The Weekly 2000 AD – Prog 2432 – The Earth’s Under Threat Once More As ‘Scarlet Traces’ Returns

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, we get the much anticipated return of Scarlet Traces, Ian Edginton and D’Israeli‘s exploration of the world of HG Wells‘ War Of The Worlds, taking the story further and further – although if you managed to bag yourself a copy of the 2000 AD Free Comic Book Day comic, you’ll have had a sneak peek of this one already. Then there’s another done-in-one Judge Dredd written by Dan Abnett, plus continuations of the trio of excellent and very different sci-fi tales – Rogue Trooper, Silver, and Ghosted. All in all, a damn fine line up, full of variety, a perfect example of what’s made 2000 AD so good for all these years.

All that kicks off under a very good cover from D’Israeli…

2000 AD Prog 2432 is out in the UK on Wednesday, 14th May. If you’re in the Americas, the best way to get it would be to pop into your local comic shop and ask the nice folks in there to order it in for you. Trust me, as a convert for the past decade and more, you won’t regret it.

JUDGE DREDD: BAD CREDIT – BY DAN ABNETT AND JAKE LYNCH, COLOURS BY JIM BOSWELL, LETTERS BY ANNIE PARKHOUSE

Just last episode, I was talking about how it’s a rare thing to see Dan Abnett writing Judge Dredd. Sure, there are times when it might seem he’s writing everything else, but rarely Dredd. And what do you know, here’s 2000 AD proving me wrong, with a second Abnett-written Dredd done-in-one episode here.

‘Bad Credit’ does the thing of taking one moment in Mega-City One and working it up, a chain of events tale concerning one little MC-1 Cred, going from unlucky bastard to unlucky bastard, leaving a trail of blood and death in its wake – it truly is a Bad Cred.

It’s the sort of simple yet brilliant little Dredd that’s been a big part of the history of Dredd over the years. Sure, the big mega epics might take the headlines, but this is the perfect bread and butter of Dredd, the tales that show us the city in all its nasty little ghettos and all its unfortunate citizens.

Add to that the art of Jake Lynch and you’ve got yourself another classic done-in-one Dredd, showing us the world away from the Justice Department, who only come into things at the very end, mopping up after the damage and the deaths have been done.

As for Lynch’s artwork, it’s always a perfect treat to see his art on show, and he’s on fine form here. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, he’s got the spirit of Mick McMahon going on, all those fabulous angles (not to mention those magnificent Judge’s boots_ going on. Damn, it’s great artwork.

ROGUE TROOPER: TIDES OF WAR – PART 4 -ANDI EWINGTON AND PAUL MARSHALL, COLOURS BY PIPPA BOWLAND, LETTERS BY JIM CAMPBELL

With the not-so-good ship Dauntless limping badly, it’s time for Rogue and the Dauntless’s crew to find some kind of safe harbour, and there’s a refuge camp that might just be that. The refugees of New Forge might hate the Norts, but they’re not too keen on the Southers either. They’re part of the Nu Earth Resistance, loyal to neither side, just looking to end this damn war – but there’s little chance of that down here on Nu Earth.

Again, Ewington plays out the whole Hearts of Darkness/Apocalypse Now thing of the small group of warriors making their way upriver, and meeting the strange waifs and strays of the war along the way. It’s a classic template, one that translates so easily into the world of Rogue Trooper, and between them, Ewington and Marshall are giving us an excellent little isolated tale of war here.

We do get a little more on the mystery of the Iron Leviathan, a Nort superweapon, and the secret mission of one of the crew – again, very Apocalypse Now – something that could change the war in this sector for the Norts unless the mission to sink it is carried out.

It’s all moving along really nicely, a cracking little Rogue Trooper tale on a classic template, moved along so well by Marshall’s classic lines and tones, making this look and feel like Rogue Trooper of old, yet timeless.

GHOSTED: BOOK ONE: PART 6 – BY GUY ADAMS AND MEGAN HUANG. LETTERS BY SIMON BOWLAND

So far in Ghosted, we’ve had a mystery of the ghost soldiers put to war by the elite of Kinshasa, belying the myth of the utopia the African nation presents to the more well-to-do citizens who live a life of luxury and excess, never seeing the rot that lies beneath the society.

