The Weekly 2000 AD Prog #2389: Farewell Proteus Vex – Damn, You Were Great

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.

Just four strips this week because, sadly, we’re saying farewell to the absolutely wonderful Proteus Vex with a double-length finale.

Alongside what really is a very fitting end to Vex, there’s the start of a new multi-part Judge Dredd by Ken Niemand and Richard Elson, more of that brilliant Brink to enthral all, and more of Rogue Trooper hunting down the mysterious ‘Souther Belle’.

Prog #2389 comes out on Wednesday 3rd July 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. This Prog is out right before general election in the UK where we say farewell to the Tories and the day before all you Americans celebrate Independence – so happy 4 July to one and all!

Anyway, shall we take a look inside?
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JUDGE DREDD: THE BAM-HUNTERS – PART 1 – by Ken Niemand and Richard Elson, letters by Annie Parkhouse

More callbacks to previous Dredds here – this one runs on from a two-parter back in Prog 2328/2329, ‘The Disciples of Death’, which itself was running on from the one-off Little Shop of Terrors in Megazine #447.

We’ve met CalHab (a radioactive Scotland generally played for laughs) immigrants Moira and Callum, a couple of ‘evil mad bampots’ running Deadworld Designs, purveyors of all things dark and collectible to the sorts of numpties who want to buy dodgy dark arts tat. Oh, and Callum and Moira are also trying to resurrect the Dark Judges. Because why the hell not?

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So it’s one of those silly Dredds and that’s never a bad thing. The history of Dredd is full of silly tales that all go to building up the inherent insanity of life in MC-1 and this is a worthy addition.

Here we have Hieronymous Skelly and his novice coming into the big Meg on a mission to save souls and punish ‘two of yon most foul and pernicious servants of evil ever to befoul the fair soil of bonny Cal-Hab.’ Hmmm, wonder who he’s talking about?

Yep, utterly silly yet lots of fun to be had. And could it be that, despite the coven’s laughter, Callum’s actually managed to uncover something genuinely demonic?

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BRINK: BOOK 6 – CONSUMED – PART 12 – by Dan Abnett and INJ Culbard, letters by Simon Bowland

It’s more brilliance of Brink. Every week it’s spellbinding how Abnett and Culbard take us on such a great journey through nothing more than a series of conversations that have really ramped up the drama. We know where it’s going – or maybe we think we do – but the journey to get there is just the best five pages of comics every week. The things Culbard does with lighting and staging every time are just something amazing to see.

This week we have PI Castenada in custody and having bizarre dreams of lost loves and that distinctly nasty thing with the teeth that we keep seeing as an interlude in Consumed, something that you can’t help but feel will have a link to Castenada somehow.

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But before all that gets resolved, there’s the Kurtis problem, specifically the problem Kurtis’s dogged latching on to anything cult-related has caused for both the Belleholme Hab Sec boss and for her own boss, Bonner, who really isn’t at all pleased… but that’s more for next episode.

Yes, more brilliance, and right now we’re in that glorious phase of Brink where we’re so deep into it that things previously teased are now all being drawn together. It’s a sublime thing to see Abnett and Culbard pull off.

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ROGUE TROOPER: SOUTHER BELLE – PART 4 – by Geoffrey D. Wessel and Dan Cornwell, colours by Chris Blythe, letters by Jim Campbell

In the search for the Souther Belle, Rogue’s uncovered the source of the Nort’s propaganda messages and it’s not good news. Here’s the reveal from last Prog…

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Yes, there’s no living ‘Doll’ G.I Souther Belle here, just a bio-chip pressganged into service of the Norts.

We get her backstory, including a possible link to the Traitor General. So of course they’re jumping at the chance to get further into all this, any shot at getting closer to the Traitor General has them all rushing to get to him. Helm suggests swapping himself and Souther Belle, too keen to get the info, too quick to act without thinking.

In their desire to rescue Souther Belle and now to follow the Traitor General link Rogue and his biochips haven’t realised the danger they might be in. Because after all, when all this started we saw exactly how Souther Belle works and… well, let’s just say that Helm’s plan to swap places and put something the Norts have been using for Propaganda into Rogue’s head doesn’t exactly go too well.

Okay, so yes, this one’s very much going where it was signposted as going and yes, it’s a very simple Rogue Trooper tale – but the thing is, they always were, weren’t they. That was always the thing with Rogue Trooper, at its best in the past it was always just simple future war tales and I really can’t do much but enjoy this one for what it is. Of course, having Cornwell’s art helps a hell of a lot along the way.

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PROTEUS VEX: DEVIOUS – PART 15 – FINAL (EVER) PART – by Mike Carroll and Jake Lynch, colours by Jim Boswell, letters by Simon Bowland

And now for the moment we’ve been waiting for, a moment that, frankly I really wish wasn’t happening. After all, through the whole saga of Proteus Vex so far we’ve had so many truly great moments and a really big, whole galaxies to be spanned, several empires to rise and fall, sort of scale to it that it really seems to be ending with so much still to tell.

But this is the end. No more Proteus Vex tales, Carroll ending it where he originally planned it to end, wrapping some things up and leaving a hell of a lot more hanging. But then again, with something this huge of scale, how could it ever wrap up any other way?

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So here we are, one last time, ten pages to see us to the end. And they’re everything Vex has always been about – giant ideas, strange but fabulous-looking creatures, uncertain motivations, action, intrigue, an empire about to fall, a new one perhaps set to take its place, and Vex at the heart of it all with more plans… but plans we can only imagine.

An end for sure and a fine one, perhaps the only end that something of this scale could do. An end that’s merely an end for us. For the characters, just a moment before they move on to the next adventure.

So thank you so much to co-creators Mike Carroll and Henry Flint, to Jake Lynch who took on the art from series two and made it his own, and to everyone else involved in something very special indeed.

And for one last glorious time… Proteus Vex.