The Weekly 2000 AD Prog 2440: Back On The Streets Of The Bizarre & Wonderful Azimuth

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.

Yes, 48 years young and 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, more South-Am action in Judge Dredd: Tunnels, more Victorian steampunk thrills in Scarlet Traces. We bid farewell to the latest Tharg’s 3Riller, Far Below Eden, and say hello to Dan Abnett and Tazio Bettin‘s weird and wonderful mystery that is Azimuth as it returns for the new series, Abandoned by God. Plus, there’s a brand-new strip starting this week, TC Eglinton and Steven Austin‘s The Ravilious Pact, where London gangland nastiness meets occult nightmares.

All of it kicks off under an Azimuth cover by Tazio Bettin…

2000 AD Prog 2440 is out in the UK on 9 July. As always, you’ll have a harder time finding it if you’re in the Americas – might I suggest popping into your local comic shop and asking them very nicely if they can order it for you? A belated 4th of July to all you Americans reading this. Sure, things might look like they’re going to hell in a hand cart, but it can’t last forever. Right? Right?

But anyway, time for a quick spin through this weeks Prog…

JUDGE DREDD: TUNNELS – PART 2 – BY ROB WILLIAMS AND RM GUERA ,COLOURS BY GIULIA BRUSCO, LETTERS BY ANNIE PARKHOUSE

Last week, with the start of this second action-packed thing from Williams and Guera, following their first, bloody excellent Rend & Tear With Tooth & Claw, we got to see Dredd on a mission down in Ciudad Barranquilla, South-Am’s Mega-City, a place where corruption is the norm. He was down there, getting thoroughly ambushed, in his search for ‘Silva’.

Now, we head back in time two weeks prior, back into Mega-City One, where there’s a Wally Squad Judge, long thought dead, who’s turned up, wanting to talk to Dredd. He’s checked out as Judge Parker Skowronski, but Dredd doesn’t recognise him. But he’s just one of the mysteries in this one….

But while Dredd’s chasing ghosts, Skowronski’s on the loose and ripping through the Sector House with a gun he’s just pulled out of his guts. Gruesome? Oh yes, but so bloody perfectly captured by Guera and Brusco…

Anyway, shades of Arnie blasting his way through the police station in T2 be damned, this is just one that’s kicked off twice now. First we had the explosive ambush in part 1 down in Ciudad Barranquilla, now we get this maybe ex-Wally Squad turning on his own in part 2. Yes, Williams, Guera, and Brusco do a fine, fine line in action.

But there’s a hell of a lot more to it than that. We’re so full of questions at the end of these first two parts, and that’s just adding to the enjoyment of this one.

THE RAVILIOUS PACT – PART 1 – BY TC EGLINGTON AND STEVEN AUSTIN, COLOURS BY JOHN CHARLES, LETTERS BY SIMON BOWLAND

London, 2025. We have Jason Ravilious as an enforcer for the Boucher mob, one of London’s most feared gangster groups. Except they’re more than your ordinary gangsters, these are mob boys with an occult twist, connected to the demonic entities that have aided them in expanding their criminal empire. And it’s all ruled over by the Boucher patriarch Archie. The trouble is, Archie’s dying, and there’s debts to be collected and power to be transferred.

So, organised crime meets occult nastiness. But it all starts off so sedately, just your average family in suburbia, a dad and daughter bonding over an injured bird, mom demanding they put it in the shed as it’s not coming in the house. The daughter off to school with Mom, Dad off for the 8.00 am commute to work.

But by the turn of the page, we’re into someplace different, as Dad’s work involves beating the crap out of some guy for the Bouchers. Yes, Jason Ravilious’s life is far from the suburban pastoral lie sold to us on page 1.

