The Weekly 2000 AD – I’m A G.I. And I’m Blue

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

Last time I did the Weekly 2000 AD with Prog 2401, it was all about telling you why it was a great time to jump on board the best sci-fi anthology there is, going long on every one of the great quintet of strips. This week, back to relative normality and brevity.

It’s the same five strips as last week – the finale of a quick Dredd two-parter, and second episodes for The Out, Rogue Trooper, and Nightmare New York. And then we have the latest, always brilliant Brink episode.

On the cover, the latest art droid to be welcomed back into the fold… the return of Trevor Hairsine, with colours by Dylan Teague…

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2000 AD Prog #2402 is out in the UK now. You American readers need to go to your local comic shop and get them to order in the monthly four-Prog bundles. Seriously, you won’t regret doing that for a moment. This week, I just couldn’t resist giving you that title, bonus points if you know where it’s from.

Right then, I suppose we ought to be getting on with things…

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JUDGE DREDD: SILENCE – PART 2 – FINAL PART 2 – by Rob Williams, Arthur Wyatt, and Jake Lynch. Colours by Jim Boswell, letters by Annie Parkhouse.

Well, I didn’t expect this one to finish so soon. But then again, Williams and Wyatt have form in doing this, the Judge Maitland saga was played out over a few years, the odd one-off here and there, then the ‘Red Queen Saga‘, another couple of one-offs leaning into Maitland’s revolutionary plan, all culminating in ‘A Better World‘, where Maitland gets to put that plan into place, only to have her legs kicked out from under her by external and internal forces, one of which, Judge Hernandez, looms large here.

Dredd’s got Major Domo, the Red Queen’s right-hand man and the one who pulled the trigger in ‘A Better World‘, in an interview room onboard a Justice Department ship headed back to Earth.

And Dredd would be sitting down with Domo to, let’s put it diplomatically, ‘extract’ any information regarding Maitland out of him. Except, at the end of the first part, we had Hernandez get involved…

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Oh, he’s a nasty one is Hernandez. We know it. Dredd doesn’t. Although, given how this one plays out, Dredd’s getting more than a glimmer of an idea that there’s something rotten in the Justice Department’s Council of Five.

It may have been short, but it’s short and sweet. The perfect coda to all that’s come before. Not only that, I have the feeling that it’s pointing us in the direction that Wyatt and Williams are headed with their next Dredd. After all, now that Dredd’s got an idea about Hernandez, it’s not like him to just let it go, is it?

Yep, two and done, but that’s still 12 pages that lesser comic makers would have struggled to make work so well in so many more pages, all accompanied by Jake Lynch showing us all, again, why he’s up there with a group of new Dredd artists who are taking up the torch from the likes of Bolland, Dillon, Ezquerra, and in particular in Lynch’s case, the great Mick MacMahon, giving us a stunning set of pages here.

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NIGHTMARE NEW YORK – PART 2 – by Kek-W and John Burns. Letters by Annie Parkhouse

The first episode of this gave us 18-year-old Lil, getting by on the streets of Manhattan, 1845. But it ended with a meeting with a blind man with more knowledge and abilities than he should rightly have, and something strange around the unusual tattoo Lil has.

Now, we have the blind man telling Lil she’s the ‘fifth point, the protector of Orange Street’ and that he’s been sent to keep her safe. Because she’s ’One Of us now’ – all very mysterious and intriguing…

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He’s a Cunning Man, one of the mages from England, those who walk the borders between the real world and the magical world, and he’s here to guide Lil and take her to meet the Banfhaidh, which a quick google told me was a wise woman, sage, a prophetess.

If you were reading Vertigo in the ’90s like I was, you can’t help but feel this has all the vibe of Grant Morrison’s Invisibles, albeit with an American, 19th-century take. The whole naive acolyte being guided by the strange old bum thing, the idea of some bigger guiding hand, it’s very much in Invisibles territory. Not that that’s a bad thing, I loved the Invisibles back in the day and I’m perfectly well prepared to dive into whatever strangeness Kek-W wants to take me into here, given that these first couple of episodes have drawn me right into things and have me eagerly anticipating where we’re heading next.

Plus, all that glorious, absolutely gorgeous John Burns artwork. Remember, this was the last thing he drew before his retirement a couple of years ago (and before his all-too-soon passing in 2023), meaning he was maybe 82/83 when he drew this. Damn, the talent just didn’t diminish with age at all, did it. All the classic Burns touches are there: the effortless flow of the art, in perfect service to the story yet exhibiting so many simply beautifully done stylistic effects throughout. It’s a masterclass from a master of comics art and it’s both a pleasure to see and a fitting tribute to a great artist.

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THE OUT – BOOK FOUR – PART 2 – by Dan Abnett and Mark Harrison. Letters by Simon Bowland

Okay, hopefully you know the drill by now? The Out, one of the finest strips 2000 AD’s ever put out. You should know that, as I’ve been telling you pretty much every episode since it started.

