The Weekly 2000 AD Prog #2393: Rogue’s Got Incoming

Taking a look inside the UK’s greatest sci-fi comic, the Galaxy’s Greatest… it’s the Weekly 2000 AD.

The cover does rather give it away, we’ve more new Rogue Trooper beginning this Prog, sitting alongside more from Dredd with his Mechanismo problem in Machine Rule, more of Herne & Shuck dealing with all the folk horror you can handle, and more Silver exploring alien invasions and supernatural resistance. And of course, more of the always brilliant Brink. Five strips and it’s all good.

Prog 2393 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. Olympics and politics rule the days here at Bruton mansions NV. A celebration of excellence for the former and a realisation that it doesn’t have to be two old white men for the latter. Team GB and team Kamala all the way!
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JUDGE DREDD: MACHINE RULE – PART 2 – by John Wagner and Colin MacNeil, letters by Annie Parkhouse

Sector 99’s under machine rule, the Mechanismo units are the only ones out on the streets, the human Judges assigned desk duty only, control ceded to the deputy chief sector Judge, a Mechanismo unit, as the current Chief Sector Judge is too weak to argue things. It sure looks like the Mechs are taking over things here.

It only gets worse here when the Sector Chief kills himself shortly after his meet with Dredd. Which means change has to come. And it’s no surprise that that change is Dredd. Pressed into service to take over Sector 99 and change things, lest the idea of Mechs for the streets, humans at the desks takes root any more than it has across the Meg.

As always, Wagner has us questioning things. Surely, if the Mechs can do the job so well, why put the human Judges at risk? Which is why Dredd storming in there and putting Judges back on the streets seems so illogical. He’s made out to be the man with a vendetta against the Mechs, willing to sacrifice the human Judges for his prejudice.

And in the background, that fact of the only Judge deaths in the last two years being from suicide. That’s a couple of times it’s been mentioned now, surely it’s going to come out as something important?

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And as for how the Mechs will take to this radical change? Well, there’s the rub.

Simply put, you can always tell a Wagner-written Dredd, even if you didn’t know, there’s just something in the way he controls the story, how the dialogue sparkles, how the tone just seems so laden with import, how it all takes on meaning.

This is classic Dredd done by a master of writing Dredd, accompanied throughout by MacNeill’s exquisite artwork that makes every page a joy to read.

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ROGUE TROOPER: RECON – PART 1 – by Geoffrey D. Wessel and Paul Marshall, greytones by Pippa Bowland, letters by Jim Campbell

More Rogue Trooper, following very soon after the last Geoffrey D Wessel-written Souther Belle, why, it’s almost like there’s a movie coming out!

The thing I’m liking about all these Rogue tales is that it just plays into the idea of Rogue without trying to hard to create something more. I’ve always said that Rogue is a very simple tale, a very simple character, one whose story was told, completely, in the Traitor General storyline. Attempts to do more than that seem to fall flat, which is why, I’d say, that there haven’t been that many successful Rogue takes since then – it’s also why writers find a lot more scope to tell tales of the Nord-Souther war from different perspectives, such as ‘Jaegir’. There’s a lot of things to say about the war on Nu-Earth, it’s just that Rogue’s pretty much told his story.

That means there’s only really a couple of ways to play new Rogue stories. You can go the war is hell twist like the really good recent Ennis/Goddard ‘Blighty Valley’ that effectively did Rogue Trooper meets Charley’s War, or you can do little, self-contained vignettes of Rogue during the whole Traitor General saga. And that’s where Wessel positioned Souther Belle and this new tale.

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Just like ‘Souther Belle’, I can’t see ‘Recon’, with its tale of something different coming out of the black hole next to Nu-Earth and Rogue investigating, doing anything innovative or new with the character. And I don’t mean that as a particular criticism either. These Wessel tales are just good old fashioned Rogue tales, not trying to break the mold but instead leaning into what made Rogue such a strong character in the first place. And there’s plenty of room in here for something doing that.

One thing that does need mentioning is how good Marshall’s work is here, all the better for Bowland’s greytones. There’s something very right about seeing Rogue in b&w, and Marshall’s solid, dynamic art looks great like this.

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HERNE & SHUCK: SUFFER THE CHILDREN – PART 2 – by David Barnett and Lee Milmore, colours by Quinton Winter, letters by Annie Parkhouse

Second part of the Herne & Shuck longer feature, after those two really good 3Riller 3-parters (Progs 2297-2299 & 2343-2345) and it’s obvious that this one’s something that’s well deserving of the longer run.

