case, one perp at a time.

 

PORTALS & BLACK GOO: NIGHT SHIFT – PART 4 – by John Tomlinson and Eoin Coveney, colours by Jim Boswell, letters by Simon Bowland

The horrors continue, but they’re not the horrors you maybe we’re expecting. Instead, we’re opening with the horrors of discrimination and stalking, as Magister Dain gets a brick through the window and a lot worse when a gang of morons decide that they’ve had enough of his lot living on their patch.

As for the stalking, that’s Noma’s little weirdo Stuart, as we learn just how all this started, some 10 years back with a pudgy little kid fancying the unattainable girl a year older than him. We also get to discover just how Noma got vamped in the first place. Seems Stuart wasn’t the only one to have the unattainable teen fantasy going on back then.

 

And then there’s Kroy and his big problem on the 10th floor, making a black goo delivery to the Dybbuk up there without any black goo. He’s about to find out just how dangerous delivering for Devouroo can be – and it’s definitely not worth the minimum wage pittance they’re paying him.

Another excellent strip, another debut that’s really making a case for a second series. Tomlinson sure knows how to write this sort of thing, he’s been doing it for quite some time after all. And Coveney’s art really has that essential thing of doing a hell of a lot with very few pages – here it’s covering three very distinct moments, including flashbacks, and giving them all their own look. Especially with so much of this taking place in darkness, what Coveney (and colourist Jim Boswell) are doing really is working so well.

 

THARG’S 3RILLERS: MAXWELL’S DEMON – by David Barnett and Lee Milmore, colours by Quinton Winter, letters by Annie Parkhouse

A second series from Barnett and Milmore, carrying on from Prog 2297-2299’s The Crawly Man.

We’ve met the wandering magician Herne and his (black) dog Shuck already. They wandered into a little village, in the middle of its own Wicker Man moment, to rescue young Caris. She turns out to be a powerful summoner who made the village elders pay. Now, Herne’s trying to move on and get Caris to someplace safe.

Unfortunately, the village of Cudd isn’t finished with Caris and now they want revenge on Herne and Shuck too.

They’re in Cornwall, looking up the infomancer Darius Maxwell, the man to go to when you’re after info and they need info on where they can find safe haven. But Maxwell’s nothing like Herne thinks he’s going to be. As Maxwell’s quick to point out, it’s the pagans thinking ‘so goddam white,’ and that Britain’s had a long, long history of black magic – just not that sort of black magic.

So, there’s an infomancy engine in the basement and the consultation is going to cost. Because the infomancy engine is possessed by a demonic virus. Which really is what this particular three-parter is going. Well, that and the trouble that Cudd’s sending their way.

 

Milmore’s really coming on in leaps and bounds with the art. Remember, this is from an artist who only first appeared in the Prog in 2022 after winning the 2000 AD and Thought Bubble art contest in 2021. But just the few things he’s done this far definitely are marking him out as an artist we’ll be seeing a lot more of. Same with Barnett, a journalist and comics writer whose 2000 AD and Regened stuff is eminently readable.

And after four episodes now of the Herne and Shuck show, it’s one that I’d like to see Barnett and Milmore do a lot more of.

 

HERSHEY: THE COLD IN THE BONES – PART II – EPISODE 3 – by Rob Williams and Simon Fraser, letters by Simon Bowland

Okay then. So last episode we ended by seeing this happen to poor old Dirty Frank… Williams does like putting the poor fella through the mill…

 

And that just keeps on keeping on here.

Yes, he’s alive and free of the joy/Enceladus infection/addiction, but with Frank it’s always a case of the out of the frying pan and into the fire…

 

This one’s all about the Enceladus energy, the Enceladus life form, taking over, infecting the Antarctic City, death and destruction all over the damn place. It’s been something running through Rob Williams’ Mega-City tales for a long, long time now. But this one might be the end of it. More than that, it might well be the end of Barbara Hershey.

As before, as you’d expect, it’s all about the tight, taut storytelling and the stunning artwork and all those stripped-back colours of Simon Fraser. It really is just a joy to see what he does every week on every page. Beautiful stuff.

 

AZIMUTH: THE STRANGER – PART 2 – by Dan Abnett and Tazio Bettin, colours by Matt Soffe, letters by Jim Campbell

Well, there you go, Ramone Dexter’s here in Azimuth. Or is it Azimuth? Dexter wasn’t so convinced at the end of part 1…

 

So Azimuth IS Downlode, transformed by the Rogue AI that took it over in the last few series of Sinister Dexter.

Thankfully, after the surprise of dropping Dex into Azimuth late episode or two, Abnett takes a breather, allowing us to as well. Poor Tazion Bettin though, he’s still put to work illustrating page after immensely beautiful page of weirdness as Dex gets himself a burger and gets himself into trouble.

It might be that Dexter’s pretty used to getting in trouble in Downlode but remember, this is Azimuth now and the trouble’s looking totally different.

 

It’s a strange one is Azimuth right now. It started as one magnificently different thing, full of Moebuis-ish imagery and a fascinating tale of a city under threat. But the addition of the twist has flipped things completely. The tale of Suzi Nine that had us caught up for so many Progs has gone by the wayside, now it’s all about the fish out of water in a place he should know like the back of his hand. I’m not saying it’s bad, not at all. It’s a delightful mash-up of Azimuth and Sinister Dexter right now that’s fascinating. And of course, with Abnett writing it, there’s no telling quite where things will go from here.