One of those elites is Benu, who’s now found herself deep in the mystery that is Ghosted. We’ve seen how the poor are snatched of the streets and brutally experimented on, implants turning them into fighting machines in the war against the alien enemy. Benu’s linked to another soldier in the war, the one who haunts her life and her dreams.

But now, just as things seemed to be playing out and showing us where this one’s going, we’re now off on a diversion. A man who’s obviously on the edge, something to do with ‘The Trust’ once more, as we follow this man in his psychosis-driven moments, all disjointed and strange – and suddenly we’re lost once more.

Who, what, why? We don’t know yet, but the thing with Ghosted is that it’s all about the mystery, the strangeness, the unpredictable, the way it plays out not meant to be easy and straightforward. And that’s to its credit, Adams not making it easy on us, playing things close to his chest, yet still giving us enough to get involved, wanting to know what’s going on here, enough given to us to fascinate, yet never made easy. It’s a story that makes you work at it, and I’m really enjoying the journey, with this latest episode merely adding to my questions about what the hell’s going on – it just gets better and better with every episode.

SILVER: BOOK TWO: PERFIDIOUS (PART 1) – PART 6 – BY MIKE CARROLL AND JOE CURRIE. LETTERS BY SIMON BOWLAND

The Baroness da Silva was meant to be the secret weapon of the resistance, the weapon that gives them the advantage over the alien Sepsis. It certainly worked out that way in the first mission. But here in Perfidious, as the resistance is on a mission to attack the Sepsis nursery, it’s all gone wrong. And the reason it’s all gone wrong is because of Louise Chamberlain, the unassuming but deadly collaborator of the Sepsis, trained in the ways of killing the vampire kind.

She’s done it before and it looks like she’s doing it to the Baroness right now – stripping away centuries of flesh to leave a pitiful husk of a thing. And here we find out just why she’s both so good at her job and why she’s so passionate about it. The Baroness has lived a long time, and it’s no wonder that she’s touched many a life along the way.

Again, Silver is a rollicking adventure that just doesn’t let up, Currie’s art perfect for all this, his Euro-line, thin and delightful, every moment we see just rather exquisite in the way he depicts it. But there’s also the fine way that Carroll has threaded so much into this one, alongside the plentiful action we get so much history given to us, with the intriguing tale of Louise Chamberlain’s connection with the Baroness just the latest of it. Silver’s one that just keeps getting better and better.

SCARLET TRACES: EMPIRE OF BLOOD – PART 1 – BY IAN EDGINTON AND D’ISRAELI, LETTERS BY ANNIE PARKHOUSE

Well, you may have already seen this one in the 2000 AD Free Comic Book Day comic the other week, but here it is again, heralding the start of a new Scarlet Traces series from Edginton and D’Israeli, something that seemed rather unlikely seeing as the last series, ‘Storm Front’, back in Prog 2261, seemed to be an ending to the brilliant series of perfect steampunk, imagining the world in the aftermath of HG Wells’ Martian invasion in War Of The Worlds.

In Scarlet Traces, we saw the Martian technology propel the British Empire of the Victorian era to untold heights. But Empire of Blood takes us right back to the beginnings, a prequel set before the original Scarlet Traces, in the aftermath of the initial Martian invasion.

Here, we open with Wells’ words, or at least Edginton’s version of them, two pages that introduce the series so well, showing us the Martian invasion of Earth, three months past in the narrative, tellng of the Martian’s being laid low by some Earth-born infection, and Britain taking that technology that so nearly overwehlmed them and utilising it.

But from there, we’re moved immediately to something more localised, more on the ground, as we zero in on the everyday folk of this world. And that’s two would-be bank robbers, utilising the chaos in the wake of the invasion to make a little cash. John Clay and Vincent Spaulding, unfortunate enough to be caught by a couple of coppers. But they’re all unfortunate enough to get caught up in what looks like a rogue Martian’s attack.

And so it begins, the latest Scarlet Traces full of all that made the long-running series so bloody good. Damn, it’s so good to have it back.