The Weekly 2000 AD Prog #2403: The Nightmare Of New York Continues

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

This Prog, the start of a multi-part Judge Dredd with echoes of ‘The Apocalypse War‘, plus continuations of four strips in The Out, Brink, Nightmare New York, and Rogue Trooper.

It’s all happening under Andy Clarke’s Nightmare New York cover…

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2000 AD Prog #2403 is out in the UK on 9 October in the UK. 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 at Bruton Mansions we’ve had medical and veterinary dramas, neither of them fun. But nothing stops The Weekly 2000 AD getting out there. Well, okay, it hasn’t this week at least.

So, onwards and upwards, let’s show you what’s happening in the latest Prog… starting with two magnificent moments from two of my absolute faves here… The Out by Dan Abnett and Mark Harrison, Brink by Dan Abnett and INJ Culbard…

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JUDGE DREDD: HATER – PART 1 – by Ken Niemand and Silvia Califano. Colours by Giulia Brusco by Jim Boswell, letters by Annie Parkhouse.

The Apocalypse War ended some 42 years ago but that doesn’t mean there aren’t those in Mega-City One with long memories.

Before we get into it, a couple of reminders. First, if you’re after the perfect ‘in’ to Dredd, I’d always recommend ‘The Apocalypse War’, since it was the moment I first really got into Dredd. And second, yes, 42 years, as Dredd ages in real time, one year in the comics always equals one year in life.

Anyway, brief digression done with, Hater begins with an Apocalypse War vets meet-up being cut short by an explosion and all leads point to Sov involvement with, according to a survivor’s report, ‘A dirty stinking Sov’ walking away from the scene.

So, it’s Sov sleeper cells, generations after the event, radicalisation years in the making, showing us that fear and hatred runs deep here as everywhere, with Niemand giving us decades of backstory in a perfectly done few pages, all leading to a sleeper Sov threat that’s been marinating all this time.

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Great start, Niemand showing us, yet again, that he’s got a real in on how to do Dredd, getting it all so right, not afraid to do a whole episode, like this, with Dredd merely a bystander. Again, the great thing about Niemand’s Judge Dredd stories is that he’s the writer on Dredd who eschews the big, epic stuff and instead just goes about doing really damn fine tales that fully pull in the city itself and the citizens, just as so many great Dredd strips have always done. And the art by Califano is every bit suited to the tale, one that will hopefully lead on to a great series.

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THE OUT – BOOK FOUR – PART 3 – by Dan Abnett and Mark Harrison. Letters by Simon Bowland

C’mon, admit it, whether you’ve been here for the whole thing or just got on board for this series, you’re absolutely spellbound by Abnett’s dazzling display of crackling dialogue and Harrison’s incredible pages, so full of detail, alien landscapes and features like nothing else, designed to perfection, every moment an absolute visual and dramatic delight.

After a couple of episodes of intro and background, we’re perhaps getting into things here – although frankly I could cheerfully have a full series of Cyd, The Out’s main character, just exploring these furthest reaches of outer, outer space, such is the enjoyment I get from the combination of all Abnett and Harrison bring to things.

Last episode we had Cyd walk into a bar and decide to front up the local bad guys, the Space Raiders, ending up with this glorious moment…

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Now whether this all leads to anything, with the Space Raiders being some part of the bigger picture, is up for debate. The glorious thing about The Out thus far has been just how the story meanders along so perfectly well with any hint of a bigger picture coming through in the end after so many wonderful diversions and distractions along the way.

Personally, I’m going with the Space Raiders bit as a perfectly done little case of exploring the cleverness and unpredictability of Cyd (or, as Bag would probably put it, that she’s busy having some sort of breakdown in response to all she’s gone through so far.) I’m putting my money on the little drop-in moments of Cyd noticing things moving around on the ship and the repeated idea that there’s something haunting her and the ship as the bigger picture.

