The Weekly 2000 AD Prog 2445: The Burning Man Wants You In The Ravilious Pact

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, coming up to five decades of publishing, 2000 AD continues to deliver the best sci-fi anthology around – it’s long past time you decided to take the plunge!

This week, it’s another four continuations and a one-off. Continuing, we have the quite brilliant Judge Dredd: Tunnels, onto its penultimate part, full of all the action and intrigue we’ve come to expect thus far. Plus, there’s that rather terrifying new demonic entity from the cover making an appearance in the pages of The Ravilious Pact, more strange sci-fi on the streets of Azimuth as Dexter and the Lords of the New Flesh come face to face, and things in Scarlet Traces get explosive as things all come to a head. As for the one-off, it’s another Nu Earth War Tale, with Gordon Rennie and Peter Doherty, back on art in the Prog after 10 years away, telling a tale that’s very close to home.

All that kicks off over a typically brilliant cover from Simon Davis…

2000 AD Prog 2445 is out in the UK on 13th August. If you happen to be a 2000 AD fan in the Americas, things are slightly difficult, as the Progs get bundled up into four-week packs and sold that way. Which means they’re a little harder to come by. Best thing to do, because, as you know, it’s well worth you seeking it out, is to have a word at your local comic shop, and they should be able to order it for you. Well, we think we finally managed to triumph in the ant wars here at Bruton Mansions, NV. The anteater did the job and we’re hopeful they’re not coming back. Trouble is, we’ve now got the anteater refusing to leave. Oh, the struggles of modern life, eh?

But anyway, time for a quick spin through this weeks Prog… but not before RM Guera‘s latest moment of chin-action from the Dredd: Tunnels saga….

JUDGE DREDD: TUNNELS – PART 7 – BY ROB WILLIAMS AND RM GUERA ,COLOURS BY GIULIA BRUSCO, LETTERS BY ANNIE PARKHOUSE

Like I keep saying, this one’s turned into my favourite Dredd of the year so far, a perfect mix of loads of really staggeringly well done action, perfectly choreographed by Guera, ably assisted by Brusco’s colours and Parkhouse’s letters, a nd a sense of everything that happens having some import to the future of Dredd.

But, like I’ve said, although the political element is there in the mix, this one’s mostly about just how good an action tale Williams and Guera are spinning here, just Dredd and a gun in a hostile country versus all that the combined forces of the Democracy fighters of Total War, who’ve really stepped up their campaign against a Mega-City One they perceive, rightly, to be at its weakest.

So, Dredd walks into the jungle, following a trail of the dead, Total War having found that there are plenty of even worse killers deep in the jungles here. And finally, we get the tunnels of the title… because you knew there’d have to be tunnels at some point, right?

And its down in those tunnels that he finds Skowronski, a prisoner of the tribe down in these tunnels. And from then on, it’s just one more fight. As Dredd puts it, to end this episode… ‘Figures.’

Unbelievably, this is the penultimate part of ‘Tunnels’. And that’s just a damn shame. Because I could have read many, many , many more episodes of this one. Williams’s tight writing and dialogue, always overlaid with that sense of ominous dread, where the captions of Dredd’s inner monologue are just so perfectly done.

Then, of course, there’s the artwork. Which is just simply sublime. Guera doing really incredible things, his art equal parts lush in the jungle scenes and really nastily gritty in the depiction of the brutal fight scenes. Truly, a perfect bit of action Dredd.

THE RAVILIOUS PACT – PART 6 – BY TC EGLINGTON AND STEVEN AUSTIN, COLOURS BY JOHN CHARLES, LETTERS BY SIMON BOWLAND

So, we’re deep into this tale of mobsters with a demonic bent, the Boucher family ascending to the top of the London crime pyramid by making pacts with demons to advance their position. Jason Ravilious was the trusted enforcer of old man Boucher. Now, following the old man’s death, hastened by power-hungry and somewhat unhinged Todd, son of the old man. he’s just struggling to find his place in the new regime.

We’ve had the revelation that all this demonic manipulation and possession is causing cancers in the hosts. That Pact really does seem to be, surprise, surprise, a bad idea.

Here, we’re catching up with Jason’s ne’er-do-well brother-in-law, Lee, the latest to be possessed by the demon Ba’laal, for a quick pint, one interrupted by the shadowy flame demon seen on the cover, one only Lee can see, one he talked to when possessed.

Once you get past the backwards writing (a mirror helps), you get the knowledge that there’s rare communications between realities, mirror realities existing where they can view the future thanks to the mirror reality running backwards. And all of this is tied into Ba’laal somehow.

