The Weekly 2000 AD Prog #2353: Dredd’s Sov Holiday

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.

Inside, the five strips continue… and that is good, as they’re another five really good strips indeed.

So, more of Judge Dredd: Poison with Dredd heading to East-Meg Two in his search for the truth about Hershey’s death. We have more beautifully different sci-fi in Helium: Scorched Earth as our heroes find themselves deep in it inside the toxic Fugue that separates the societies of this very strange world. Then there’s the second episode in The Devil’s Railroad, a cracking bit of politically aware sci-fi. The Fall of Deadworld has a MC-1 on the slow and enthralling way down to the inevitable end, and finally we get the light in tone but no less thrilling Feral & Foe with Wrath and Bode in trouble in the magical fortress of Godesberg.

Five great strips, proving that 2000 AD really is the anthology title you can’t do without.

Prog #2353 is out on Wednesday 11th October in the UK. As always, North American readers should get to their local comic shops and demand they get the 4-weekly Prog bundles in – you really are missing out on a treat!

Okay then… shall we?

 

JUDGE DREDD: POISON – PART 3 – Rob Williams and PJ Holden, colours by Peter Doherty, letters by Simon Bowland.

So, Dredd’s headed to East-Meg Two in search of who infected and eventually killed Hershey. Except Dredd’s too high profile to go undercover and get the goods. Instead, we have a familiar face from a long way back, black ops operative Domino…

 

She’s doing her best to fit in and make contact with the names Dredd’s uncovered. As for Dredd, he’s completely pissed off with it all. Logan refused him clearance to go into East-Meg Two under a face change, so he’s stood in a cave in Mongolia waiting to see what happens. Dredd is none to good at the waiting, not when he’s this angry.

As for Domino, well I could tell you that everything goes well and she gets all the info she and Dredd are after. I could, but that wouldn’t exactly be the truth.

Poison already had that important Dredd feel right from the start. But the addition of East-Meg Two has rather ramped things up – with lines and moments like this making it all very, very serious…

 

Williams is writing up a storm here, getting that Dredd tone just right. And then we have PJ Holden on art, always a delight, always such solid, impressive artwork and an artist whose Dredds are always fantastic things.

 

HELIUM: SCORCHED EARTH – PART 3 – Ian Edginton and D’Israeli, letters by Simon Bowland

We’ve had some revelation about the past – how Hodge was a royal baby, how Sol was her protector, and how the rebellion ended up with them both fleeing.

But now, in this wonderfully different series, so full of exquisite art and colours from D’Israeli and a lightness of storytelling from Edginton, we’re in the Fugue with Hodge, Sol, and Prof Bloom, the toxic fog belt between the bright uplands above the Poison Belt that we saw a load of in Helium series 1 and the toxic world beneath where the populous live in giant terrariums to survive.

Being in the Fugue is not a good thing. Never mind the whole so toxic it will eat your skin away if the suit leaks in any way, there’s a load of things out there trying to eat you.

And of course, they’ve managed to find one of them…

 

All of which means this episode is just a madcap dash from trouble to trouble, complete with the best panel I’ve seen in a long time, anywhere…

 

And after this, well let’s just say that all the fauna and the toxicity of the Fugue is actually the least of the trio’s worries for now.

Absolutely great stuff. It’s got all that fabulous adventuring, a real rush of storytelling, and it just comes across as so much fun. Couple that with D’Israeli doing his usual incredible things with what he’s drawing and especially with how much work is going into those colours and you have a real winner here.

 

THE DEVIL’S RAILROAD – PART 2 – by Peter Milligan and Rufus Dayglo, colours by Jose Villarrubia, letters by Jim Cambell

Young lovers Palamon and Constance have decided the only way to make sure their unborn child has any future is to escape the hell of planet Diaspora X-167. Earth’s their destination, or at least they hope that it is. Because they’re on the Devil’s Railroad, the people smuggling route that they hope will lead to Earth and sanctuary, as all Earth-born humanoids are granted citizenship.

So, that was what we learned last episode. Now, the two young lovers are finding just how dangerous the Devil’s Railroad is and how vulnerable they are, how little their lives count for out here. The ship they’re on is leaking poisonous chemicals giving all of the poor souls in the cargo hold hell terrible visions and nightmares. But, as they’re about to find out, the nightmares have only just begun and, by the end of this one, the young lovers are going to find themselves in a whole heap of trouble.

 

It’s one of those strips that 2000 AD can do so well, taking a very now problem and showing it for what it is through sci-fi. Sometimes it’s a parody and sometimes, like here, it’s a heartbreaker.

Between them, Milligan and Dayglo are doing something so good here, the characters, the world, the art, the pace of it all, it’s all just doing the right thing.

Another excellent brand-new addition to 2000 AD this year. The great comics work just keeps coming and coming.

 

THE FALL OF DEADWORLD: RETRIBUTION – PART 2 – by Kek-W and Dave Kendall, letters by Simon Bowland

Time for the Jess Childs quest, as Judge Fairfax made the decision in the opening episode to find young Jess after she was sucked into a portal.

However, we open now with the trio of Judges Eastwood, Biggs, and Tanya battling deadhead automatons. And it’s a classic moment of frying pan/fire by the end of this one, with the Sovs making their presence felt, just another thing to make life in this particular MC-1 an absolute nightmare. Sovs invading, the dead everywhere, the Dark Judges spreading their contagion everywhere… well, it’s all heading in only one direction and the clue is right there in the title.

 

As before, Kek-W and Dave Kendall are setting this one up really well, the sense of everything going to hell in a hand cart, no matter what little victories that the cast have really does give this one a real twist, a completely different way of looking at things, and one that definitely works. And as for Kendall, this may well be the perfect strip for his art, getting to be as nasty, as putrified, as just plain going to hell as fast as he can draw it.

 

 

FERAL & FOE: BAD GODESBERG – PART 3 – Dan Abnett and Richard Elson, letters by Jim Campbell

And after all that seriousness from Dredd, through Devil’s Railroad, and into The Fall of Deadworld, ending the Prog with Feral & Foe is an enjoyable bit of light and laughter.

Not that Abnett and Elson are playing it all for laughs, hell no, there’s a fine bit of fantasy action playing out here, as the heroes (or whatever they are) find themselves in deep in Godesberg, a magical repository that’s got a load of problems right now, problems that are busy trying to kill Wrath, Bode, and all the rest with them…

 

But alongside all the fantasy, there’s a rich vein of comedy dialogue to be found to lighten the tone, and it’s that mix of the two that makes Feral & Foe a delight to end the Prog with.