The Weekly 2000 AD Prog #2385: Heading Down To The Brain Of Dr Globulon — More Huge Adventures On A Nano Scale In ‘Intestinauts’

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.

Everything the same again this week, meaning five more pieces of great storytelling variety. The three part 3Riller: Blue Skies over Deadwick comes to a close this week – and it’s really been a damn good self-contained tale. Elsewhere, Dredd and Iron Teeth get closer to a face-off, the incredible sci-fi of both Proteus Vex and Brink keep on doing everything they do so well, and cover-featured Intestinauts are off to get dangerously close to the brain of the mysterious Dr Globulon. Yep, we’re in a damn fine run of strips this year with the Prog.

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Prog #2385 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 won’t regret jumping onboard. Nearly back on track with getting ahead of publication day here thanks to a quiet week on the life front. Of course, much of that is how we’re now in the 100F+ time of year here at Bruton mansions USA, so stay in or dissolve in a mass of heat-destroyed goo are pretty much the only two options. But enough about the weather – here’s the latest 2000 AD.
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JUDGE DREDD: IRON TEETH – PART 4 – by Ken Niemand and Nick Percival, letters by Annie Parkhouse

Getting deep into what I believe is a six-parter now, and Dredd’s deep into the undercity on his rescue the juves mission. We open with a little robo to juve reassurance and a different take on the Judges – ‘… sometimes the Judges definitely don’t seem so nice … but if the Judges are so scary, then why do they risk everything to protect them from their own mistakes?’ Which is one way of putting it, but also leaves it all open enough to see the other way of thinking about that one – the Judge’s role being to keep the cits from doing much of anythinng they want to. But a nice way to open things.

Meanwhile, Dredd goes deeper and manages to find one of the kids… although this is the one with the gun…

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Only Dredd could get away with getting shot and then criticise the shooter.

But that’s not the only great Dredd as Dredd moment that Niemand chucks into this one – and more power to him for doing so.

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Plenty of those sort of moments in Iron Teeth, as Dredd gets closer and closer to a confrontation with the child-stealing monster of the Undercity, all accompanied by some beautiful Percival artwork.

He and Niemand have talked about doing more of these horror-based Dredds in the future and, based on all they’ve done thus far with ‘The House On Bleaker Street’ and ‘Iron Tooth’, that wouldn’t be a bad thing at all.

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INTESTINAUTS: BUSTED FLUSH – PART 4 – by Arthur Wyatt and Pye Parr

So the souped-up Intestinauts are launched into battle with the experimental Omega-Genocide-Four, whose Bowel-Bots origin tale last part was a joy to behold. And it’s straight into the depths of the Intestolabs architecture, through the nutrient channels and face-to-face with the brain of Dr Globulon, on a full-page that echoes, brilliantly, that cover this week.

It’s a full-scale war sort of thing, Intestinaut versus Bowel-Bot, all under the watchful eyes of Globulon. Except there’s been little hints all the way through this one that things aren’t quite right, not right at all. Which is why we get a great – but all-too-short – battle with the Intestinauts coming out on top… all of which leads us to more questions right at the end… not really spoilery but worth it just for the last line leading into the Next Prog title…

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Oh yes, I can’t wait to see quite how it’s all going to go really, really wrong.

It really has turned into a rather grande adventure has Busted Flush. There’s always the risk, when you take a short, gag-based thing as Intestinauts started off as, with the 3Riller tales across just three parts, that a longer story will rob it of what makes it work in service of a longer story.

But no, not here. We have plenty of fun still but the bigger story is a genuinely thrilling one, diving deeper into the characters and history of the Intestinauts and Intestolabs.

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THARG’S 3RILLERS: BLUE SKIES OVER DEADWICK – PART 3 (OF 3) – By David Baillie and Nick Brokenshire, letters by Annie Parkhouse

And now the finale to what’s turned out to be a really good, really different sort of 3Riller. Usually, it’s all tightly controlled, short story across a limited timespan, only a few characters to deal with. But Baillie’s taken that and added in a switch-up at the start of part 2 taking us on a big jump in time that not only served the story but gave it a real sense of something far bigger than its 17 pages ought to have.

