The Weekly 2000 AD Prog #2417: The Finale To Another Glorious Season Of ‘The Out’

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

Can we really be coming to the end of January 2025? Where’s the month gone? Where did last year go? And just where did I put my keys again? Well, whilst the memory keeps getting worse, my enjoyment of 2000 AD doesnt. This week we have a done-in-one Dredd, continuations of the sword and sorcery adventures of Hawk the Slayer, the combination of the vamp and the poet head west in Fiends of the Western Front: Wilde West, and hate politics on the rise in Portals & Black Goo. And we say a fond farewell to The Out, still one of my all-time favourite 2000 AD strips of all time.

And fittingly, this finale to The Out Book Four gets a gorgeous cover by series co-creator and artist Mark Harrison — 

2000 AD Prog #2417 is out in the UK on 29 January in the UK. If you’re in the Americas or anywhere else the Prog’s sold, the release date’s not quite as fixed… get yourself to a comic shop and put in an order. I know you won’t regret it. This week’s 2000 AD Weekly was produced whist listening to the new Cure album, Songs of a Lost World, which, to this old Cure fan, really is a return to form. Plus, they did a great song for the Dredd 1995 movie soundtrack.

So, onwards and upwards, let’s show you what’s happening inside —

JUDGE DREDD: A DOG’S LIFE – by Michael Carroll and Nicolo Assirelli, colours by John Charles, letters by Annie Parkhouse

A great little one-off by Carroll and Assirelli now, with added dog. Things (and life) always work better with a dog.

It’s back to the Undercity with Dredd on a case, documented by this magnificently good girl —

Isn’t there just something warming in your heart knowing the Justice Department’s got a doggie search and rescue division? Damn right.

Duchess is not only a very good dog, she’s also smart and useful, the key to breaking the case plus being a paramedic. But, like every good dog, she’d like to hear it said that she’s a good dog. Dredd, not so good on the praising thing.

Oh yes, there’s nothing that doesn’t benefit from having a good dog in the mix, including Dredd. A great little one-off, fun and silly and sweet.

Carroll and Assirelli doing great here, Assirelli’s art particularly lovely, especially when it’s in service to a great script and gets him to do plenty of panels per page. But hey, the dog’s the star. Aren’t they always?

HAWK THE SLAYER: THE LAST OF HER KIND – PART 5 – by Alec Worley and Simon Coleby, colours by Gary Caldwell, letters by Annie Parkhouse

Hawk’s latest mythic journey has taken him into Valensfort, the city state ruled over by the Lady Morlaine. And he’s on a mission to save Morlaine from herself, which doesn’t seem to be going all to well given where. We left this one at the end of last episode with Hawk getting face-to-face with Morlaine —

It’s all swords and sorcery action for this episode as Hawk goes up against Morlaine, the big fight, the Slayer versus the witch, all beautifully done by Coleby, who really does a fabulous job of choreographing the fight here, all swords versus sorcery, gorgeously done on the page. It’s not complicated, it’s not multi-layered, it’s not something you need to think too deeply about. No, but what it is is a really damn good little adventure.

PORTALS & BLACK GOO: A QUORUM OF FIENDS – PART 5 – by John Tomlinson and Eoin Coveney, colours by Jim Boswell, letters by Simon Bowland

Again, we’re pulling on so many threads here in Portals & Black Goo, so many threads. But they’re all making sense, all building this towards something very, very big. So, we get an opener with Magister Dean and his big bro, Cursitor Doom, dealing with something very big and demonically nasty, one hundred and twenty-six years ago. And then that segues into Magister and Cursitor now, coming down from their vision quest (a soothing foot bath always helps), with Cursitor talking about ‘the maelstrom of hate at the heart of Battle Hill’, a place that’s central to all that’s going on in Portals. Cursitor’s seen the threat that right-wing hatemonger Willard is building to right now. And that’s where Portals is doing the great thing of mirroring all that’s happening right now in the world, where the hate building towards the supernatural other here perfectly captures the dog-whistle politics of the right wing we’re dealing with right now.

After this, it’s off to another thread, with the vamp that turned Nona, the vamp dealing with his own strange death sentence, talking to Nona about a cure for her vamp condition, seemingly walking away from his bloody past, all before hunting down and viciously eviscerating and decapitating those right-wing morons who did him wrong.

And of course, there’s still what’s going on with ex-Deliveroo rider Kroy and that newly dead guy who seems far too easily influenced.

Like I say, so many threads being pulled on here, all slowly being drawn together, slowly but surely, and all done so really well. This is all building to a real crescendo, something that’s really going to bring out all the worst of things, the hatemongers of the world coming forth as things make them even more acceptable to all the norms out there.

As for where ‘The Quorum of Fiends’ come into it all, none of us, save Tomlinson and Coveney, have any real idea. But I’ve got a feeling it’s not going to be any good for all involved.

FIENDS OF THE WESTERN FRONT: WILDE WEST – PART 5 – by Ian Edginton and Tiernen Trevallion, letters by Jim Campbell

We’re flip-flopping here between an episode of the vampire Constanta and his newfound friend and companion Oscar Wilde and an episode of the dark forces raised against them.

Last episode we had an episode of Constanta and Wilde shooting the breeze as they rode across the Arizona desert. Now, it’s back to the fallen angel tracking down Oscar – and not to commission a new play – Michael.

Michael’s taking a train to get to Arizona and do whatever horrible thing he’s planning on doing to Oscar. And train rides mean train companions and train chat. This particular train chat meanders towards talk of the almighty, something guaranteed to get Michael riled up. And when Michael’s riled up… nasty things happen…

An episode where we get more idea of just how nasty Michael is, just how dangerous and deadly, just how vicious and unstoppable. All of it doing the thing of building up just how apocalyptic Michael’s wrath on Oscar will be, leaving us wondering just how Constanta will manage to overcome this ex-angelic threat.

Special mention here to how Trevallion makes all this slow build up to the eventual confrontation look so great. His control of all that’s going on is just so sublime, the linework accentuated by the Cary done and subtle colour palette involved.

THE OUT – BOOK FOUR – PART 16 -FINAL PART -by Dan Abnett and Mark Harrison. Letters by Simon Bowland

I was never going to do anything but love this one. You know, seeing as I’d loved ever single step Abnett and Harrison do with The Out.

And, no surprise, this is just the perfect end to Book Four.

Last episode ended like this…

Yep. Cheerio’s back. The rest of the finale consists of Cyd having a meltdown, Bag being snide, and Cheerio explaining, sort of, how he’s both alive and back.

That’s the episode. And it’s just fabulous. Full of all the sparkling dialogue, great gags, and wonderful artwork that makes The Out so special.

As I said last time, the joy of The Out is in how it meanders so gracefully — disconnected plot threads, asides, pieces of a puzzle to be connected. And this is done just perfectly in Book Four.

It’s also been all about watching Cyd meander, searching for any kind of meaning in a world where she’s lost her daughter, she’s lost Cheerio, and halfway through this Book, she loses her planet. She’s been acting out, miserable and lost, lacking that thing that gave her the reason for being Out here.

But like any good redemptive arc, the losses build and build before things change and there’s a switch. And that switch means Cyd’s got her mojo back. And then, with Earth and Cheerio back, she’s hatching a plan to find Joey as well. Sure, it might mean they’re heading into The Down, which is bad news all round, even if she can find it. But that’s by the by. The key thing here is that Cyd’s back on track and is headed Out again, rejuvenated and alive and excited by life again.

Glorious, absolutely glorious.