The Weekly 2000 AD Prog #2391: Rogue Wraps Up ‘Souther Belle’ With A Bang

The Weekly 2000 AD, taking a look inside the UK’s greatest sci-fi weekly comic…

 

Inside, five good strips – we have two coming to an end, with the finale to Rogue Trooper: Souther Belle bringing the latest Rogue tale to a close and the finale to the current Dredd, ‘Bam-Hunters‘, seeing bam-pots Callum & Moira in supernatural bother once more. Alongside those two, there’s a new Future Shock, ‘Crescendo’, from James Peaty and Sedat Oezgen. And then we have the two stand-out strips this time round – Dan Abnett and INJ Culbard continue the simply magnificent Brink in ‘Consumed’, and Michael Carroll and Joe Currie tell us a tale of alien invasions and supernatural resistance in Silver: Unearthed.

Prog #2391 comes out on Wednesday 17th 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. I’m a little bit ahead now, meaning that I’m sitting here writing this as the England Mens’ national team has just failed to win the soccer Euros final again (they lost in the finals in 2021 as well). They weren’t as bad as they were coming through the tournament for sure, but the final saw them lose to a stellar Spanish footballing side. So, that means it’s still left to England’s Lionesses as the only winners of a major trophy – Euro 2022 – since England men lifted the World Cup back in 1966. Fingers crossed for the Lionesses and Euro 2025.

Anyway, shall we take a look inside the Prog to wash away the salty tears of defeat?

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JUDGE DREDD: THE BAM-HUNTERS – PART 3 – FINAL PART – by Ken Niemand and Richard Elson, letters by Annie Parkhouse

The third and final part of Bam-Hunters keeps the absurdity and silliness high in the mix, made all the better as Niemand supplies the daft setups and ridiculous character doing their daft and ridiculous things whilst Elson’s art plays it fairly straight, hitting all the action beats throughout.

As the bam-pots Callum and Moira find themselves in the clutches of Hieronymous Skelly, self-proclaimed hunter of all things deviant, Dredd is on the case, suitably pissed at Skelly pulling the psi-wool over his eyes.

But of course, Dredd is a mere bit player in his own strip here, as Niemand does like to make him, and it’s down to a suitably silly end to see Callum send Skelly into a fiery pit…

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At the end of it all, Callum and Moira have got away with it once more, scott-free and still in the harbinger of doom business.

It’s slight, it’s ridiculous, it’s wonderfully silly, and quite the example of how many different tales can be told through Dredd.

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BRINK: BOOK 6 – CONSUMED – PART 14 – by Dan Abnett and INJ Culbard, letters by Simon Bowland

Things come together in Brink in these mid-episodes, the characters and situations established in act one are now coalescing, threads being pulled, questions asked, answers slowly teased out. And that’s just what makes this one of the finest of all 2000 AD strips (I think I may have mentioned that before).

Here we’re in the aftermath of Kurtis’s telling off from both the Belleholme Hab CEO, Hyland, and her own boss, Bonner, for managing to find sect crimes wherever she looks.

Of course, the problem with Kurtis is that she really does manage to find sect crimes everywhere, such is the scale of the problem that no one seems to grasp.

So, just after telling her to shut up, keep out of things, and just spend the rest of her downtime actually having downtime, things have suddenly moved on apace thanks to Lind uncovering this in the last episode…

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Yes, just what the hell is PI Regina Castenada doing with that pic of Kurtis all the way back to the events of book one?

And what’s Castenada’s connection with the Red Reservoir Killer?

Well, there’s the joy of Brink, watching Abnett cast the net wide and then start to pull it in, all those story threads working so beautifully together. And of course we get Culbard’s art making every dramatic beat simply buzz with tension all the way through.

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ROGUE TROOPER: SOUTHER BELLE – PART 6 – FINAL PART – by Geoffrey D. Wessel and Dan Cornwell, colours by Chris Blythe, letters by Jim Campbell

Six parts already? This really is one of those that fair races by, doing all it really needs to in perfunctory fashion, simply telling a straight-up Rogue Trooper tale set in the midst of the Traitor General saga that really is the defining story of this GI.

I don’t mean that particularly as criticism either, this was never set up to be a ‘big’ Rogue tale, just a simple bit of future war action that’s been done rather well. Come into it expecting the major beats and important moments and you’ll more than likely be disappointed, but come into it just wanting a good old-fashioned bit of Rogue doing his thing and you’ll find it’s a six-parter that’s been enjoyable if not really anything all too special.

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But that’s not to say there haven’t been plenty of great moments along the way, Wessel writing things in such a way to let Cornwell really have at it and go over the top artistically, doing great things with the action and the sci-fi tech stuff. This whole episode to end the series lets Cornwell fill the pages to end it all with plenty of great action sequences done incredibly well.

Yep, six episodes of Rogue being Rogue is what Souther Belle was all about – and that’s just fine by me.

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FUTURE SHOCKS: CRESCENDO – by James Peaty and Sedat Oezgen, letters by Annie Parkhouse

‘Crescend’o is one of those Future Shocks that deals with technology not doing what those involved want it to do.

Here it’s all about the music, with a young sonic sculptor, far too enamoured with his own talent to appreciate the dangers involved. He gets involved with a mentor looking to harness the power of the artistic creation to do great things.

Yet the youngster’s ego and greed get the better of him – but of course, all leading to the ending of betrayal and comeuppance.

Story wise it’s good, albeit not great. But in Oezgen we have a brand-new artist (well, brand-new to both 2000 AD and me) really flexing his skills all over the pages here.

The thin line work, the expressive stylings, serving the story yet elevating it to something visually rather great – here’s an artist to follow and see just how good they can become.

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SILVER BOOK ONE: UNEARTHED: PART 2 – by Mike Carroll and Joe Currie, letters by Simon Bowland

Last episode we were all about the set-up, putting us on a post-conquered Earth, last remnants of the resistance against we weren’t sure what headed out to dig up something that looked very old, supernatural, and frankly vampiric with a view to weaponising the thing in the box as a last hope against the alien conquerors – the Sepsis.

This episode, more details from what really does look and read like yet another really great new original series for the Prog. (And that’s in a year that’s been full of them)

The ancient and deadly and rather annoyed at being dug up thing, all strange looking with an undead, inhuman face and yet wearing what looks like a gown and pearls, identifies herself as Baroness Yelena Honoree DeSilva – and there we have the genesis of the strip’s name – DeSilva/Silver.

Obviously not human, obviously far more powerful than the mere humans who’ve uncovered her, we begin to see why whoever’s in charge here want her as part of the resistance to the alien conquerors, the Sepsis, as she single-handedly takes on a raiding party of Sepsis and destroys them all.

Two episodes in and this has that feel of something so good. Carroll might be doing this as way more straightforward that his just finished Proteus Vex, but that doesn’t mean that every page here isn’t full of important detail that unfolds the back story quickly, effortlessly, and rather brilliantly.

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And then there’s Joe Currie, whose art has cropped up here and there in various Progs over the last year or so. Every time, I praised his style, very European in its line and colours. But seeing him able to really let loose on something longer in Silver is really something special. The pages of DaSilva taking on the Sepsis just dazzle with the way he lays it all out, styles it all out – just beautiful stuff.

Yep, Silver, even after two episodes, has done that oh-so-important thing of setting it all up without letting all the worldbuilding get in the way of telling a damn fine story with quite incredible art. This is one of those strips that already seems like it’s headed for great things.