The Weekly 2000 AD Prog #2426: Patrolling The Streets Of Mega-City One For 48 Years And Counting

Taking a look inside the UK’s greatest sci-fi comic, the Galaxy’s Greatest, now 48 years young —it’s the Weekly 2000 AD.

48 years young, consistently the finest sci-fi anthology you could wish to read. There’s so much in store for you inside the pages of the weekly Prog, it’s about time you dived in!

This week, it’s a big one, one of those irregular bumper 48-page Progs. Which means five strips – a one-off Judge Dredd, a double-length one-off Fall of Deadworld acting as an interlude before the next series begins, a double-length episode of the Nu Earth War Tales from Rogue Trooper’s world, and finally there’s the extended final episode of the second series of the great Portals & Black Goo.

Except that’s just four strips. Didn’t I say there were five?

Oh yes, I did indeed. But that one’s a surprise. If you’re very good, we might share it with you later in the week. But until then, 2000 AD have asked us to keep the surprise under wraps, all the better for those of you who read it each week.

As for this week’s cover, it’s something rather special from Tony Harris of Starman and Ex Machina fame, a rather impressive debut cover…

2000 AD Prog #2426 is out in the UK on Wednesday 2nd April. It will be out in the Americas at some point in the future. But we’re never quite sure when that will be. It’s a weird thing. So, best thing to do if you want the best sci-fi anthology around is to head to your local comic shop and order it. You really won’t regret it.

So, away we go – let’s show you (most of) what’s happening inside…

JUDGE DREDD: THE TRUTH BOMBER – BY KEN NIEMAND & PJ HOLDEN, COLOURS BY JACK DAVIES, LETTERS BY ANNIE PARKHOUSE

Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.

That’s the motto of the Truth Bomber, the latest weird threat to trouble Mega-City One, and the latest perp to seriously piss Judge Dredd off.

The Truth Bomber appears at different scenes, different disguises, different methods, but always the same results – a mind-altering drug released into the air and the Cits and even the Judges start telling the truth. Now, that might mean something typically Niemand, the black comedy he does so well – like these cits at the Ideal Hab-Unit Expo telling the droid selling the latest in human bio-waste recycling just what they think…

Or it might be something darker, again something Niemand has a handle on…

So yes, as Dredd says on the final page here, ‘Truth Bomber’s been making a fool out of the Department for long enough. Time to take over the case and nail the creep.’

New Niemand and Holden Dredd, this is a very good thing and it’s all setting up something that looks like it’s going to be a hell of a lot of fun.

And one big reason it’s a lot of fun is Holden’s artwork. I’ve loved how he does Dredd every time he does it, which is too damn infrequent if you ask me. And he’s just getting better and better as far as I’m concerned, every time he gets a Dredd there’s just so much to love – not least of which is that he always seems to make a point of getting in a good MacMahon Dredd boot in there. Seriously, take a look at page 2 below – big old boot right there.

Of course, it’s more than that, there’s the whole clever spikiness of what he does, the art always more to the cartoon than the realistic. Not that I mean that in any way as anything but a compliment, there’s this sense of fun and adventure, a playfulness in his Dredd art, reminiscent of some of the greats, but very much all his own.

Yep, this one’s a good one. This one’s got surprises in it to play out over the coming weeks.

PORTALS & BLACK GOO: A QUORUM OF FIENDS – PART 14 -LAST PART – BY JOHN TOMLINSON AND EOIN COVENEY, COLOURS BY JIM BOSWELL, LETTERS BY SIMON BOWLAND

We get the ending now of all that Tomlinson and Coveney have built up so well over the preceding 13 parts of this one. And it really has been a how to guide to play out so many strands of a story, developing multiple characters, multiple storylines to end up with something truly satisfying and something that really delivers an end to all that’s gone before.

It’s Samhain Eve at the Dunweald Widows stone circle – the Quorum of Fiends have been assembled, the Great Zur’gat has manifested, and right-wing, power-mad, little man Tommy Willard has played his cards. The Quorum, including Cursitor Doom and Magister all lie dead on the floor, Tommy’s shooters coming out the woodwork. He’s on the brink of true power now, something his sad little self could have only dreamed of.

Except, well, he’s overplayed his hand, forgotten the little people, as Kroy heads in with a brand-new addition to Devouroo’s menus, meaning it’s Tommy that’s getting sliced up, forever and ever…

Oh yes, the new menu item? That’s immortal cuisine, a demonically possessed human trapped in a pocket dimension and poor Tommy gets to see bits of himself served up, over and over and over and over. Couldn’t happen to a worse person.

