The Weekly 2000 AD Prog #2420 – The Dead Rise In The Wild(e) West

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

This week, once more, it’s the continuation of everything from last week. Which means more supernatural scariness in Judge Dredd: The Shift, more classic sword and sorcery in Hawk the Slayer, more galaxy-spanning adventuring in Full Tilt Boogie, more bizarre strangeness and a rising political hate in Portals & Black Goo, and the continuing tales of Oscar Wilde and the vampire Constanta in Fiends of the Western Front. It is, as I’m continually saying, the very best sci-fi anthology you’ll ever read.

This week’s cover comes courtesy of Tiernen Trevallion, giving you just a hint of the fabulously unusual things going on in Fiends of the Western Front:

2000 AD Prog #2420 is out in the UK on 19th February 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. You should know by now that I reckon you won’t regret it. This week, we got the unwelcome news that Bruton Mansions, Vegas version, is about to be overrun by the forces of evil. Or, alternatively, it’s time to find a new rental. Oh, the joys of renting. Wish us luck, we’re back on the property market.

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

JUDGE DREDD: THE SHIFT – PART 3 – BY KEN NIEMAND AND NICK PERCIVAL, LETTERS BY ANNIE PARKHOUSE

In the long history of Judge Dredd, there’s always been horror element. It possibly started with the extra-dimensional horrors of the Dark Judges, but since then it’s taken many forms. Thing is, recently the supernatural horrors have taken a backseat to the real world horrors of all the terrible things happening in Mega-City One. But now we have Niemand and Percival bringing back the nightmares to Dredd, in a series of tales that have been giving us chills from the start.

In ‘The Shift’, Dredd’s been in receipt of a message from himself, some time in the future, a message about being trapped in ‘The Shift’, a message with a touch of desperation about it. But of course he still follows through, still runs the investigation, still heads to where the missing student who started all this was last seen.

After a little bit of elevator game, again Niemand playing into urban legend, Dredd finds himself in a serious bit of trouble, somewhere else, somewhere strange, somewhere very, very dangerous… here’s the final bit from last episode to give you an idea…

And now we’re well into ‘The Shift’, with Dredd deep in things, outside of Mega-City One, finding himself alone and facing up to nightmarish things.

There’s no one does this sort of horror like Percival, no one who quite manages to show us all the horrors of MC-1 like this. Every moment of ‘The Shif’t gives us a chill down the spine, every page showing is something else horrific. And it’s not just with Dredd in ‘The Shift’, it’s already finding its way into the other world of MC-1 where Prof Marsha Hobbs is seeing the horrors of the Shift breaking through to the other reality.

Totally scary, absolutely bringing the chills back to Dredd, Niemand and Percival are doing exquisitely awful things in the world of Dredd here.

FULL TILT BOOGIE – BOOK THREE – PART 3 – BY ALEX DE CAMPI AND EDUARDO OCANA. COLOURS BY GIULIA BRUSCO, LETTERS BY SIMON BOWLAND

So far in this crossing the galaxy adventure of young Tee and her friends, we’ve had bounty hunter Tee do her thing, except her thing now isn’t bounty hunting, it’s overthrowing the Luxine Empire. Oh yes, things have moved on a hell of a lot in Full Tilt Boogie.

Again, a hell of a lot of backstory to this one, perhaps too much backstory to be all wrapped up neatly in this third series, but De Campi and Ocana will do their very best to wrap things up neatly in this third and final volume.

Here in episode 3, we shift focus to the Luxine Empress, seemingly desperate to go to war. Through the Prince Consort we see just how vile this empire is, as three young Luxine Knights find out the reality of this war, not to mention one of those Luxine Knights taken over by the spirit of General’s past.

It’s going so fast already, necessarily so, because there’s a hell of a lot to conclude here, getting Tee into a place where she can fight and presumably beat the Luxine Empire. And all of it done at breakneck speed by De Campi and Ocana, making a galaxy-wide war into something very personal to Tee, where it’s just her and her troop of misfits against an Enpire.

Yes, it’s Star Wars-style rebels versus the Empire stuff happening, but it’s all done with a real fast-paced style from writer and artist.

FIENDS OF THE WESTERN FRONT: WILDE WEST – PART 8 – BY IAN EDGINTON AND TIERNEN TREVALLION, LETTERS BY JIM CAMPBELL

We’ve just seen the vampire Constanta and Oscar Wilde, yes, that Oscar Wilde, defeat a very immigrant sort of demon out here in the Wild West of America.

