The Weekly 2000 AD Prog #2370: Ridersssss On The Ssssstorm – The Return Of ‘The Fall Of Deadworld’

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 – 47 years and counting…

Here we go again, one and all, another week, another Prog of 2000 AD, five strips, all magnificently different – this ain’t, and has never been, your typical sci-fi anthology. 47 years young this month, a staggering achievement for a comic anthology, especially one lasting into the now and still managing to be this good.

This week we have two new strips joining the party. First of all, we have a return to Deadworld for the second and concluding half of Retribution by Kek-W and Dave Kendall. And then there’s a brand-new Indigo Prime, another Kek-W-written thing, this time with Lee Carter on art, rejoining the world of the agents meant to be the multiversal troubleshooters.

As for those continuing strips, well all three are superb, whether it’s the continuing efforts of Judge Maitland to build ‘A Better World‘ in Mega-City One, the all-out thrills of Full Tilt Boogie, or the absolute chills of the world of Thistlebone, you have three excellent reads right there.

Prog #2370 is out now 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! Here at Bruton Mansions, we’re all still Covided up the wazoo and getting through tissues, painkillers, and throat candy like there’s no tomorrow. Bleurgh.

JUDGE DREDD: A BETTER WORLD – PART 7 – by Rob Williams and Arthur Wyatt and Henry Flint, letters by Annie Parkhouse

Seven episodes is all it’s taken to have Maitland’s grand project, the defunding of the Judges thing, the educate the masses and bring about societal change thing, teetering on the brink. And it was all going so damn well too, the numbers were right, the theory was right, the results were right. But Maitland just didn’t figure with the outside factors, the chaos factors of a city where too many are terrified by the changes brought forth and a media more than willing to go out of its way to lie and manipulate events to put its owners’ point of view across.

We get that on the first couple of pages here, with Robert Glenn’s ego out of control, the manipulation of viewers gone into overdrive, the making up of news, the sheer contempt for the media, it’s all right there.

The trouble for Maitland is that not only is she having to cope with putting everything in place whilst being undermined by the media riling up the Cits, she’s also got to deal with Hernandez, part of the Council, hand-in-hand with Glenn.

But Hernandez isn’t giving in so easily, not admitting anything, and has more than enough power to be able to do bad things. So maybe, just maybe, Maitland ending their conversation with a threat isn’t the best idea she’s ever had?

Oh, it’s a wonderful Dredd is this, packed with the political and the satirical, with Dredd barely getting a look-in, which is absolutely fine. You know he’ll have something to do with it all in time. And as for time, I still have no idea just how many parts this one’s running to but previous Williams/Wyatt pieces makes me think we’re possibly looking at 10, maybe 12 – and that’s just not quite enough for me. I want this to be one of those long, long, long things that burns slowly yet brightly and quite magnificently.

INDIGO PRIME: CRACKED ACTORS – by Kek-W and Lee Carter, letters by Jim Campbell

The multiverse, an infinite number of parallel realities, all in need of management in case of dimensional instability. And that’s where Indigo Prime comes in – multiversal troubleshooters, agents trained to deal with space/time catastrophes, as created by John Smith and Chris Weston. Now though, Indigo Prime’s headquarters has been destroyed in a cataclysmic event, with most of IP’s personnel lost and its assets acquired by the company ICP. Thing is, IP’s founder, Clive Vista, might have been killed but that hasn’t stopped him from setting plans in place to make sure that IP’s secrets aren’t stolen by ICP.

It’s exactly one hundred issues since the last appearance and this one’s a prologue tale before the series kicks off proper next week, one that opens with a Johnny Depth perfume ad that turns into something else, and a meeting with Clive Vista in the days before his death, obviously. Johnny’s a mimetic, shapeshifter, and Vista’s got just the job for him – playing ICP’s legal advisor.

And if Johnny Depth looks rather a lot like a certain Mr Depp, then ICP’s legal advisor, a Mr Bateman, is the spitting image of a certain Mr Bale playing a very American Psycho. With Depth in ICP as Bateman, there’s obviously a plan afoot to mess with them and keep them guessing as to where Vista’s most valuable data is… all of which involves another of John Smith’s creations who happens to have had run-ins with Indigo Prime before.

Anyway, plenty to enjoy here, diving off the deep end of ‘space/time weirdness.’ as Tharg describes Indigo Prime in the editorial, just after blowing the surprise of just who’s popping up next Prog. Lee Carter’s artwork is one that’s, over the years, really grown on me, and also art that does seem to suit Indigo Prime here, all the strangeness and intrigue of the story.

