The Weekly 2000 AD Prog #2382: Something Wicked This Way Comes From Dredd

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.

This week it’s two new and three carrying on in the Prog. There’s a new multi-parter Dredd from Ken Niemand and Nick Percival, something chilling in the underworld of the big city. And at the other end of the scale, there’s more bowel-bustin’ nano-robot silliness with the Intestinauts from Arthur Wyatt and Pye Parr.

As for what stays the same, it’s the finale for Aquila as he’s on his way out of Hades, and more from two absolutely great strips – the expansive space opera of pure alienness that is Proteus Vex and the tightly wound police sci-fi procedural of Brink. It is, to be honest, a really strong line up of five wildly different strips.

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Prog #2382 comes out on 15th May in the UK. You North American readers should get to their local comic shops and demand they get the 4-weekly Prog bundles in – it’s the right thing to do. Bruton Mansions US has been typically chaotic – take a busy work week, appointments for everything and then throw a small mad puppy into the mix. Okay, one of those three is at least adorable.

 

JUDGE DREDD: IRON TEETH – PART 1 – by Ken Niemand and Nick Percival, letters by Annie Parkhouse

Just like ‘The House on Bleaker Street’ from a while back, something which Nick Percival has already said will be linked to in this new ‘Iron Teeth’ storyline, this one promises plenty of horror in Dredd’s world. And let’s face it, if there’s one place in any fictional world that’s as comfortable with horror as with any other genre, it’s Dreddworld. Somewhere this full of nightmarish monsters and the ever-present threat of death or a few years in the iso-cubes for doing pretty much anything does lend itself to a pretty dystopian hellhole of a place.

So this one’s promised to be Dredd all alone, under the city, dealing with the nightmares found there. In particular, Iron Teeth, a bogeyman that the feral kids in MC-1 have invented – or perhaps not.

Anyway, in this first episode we have a gang of said feral kids venturing down into the undercity, with a plan to get down their and kill Iron Teeth so he can’t kill any more kids. Yes, this is Stand By Me by way of every nasty little horror tale you’ve ever seen/read.

 

And of course, in that, Percival is just the perfect artist for the job. Is there anyone who does this sort of creeping horror as well as he does right now? Okay, maybe Dave Kendall as well. But there’s two of them who do this sort of thing so perfectly, giving us worlds full of nightmares, viscera and nastiness all over, meaning Percival’s perfect for this one.

As for Dredd, well, he hears about the kids heading down on their mission to kill the monster and heads down after them. And that’s pretty much where we’re at here. A fine start to another great little horror.

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AQUILA: THE RIVERS OF HADES BOOK TWO – PART 6 – by Gordon Rennie and Patrick Goddard, colours by Dylan Teague, letters by Annie Parkhouse

Aquila and his little gang, including Nero, the man who can allegedly get him the location of Ammit the Devourer, have battled their way out of Hades and are on the last leg of their busman’s holiday in hell.

All that’s left to do now is purge Nero’s soul in the River Acheron. And that done, it’s all about travelling a secret path out of Hades, saying farewell to the wife and promising he’ll come back to find the kids, just the little matter of reclaiming his soul first, which is going to be just a little difficult. Although he’s definitely mellowed over the time we’ve seen his exploits…

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This one’s very much a pause rather than an ending, all setting up the next and final series of Aquila. Yes, the final series. It’s Aquila versus Ammit. To the end. Sure, you might think you know where it’s going, but don’t bet on that one. I reckon Rennie has a few twists to throw into this yet.

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INTESTINAUTS: BUSTED FLUSH – PART 1 – by Arthur Wyatt and Pye Parr

Gurgling guts? Troublesome tum? You need the Intestinauts, nano-robots whose mission in life is to head into your guts and do battle with various nasties found there. Once that’s done, it’s time for the ‘Big Flush’ leaving them ready to be uploaded back to HQ.

Every series of Intestinauts has been a huge bout of daftness backed up with plenty of really solid sci-fi storytelling from Wyatt and some absolutely great artwork from Parr.

Here we’re inside Intestolabs, manufacturers of Intestinauts, Tummy Pals, Skinthetic Symbiote Work Suits and more, opening on one of those wow cutaway pages that used to be such a staple of comics – oh, thanks to Parr and Wyatt for bringing it back.

Dr Kate Drexler’s labs are home to something gut-like that’s started leaking out into the wild. The trouble she’s got is that the labs are treating it as a contaminant and the sterilisation protocols are triggered, meaning she’s got an hour before the whole lab, plus whatever she’s working on that’s leaking over the floor, gets zapped. So, who do you call?

