The Weekly 2000 AD Prog #2394: Someone’s Got Herne & Shuck In Their Sights

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

The last thing Simon Harrison – this week’s cover artist – did for 2000 AD was nearly 30 years ago now. He was an artist that burned incendiary bright in the pages of 2000 AD for a short time – whether that was Bradley, Judge Dredd, or his controversial time on Strontium Dog, you will have noticed Harrison’s work in the past. And now, with a rather stunning cover, he appears to be back. Just a one-off cover? Or can we expect more? I’m hoping way more.

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As for them on that there cover, it’s Harrison’s take on the latest bad thing to happen to magical investigator Herne and his big black demonic doggie pal Shuck. So, just what is the secret of St. Michael that’s been tracking the pair and their young charge for a long time now? That’s just one of the great strips inside the Prog this week. It sits alongside a Judge Dredd epic in the making by Wagner and MacNeil, as we get deeper and deeper into the nightmare of ‘Machine Rule’. Plus, we have another typically staggeringly good episode of Abnett and Culbard’s Brink and another episode of the new favourite thing, Carroll and Currie’s Silver. Finally, more Rogue Trooper action as Wessell and Marshall take us further into Recon.

Okay then, all that under one rather damn fine cover – Prog #2394 came out on 7th August in the UK. You North American readers should get to their local comic shops and demand they get the 4-weekly Prog bundles in – you really won’t regret jumping onboard. Late again I’m afraid, and with no good reason apart from a load of life getting in the way. Oh, and trying to fit roughly 50 hours of Olympics coverage into a 24-hour day.

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JUDGE DREDD: MACHINE RULE – PART 3 – by John Wagner and Colin MacNeil, letters by Annie Parkhouse

Well, when I saw that Wagner and MacNeil were returning to Judge Dredd, I was hoping for something good. I certainly didn’t expect something that, yet again, finds Wagner tipping over the apple cart of Dredd lore and giving us one of those sagas that he’s been laying the groundwork for over a number of years, with the introduction of the Mechanismos on the streets of Mega-City One and seemingly doing a fine job of it.

Yes, ‘Machine Rule’ really takes all the foundational work that Wagner’s put in with the Mechanismo units over the last several years, and gives us the story we all knew would have to happen at some point. But just because you figure that the Mech units are going to do a bad thing, you never had any idea that Wagner would have them doing THE bad thing.

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Seriously, you and I figured that, with Dredd in charge of the up-until-he-got-there Mech policed and Mech-ruled Sector, there’d be a bit of a conspiracy by those Mech units in charge to go up against Dredd.

Well, that was what looked like happening. Foolish me, underestimating just how BIG Wagner can take things when he wants to.

By the end of episode 3, it all becomes clear with one of those incredible MacNeil pages. Frankly, it’s a great tale, one that’s going into areas we just never imagined – although of course, with Wagner and MacNeil involved, we should have expected.

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ROGUE TROOPER: RECON – PART 2 – by Geoffrey D. Wessel and Paul Marshall, greytones by Pippa Bowland, letters by Jim Campbell

More of Wessel’s Rogue Trooper, this time with some really lovely black and white art from Marshall, made really particularly lush with Bowland’s greytones.

There’s something arrived on Nu-Earth from the nearby black hole, something that’s already shown it’s not got a side picked in the Nort/Souther war, and something that Rogue’s off in pursuit of.

Now, a moment’s pause, Corporal Ceruleanna-K gives them in charge a sitrep and us a neat summary of last issue’s events. Them in charge are torn between knowing how useful Rogue could be to them here investigating the alien incursion, and the suspicions of Rogue being AWOL and accusing one of the top brass of the Southers of being a traitor.

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Nevertheless, a mission is setup and en route, only to discover that the alien incursion, whatever it is, has already taken out a party of Nort desert raiders. So, what is it? What’s it there for? And just how much trouble are these Southers in? The answer to the last happens almost immediately, the rest will have to wait. But it does give Wessel and Marshall chance to do one of those iconic Rogue moments by the end of this.

Just as with ‘Souther Belle’, there’s not a lot of depth here, but there is a damn fine bit of simple, doing it nice and easy storytelling, meaning I reckon we’re going to get another decent, no frills, Rogue Trooper war tale with a little alien twist.

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HERNE & SHUCK: SUFFER THE CHILDREN – PART 3 – by David Barnett and Lee Milmore, colours by Quinton Winter, letters by Annie Parkhouse

The longer Herne & Shuck tale is bringing all the stuff that made the first couple of 3Riller three-parters (Progs 2297-2299 & 2343-2345) really good.

The wandering magician Herne, his black demon in dog form companion, Shuck, and their young charge, Caris, who they rescued from the clutches of the bad people of the village of Cobb, are travelling the magical worlds of England looking for sanctuary. On their trail we have Herne’s ex, Jordy, plus the mystery of the St. Michael organisation.

But first this episode, time for a 30 years ago moment, as Shuck discovers a little foundling babe in a box – and no guesses for who that might be.

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Back to the present day and the suspicious folks of St. Michael have appeared and want to take Herne, Shuck, and Caris into their care. Seems they have a habit of bringing rescued children into their particular fold, and are looking to add another. Or perhaps a couple more.

