The Weekly 2000 AD: Prog 2410 — Epic Is Just What The Out Does

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

Back again with all five strips once more, continuations of everything, although all racing towards their endings before we get into the typically huge and packed with all-new strips festive monster of Prog 2413 in a few few weeks time. But that’s a few weeks away still. In the meantime, there’s still so much to enjoy – as Dredd gets investigating in the Cursed Earth; Rogue Trooper gets busy on Nu Earth; Lil finds family troubling and dangerous in Nightmare New York; Dexter, Andi, and Suzi Nine head deeper into the mysteries of Azimuth; and Cyd takes her next monumental step into The Out.

And it’s The Out featuring on the cover, a truly epic cover by Mark Harrison, something that really shows you the essence of this, one of my absolute fave 2000 AD strips…

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2000 AD Prog #2410 is out now UK. (Yes, yes, I know that was a day or so ago… busy, busy, busy). You American readers need to go to your local comic shop and get them to order in the monthly four-Prog bundles. You can do it. I know you’re feeling a little shell-shocked right now and having to face up to four years of crazy (but then again, so is the rest of the world). But in a world where Judge Dredd seems less and less like speculative fiction and more like a prophecy, you really do need 2000 AD in your life.

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

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JUDGE DREDD: THE COMFORT ZONE – PART 4 – by Mike Carroll and Ben Willsher. Letters by Annie Parkhouse.

It’s a very different sort of Mike Carroll Dredd, deliberately disjointed, taking us through snatches of moments, as Dredd carries on his investigations in the Cursed Earth. Yet it’s also eminently readable, Carroll doing it so well, showing us how Dredd’s procedurals don’t always play out simply and easily, instead giving us something more interesting, something approaching the chaos of a proper investigation.

 

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Right now, we have Dredd in the Cursed Earth, following the trail from that cyber-perp who hacked the Justice Department, and it’s by no means a simple thing, with Dredd getting pulled into all manner of other things out here in the wilderness, all of which shows us just how bloody difficult Dredd’s life is.

For every case that’s played out simply, there’s many more that just refuse to work out in a linear fashion. And that’s why this latest episode has Dredd dealing with the fallout from some Cursed Earth droid repairer getting their hands on an old Sov war droid.

Cue plenty of action, plenty of Willsher doing great things with the art, and Carroll showing us that there’s many, many ways to tell a damn fine Dredd story.

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NIGHTMARE NEW YORK – PART 10 – Kek-W and David Roach. Colours by Peter Doherty, Letters by Annie Parkhouse

Poor Lil, she really can’t catch a break. One minute she’s escaping her family and living on the streets of 1845 Manhattan, the next she’s caught up in a strange and magical underworld where she’s very, very important to a lot of people.

Above ground, it’s a war between Moloch’s men and the few protectors of New York’s magical boroughs left on the other side. Exactly what side that is, we’re still not sure, such is the way Kek-W’s playing this one, deliberately mysterious, never letting us get comfortable with anything before he shifts it all around again. But I’ve no issue with that, it’s intriguing rather than frustrating, helpful that we’ve been in on this one from the start, that sense of experiencing it from Lil’s confused perspective making the uncertainty something that’s unfolding as she discovers more about herself and her place in this strange magical world were deep inside now.

And as for discoveries, there’s this particular grisly one underground…

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But that uncovering of Moloch’s brew is but a minor thing compared to what’s about to happen. Another learning moment for Lil, where she’s about to find out that you really can’t trust anyone here… and that family ties run deeper than she could ever dream in these magic circles she’s running in.

Like I say, mysterious yet compelling, plenty going on, and all really lovingly drawn by Roach and Doherty in a style befitting series co-creator John Burns, who sadly passed away before the series could be finished. Not that they’re copying Burns’s style (seriously, who could do that?) but they’re paying homage stylistically whilst giving their own look to things.

It looks great, it reads well, it’s mysterious and different, but that’s all part of its appeal. With everything coming to an end in the next few weeks before the big Xmas Prog, I can’t help but hope Kek-W, Roach, and Doherty are kicking around plans for a second series of this one.

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THE OUT – BOOK FOUR – PART 10 – by Dan Abnett and Mark Harrison. Letters by Simon Bowland

This does seem to have been the series of The Out where Abnett and Harrison seem to have just gone with the idea of a series with no ‘big plot’, no huge storyline, just a glorious series of moments where Cyd and bag get to experience even more of the wondrous things to be found when you’re going Out.

It’s something I’ve been wanting since the very first book, seeing as Abnett and Harrison have created something very special here, where their combined skills are more than enough to make anything they do with Cyd just the most incredible thing. It’s been a book of sparkling dialogue and incredible ideas from Abnett, matched every step of the way by Harrison’s skill and invention in designing and realising the most diverse and beautiful menagerie of sheer alienness to be enjoyed on every single panel and page here.

