The Weekly 2000 AD Prog #2358: The Devil’s Coming For You On His Railroad

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.

Another week, another set of episodes from the five great strips. All of it opens with the penultimate episode of Judge Dredd: Poison, with Rob Williams and PJ Holden bringing Dredd closer and closer to the truth behind Hershey’s death. Then we have the latest from Helium: Scorched Earth, The Devil’s Railroad, The Fall Of Deadworld, and all ending with more great fantasy comedy in Feral & Foe.

Prog #2358 is out now 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!

 

JUDGE DREDD: POISON – PART 6 – Rob Williams and PJ Holden, colours by Peter Doherty, letters by Simon Bowland.

We’re really into the final act of this one now. This is the penultimate episode, and I’m really going to pull back on what I tell you for fear of spoiling this one.

So, let’s start with the end to last episode shall we?

 

Yep. Ex-Judge Graves, shipped out to Titan and now back in the care of The Alchemist in the Cursed Earth. So, is he the one responsible for setting up the fungal infection that led to Hershey’s death?

Nope, not going to spill the beans. It’s one of those you really need to read for yourselves.

Suffice it to say that Williams has this one tightly under control, pulling together so many different threads from the history of Dredd here. But the way it’s been done means it’s not completely wrapped up in continuity and there’s still a thoroughly great story here for anyone not familiar with the past. Although… it’s well worth an explore into the past to really go deep into it all.

Anyway, Poison comes to an end next week and it’s been a really fine strip, full of both the importance that I wanted and giving us a nod to all those great Dredd quests of the past. Williams really does a fine, fine Dredd. And as for Holden, his Dredd is still, I maintain, one of the modern greats. And I just don’t think he gets enough credit for it. But I really think his work just keeps getting better and better and this has been absolutely superb. Seriously, just take a look at these first two pages from Poison to see just how much tension he gets into a couple of pages of Dredd getting in a lift..

 

THE FALL OF DEADWORLD: RETRIBUTION – PART 6 – by Kek-W and Dave Kendall, letters by Simon Bowland

Casey Tweed’s been purged… always the risk of meeting Judge Fear. But that means Sector-House 13 is under threat, and not from either Sidney De’ath or Sister Eunomia. Nope, it would be this particularly weird bit of Sov tech…

 

That’s Judge Eastwood and her newfound Sov friends attacking the block.

Yep, it’s all kicking off in spectacular fashion essentially, all the madness of this doomed world coming out in both writing and art, all the characters so perfectly grotesque and flawed. It’s pre-apocalyptic sci-fi with everything dialled up to 11 and it’s all rather gleefully racing along. And with Nick Percival on art, the end of days never looked better.

 

HELIUM: SCORCHED EARTH – PART 7 – Ian Edginton and D’Israeli, letters by Simon Bowland

In Fugue Town, Hodge is getting somewhat accustomed to being something of a celebrity, all this lost princess stuff meaning that she, Sol, and Bloom are having perhaps the most relaxed and most enjoyable moments we’ve seen so far in two glorious series of Helium.

And then the siren goes off…

 

Arseholes indeed.

Yes, we knew it was going to happen, the city of Ris coming looking for Hodge and friends, “seditionists, terrorists, murdered,” as they put it.

It’s just we didn’t quite realise it would happen so spectacularly, with D’Israeli giving us a frankly magnificent double page where the Cruiser Ballerophon looms over the Fugue city.

So, after a moment’s peace, we’re back with the action in Helium, which really is every bit the perfect pulp action serial adventure.

 

THE DEVIL’S RAILROAD – PART 5 – by Peter Milligan and Rufus Dayglo, colours by Jose Villarrubia, letters by Jim Cambell

There’s a line on the first page that you know is looming large and going to come back to haunt young pregnant lovers Palamon and Constance:

“Life will be so different if they can be born on Earth, with all those wonderful Earth rights. I’ve heard that Earthers are a welcoming bunch… always ready to embrace poor refuges desperate for a better life.”

Yes, that’s absolutely going to not be how they find it when they get to Earth, foreshadowed in words and art on the first page of this latest episode, another nice bit of back and forth in the narrative at play.

But, Constance and Palamon have to get there first, and that’s some tall order, given that they’re split up and both in terrible danger on their new leg of The Devil’s Railroad.

And whilst Palamon’s searching for her and finding out that his fellow refugees aren’t above a bit of nastiness, jealousy, and muck-racking, Constance is doing what she can to protect her unborn child. But even she’s not averse to making some terrible decisions – and accepting a ride from Sister White’s son was a huge one…

 

The Devil’s Railroad is a classic bit of 2000 AD, with Milligan and Dayglo giving us something that works as a socio-political love story and a cracking bit of pacey sci-fi.

 

FERAL & FOE: BAD GODESBERG – PART 7 – Dan Abnett and Richard Elson, letters by Jim Campbell

As Wrath gets into the bedchamber of Sire Clumms, High War Priest of Godesberg, she has to deal with the overly protective nurse first before getting a handy little bit of news driving the plot along and launching us into the second phase of this particular tale.

There’s a curse on Godesberg and now it’s up to our merry little band of freaks from the war, including Wrath and Bode, led by the painfully insecure daughter of the Wretchfinder General, to get to the bottom of it.

 

Oh, and there’s the small matter of trying to clear the castle and particularly its cellars of all manner of weird beastie. Yep, as the tank points out, “this line of work don’t ‘alf suck”.

Grand fun, great fantasy – even for those of us who usually run screaming from fantasy – Feral & Foe is a blast.