Next it’s off to see Archie Boucher, the mob boss who’s finally on the way out, cancer eating him up, his kid, Todd, not handling it well…

But when the head of the biggest crime family in London pops off, everyone knows, especially Archie, just what a power vaccuum there’s going to be. His last wish is that Ravilious looks after his boy, keeps the Bouchers as the rule of law here. Except his boy has his own ideas for what he wants to do with the family, and it’s no doubt not going to be a good thing. Families, eh?

And then comes the magic bit of this one, with Jason off to get the lowdown on another magical artefact, another powerful occult trinket to keep the Boucher’s on top. It takes a demon summoning and another deal done to get the location.

And that’s the start of The Ravilious Pact. And it’s a damn fine start indeed. Sure, the crime meets magic idea isn’t a new one, but that’s immaterial; it’s how it’s done that sets this one up as one that could well be really good going on how well this first episode works. Austin’s art is great for this, realistic enough, nasty enough to make this one look good, and Eglington’s done a fine job in just this first part, bringing us into the world of Jason Ravilious and making us want to see just where it’s going to go.

THARG’S 3RILLERS: FAR BELOW EDEN – PART 3 – FINAL PART – BY ALAN KERR AND IAN RICHARDSON, COLOURS BY PIPPA BOWLAND, LETTERS BY SIMON BOWLAND

Part 3 of a Tharg’s 3Riller, where everything wraps up and we get either a twist in the tale or the potential setup for another series. With Far Below Eden, it’s the former, as Kerr tells a neatly done, fast-paced finale of alien invasion – just this time, the invaders are us.

We’ve seen biologist Kimura as part of the Earth team looking for a new planet to take the place of a dying home, thinking they’ve found it in this seemingly perfect planet they’re on.

Except, as those first couple of pages below tell you, this is far from ideal. There’s a war they had no concept of going on, a war between the megaflora and a fungal interloper, and the small human team have become mere pawns in that war, as Kimura, to her horror, is about to figure out.

It started off a bit hmmm, but it’s improved as it’s gone on, and this final few pages ends it all suitably neatly, Kerr writing a neat little self-contained story of horrors and alien life and how easy humanity could fall. Alongside Kerr, Richardson’s art has given it a solid, physical sense of reality and grounding, despite the big sci-fi themes we’re dealing with.

All in all, not bad, not bad at all. A three-parter that does the job well enough.

AZIMUTH: ABANDONED BY GOD – PART 1 – BY DAN ABNETT AND TAZIO BETTIN, COLOURS BY MATT SOFFE, LETTERS BY JIM CAMPBELL

Well, Azimuth started a while back now. We’ve had plenty of tales already, beginning with our introduction to this strange, data-driven mystery world with A Job for Suzi Nine, introducing us to this world, introuding us to Suzi Nine Millimetre, a cadavatar, given missions by her Lords of the New Flesh masters. It was a stunning opening series, Abnett and Bettin creating a whole new world of strangeness, where we, the reader, were never sure what would come next.

And never more so when next, The Stranger, dropped one Ramone Dexter, one half of Sinister Dexter, gun sharks of Downlode, into Azimuth. Dexter’s on the run from the rogue AI that’s taken over Downlode, taken over his former partner. Dexter’s perhaps the much prophesised Stranger who’s been plaguing the dreams of the Lord of the New Flesh. It was a completely unexpected twist, one Abnett and Bettin pulled off so well. Downlode and Azimuth are connected in ways we’re not yet fully aware of, but it’s the big mystery that drives this one.

And from there, we went into The Fabled Basilisk, complete with one Psi-Judge Cassandra Anderson. Yes, another twist and then some. Not the Anderson we all know, perhaps, but a very familiar Anderson nonetheless. Again, Abnett just throwing in a curveball and letting us all deal with it.

And that brings us to Abandoned by God. Same Azimuth, same Suzi-Nine, same Lords of the New Flesh. But so many threads to explore, so many possibilities and, oh boy, so many questions.