Just to recap you, Herne’s the wandering magician and magical troubleshooter, Shuck’s the veritable talking black dog – a smart-mouthed demon in dog form. They were hired to recover young Caris, who’s turned out to be a powerful magical thing in her own right, only to end up saving her from those that hired them, meaning they’re all on the run, looking for sanctuary, with a hell of a lot of trouble following them.

Chief amongst that trouble is Jordy, looking to cash in the contract to bring them all back, still pissed at Herne for the many nasty strokes he pulled when they were together – one of which you get to see in flashback in the first few pages here, a flashback that’s hard to spot if you’re not absolutely on you’re game the first time round. But maybe that was me just being tired and not seeing it – but honestly, I think Milmore missed a trick in not somehow making a point of flagging up the flashback artistically.

[Just as an aside, one of the most creative ways I ever saw an artist do flashbacks was Paul Grist in his seriously you must read it crime series Kane. It was clever, subtle, just a shift in the panel borders and layout, but it worked so well. Okay, digression over.]

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That said, Milmore’s art is absolutely stunning stuff here. The characters have got so much life in them, the line work is just so fine and tight, a real moment to see a potential star in the making.

Anyway, there’s more of Jordy chasing the contract, catching up with the trio of Herne, Shuck, and Caris. There’s more of the mysterious and obviously not nice St Michael, whoever or whatever that is – although Barnett can’t resist the obvious (to anyone of a certain age) gag….

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So, yes, there’s a lot to enjoy here in Herne and Shuck, a really fun bit of folk horror stuff with a nice line in funny dialogue and some absolutely lovely looking artwork.

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BRINK: BOOK 6 – CONSUMED – PART 16 – by Dan Abnett and INJ Culbard, letters by Simon Bowland

I’m really just going to bang on for a bit here about how good Brink is – for my money (stop me if you’ve heard this before) it’s up there with the all-time 2000 AD greats. And one reason for that is the reason it’s naysayers don’t like it, don’t get it. We’re now just shy of four months into it and it’s really only getting started. And oh boy, has it been 15, now 16 episodes of just the finest slow-burn sci-fi drama playing out.

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For the past 15 episodes of Bridge and the rest of the team taking some downtime on Belleholme Hab before joining up with the special task force to investigate the Mercury event, it’s been Bridge looking into Sect crimes on Belleholme, all to a background of the Red River Killer active and unseen on the Hab. Unseen that is apart from ex-HSD officer, now PI, Regina Castenada.

Here, Bridge is finally getting her way, meaning things will really start to move as we draw closer to a conclusion. Although whether that conclusion comes in a few episodes or another ten, I’ll just be here enjoying Abnett and Culbard doing something so wonderfully well as this.

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SILVER BOOK ONE: UNEARTHED: PART 4 – by Mike Carroll and Joe Currie, letters by Simon Bowland

Oh yes, this really is shaping up to be really good. Way more self-contained, thus far, than Carroll’s recently concluded sci-fi epic Proteus Vex, you could simply describe this as a what if humanity’s last hope in the face of alien conquest happened to be Dracula – although no doubt I’m way over-simplifying it with that. I’m expecting Carroll to go radically beyond that simple set-up as the episodes roll by.

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But it’s definitely a simple thing right now. Humanity’s been invaded by the alien Sepsis, billions have died, the remnants forced into service, or readily collaborating. Against them, there’s a small network of resistance, chief amongst them the small band led by the so far mysterious Bishop.

Bishop’s got plenty to do with everything that’s gone on so far, it was his plan to dig up Baroness DeSilva. And by the end of this episode it’s made clear that he’s known what/who she is for a long, long time.

It’s all part of the slowly unfolding mystery of Silver, as Carroll spins out what’s turning into an excellent series, packed with action but also with a long game storyline that’s hooked me in wonderfully well.

Of course, it’s not all Carroll’s work, and the artistic skills of Joel Currie really do make this one pop off the page. The action sequence that opens this episode is just so fabulously kinetic, and that’s all down to Currie’s tight control of the storytelling, all that fine linework and organic shapes melding together to really show off his style – a style very much his own but paying homage to generations of Euro comics masters. Or at least that’s what I’m seeing.