Preview: ‘Best Of 2000 AD – Free Comic Book Day’ – The Past, Present, And Future Of 2000 AD

by Richard Bruton

Saturday 3rd May 2025 is Free Comic Book Day – and 2000 AD are all in here with a Best of 2000 AD featuring the past, present, and future of the finest sci-fi comics anthology…

Yes, 3rd May 2025, the one Saturday in the comic year where there are crowds outside comic shops waiting to pick up all the free gear. With all the goings-on in the distribution world and Diamond Comic Distributors, who own the FCBD thing, going into bankruptcy, this could be the last FCBD as we know it. So, get down your local comic shop and see what delights they have there. Of course, my first pick-up every time is 2000 AD‘s entry, but there’s plenty more besides.

Now, before we get into the 2000 AD FCBD entry for 2025, a reminder, even though it’s Free Comic Book Day for you, it’s not for the comic shop. Each free comic they give away, they’ve had to pay Diamond for. So, feel free to grab whatever you need, but whilst you’re in the comic shop, do them a big favour and pick up something else to make sure they’re not losing out – use them or lose them!

And a further reminder, FCBD is a great way to get new readers, young readers, into comics – so, if you know some kids, why not take them along, or pick up some kids comics and distribute them to the next generation of readers.

Okay, with all that done, here’s what’s inside this FCBD Best of 2000 AD… You’ve got two reprints from the past, a one-off Judge Anderson original by Alex de Campi and Silvia Califano representing the present, and for the future, there’s a special presentation of the first in the upcoming series of Scarlet Traces by Ian Edginton and D’Israeli. Yes, four really rather fabulous tales from the past, present, and future of 2000 AD.

The Dredd is an absolute classic one-off from John Wagner and Jock, showing that you really do need to be careful when you’re crossing Ken Dodd. [Note for readers, Ken Dodd’s a British comedian, quite brilliant, very strange]. It’s all-out action, all setting up a ridiculous final page gag that’s just the epitome of Wagner’s take on the absolutely farcical nature of the world of Mega-City One. And oh yes, there’s this classic moment…

The other reprint is a brutal bit of Rogue Trooper previously found in the 1986 Sci-Fi Special by Peter Milligan and the genius that was José Ortiz. Told from the point of view of two Nort conscripts, it really does put the whole idea of Rogue as the hero to the test.

And those lines and tones of Ortiz are just gorgeous, never more so than a moment on the final page where Rogue unmasks the poor Nort and reveals just another poor kid…

As for the one original in here, it’s Alex de Campi and Silvia Califano on Psi-Judge Anderson, who’s now been patrolling the streets of Mega-City One for some 45 years.

Here, Cass Anderson finds herself digging into the sudden death of a street Judge, who’s last contact was with young Mandy Jones, possible unregistered precog, a seer who can tell the future. But things aren’t quite that clear cut, and it’s a journey into the astral plane for Anderson to uncover the truth.

As with most everything de Campi writes, this one’s tight and good, a whole tale told in six pages with no fat on the bones of it at all. And as for Califano’s art, it’s a sheer delight to see her take on Anderson, both in the real world and on a perfectly realised astral plane.

And finally, we have a first for The Best of 2000 AD – where we genuinely get shifted into the future with Ian Edginton and D’Israeli giving us the first episode of their brand-new series of Scarlet Traces before it debuts in 2000 AD Prog 2432, out on 14th May 2025.

Now, this has been long promised by Edginton and D’Israeli, continuing the story that had its finale back in Prog 2261 with the end of the Storm Front storyline. For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure yet, you’re in for a treat – and I’d recommend you go out and start right from the beginning of this one, as Edginton and D’Israeli give us their take on HG Well‘s War of the Worlds, taking the story further with a British Empire that’s used the alien tech to take the Empire to new heights. It’s perfect future steampunk with so much to enjoy.

‘Empire of Blood’ opens with a Wells foreward that leads you in to the ideas of Scarlet Traces, and then drops into the ways the alien invasion has affected this London, specifically a couple of bank robbers and a couple of cops, who are about to get a close encounter all their own.

It’s a great opener, and I can’t wait to read more of this new series. But first, I’m off to crack open the three volumes of Scarlet Traces on my shelf, something I’d heartily recommend you add to your own shelves.