Yes, the longer form of Suffer The Children has really allowed Barnett to delve into the past of Herne and Shuck, and it’s all seemingly tied up with much of what we’ve seen already – as St. Michael’s minions start to tease the story out, a story that happens to involve Shuck and a certain foundling baby – well, wouldn’t you know.

It’s an excellent series so far, a great opening up of all the good stuff we saw in the Tharg’s Thrillers, giving us all the folk horror vibes, all accompanied by some truly excellent Milmore artwork.

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BRINK: BOOK 6 – CONSUMED – PART 17 – by Dan Abnett and INJ Culbard, letters by Simon Bowland

Here we go again, another five pages of Brink for me to gush over. I’m not at all sorry about it though, as it genuinely is one of my all-time favourites across the entire history of 2000 AD. What makes it so wonderful is how it all just moves along at its own individual pace – and full credit to Matt Smith as editor for not pushing Abnett into limiting his series to a more traditional 10 or 12 episodes. With Brink, there’s always the sense that the current series is just as long as it needs to be, no more, no less. And that’s what’s allowed the saga to really develop at its quite perfect pace.

We’ve had weeks and weeks of Bridge’s investigation into Sects on her temporary home of Belleholme Hab, a stopover on the way to get going on the Mercury Event investigation. And that’s another thing that makes Brink just such a perfect thing. There’s no clear template to what each series will be about. The first four volumes were all Bridge getting enmeshed in the world of the cults, only for Abnett to take us right back to the start for Book 5 and it’s parallel journalistic investigation of the events leading up to the Mercury event. So, of course, the obvious thing would be to make Book 6, after that interlude, the start of Bridge’s investigations into Mercury. Nope, not at all. Instead, it’s another interlude, just Bridge, Bonner, and Lind having some downtime before the Mercury investigation starts – but from that, we get a fabulously self-contained series that develops characters and the world we’ve known, and introduces something very different to it all. Yep, quite magnificently good.

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Anyway, Bridge now has ex-HSD officer Regina Castenada out of isolation, with a view to looking into Hirsch’s death and just how it might tie into the Red River Killer who’s running loose and free to kill across Belleholme.

It’s all coming together, you can feel Abnett gently tugging all the threads that he’s teased out for us across this one, and it’s got that feeling of a perfect thing, you can feel the tension and the excitement ramping up, that wonderful sense of a brilliantly written series reaching its conclusion, trusting in Abnett that he just won’t give you anything but perfection in the end.

And all of that without mentioning the other thing that makes Brink so wonderful – the artwork of Culbard. Every page just crackles with design and layout wonder. It’s that perfect worldbuilding going on, a world made real and believable despite its sci-fi trappings because of the work Culbard’s put in to make it so. To say nothing of how much dramatic tension Culbard manages to get into every panel, every page of a series of characters talking and interacting. There’s rarely something spectacular for the artist to show us on the pages of Brink, that’s a big part of what makes it so brilliantly different, but there’s not a page that isn’t spectacular in just getting the drama so exquisitely right. And of course, when something rather shocking and spectacular does happen, as here at the end of this one… it’s just one of those great heart-in-your-mouth moments.

Yes, no surprise, Brink very good indeed.

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SILVER BOOK ONE: UNEARTHED: PART 5 – by Mike Carroll and Joe Currie, letters by Simon Bowland

So, the plan of Bishop and his resistance movement – if it is ‘his’ resistance movement that is – turns out he wants to get the Baroness DeSilva involved in hijacking a Sepsis harvester. For what purpose? Well, that’s yet another one of the many intriguing questions that Silver’s brought up so far.

So far, Silver has both moved along at breakneck speed and not really given away all that much at the same time. It’s fast-moving and action-packed, perhaps Carroll deliberately giving himself a writing shift from the more complex and dense Proteus vex that recently finished.

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In fact, what we really know thus far can be broken into three groups – the Sepsis, the resistance, and the Baroness. We know that Earth was invaded by the Sepsis, an alien race that swiftly put humanity either to the sword or into chains. Billions died and the rest live in slavery, with many deciding that collaboration is their only hope of long-term survival. Why the Sepsis chose Earth, apart from a food source and a source of a slave force that they’re planning to take off-world when they’ve finally sucked it dry, we don’t really know. We haven’t really seen all that much of them either, deliberately mysterious by design no doubt from Carroll and Currie.

Then we know a little about the resistance fighting back – or at least being an irritant to the invaders. Led by Bishop – perhaps. Certainly this little band is, but there’s no clue as to whether there’s a wider network out there ot this is it.

And finally, the Baroness. Old, supernatural, strongest at night, sunlight causing problems – we’re sure being led down the path of her being something vampiric, aren’t we? But who knows? And just how did Bishop know of her and just where she was to be able to dig her up?

Yep, all questions so far. Yes, there’s very little background to this one. But it’s just bloody well done all round. Carroll’s writing something fast and furious, packed with intrigue and full of great things. And he’s matched every step of the way by Currie, doing really interesting things with the artwork, a deliciously fine line throughout. So, all in all, another excellent new series to enjoy from 2000 AD.