The Weekly 2000 AD: Beaten And Bloodied, But Bridge Still Bosses The Brink

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

Another week, another five strips in the most kick-ass sci-fi anthology, a Brit comics legend still going strong after all these years.

This week we’ve got continuations of all five strip, including the always incredible latest in both The Out and Brink. There’s the finale to the Judge Dredd three-partner, ‘Hater’, more strange adventures in the Big Apple in Nightmare New York, and Rogue Trooper gets deeper into political trouble in ‘When a GI Dies‘.

It all begins, beautifully, under the latest INJ Culbard cover for Brink…

.

2000 AD Prog #2405 is out in the UK on 23 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.

So, onwards and upwards, let’s show you what’s happening in the latest Prog…

.

.

JUDGE DREDD: HATER – PART 3 – FINAL PART – by Ken Niemand and Silvia Califano. Colours by Giulia Brusco by Jim Boswell, letters by Annie Parkhouse.

A quick three-and-done for this latest Niemand Dredd, with some impressive art from Califino and Brusco, as we get deeper into the Sov sleeper trouble in Meta-City One.

Poor George’s managed to get himself in way too deep, youthful idealism guaranteed to get him used up and spat out, caught in between whatever’s behind the mystery Sov sleeper cell and the Judges, another innocent just born to die. And, no surprise, that’s just what poor Georgy does, but there’s still that mystery of the Sov sleeper cell – something Niemand will no doubt return to.

.

Like I keep saying, whereas other Dredd writers go for bigger stories at times, Niemand consistently keeps things grounded, following a well-trodden road of telling stories of the city and its people, all these poor bastards caught up in the horrors of day to day existence of the fascist regime that keeps them under the boot of the Justice Department.

These are small-scale stories with Dredd little more than a bystander as events play out. But they’re also the building blocks of everything that’s made Dredd what it is for nigh on five decades now. Long May they continue.

.

BRINK: CONSUMED – PART 27 – by Dan Abnett and INJ Culbard. Letters by Simon Bowland

It’s all coming to an end, six months plus of the absolute finest sci-fi/crime procedural, all laced through with a conspiracy theorist’s grab-bag of what-ifs and strangeness. But that’s the glory of Brink, Abnett and Culbard crafting it all so well as to make me sad that it’s actually coming to an end. Sad that there’s going to be too long before the next, predictably brilliant book of Brink. The longer it goes on, the more sense there is that 2000 AD has never had a series such as this, something that’s never failed to enthral, something that, no matter how long each series ends up, always leaves you wishing for more.

Unless, of course, you’re one of those naysayers who simply can’t get onboard. And for you… well, I’m sorry, we’re just not on the same page here. Because I’ll make this the hill I’ll die on – Brink is quite simply one of the greatest of all 2000 AD strips.

.

Last episode we had Bridge’s rescue and the end to the ‘Red River Killer’. But that’s no means the end of this one, so many threads to finish with, not the least of which is Bonner’s investigation into the Sect link to HabSec on Belleholme. He’s convinced it’s the station boss. Bridge has a different idea.

And, as is so often the case, Bridge is right.

It’s been there under our noses almost from the start. The whole Chekhov’s gun thing. Abnett’s perfect establishing of characters so good that, even though it makes sense, you’ll still not want it to be true.

Another fabulous Brink episode. Of course it is. At this stage, did you expect anything less?

.

NIGHTMARE NEW YORK – PART 5 – by Kek-W and David Roach. Colours by Peter Doherty, Letters by Annie Parkhouse

Although it’s great to see David Roach’s lovely work here, coupled with Peter Doherty’s impressive colouring, I’m sure neither fine gentleman would mind me saying that they’re no replacement for John Burns’s artwork on the series.

But alas, Nightmare New York was the last thing Burns drew before his death, and we should count ourselves fortunate that we got to see at least four episodes of his gorgeous artwork. Roach and Doherty take up something of a poisoned chalice here, doing such great work for sure, but always in the shadow of a master.

.

More wanderings into the mystic, as young Lil continues to struggle with her new role as the fifth point, protector of Orange Street, trapped in the Five Points by a destiny she doesn’t understand, forced on her by Jimmy Blind.

Now the nasties have turned up, Moloch’s followers beating down the doors, told their route to wealth and power comes through Lil.