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So… yes, the Intestinauts are unleashed and immediately find themselves in unexpected territory, namely a 2cm-ish drip on the lab floor… it’s a great little (very little) moment of transition from the good Doc and the tiny drip coming from the tank to the ’emptiness, extending in every direction’ that our little nano-buddies find themselves in, although IR-360 doesn’t last that long to do more than make a really badly-judged observation about what’s coming their way…

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Of course, there’s something nasty and experimental in the research tanks – that’s what researchers do, isn’t it? Especially researchers at some massive corporate thingy like Intestolabs. As for what it is, I’ll save that till next week. But it’s as nightmarish as anything they’ve ever seen inside any of the guts they’ve been in so far. And, as anyone who’s ever watched their own colonoscopy on a screen (yes American readers, no general anaesthetic for us Brits, we’re wide awake and watching the screen of our insides), there’s some strange stuff in there.

Intestinauts is another one of those rare things, something deliberately silly in concept but played absolutely straight by Wyatt and Parr, giving us pure adventure on a ridiculously tiny scale, and it’s worked every time so far – can’t see Busted Flush being any different.

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BRINK: BOOK 6 – CONSUMED – PART 5 – by Dan Abnett and INJ Culbard, letters by Simon Bowland

More damn fine Brink – three pages of Kurtis and Wade chatting sect-crime and missing persons followed by two pages of HabSec Uniforms finding a body. That’s all you get here if you sum it up, but summing it up strips it of everything that makes Brink my favourite thing.

Indeed, some poor misinformed souls would believe you can sum up Brink with the opening three panels with just one little ‘klk’…

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Of course, they’re wrong, and I can’t help by imagine that that’s almost a little in-joke about the way Brink takes things deliberately – and deliciously – slowly. It probably isn’t, but it’s fun to think of the little keyboard warriors on the forums seizing on it and crowing in triumph about it.

Of course, they’re missing the point. And that’s that Brink is all about the incredibly inventive ways that Abnett and Culbard fill pages of conversation with interest and tension and such wonderful visuals.

Case in point, there was a great moment this last week with Culbard saying this…

‘You see that HSD logo? It took me four books to realise that the H can (if I remove the right edge of the letter H) interlock with the S which in turn can interlock with the D (if I remove the left edge of the D) – it stands for Habitat Security Division – so an interlocking logo is apt. So if you see it on stuff in the story from this point on, that’s HSD phasing it in.’

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Details, details, glorious details.

As for the story itself, we’re now deep into things, as Bonner’s off enjoying a round of golf and Kurtis, bless her, just can’t keep away from Sect-Crime, even here on the Belleholme Hab where they’ve got 10 days break in a journey as part of the Special Detail Taskforce looking into the Mercury event.

It’s all so wonderfully tightly packed, so much going on, despite it seeming like there’s not that much going on. But that’s the joy of Brink, the magnificent way that it all plays out so well, all leading to what’s one of the tightest, more rewarding, most thrilling stories you’ve ever read.

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PROTEUS VES: DEVIOUS – PART 8 – by Mike Carroll and Jake Lynch, colours by Jim Boswell, letters by Simon Bowland

We’re alternating here, an episode following Midnight Indicating Shame, an episode catching up with Vex – and here it’s more with Vex, currently being dissected by Count Tiorn, who really wants to get deep into the mind of Vex and the body of his Flesh-Pilot.

Last we saw of Vex, it was the end of Prog 2380 and this…

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Memories extracted from Vex’s head, or from somewhere anyway, looking in on Vex’s death on Modahas and a first encounter with the Flesh-Pilots.

Now there’s not just Vex on the table and Tiorn gets to find out what makes the Flesh-Pilots tick whilst we see them resurrect a mortally wounded Vex in the past…

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Of course, there was never a chance we’d see an entire series of Vex on the slab and unconscious, and so it comes to pass, Vex is awake, the Flesh-Pilots are active, Tiorn’s got no idea what trouble he’s brought upon himself. All that for the next couple of weeks though.

Again, like Brink, this isn’t one for an immediate hit of action-packed adventure. Instead, it’s one that’s perfectly crafting a tale of alien worlds and civilisations, building up not just a series of tales of Proteus Vex and his legacy but one of myths and legends created and retold centuries past the events we’re reading here. It’s one of Mike Carroll’s finest things he’s done for 2000 AD and Jake Lynch has absolutely come into his own in every series since co-creator Henry Flint had to ditch after the first series. His work just gets better and better, capturing the strangeness, the unreal nature of seeing things through alien eyes beautifully.