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But for now, we have five absolutely magnificent pages where Cyd faces down the Space Raiders, bluffs them out so well, and everyone has so much fun along the way.

Supremely enjoyable for every moment, The Out is just a perfect strip, a favourite of mine, and many others, from the start, and one that just gets better and better.

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NIGHTMARE NEW YORK – PART 3 – by Kek-W and John Burns. Letters by Annie Parkhouse

Things get more and more mysterious in this one as 18-year-old Lil and her cunning man companion/mentor take us on a rather thrillingly done race through the underworld of New York’s Five Points neighbourhood, all beautifully and quite perfectly choreographed in nightmarish form by the late John Burns…

This really is turning into a hit for me, new and different, well-written, sumptuously drawn, and one that’s teasing out the role Lil has in it all.

Lil’s already been anointed by her blind mentor as the ‘fifth point, the protector of Orange Street’, tied to the area, and were given the idea that she’s part of a bigger magical group as she’s being taken to meet the Banfhaidh. Although of course, there’s the small matter of getting Lil to actually believe in it all first…

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So, lots of magical conspiracies to come no doubt, all of it imbued with the off-kilter weirdness that Kek-W gives to it all.

A really good opening trio of episodes where we get to delight in all this truly wonderful Burns artwork.

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BRINK: CONSUMED – PART 25 – by Dan Abnett and INJ Culbard. Letters by Simon Bowland

I’ve talked an awful lot about just how good Brink is, how skillfully Abnett and Culbard are in producing this masterpiece. I even did a special Weekly 2000 AD extra drilling down into the two reveals we’ve seen in this Book that epitomise for me all the cleverness, the layering, and the sheer bloody magnificent rewarding nature of experiencing Brink in full.

But enough looking back. Right now we’re in something of the final rush to finish moments of Consumed, those wonderful moments when two creators in perfect synergy bring everything together and give us the pay-off to all that’s so deliciously been built up over the months. It’s getting faster and faster, a truly wonderful end to an amazing series – well, for now anyway, hopefully there’s plenty more Brink to come.

But for now, we get so much glorious Culbard artwork as things get faster and faster… just like this…

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So, in this latest episode, we have Castenada, Lind, and Lauren using their new-found knowledge of the Red River Killer’s hiding in plain sight trick to attempt to find him and, in doing so, rescue Kurtis before she starts losing limbs.

Unless it’s too late?

Thrilling, dramatic, perfectly done stuff as always. An absolute modern classic you should all be reading.

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WHEN A G.I. DIES – PART 3 – by Garth Ennis and Patrick Goddard. Letters by Rob Steen

Last week I praised this one for Ennis and Goddard giving us classic Rogue Trooper whilst raising my concerns that this one veered a little too much into the realms of being way too tied up in continuity of four decades prior.

Okay, that sort of still stands, and it’s certainly not really a Rogue for newbies – that would be their previous one, ‘Blighty Valley’, but as this goes on and Ennis begins to bring more than just Rogue battling Norts for the sake of it and goes more into the politics of the Southers, conspiracies, and the GI Dolls into things… well, let’s say it’s beginning to shape up into something really rather promisingly good.

So, first couple of pages is Rogue on Nu-Earth giving some to the Norts, with those naughty Norts even getting their hands on Gunnar for a moment. But after that, it’s over to Milli-Com, the orbiting Souther command base and the GI Doll Azure, one of the GI non-combat female equivalents that have always had a low position in both storytelling exposure and Souther society. And then we begin to get something more, with Azure giving us a Doll’s view of how things are, followed by a mention of Rogue…

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Now, this all feels like two strands that are going to get pulled together fairly soon, especially as Azure talks of getting someone down to the surface of Nu-Earth soon.

But there’s a sense of a conspiracy at play, and an intriguing one that I look forward to seeing just how Ennis plays it out and how Goddard continues to make it just so damn good-looking. He’s one of those artists whose work is just so solid, never showy but always doing the job with such wonderful style.