The Weekly 2000 AD Prog #2345: Say Hello To Dredd’s Daystick

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, we have to say goodbye to the latest Tharg’s 3Rillers: Maxwell’s Demon – it’s been a damn fine three-parter and we’ll hopefully be seeing more of Herne and Shuck and the gang very soon!

As for the other four strips, we have four more excellent thrillers for you, kicking off with Judge Dredd: A Fallen Man, which sees Dredd getting closer and closer to Kyle Asher – but suddenly there’s a spanner thrown in the works and we’re all asking just what’s going on. Then there’s more strange brilliance in Portals & Black Goo, more brilliant strangeness in Azimuth as Dexter’s place as the stranger is unfolding. And then there’s a moment we’ve been waiting for for a long, long, long time – as Hershey finally asks Dredd the question in Hershey: The Cold In The Bones. And it is, no spoilers here, absolutely a magnificent moment that stretches over most of this week’s Hershey episode.

So, five great strips – and that’s no surprise by now, surely? After all, I’ve been telling you just how varied, how diverse, how damn brilliant 2000 AD is. And it shows you that pretty much each and every single week.

Prog #2345 is out now in the UK and available digitally. 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. You know how we spent a lot of time in hospital recently and never wanted to have to do it again. Spoke too soon. Meningitis is a horrible thing to get. Thankfully dear darling wife is over the worst of it now. Thank you, again, to the NHS, may the Conservative overlords fail in their wishes to bring it to its knees.

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

 

JUDGE DREDD: A FALLEN MAN – PART 5 – by Ken Niemand and Tom Foster, colurs by Chris Blythe, letters by Annie Parkhouse

So, here comes the twist. Yes, Dredd’s still doggedly tracking down Kyle Asher, but he gets a call from Villiers that might, just might, put a new spin on it all. Sure, Dredd’s going to take Asher down but the call might just put a spin on it all. We’ll be finding out soon.

And of course, when it comes to taking down Asher, Dredd’s going to go through his weak point – the girl. Dredd always was. That’s what Dredd does.

 

As you’d expect, it’s really a great Dredd by Niemand and Foster, slowly, painstakingly building up to the ending. And you have that feeling in your bones that it’s not going to end well for Asher, despite the new information we find out this episode. But it’s the tightness and slow build of ‘A Fallen Man’, combined with the absolutely spot-on artwork from Foster that’s making this a real classic bit of Dredd.

 

PORTALS & BLACK GOO: NIGHT SHIFT – PART 6 – by John Tomlinson and Eoin Coveney, colours by Jim Boswell, letters by Simon Bowland

Kroy’s figured a way out of the Dybbuk’s dimension, the Dybbuk who ordered the black goo – all it took was feeding it something better. Although that wasn’t without a hell of a lot of risk for Kroy.

Meanwhile, there’s more fascinating stuff going on with Noma and her pathetic little stalker, Stuart, and some very interesting things happening around Magister Dain and a particular telephone call.

 

So far, Portals & Black Goo has just been excellent stuff, a killer concept of the delivery riders taking food out to the monsters of the world was enough to make it interesting.

But it’s the way Tomlinson’s built it all up around the three separate tales and characters in here that’s pushed it into excellence, combined with Coveney really pushing his art in all directions to make the visuals match the reach of the storytelling.

 

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

‘Maxwell’s Demon’, like ‘The Crawly Man’ before it, really does do the perfect thing of dropping you into a very constrained setting, introducing the characters and the storyline, and then pulling off the satisfying ending in just three parts of six pages. Credit to Barnett and Milmore, and of course Quinton Winters colours and Annie Parkhouse’s always great lettering for making it all work so very well.

Herne, the magician, and Shuck, his talking (black) dog pal are down in Maxwell’s basement still, looking to do a job of curing Maxwell’s Infomancy Engine of its demonic possession in return for Maxwell telling them the next stage of their trip to get young Caris to sanctuary. Meanwhile, the village of Cudd, the place that was going to sacrifice Caris, has hired Herne’s ex, Jordy, to get Caris back and kill Herne.

And when we left them in episode 2, Herne had figured out that Maxwell’s not a man to be trusted and Shuck had this happen to him…

 

The demon that Maxwell used to power the Infomancy Engine has taken possession of Shuck and broken out into the world. Meaning they’ve got six pages to sort that out, free Shuck, and save the world. Or something like that.

Do they get out of it? Well, what do you think? No spoilers from me. All I’ll say is that it’s a damn fine finale to what’s been one of the best 3Rillers in a long, long time. Hopefully, this won’t be the last we’ll see of Herne, Shuck, Caris, or Jordy.

 

HERSHEY: THE COLD IN THE BONES – PART II – EPISODE 5 – by Rob Williams and Simon Fraser, letters by Simon Bowland

Now for the absolute stand-out strip of the Prog in a Prog that’s got five very strong strips in it.

But this episode of Hershey just does it all, and does it magnificently.

First of all, take a look at that first page below to see an example of how incredibly good Fraser’s art and colours are here. The switching of the colour palette from Hershey to the Judges coming in to wipe out the Enceladus spider hybrids from Antarctic City. And from there, it just keeps getting better. Spectacular stuff from Fraser here.

And then you get the story. A few episodes back, Hershey put out the call to MC-1 to come and wipe the infection out. And then, last panel of last episode, we got this…

 

The “Hello, Joe. One last time, then,” line really does sum up the strength of Rob Williams’ writing on Hershey. The sense of inevitability and slow movement towards the end, of Hershey, of the Enceladus problem, of the guilt Hershey felt that caused her to fake her death and seek this redemption. It’s all there in that line.

And there’s so much more to come this episode.

And the big stuff comes in another tonally masterful sit down between Hershey and Dredd – tonally brilliant in words and pictures.

We finally get the answer that Hershey’s been looking for…

 

That line, that moment, from Judge Dredd: The Small House by Williams and Henry Flint, is the thing that’s driven her all this time.

Now that she’s got the answer, maybe now it’s time for Hershey to lay down her badge for the final, final time.

Quite simply, it’s the long, long game that Williams has played. The downfall of Hershey came in ‘The Small House’ and everything after that has just been the lead-up to this moment. It’s absolutely perfectly done.

 

AZIMUTH: THE STRANGER – PART 4 – by Dan Abnett and Tazio Bettin, colours by Matt Soffe, letters by Jim Campbell

So, Azimuth is Downlode? Or at least that’s where we’re at right now. Something to do with the rogue AI taking over the place and making it over. But no one in Azimuth has any idea, no one has a concept of anything outside Azimuth.

And now Dexter’s in Azimuth and attempting to work out just what the hell’s going on.

First stop, after a little bit of convincing (and fabulously choreographed) violence last episode, it’s off to speak to Lord Trinary, one of the Lords of the New Flesh.

 

So, more and more mysterious, down the rabbit hole, that’s where we’re at in Azimuth. What Abnett and Bettin have pulled off here was impressive – creating something completely new and quite wonderful purely as a backdrop to drop Dexter into. Where they’re going to take it from here is pretty much anyone’s guess, but I think it’s going to be well worth sticking around to find out.