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Anyway, after being told by her latest fare that there’s something incredible out there, described as ‘an edifice. Huge, sticking out through a rupture in the fabric of space,’ Cyd’s off to investigate, her curiosity just one of the things that makes her just so damn believable and so very real. I said last week that it felt like an unusual and out-of-character mis-step, shoehorning something in that was so obviously just a story driver, but all is forgiven now, because now we, and Cyd, get to see what it is. And it’s something that demands the double page Harrison gives it.

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It’s all about the wonder, all about Cyd finding purpose, about seeing things, recording things, just as she always has. And it’s just so wonderful to be part of this journey. This really has become a series that’s leaning hard into all that wonder, where the characters have become so strong and the sheer experience of being Out has become just so incredible that it’s a joy to be part of the journey. Long May this one continue.

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AZIMUTH: THE FABLED BASILISK – PART 5 – by Dan Abnett and Tazio Bettin. Colours by Matt Soffe, letters by Jim Campbell

The second of Dan Abnett’s really strong series in the Prog, completely different to The Out, but sharing some of that mystery and strangeness. In Azimuth, the mystery and strangeness comes from trying to work out just how any of this is happening. After all, it started as one thing, following Suzi Nine on a mission from the Lords of the New Flesh, the Kray Twins, in the bizarre world of Azimuth, and soon transformed into something else when the prophesied ‘Stranger’ landed in town. Said stranger being Ramone Dexter, half of Abnett’s other strip, Sinister Dexter. It was a great switcharoo, Abnett creating a whole new strip, a whole new world, just to give fresh life to his creations. And then we had the sudden introduction of Andi, Cassandra, looking for all the world like a Mega-City Psi Judge that we all know. But how?

Yep, Azimuth’s Abnett playing with us, keeping things fresh and adding in layer upon layer to do so. All of it beautifully brought to life by Bettin, creating whole new worlds of wonder and great characters. It’s a gorgeous looking thing, full of mystery and wonder, so many questions that are, as yet, unanswered, but that I’m so eager to discover where Abnett and Bettin are taking this. It’s a great new strip that isn’t really a new strip at all, which is just what makes it so fascinating.

This episode, we open with Suzi Nine facing down monstrous creations in yet another destroyed Azimuth domain, with just her razorchetter and Papa Legday’s seemingly useless hotel ‘do not disturb’ token. But is it useless? Or is it just another level of strange and wonderful here in Azimuth?

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Meanwhile, Dexter and Andi are before the Kray Twins, Andi’s trick of planting the idea of Dexter as ‘the Fabled Basilisk’ in their heads giving them breathing room. No idea what the hell ‘the Fabled Basilisk’ is, but it’s all just part of what makes things interesting around here. It’s all part of Azimuth’s mythology, and Andi’s trickery seems to have worked. But all Dexter wants to know is where he can find Suzi Nine, thinking she’s the key to sorting out his problems.

And then Suzi Nine finds herself a door, impossibly old and rotten. You don’t think this is where Papa Legday’s token comes in, do you?

Oh, it’s all part of the wonderful mystery of Azimith, yet another great strip for 2000 AD.

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ROGUE TROOPER: WHEN A G.I. DIES – PART 10 – by Garth Ennis and Patrick Goddard. Letters by Rob Steen

We’re accelerating towards the end here, with the split storyline taking us from the chaos on Milli-Com down to Nu Earth, where Rogue and the GI Doll Marcy are down in the Quartz dealing with Norts and the fallout from rogue Souther scientist Edvark.

Milli-Com’s got weapons going hot on them unexpectedly, not counting down, just sitting in the tubes, a threat, a warning, the mad scientist doing his thing.

Meanwhile, Rogue and Marcy are leading a troop of ghost GIs towards Edvark, but have found themselves the targets of a quartet of Nort Hoppers. Big explosions follow, of course. And as for the ghost GIs, they’re hanging back, not giving a damn about Milli-Com and the higher-ups who saw them die, not to mention Edvark and his plans to dig them up and experiment on them. But if Milli-Com falls, Marcy knows she’ll lose 200 of her fellow Dolls.

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Again, there’s plenty in here to enjoy, not least Goddard’s really stunning b&w artwork, and there’s a lot that Ennis is doing here with Rogue that’s all about opening up the world of the war and moving away from the limiting idea of having just the Traitor General as the big bad. But despite all of that, it’s just not connecting with me this time round. Sure, I can appreciate that it’s well done, can see what the intention is, how it’s all about moving beyond the confines of the strip’s limitations, and I’m pretty sure that, once it’s in collection it will read way better. But week in and week out, it’s just not consistently doing it for me.