The Weekly 2000 AD Prog #2387: Iron Teeth Vs Dredd – The Finale

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.

After the bumper 48-page Prog last week, we’re back to the usual five strips this week – with conclusions for both the current Dredd horror, ‘Iron Teeth’, by Ken Niemand and Nick Percival, and Intestinauts: Busted Flush by Arthur Wyatt and Pye Parr. Alongside them, there’s more Rogue Trooper hunting down the mystery of Souther Belle, sect crime conspiracies and interrogations in Brink, and a great bit of brutal action in Proteus Vex.

Prog #2386 comes out on 19 June 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. Another one on time, meaning you have no excuse to not be popping down to the local shop and picking up a copy.
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JUDGE DREDD: IRON TEETH – PART 6 – FINAL PART – by Ken Niemand and Nick Percival, letters by Annie Parkhouse

The end of ‘Iron Teeth’ and Niemand and Percival have absolutely done all they set out to do with this one.

And that’s to bring the darkness back into Dredd, the darkness that’s always been in it, all the way back, where the straight-as-a-die lawmaker meets all manner of the strange and the supernatural.

Here it’s been ‘Iron Teeth’, a kid’s bogeyman made real, taking children who venture into the Undercity and giving them their heart’s desire, just not leaving them alive in the aftermath.

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In this final part, there’s the inevitable outcome as Dredd finally comes face to face with Iron Teeth, because we always knew Dredd would come out on top in the end, that’s just the way of these things. But it’s the getting there that’s the important bit, the enjoyable bit, and it’s been a fine take of just what horrors exist in Dredd’s world, complete with a couple of pages at the end setting the scene for the horrors yet to come in the continued exploration by Niemand and Percival of just how dark they can take Dredd.

So, an end but not an end, the horror of Iron Teeth dealt with but a promise of more horrors to come. And I can think of no creative team more suited to bring us those horrors than these.

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ROGUE TROOPER: SOUTHER BELLE – PART 1 – by Geoffrey D. Wessel and Dan Cornwell, colours by Chris Blythe, letters by Jim Campbell

Last episode we had the intro, with Rogue back in action, complete with all the elements that are essential parts of any Rogue story. As I said, it’s always a good start to see the storyline set sometime in the hunt for the Traitor General, early Rogue, when he still had that drive, that mission of revenge that pushed the stories along so well and that, once gone, meant we saw the whole thing for a bit of a one-dimensional character.

But even one-dimensional characters with a limited amount of stories in them like Rogue can thrive if you give them a good situation to be in. Happened with the Ennis & Goddard series and hopefully it’s going to happen here. Wessel also seems to get it, which is why this is just set as it is, no specific time, just a sense that it’s Rogue, there’s a war, the Norts and the Southers, Nu-Earth, and that’s all you need.

In this particular interlude we have Rogue and his three dead comrades in those memory chips – Helm, Gunnar, and Bagman, doing what they do. They’ve changed upon a propaganda signal, the Souther Belle, a Nort thing using the voice of one of their own.

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The voice of Souther Belle belongs to one of the ‘dolls’, the insulting and demeaning term given to them by those in charge – seems misogyny is alive and well in this future. We get a rundown of their place in things and it’s off on a rescue. Lots of action, lots of explosions, fast trucks, bullets flying, Rogue and his trio of chips all getting on with things.

We have some great Cornwell artwork on a tale that’s good but functional, ticking all the familiar Rogue boxes so far. But it’s going to be how the ‘dolls’ legacy and Souther Belle in particular that will show whether this is just another Rogue tale or something that bit better.

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BRINK: BOOK 6 – CONSUMED – PART 10 – by Dan Abnett and INJ Culbard, letters by Simon Bowland

Here in Brink, Bridget Kurtis has always been the smartest in the room, always the one driving things. And so it continues. Wade might be leading the interview of Regina, the PI connected to the latest dead body on Belleholme Hab, but every incisive question, every bit of pressure comes from Kurtis, who’s still meant to be just observing but just can’t help herself when there’s the case in front of her.

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There’s plenty Regina’s not saying of course. The small matter of the Eye of Vovek brand/tattoo, why she was trailing the vic for so long, what happened to her on Sophia Hab, why she got out of her HabSec position where she was evacuated to Belleholme? But all that is left hanging and parked for the future.

What we get here, brilliantly done as you’d expect from Abnett and, particularly, Culbard (a lesson in how to make pages of three people in a room visually mesmerising) is something typically Brink. It’s edge of the seat stuff, waiting to see what little morsel Kurtis can work out of the interrogation.

Perfectly paced, visually arresting, absolutely another great Brink episode.

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INTESTINAUTS: BUSTED FLUSH – PART 6 – FINAL PART – by Arthur Wyatt and Pye Parr

The finale to this one, the longest of all the Intestinauts strips so far and a huge amount of fun.

It’s the Intestinauts deep in the brain space of a OG4/bowel-bot-based invader controlled brain of Dr Globulon, overseer of all things Intestolabs. Frankly, he wasn’t all that trustworthy before this – corporate greed never is – but with a rogue bowel-bot infestation, things could really get messy.

There’s a moment here of absolute punch the air, knowing that Wyatt is having just as much fun with writing this as we are reading it…

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And the fact it’s on the same page as another one of those great Parr moments that we’ve had all the way through this adventure most tiny only shows us that the artist is enjoying this every bit as much as the writer.

Yes, we’ve had cutaway diagrams, we’ve had maps, we’ve had flashback history pages, we’ve had choose your own adventure stuff, and now we get an in-story puzzle maze. Well, of course we do. It’s that sort of incredibly fun strip after all. Frankly, you can hear all involved chuckling as you read it.

The end of it only serves to open things up for the next series, and that’s something that can’t come too soon for me – and I’d imagine Wyatt and Parr are already chuckling over what they’ve got planned for that.

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PROTEUS VEX: DEVIOUS – PART 13 – by Mike Carroll and Jake Lynch, colours by Jim Boswell, letters by Simon Bowland

Part 13 of 15 now – and I’m sure I read somewhere that this was actually the final Proteus Vex strip. Did I imagine that? Dream it?

If it is the last one, then I’ll be really sorry to see it end. There’s obviously a whole galaxy of stories still untold. But on the flip side, if Devious is the end, it’s sure going out on a real high, with everything building now to a crescendo.

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And if it is the end, then it’s bound to leave us with plenty untold, which actually works perfectly for the structure of this epic tale, one where the legends of Vex have always been a part of things, our unknown narrator from the future always looking back and eulogising Vex’s achievements.

As for where we’re all going, this is the one where it all blows up, Vex deals with both General Echo and Tiorn, a lesson in brutal efficiency and also an episode where Lynch lets loose with that languid flowing action he does so beautifully.

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And of course, there’s still the little matter of Midnight Indicating Shame coming back into the picture and meeting up with Vex again – one of those moments you feel that’s going to be really important for the future of the Imperium. Plus there’s the ongoing conspiracy/mystery of just what role the flesh-pilots are playing in it all.

There’s just so much to be covered in a short space of time. But dammit, this has been a really great series, full of all the epicness Proteus Vex has always had, a perfect space opera strip for our time.