Of course, poor Kroy’s not come out of it unscathed either…

But that’s to be dealt with another time, hopefully in the third series of Portals & Black Goo that I hope Tomlinson and Coveney are both hard at work on right now.

Because it really has been a great series, building on all that was introduced so well in series 1, all the great concept of Devouroo and its delivery service for the monsters living aside humanity in this London. Series 2 brought in a political edge to things, with the rise of the Humans first, anti-monster politicians and their hate-fuelled politics firing up the people. And of course, all this against an ever-rising supernatural threat. It’s just built and built and built to this really well done finale.

THE FALL OF DEADWORLD: BLOW BY BLOW – BY KEK-W AND DAVE KENDALL. LETTERS BY SIMON BOWLAND

A one-off, extra length visit to Deadworld here, in the lead-up to a new series this year.

If you didn’t know, the concept for this is simple. In the Dreddworld we know, the Dark Judges, alien superfiends from another dimension, laid waste to their world and then tried (and failed, again and again) to take over Dredd’s world. But in The Fall of Deadworld, things are different. Where we knew for certain that whatever the Dark Judges tried to do to Dredd and MC-1, they wouldn’t succeed, here we absolutely know they will, as we watch this world fall.

This is Deadworld on the cusp of becoming Deadworld, a time before the Dark Judges were the all-powerful force we know them as now. We know where it’s all going, but it’s the journey that makes it so readable. And it’s the journey of little Jess Childs, meant to be, prophesied to be the saviour of the world – except we know she won’t, we know it’s all in vain. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a lot of fun to see it happen.

In this one-off, there’s plenty of all that makes Deadworld tick, beginning with Judge Fairfax being brutalised by Judge Eastwood, knowing that he’s got the dead fluids coursing through his body, the slow transformation taking place, the beating just a reminder that he’s failed to do all that he tried to do.

And we see just what that was as we head back in time to a young Fairfax, brutalised, abused, taking the beatings from his dad to save his brother, all leading to him at the mercy of another bad man, this one a Judge, making Fairfax run drugs, just more of the inevitable desperation that runs through this world. But the life he’s forced into has a vicious twist for him still, one that fills him with guilt at what he’s caused.

And that’s where we see him make a decision that will lead, inevitably, inexorably to where he is now, all perfectly done in one page by Kendall – fantastic use of the vertical panels and colours to pick out moments, show Fairfax’s guilt leading him to his fateful decision…

And that’s what ‘Blow By Blow’ is all about, that’s what The Fall of Deadworld is all about from the point of view of the flawed and fallen heroes – guilt. It washes over everything, coats the strip in it, as we see these twisted protectors of this failing, doomed world face up to their guilt that they couldn’t do their jobs, couldn’t save anyone.

Kek-W’s doing good things here in the controlled, self-contained tale of Fairfax, but it’s the art of Dave Kendall, as it has been all through The Fall of Deadworld, that really pushes it to another level. He’s just the perfect artist to put all that horror of a world facing its inevitable end, a perfect artist to show us all of the horrors along the way. All through, the nightmarish images are given life, even as it’s extinguished.

We’re here for the long haul, watching a world die slowly. Knowing where it’s going with that bleak inevitability turned into a tale of a futile resistance as we watch with voyeuristic delight as things line up to go to hell.

NU EARTH WAR TALES: BLACK DOME – BY GORDON RENNIE AND COLIN MACNEIL. COLOURS BY CHRIS BLYTHE, LETTERS BY JIM CAMPBELL

The second of these irregular self-contained tales from the world of Rogue Trooper. Not necessarily featuring the big blue last Genetic Infantryman, but allowing writers and artists to play in the rich world around the lead character.

Rennie’s written the first two of these now, and here is joined by the always great on the eyes art of MacNeil.

We’re with Maira and Chaerta, sniper and spotter fighting for the Norts, on a mission to eliminate a Souther special forces unit and recover what intel they can. They’ve been holed up in no man’s land for four days now, watching them, spying, waiting for the time to kill.

And then it goes wrong, one of the Black Domers takes the kill first, only to turn on his own, killing Chaerta, leaving Maira to run with one of the Southers the Domer left alive.

It’s all part of the sick game this Black Domer’s playing, given free reign on the battlefield, boredom and madness combining to create this deadly game of cat and mouse.

It’s tense and tight, all so really well self-contained in the no-man’s land, the three players testing each other, the game playing out. Both Rennie and MacNeil are on such fine form here, the horrors of war, the brutality of the situation, the strange beauty of the scenes, all of it’s done so well, right to the perfectly downbeat ending.

Let’s hope the rest of these Nu Earth War Tales are just as good as these two opening Rennie-written ones have been.