The Weekly 2000 AD Prog #2350: The ‘Battle Action’ And ‘2000 AD’ Crossover You Never Knew Happened

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. Or, for one week only, the Weekly 2000 AD and Battle Action!

Cliff Robinson and Dylan Teague there with a classic line-up cover for the Battle Action & 2000 AD crossover

Well, here we are again, another special crossover event Prog for a nice round number. The last one was the alternative Judgement Day zombie takeover of Prog #2300 and Megazine #448, so it looks like maybe we’ll be seeing these every year for a little while. But hey, so far, they’ve been rather fun and this one’s absolutely keeping that going.

This time it’s slightly different – not an alternative universe tale, but an alternative publishing tale… imagining what it would have been like if it had been decided in 1982 to merge classic Brit comic Battle Action into 2000 AD, giving the likes of Major Eazy and Hellman of Hammer Force a sci-fi and fantasy twist.

And that’s not all either, over in Judge Dredd Megazine #460, we have even more Battle Action crossover with Battle properties reinvented in the Dreddverse.

It’s a fun thing, not done too often but, so far, always done well. Inside this Prog, each strip’s been cleverly written to read as a nice, self-contained thing but also set up any future exploits – should they come at some point. There’s certainly a number I wouldn’t mind seeing second episodes of from what I’ve read.

But for now, just enjoy it for the novelty and the damn fine strips in here. So, time to get into all the Battle Action now with 2000 AD Prog 2350, out on 20 September in the UK. As always, North American readers should get to their local comic shops and demand they get the four-weekly Prog bundles in – you really are missing out on a treat!

Okay then… shall we?

Let’s begin with the opener, an explanatory strip in Tharg’s Nerve Centre in another 1982… time to Blackhawk it!

And then we’re into the Prog proper, first with a Dreddworld tale with a difference…

 

JUDGE DREDD: JUVES RULE OK! – Ken Niemand & Simon Coleby, colours by Matt Soffe, letters by Annie Parkhouse

Back to 2075 AD with Cadet Dredd facing off against a terrifying disaster that’s befallen the adults in MC-1.

Suddenly, all the adults in MC-1 are infected and either dead or dying. The few that survive are being kept alive with a cocktail of drugs to slow the infection’s progress. But there’s just not enough Judges left on the streets and it’s up to a few Cadets, including Dredd to see off the threats of the Juves running riot in a new world seemingly without law…

 

But of course, Dredd’s not the only Fargo clone out there wearing the Cadet helmet – and it’s not long before we get to find out just what Rico’s been up to…

 

Yep, Rico’s out to bring his own version of Justice to MC-1 now, putting him in direct conflict with Dredd, still determined to uphold the old system.

Niemand obviously has a thing for nostalgia, his Megatropolis and Mega-City 2099 strips in the Megazine showed us that. But that he does it with an obvious relish doesn’t stop it being not just a rather fascinating concept but a bloody well-executed thing, especially with Coleby on art to give it a suitably grimy look.

 

DEATH GAME 2049 – Geoffrey D. Wessel & Nick Dyer, colours by John Charles, letters by Jim Campbell. Death Game 1999 created by Tom Tully, Costa, and Ian Gibson

In 1999, privatised prisons gave rise to the brutal sport of Spinball, where Death Row convict teams would play a live-action version of pinball, but on motorbikes and tooled up with lethal weaponry – and of course broadcast to the nation.

It was deemed too dangerous eventually but, 50 years later, it’s back as Death Game 2049 after the Spinball Wars and the fall of society. So, it’s back as a brutal meat machine sport, with a new inmate immediately thrown into the next match/battle – but this new inmate’s got a secret that means she wanted to be here. And she’s not the only one with secrets – but that’s something for the next episode, if we ever get one that is.

 

Obviously, like Harlem Heroes, this one was very much a Rollerball sort of thing. The writers of the ’70s and early ’80s ‘borrowed’ a lot from the latest trends in movies and TV. This one’s no exception – although if you’ve never seen Rollerball, you should really rectify that asap.