We’ve seen the world of Deadwick, last human outpost following something apocalyptic and where the machines have taken over. We’ve seen the way the humans protect Deadwick, going on their climbs of the attacking Mecha and destroying the brain in part one. Then we saw Dilemma many years later in part two, having spent all those years perfecting the way to take over the Mecha.

And now… well, we find out just how the machines came to power and we watch Dilemma go on the attack, taking the fight to the central Apex A.I. ending up in a conversation with that Apex A.I. taking Dilemma’s form…

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And after that… well, I’m absolutely not giving that away as Baillie gives us yet another great twist right at the end as Dilemma realises just what he’s done here.

It’s been one of those really successful 3Rillers, all thanks to Baillie’s clever plotting and, of course, Nick Brokenshire’s been matching him all the way, giving us all the scale and the horrors of what we’re seeing.

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BRINK: BOOK 6 – CONSUMED – PART 8 – by Dan Abnett and INJ Culbard, letters by Simon Bowland

There’s really only so many ways I can talk about Brink being the finest thing in 2000 AD – and not just recently but since the very start. It’s just that good. It really is.

Of course, there’s going to be the naysayers talking about what’s wrong with it. Too slow, too much talking, etc. etc. etc. And yet that’s absolutely everything that is so damn great about Brink. But it’s not slow, it’s brilliantly paced, a slow-build that draws you in and never lets go. And there’s not too much talking, there’s drama in the conversations, every bit of dialogue gives something to the story. It’s just perfection and continues to be so.

Part 8 and we’re with Kurtis as she’s brought financial officer Lind into her investigation into sects on Belleholme. Just watching them and listening to them talk as they delve into it is all part of the greatness of Brink, all part of what’s made it so great. Well, that and the way Culbard always, absolutely always, makes every panel and page look so good, giving every conversation, every character the drama that it needs. Like I say, perfection.

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As for where we’re going, well, as you’ve just seen, Wade’s caught wind of a case, murder with sect overtones. Except we the reader have the feeling, having seen what’s happened outside Kurtis’s experience, that we know exactly where this one’s being taken – right to the mad thing with the teeth that’s been kidnapping and killing in the background.

Yep, absolute greatness. Sure, Consumed might be just an interlude in its way, the stop-off for Kurtis et al on their way to start with the Special Taskforce investigation into the Mercury Event, but it’s a seriously engaging and thrilling thing. The delicious build-up of things is all part of what makes it this good, knowing that both Abnett and Culbard are more than capable of realising the build-up and delivering the ending that justifies it all.

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PROTEUS VEX: DEVIOUS – PART 11 – by Mike Carroll and Jake Lynch, colours by Jim Boswell, letters by Simon Bowland

And we end the Prog with the similarly great Proteus Vex. Just as with Brink, it’s not an easy thing to suddenly drop into, the complexities and the sheer scale of the overarching story and the various threads that Carroll has brought into it make that a necessary casualty of having something that works wonderfully well as a whole.

Add to this the manner in which Jake Lynch gives life to the ideas, spectacular alien life, his designs and pages full of different-looking stuff, angular, organic, whatever he chooses to turn his hand to. It’s career-high work from Lynch on a strip that’s just another excellent slab of high-end sci-fi.

This episode we’re out of the regular one for Proteus Vex, one for Midnight Indicating Shame and rejoin the story thread for Vex from last Prog. Now that he’s woken up from an extended recovery, he’s making moves, trying to work out just why the Imperium are so intent of finding the flesh-pilots, especially as Chancellor Thonosum happens to be a host for one,.

Meanwhile, the ship carrying another errant Citheronian on their way to rendevous with Midnight is sniffing around the ship Vex is on, where they’re all very busy looking into the ‘layers of conspiracy within the Imperium Ascendant’.

So… big space fight coming up? Nope, minor skirmish, seems that Citheronian battle tactics are just as devious as Carroll’s brain here. Leading us to this…

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Yep, there’s so much going on in Proteus Vex that it’s just something to dive into and relish. Like I’ve said before, do yourself a huge favour and go back and devour the collection and the previous tales. It’s so worth it. I did it a little while back and it’s given so much depth and so many layers to the whole thing.

As for where it’s going? Well, there’s ideas in my head as to what’s going to happen but knowing the way Carroll and Lynch have switched it all round in the past, I’m not second guessing anything here, just strapping in and loving the ride.