Faced with all this going on outside and refusing to accept it, Lil bolts, only to find that things below the Five Points are even more dangerous.

Nightmare New York continues to impress, a magical mystery thing, deliberately not explaining itself too much, just letting things happen on the page, all to Kek-W’s plan no doubt but managing to have a free-wheeling energy to it all. It’s a different sort of strip for sure, a 19th Century magical adventure isn’t the first thing you’d think of when you think of 2000 AD, but it works because it’s different and because it’s just damn good.

.

THE OUT – BOOK FOUR – PART 4 – by Dan Abnett and Mark Harrison. Letters by Simon Bowland

So, you’re Cyd.  You’ve been however many millions of miles away from Earth for so long now here in the Out; you’ve had strange things happening all around you; faced up to the traumatic loss in your life; seen wars, died, been reborn, ended wars; and now you’re out here, way out, getting odd gigs as an interplanetary Uber driver.

So, of course you decide to pick a fight with a group of space pirates. Because that’s just the sort of dumb, on-brand, Cyd thing. She’s never been completely focused, always too prone to self-destruction, and that’s just what’s happened here.

Hence the final page of the last episode, as the space pirates she pissed off turn up again…

.

C’mon. Just look at that Mark Harrison art and wonder!

Okay, back to Cyd. Now she’s off to meet the boss of those same Space Pirates. Bag’s got a bad, bad feeling about this, trying to keep Cyd on the straight and narrow, ‘don’t puke, won’t make the best first impression,’ which is just everything about the Cyd/Bag relationship – a perfect two-handed thing that just has Abnett delivering all that spectacularly sparkling dialogue that makes every page of The Out such a delight.

Cyd’s giving off too pissed off and ground down to care vibes, styling it out in front of these bad, bad people.

And then she meets Redbladder.

Redbladder is something else… a perfect invention of Abnett and Harrison that’s just the epitome of all the alien wonder and freak show horrors we’ve had all the way through…

.

And then you get Cyd doing all that styling it out, fronting up to Redbladder, in a perfectly ridiculous way…

.

Yep, perfect. All the comedy, mixed with all the awesome, and so much good stuff from all involved.

Anyway, Cyd’s always been quick-thinking, and that’s just what happens here. So, once again she gets out of things, just fronting it up and getting away with it yet again.

Only to have the rug pulled out from under her on the final page in such a jaw to the floor fashion. It’s the sort of huge thing that you’ll only find here. And it’s so bloody good, something that’s propelling Cyd’s adventures into the next phase.

More on that next time of course. But damn, what a cliffhanger.

.

WHEN A G.I. DIES – PART 5 – by Garth Ennis and Patrick Goddard. Letters by Rob Steen

This one’s been troublesome. On the one hand, it’s full of too much that harks back to the classic Rogue Trooper and referencing it just too much. On the other hand, within all that, Ennis is constructing a tight, nasty little political drama of intrigue and betrayal, all keyed into the defining Rogue Trooper moment, the Quartz incident where all of Rogue’s GI comrades bit the dust, the Traitor General’s deadly betrayal.

And here we go into that some more, with some of the Souther leaders bringing GI Doll Azure onboard with things, opening up the story, and giving us a lot to deal with.

.

This time I actually went back and read the whole thing from the start. And when you do that, it’s a much more cohesive piece, the conspiracy, the background, the bigger picture all comes through so much more, so much better.

Now, this is one or more of several things. First, it’s a sign that, sometimes, my damn crappy memory from week to week let’s me down and I’ve forgotten way too much of what went on just seven bloody days ago in the Prog to make a story like this work for me. Or second, it’s Ennis getting too deep too fast with this story, forgetting that not everyone may have his in-depth knowledge of the intricacies of Rogue’s history to immediately put this together. Or perhaps it’s just the thing that happens every so often with anthologies, where sometimes there comes a story where the episodic nature of things just doesn’t actually suit a great story that annoyingly refuses to bow to the weekly schedule.

Whatever it is, this Rogue tale is one that, for me, isn’t reading well in weekly form but, when read as one continuous thing, holds together so much better. Is that a failing? To give us a weekly serial that only works, again this may only be for me, as a thing when read in bigger chunks? Or is it that, every so often, you have to concede that a story can only work as a whole instead of a drip, drip, drip of six-page chapters.