So, Book Four and Cyd, former photojournalist, now just explorer of the genuine furthest reaches of outer space. She’s gone out and then some, with just her sentient bag and her dead friend’s ship for company. We’ve seen her document so much, other worlds, other societies, all manner of alien encounters (although of course, it’s Cyd who’s the alien out here.) She’s seen war, death, and found and then said goodbye to her daughter.

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So yes, right now, if you were Bag, you’d be worried that she’s either teetering in the edge or already diving off it.

Out here, where we’re practically in the Wild West, or wild space, there’s no law, no authority, with the Space Raiders as the bad guys here. So of course, when she finds herself in a Space Raider’s bar, Cyd decides to front them up. Completely normal behaviour – perhaps bag’s right to be worried.

As with every series of The Out so far, I’ve got absolutely where Abnett and Harrison are taking this. And that’s just fine, I trust them implicitly that we’re going to have absolutely the best time on the way.

And like I’ve said before, just a series where Cyd wanders around and explored would be just fine, such is the way Abnett makes it work so well, and how Harrison’s artwork, busy, cluttered, chaotic-looking that it is, makes every page a visual spectacle to dive into.

The first few pages here are all the examples you need about how right this all is. The dialogue, a two-hander between Cyd and Bag, just sparkles with wit and invention, a perfectly naturalistic and funny as hell conversation. I could read this for an entire series and enjoy the hell out of it.

But I know that there’s plenty of adventures to come, maybe spinning out of Cyd and the Spave Raiders, maybe coming from the twice mentioned thing about Cyd thinking the ship’s haunted and that things keep moving around. Yeah, that’s going to come into it at some point.

But however this one develops, I just know it’s going to be so very, very good.

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BRINK: CONSUMED – PART 24 – by Dan Abnett and INJ Culbard. Letters by Simon Bowland

Oh Brink, wonderful Brink. This latest series, Book 6, is now into its sixth month – and it won’t come as any surprise if you’ve read any of these Weekly 2000 ADs that I’ve absolutely no problem with that.

So impressed was I with last weeks revelations that I penned a special Weekly 2000 AD extra talking about the two big revelatory moments so far in ‘Consumed’. The first was the reveal that Nolan Maslow, the journalist who got deep into a sect investigation in Book Five, passed on his incendiary findings to his wife, Lauren, who’s now been found by Kurtis’s team on Belleholme Hab, something that will feed into the whole huge conspiracy thing going forward. And the second was the quite stunningly good reveal that the Red River Killer who’s abducted Kurtis, has been hiding in plain sight all this time as one of the Rejoicers. It’s a masterclass of seeding stuff in the work to come good at a later stage, something Abnett and Culbard just do so perfectly.

Right now, Lind and Castenada are hunting the Rejoicer/Red River Killer and Bonner’s busy pissing of Belleholme HabSec boss Hyland with his comms audit, an audit that’s about to uncover a big sect link.

It’s all getting faster and faster as things approach the end of this one, Abnett and Culbard in perfect synchrony to deliver moments like this that scream absolute class as Castenada desperately searches for Kurtis, not knowing how close she is…

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The skill there from the writer/artist team to play that out with such dramatic tension. Just wonderful.

And then it’s back to Kurtis and an increasing likelihood that she’s not getting out of this one in one piece. Again, just such good use of the tension, really putting Kurtis through it, making us dread what’s going to happen, the fear ramped up because it’s played out so tightly and slowly.

Simply put, Brink gets better and better and better. It’s the best thing being published right now.

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ROGUE TROOPER: WHEN A G.I. DIES – PART 2 – by Garth Ennis and Patrick Goddard. Letters by Rob Steen

The last Ennis/Goddard Rogue, ‘Blighty Valley’ was the best Rogue Trooper since the very earliest stories. It did that by telling a tale in between Rogue’s mission to find the Traitor General, utilising everything iconic and cool about the character in a self-contained story.

Now we get ‘When A GI Dies’, and although I’m willing to see just how they play it out, I’m already a little lost. The warning signs were there of course – the first episode had an editorial note referring back to a very early Rogue, something I couldn’t remember. And now we’re into a whole political thing with the Souther High Command involved, including one of their own who took a last spacewalk in the first episode.

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So, right now I’m a combination of a little lost and a little intrigued. You see, the great thing about 2000 AD is that it’s never been about stories relying on an encyclopaedic knowledge of what’s gone before. Sure, knowing a bit can add to the enjoyment, but the stories are perfectly enjoyable and understandable if you’re coming in fresh. But this Rogue Trooper – I don’t know, it feels like I’m missing important things because I don’t know the context.

Still, it’s just the second part, so there’s plenty of time for things to play out, and with Ennis’s capable writing, not to mention Goddard making every page a black and white delight, I’m hopeful that things will come good and my early concerns will come to naught.

And hey, you do get to see Rogue crawling up a Nort tank’s gun barrel here, so there’s the fun of that.