The Weekly 2000 AD Prog #2363: Into The 47th Year Of Thrill Power

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.

So, we’ve had a few weeks off 2000 AD now, following the triple-sized Christmas Prog full of festive delights for all and it’s back with the regular strips, complete with the finale for Helium, Ian Edginton and D’Israeli‘s excellent pulp adventure, plus a new one-off for Dredd, and the continuations of The Devil’s Railroad, Enemy Earth, and Feral & Foe.

Next Prog we have the beginning of two stunning looking strips for the new year, as we venture into the folk horror of Thistlebone once more with TC Eglington and Simon Davies and it’s a welcome return to the grand plan of Accounts Judge Maitland in Judge Dredd: A Better World from Rob Williams, Arthur Wyatt, and Henry Flint.

But that’s next week. Let’s have a good look at this week first shall we? Prog #2363 is out on Wednesday 3 January in the UK. You 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!

JUDGE DREDD: VOX POPULI – by Mike Carroll and Silvia Califano, colours by F. Segala and S. del Grosso, letters by Annie Parkhouse

Wow, another rather brilliantly done in one Dredd from Carroll here, coming hot on the heels of Risk Assessment in the recent Megazine #461 with Colin MacNeil.

That was one Dredd taking place across 10 pages and maybe five minutes in story time, an exercise in expansion of the moments, controlling time with a superb story.

Here in Vox Populi, this time with some really attractive art from Silvia Califano, Carroll goes the other way, a tale in six pages that shows us weeks, maybe months in a life, watching events unfold, seeing a mindset change, from pro-Judge reporter to vehement protestor against the system. It’s another really strong entry into a best one-off Dredd of the year (if there were such a contest). It’s possibly a sticking point that it’s not quite clear, through art or story exactly how long a period of time we’re looking at, but that could well be all part of the structure anyway, a deliberate choice on Carroll and Califano’s parts.

As it is, we see Jinty Pink, roving reporter making a decision at a local festival (benefiting blind dogs for the guides) and stopping a gunman aiming at Dredd. And that one action rockets her to fame, getting her on the talkshow circuit, sponsorship deals, and her own show.

But the media want to paint her as strictly pro-Judge and that’s not where Jinty’s coming from, and certainly not where she’s going to end up here. Yes, it might just be six pages but it’s six pages where Carroll puts so much into things – complex politics versus the increasing desire to see everything in a binary, black and white, either pro-Judge or pro-democracy fashion. Plus a treatise on the modern media at the same time. So much in so few pages, quite brilliantly done.

HELIUM: SCORCHED EARTH – PART 12 – FINAL PART – Ian Edginton and D’Israeli, letters by Simon Bowland

We head into the finale of the second series of Helium with so much having gone on, something the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth handily points out for us all…

But that glorious bit of storytelling gives us a hell of a lot more, and really sets up everything that’s going to happen here in the finale and tees up series 3 (because there will be a series 3, won’t there Mssers Edginton and D’Israeli? And not one we have to wait more than a year for either hopefully?) Anyway, with everyone escaped from the Ris forces and the Fugue, just that first panel of the Prime Minister’s rather palatial office should tip you off that he’s not one of the good guys either and our trio’s escape from Ris might well be a case of from frying pan into fire. And oh yes, he’s every bad politician you’ve ever seen – pompous, venal, power-hungry, and always threatened by anything new, anything alien or different.

Yes, it’s a great bit of storytelling and world-building from two creators and a strip that’s always been about those two things. And although the finale of Helium might be a sedate thing, it’s certainly not without plenty of drama and all sets up season 3 perfectly – with Hodge, Sol, and Bloom not getting off lightly with where they’re going to have to go next.

A gloriously fun thing, Helium’s delighted through its 12 parts, thrilling pulp adventure, all that great world-building, and with D’Israeli reinventing what sort of colour palettes you get to see in comics with seeming ease. Just a magnificent thing.

THE DEVIL’S RAILROAD – PART 11 – by Peter Milligan and Rufus Dayglo, colours by Jose Villarrubia, letters by Jim Cambell

Well, we knew young lovers Constance and Palamon, desperate to find a safe home to bring their baby into the world, were going to find it way, way harder than even they thought it would be. But Palomon’s summary on page one really does bring it all into focus… ‘When we started out, we were in love and excited about the future. Now Constance hates me and I’m about to be laser-beamed to shreds.’

Yes, Palomon’s been the one messing things up right from the off, too many bad decisions, too many rash moments. Meanwhile Constance has just been thrown into harm’s way too many times thanks to his actions. And that’s before we even talk about the selling off a bit of his soul, something Milligan addresses in this episode and something that bodes ill for the relationship.

Now that both the lovers are on Earth it should have been, according to who they were at the start of this great series, days of wine and roses. But no, things are far from good – their relationship’s teetering on the edge, there’s the threat from Sister White still to deal with, plus Sister White’s idiot son and his obsession with Constance… it’s all building to a finale but it’s really not looking like a happy ending is at all guaranteed.

And that’s without even talking about the fact that Earth is far from the welcoming sanctuary both had made it out to be – not that it’s been explicitly said yet, just alluded to in the background, Rufus throwing in some great visual references.

And speaking of the visuals, Dayglo really has nailed this one. I’ve said it all the way through, a wonderful mix of feverish cartooning where it’s kinetic and loose but always with so much control, meaning that we can go from something slightly absurd to something fast-moving and dynamic, right through to something quite beautifully studied, all in one episode.

ENEMY EARTH: BOOK THREE – PART 4 – by Cavan Scott and Luke Horsman, letters by Simon Bowland

The increasingly fast-paced Enemy Earth now has Zoe, Jules, Jules’ dad, and Nanni in India, sort of, maybe, possibly, held prisoner by the forces controlled by General Huang, formerly of the People’s Liberation Army of China and now the one in control of things, including the Indian research base where he’s just announced to all involved that the mutation-causing spores that have turned the world’s fauna and flora into a humanity-destroying nightmare came from space. An alien vanguard in fact, prepping the ground for an invasion.

But just how far will Huang go to control the mutated monsters of the Enemy Earth? And, come to that, just where has Jules gone anyway?

Oh yes, it’s all racing away, meaning that there are a couple of points in here where Horsman’s art just seems to be pushing things a little too far into the abstract and losing a bit of clarity in the storytelling.

Not to mention that I have no idea how Scott and Horsman are going to wrap things up – but as this is the final series I’m just hoping it isn’t rushed.

However, with all that in mind, it’s still a fair old bit of fun.

FERAL & FOE: BAD GODESBERG – PART 12 – Dan Abnett and Richard Elson, letters by Jim Campbell

So, Godesberg just happens to be built on cursed earth, with Sloke’s undead skull somewhere underneath it all – which explains why it’s such a big magical centre and why every protector of the place died a horrible death.

It’s also why there’s a hell of a lot of malignkind at the gates and Bode, Wrath and the gang are really having a bit of a tough time keeping the damn things out.

With a little distance, and a ride in the high war priest’s observation balloon (‘Oh yes, that looks completely reliable and safe’), they reckon they might just have pinpointed where the magical infestation’s coming from…

Yep, that would be it. So, probably best to be keeping the hell away from that then. Or possibly just dive the hell into it? Because nothing says bad decision like a Wretchfinder trying her hardest to make daddy proud.

It’s barrelling along is Feral & Foe, still a hell of a lot of fun, Abnett’s comedic dialogue never distracting from the fantasy adventure he’s telling and Elson’s art more than able to keep up with whatever fantastical imagery is needed.