But they’re all damn good questions. Azimuth’s the sort of strip where the mystery and the tease is all part of what makes it so good. We’re desperate to know what the Azimuth-Downlode connection is, really need to figure out just what Dexter’s role in it all is, intrigued (and then some) about just who/what/how this version of Anderson is. And that’s just a little of what all the mysteries of Azimuth promise us.

It’s been a perfect series thus far, Bettin’s art going to another level, a perfect match for the themes and big, strange ideas that fill this strip.

As for where we’re at with Abandoned by God, it’s back to Suzi-Nine, last seen utilising a mysterious key fob to access the Shadowban Domain, where Lord Killfile is recruiting Cadavators like her. Again, loads of questions here, a little link to Sinister Dexter along the way, and then we’re deep into a labyrinth, perfectly done by Bettin, including another little mystery, as Suzi-Nine meets a woman who could be her in another life/another world.

Who knows? Well, Abnett knows for sure, but he’s constructed this one to be multi-layered, with every layer just posing more questions. Questions I’m eagerly awaiting answers to, but also really enjoying the ride to get to those answers.

As we leave this first episode, with Lord Killfire introducing Suzi-Nine to even more of his fellow Lords of the New Flesh, all of whom seem to believe that Suzi’s the key to Azimuth’s survival… ‘a way to win our war with the impossible outside.’

Yep, Azimuth’s back, and it’s a really good thing that it is.

SCARLET TRACES: EMPIRE OF BLOOD – PART 9 – BY IAN EDGINTON AND D’ISRAELI, LETTERS BY ANNIE PARKHOUSE

Some strips in 2000 AD race along. Some meander. Scarlet Traces is definitely, at least for Empire of Blood, one that’s meandering. But please, don’t take that as being a bad thing, not when it’s done with such skill and style as Edginton and D’Israeli are doing here.

Because the art of the slow build is something that’s rarely done in comics these days. It’s all too fast, always looking to get to the next big splash page, the next big fight, the next big event. Thankfully, 2000 AD, with its hunger for new strips each week, the weekly schedule meaning that there’s space for such a variety of material. And Empire of Blood, this Scarlet Traces prequel that takes us back to the days in the immediate aftermath of the failed Martian invasion of England, is a perfect example of just how good it can be to have something play out so perfectly slowly in front of you.

We’re nine parts into this, and so many things have been unfolding along the way. Like I say, we’re in the world of England just after the failed Martian invasion of HG Wells’s War Of The Worlds, a fertile soil for ideas that Edginton and D’Israeli have already transformed into an epic in the existing Scarlet Traces. But here, it’s all very much a small-scale thing, little storylines playing out that just have that sense of building up to something bigger, all of it slowly, perfectly, playing out.

We’ve seen Detective Sergeant Bey investigating a series of strange robberies. We’ve seen the German spies infiltrating the secret English bases created to utilise, cannibalise, and create the new British Empire that we’ve seen fly to the stars in the future. And we’ve seen a Martian, doing who knows what, deep under London.

And now, we’re back with Bey, and his ever-present Constable Stranks, headed into Scotland Yard and a meeting with Chief Superintendent Alleyn. Except Alleyn’s meeting with someone else, a Doctor Davenport Spry, chair of Her Majesty’s Uncivil Service, meaning that we’ve now got the makings of a conspiracy of powerful forces in the Government directly interfering with Bey’s investigations. As Bey’s about to discover…

So yes, Empire of Blood might be a slow one, but it’s a damn fine slow one. Every storyline important, every thread to what’s going on to make the bigger picture slowly being pulled together so expertly by Edginton and D’Israeli.

Of course, we shouldn’t be surprised at that at all. After all, Messers Edginton and D’Israeli have been working on this, doing grand things in the realms of Victorian era steampunk adventures for so long in Scarlet Traces that they’ve got everything here completely under control.

This is a perfect example of just how much variety and diversity you can find, week in and week out, in 2000 AD. Empire of Blood is just the most brilliant example of when slow works so much better than explosive and immediate, where a story allowed to play out in its own time can deliver somethng so enthralling.