FULL TILT BOOGIE: BOOK 2 – PART 4 – by Alex De Campi and Eduardo Ocana, colours by Eva De La Cruz, letters by Annie Parkhouse

Tee’s off on the mission to pick up those crystals that Achilles (he finally gets a name on the last page here) is after for personal reasons – personal reasons most likely tied to his bedside vigil at the hospital that we see here. Meanwhile, Grandma’s feeling something of a spare part and wondering just what she can do to pull her weight. But is a high-stakes game with the Full Tilt Boogie in the pot really a good idea? And they say it’s youth who are impetuous and prone to risky business.

The problems Grandma’s getting into will, no doubt, be causing Tee problems in the future. But right now, she’s got more immediate problems to concentrate on, specifically the mission to pick up those crystals right in the centre of the ship, growing in the engine room and causing all sorts of local weird anomalies where the physics is just plain wrong. And then there’s the mysterious figure that’s about to awaken when Tee gets a little further into the ship.

Full Tilt Boogie is fast and light in touch – not meant as an insult there, just that Ocana’s artwork does so much of the work in here, with De Campi easing off on the script to allow the lush art to take centre stage. There’s a real loveliness to Ocana’s lines, minimal yet so full of expression, very organic in its clever detailing and De Campi’s sensible light touch adds to the overall experience of this one as a euro-tinged thriller.

THE FALL OF DEADWORLD – RETRIBUTION – PART 8 – by Kek-W and Dave Kendall, letters by Simon Bowland

Right then, to catch you up a little – we’re here watching a planet falling to pieces, the final days before its doom. And it’s not going to go easy – after all, this is the world that became known as Deadworld. The creatures known as the Dark Judges are abroad, spreading their contagion, their only mission to eradicate all life – something they’re doing rather well at.

Meanwhile, Sov forces have taken advantage of the chaos and invaded, only to find themselves right in the middle of the chaos. And amid all of the chaos, young Jess Childs and her friends have successfully rescued Judge Fairfax, only for Childs to be sucked into a portal. Okay then, that was then, but right now we have Judge Eastwood and her team, including some very reluctant Sovs pressganged into it all, taking on Sidney De’Ath, who’s currently inhabiting the corpse of his father.

Yep, we’re right back into the madness of Deadworld and we’re just watching the world before it falls. But that comes later, right now we’re deep in the heart of it all, with the battle of Sector House 13 raging, Sidney De’Ath and Judge Ava Eastwood taking shots at each other before De’Ath makes his escape with a certain Dark Judge that you’ve already seen on the cover.

As always, it’s a grubby, nasty thing is The Fall of Deadworld, a series that we’re well aware is headed for doom and destruction and where the fun is seeing just how many twists and turns Kek-W puts us through before the end. That and thoroughly enjoying Dave Kendall’s artwork along the way, perfect for the whole nasty enterprise of it all.

THISTLEBONE: THE DULE TREE – PART 7 – by TC Eglington and Simon Davis, letters by Simon Bowland

Thistlebone really is casting a delicious spell over me, every episode just drawing us deeper into the mystery – even though we’re not really all that sure as yet of what the mystery might actually be.

Case in point, I thought we were getting somewhere at the end of last week’s episode as we saw this captured on the daily rushes…

Now that was a particular intake of breath moment, the spirit of Thistlebone showing up to affect things. But we move straight on from that now, instead switching away to screenwriter Callum having a bit of a moment after the beating he took at the hands of the one of the lovely and oh so tolerant locals.

We do get a little bit of strangeness, as he describes the director’s previous experimental ways and how the filming had an influence on the people and the environment – something that’s very much in the wheelhouse of Thistlebone and the way that the ideas of horror seep into a place and its people. And then of course there’s that crow – what exactly is it eating? Is that an eyeball?

All very interesting, all very much quiet horror, a creeping sense of something being wrong with the world here, just as you’d expect. And then we do get the visceral horror of the tale, as we hear from Callum of the horrors of his childhood. Again, we get to see Davis go to his childlike art that we saw quite a bit of in Thistlebone Book 2, as we’re back into Callum’s memories of his drunk and abusive father and a chilling end to the episode telling of the end to his father and his own role in it all.

Quite wonderfully mysterious, complex writing, beautifully eerie artwork – Thistlebone just continues to keep that creeping chill at your spine.