And now we turn again to the twin threats pursuing them. On the trail of the vampire, we have Count Kamarovsky, on the trail of Oscar, we have the fallen angel Michael. Here, they’ve come together, although not necessarily all that friendly, with Michael facing down Kamarovsky’s walking dead, only to figure out what we all saw coming, a meeting of minds, a confluence of desires, all meaning that Oscar and Constanta end up with a double threat on their trail.

Again, what Edginton and Trevallion are doing here is expanding, rather brilliantly, on what the original Fiends of the Eastern Front had given us. There it was the vampire Constanta fighting a very bloody war. Here, it’s just the latest of a mythology that writer and artist have put together, with the latest happening here in the Wild West.

It’s a great thing, building and building to its end. Although what that end may be, who knows? All I know is that it’s damn fine stuff, with Edginton and Trevallion creating something very special off the back of a very short classic of 2000 AD’s history.

PORTALS & BLACK GOO: A QUORUM OF FIENDS – PART 8 – BY JOHN TOMLINSON AND EOIN COVENEY, COLOURS BY JIM BOSWELL, LETTERS BY SIMON BOWLAND

Every five pages of this one brings us closer and closer to all those strands pulling together, everything coming together, all those plot threads that Tomlinson and Coveney have rather expertly been showing us in Portals leading to something cataclysmic and nasty here as Samhain approaches.

Like I’ve said, we’ve gone from something funny and interestingly original around the idea of a modern world where all the traditional supernatural monsters are living amongst the normal folks. Kroy was our Everyman character, our in to this world, his somewhat fantastical and slightly silly work as a Deliveroo rider introducing us to all the strangeness living amongst us.

But here in series two, Tomlinson’s thrown us deep into the bigger story, a story of xenophobia and hatred, where this world of supernatural immigrants is prime for an allegorical look at our world and how it deals with minorities. As with the best sci-fi, it casts a light on our world, and it does it bloody well.

The hatred is brewing, fuelled by an allegorical look at too familiar power-hungry political chancer all too keen to punch down on the weakest of society. Suddenly, what was a strange thing of funny supernatural deliveries has turned into a big thing of real import, all of it against the spectre of massive supernatural things happening.

And that’s where we are now, with all of those threads bringing us to a conclusion. You’ve got Kroy doing his thing, you’ve got Nona and her dying vamp boyfriend talking up the vampire cure tied into Samhain. Then there’s Cusitor and Magister and the Quorum of Fiends and something major coming through the magical pipeline – and it’s not going to be good. Plus there’s our dad little dead guy out there as well. So many things going on, all of it waiting to get connected, all of it cleverly being pulled together.

It’s a great series, spinning out from its simple origins into something big, political, and world-changing.

HAWK THE SLAYER: THE LAST OF HER KIND – PART 8 – BY ALEC WORLET AND SIMON COLEBY, COLOURS BY GARY CALDWELL, LETTERS BY ANNIE PARKHOUSE

More classic sword and sorcery now, as Worley and Coleby present the latest bit of Hawk being the classic hero, doing his thing against the Lady Morlaine, an innocent destroyed by magical power, now ruling over Valensfort with an iron fist, corrupted possibly beyond saving.

It’s pure sword and sorcery fun, even for those of us not all that keen on sword and sorcery (that would be me.) There’s a lot of Robin Hood and King Arthur here, the whole ancient English folk tale writ large.

Here we have the classic idea of a tournament, all to give the Lady Morlaine power, power she needs and wants, power to make her young and vibrant once more.

So, of course, Hawk gets himself involved. That’s his job, the hero to get in the way of the villain’s rise to power. Although the interesting thing that Worley’s introduced here is the slight possibility that Morlaine isn’t your classic villain and that there’s a tragic story to be found beneath her obvious power-hungry quest.

As it is, Hawk the Slayer is ticking all the right boxes for a great slice of sword and sorcery, whether you think you’re a fan of it or not. Even I’m enjoying it, and I’ve never been a S&S fan in the past. Course, plenty of the joy of things comes with looking at Coleby’s artwork here, all dirty and nasty but also giving us all of the classic looks of the fantasy of the genre. A hell of a lot of fun all told.