Wessel and Dyer’s version is decent fare, but the similarity with the recent Mega-City Max Harlem Heroes means that any originality here has rather gone. Still, fun enough.

 

EL MESTIZO: DEMON WITH A SIX-GUN! – by Chris Weston, letters by Simon Bowland. El Mestizo created by Alan Hebden and Carlos Ezquerra

1860s Texas, and the legend of El Mestizo is known throughout the land. Born a slave, he escaped the plantations and made it across the border, re-emerging during the American Civil War as a mercenary, working for both the North and the South.

But now El Mestizo has a terrible secret… and it’s a secret that’s all Chris Weston’s to tell. And as you’d expect, it’s a damn joy to have Weston here on art (and writing) a classic Carlos character.

Weston goes down the well-trodden route of a tale told in reportage, one Yankee survivor of a gold run attacked by El Mestizo filling us in on what happened, including the fact that El Mestizo has a rather familiar alien presence attached to him, attempting to control him…

 

All of this leads us to a bit of a thrill of recognition and a final couple of panels that really puts things square into 2000 AD territory.

Of course, whether we get to see any more of this – and I know I’d like to – all depends on how things run out in the future with specials and the like. As it is though, Weston’s art is typically superb and his writing here does a damn fine job of telling a very different tale of a Battle Action great.

 

DREDGER: TIME TO KILL – by Karl Stock and Paul Marshall, colours by Quinton Winter, letters by Annie Parkhouse. Dredger created by Gerry Finley-Day and Geoff Campion

Former Royal Marine turned DI6 agent, Dredger is not a man to cross, nor get in the way of – tough, uncompromising, and unwilling to negotiate. In short, a bit of a bastard. Few get close to him – in the past he was partnered with former public schoolboy Simon Breed, who died in a bomb blast.

This time he’s on protection duty as the first Soviet visit to Britain is taking place – but remember, this is Dredger done 2000 AD style, so the inevitable assassin Dredger has to give a good kicking to isn’t exactly from these parts…

 

And there we go, straight into the cross-time caper, a cop uprooted from his time, left to dispense his primitive justice in a far-future world he doesn’t understand.

Yep, classic trope stuff that’s made a load of fun by Stock and Marshall.

 

HELLMAN OF HELL FORCE: FIENDS OF UNGEISTWELT OST – by Arthur Wyatt and Jake Lynch, colours by Jim Boswell, letters by Simon Bowland. Hellman of Hammer Force created by Gerry Finley-Day and Mike Dorey

Major Kurt Hellman was a Panzer tank commander, taking part in the 1940 German invasion of Belgium – but he refused to join the Nazi Party, setting up ongoing conflicts with the SS.

Now it’s 1943 and German scientists have created a gateway to Hell in a bid to win the war – and Hellman’s found himself stationed there on punishment duty.

 

Absolutely wonderful nonsense from Wyatt, all crafted beautifully by Jake Lynch.

Hellman’s long been a favourite of various writers and Wyatt’s no exception it seems, milking the extremes of all this for all he’s worth, ticking off all the great cliches to make this a bit of a blast.

 

MAJOR EAZY: THE TREASURE OF SOLOMON – by Gordon Rennie, Dan Cornwell, colours by Dylan Teague, letters by Jim Campbell. Major Eazy created by Alan Hebden and Carlos Ezquerra

The African desert, 1942 – and there’s few officers out there as singularly strange as Major Eazy – long-haired and laconic, a scruffy maverick who’s always irritating his superiors. But all the eccentricities are overlooked as Major Eazy always gets the job done.

And getting the job done in ‘The Treasure of Solomon’ means that we’re in Indiana Jones territory, with Eazy put together with Miss Sackville-Smith from the British Museum and them both working for a particularly paranormal section of British Intelligence, catching up with the Nazis and their own paranormal division – complete with their own mystery man wrapped in bandages and strange occurrences happening with the treasures they’ve found.

 

Yep, Indiana Jones territory for sure – but there’s something fitting about the appropriation going on, after all, that’s exactly what happened with the original BA, so why the hell not here? This was a hell of a lot of fun and, again, one of those you really wouldn’t mind seeing more of in the future.