So much to unpack in just a few panels, opening up the events of The Ravilious Pact, all that demonic possession now open to questions about whether it’s not just demons but beings from someplace else. And you thought this was just a simple thing of demonic-assisted mobsters when it started? I know I did.

Meanwhile, back in this reality, back to the simple (yeah, right) tale of Jason Ravilious, we have his latest encounter with Todd, just proving what a psychopathic little shit he is, one whose lust for power is going to bring the London gangs to war, and one he really seems to be relishing.

Todd’s confronted with the whole cancer thing, and it’s not a surprise to him. In fact, Todd’s now in possession of a talisman old man Boucher reckoned could keep him safe, a talisman he wanted Jason to have.

Things… well, let’s just say they don’t go well.

Yep, this one keeps getting better and better, as we descend down into the rabbit hole. Eglington and Austin sure are giving us plenty to get involved in here, plenty that’s just a load of fun, intriguing, increasingly complex, and really good reading.

AZIMUTH: ABANDONED BY GOD – PART 6 – BY DAN ABNETT AND TAZIO BETTIN, COLOURS BY MATT SOFFE, LETTERS BY JIM CAMPBELL

When it comes to Azimuth, the whole thing’s just Dan Abnett playing with us. And that’s fine. If I’m going to be played with, someone as talented and clever as Abnett might as well do it. So, it’s all about Azimuth, this tech world full of so much strangeness. Into this world governed by the Lords of the New Flesh came Ramone Dexter, one half of Downlode’s finest gunshark crew, Simister Dexter. Downlode’s been taken over by a rogue AI recently, and it appears that Azimuth, in some way, in some form, IS downlode, reimagined by that self-same rogue AI.

So far, so complex. Add into this the fact that we’ve got what appears to be some form of Judge Anderson here as well, and things get really screwy. But screwy in a damn good way. Screwy in a way where every step along the way fills me with fascination, makes me question everything.

Here, we have Dexter, as we saw at the end of the last episode, coming face-to-face with a familiar name from his past in Downlode…

That’s Tracy Weld, once in love with Ramone, back on Downlode. Now, she’s Crazy Hate, full of rewired necrotech that’s turned that love into hate, murderous hate.

Into this, we get Suzi Nine and her army of white wearers, meaning Dexter and the Lords of the New Flesh get together at last. There’s truth-telling and resurrection, all wrapped up in all of Bettin’s fabulous artwork.

Azimuth is next-level strange. So much going on, so much to unpack, yet also a really great sci-fi romp with great art from Bettin to sell it to you.

SCARLET TRACES: EMPIRE OF BLOOD – PART 14 – BY IAN EDGINTON AND D’ISRAELI, LETTERS BY ANNIE PARKHOUSE

Well, at the end of the last episode of this latest bit of Eginton and D’Israeli’s great Scarlet Traces epic, we had things rather come to a head.

We’d had 13 episodes where the multiple story strands all played out so well, so languidly, a perfect case of a writer and artist knowing just what they were doing. But of course they did, after all, Eginton and D’Israeli have been telling us tales from the world of Scarlet Traces for decades now, an expansion on HG Wells‘s War of the Worlds, creating an epic saga of the expanding British Empire, powered by captured and repurposed Martian tech, that we’ve followed into the stars. Now, with Empire of Blood, we’re dropped right back into things just after the Martian invasion of England had been defeated.

We’ve seen Inspector Bey investigating strange crimes all seemingly coming from underground, the German spying mission tasked with claiming Martian tech for their own, and we’ve had glimpses of a Martian war machine dormant underground.

Well, that Martian war machine, as of the last page of the last episode, is dormant no longer…

All of which leads us into this episode, where we’re no longer in the languid part of Scarlet Traces, brilliant though that was. No, here, it’s all action, beautifully done, as the Martian breaks the surface, as Bey and the Germans both come under attack, joining forces against the alien threat, one that leaves things aflame, with little hope for Bey but to take a leap into the unknown.

If ‘Empire of Blood’ thus far was slow – briliantly slow of course – this is explosive, sudden, an explosion of action, perfectly shown by D’Israeli in both art and colour, every page awash with fiery oranges, the heat palpable as you’re reading. D’Israeli’s one of those artists who rarely gets the acclaim he’s due, but there’s simply nothing he can’t do, and nothing he can’t do so very, very well.

NU EARTH WAR TALES: THE LAST DAYS OF FORT NEUROPA – BY GORDON RENNIE AND PETER DOHERTY, LETTERS BY PETER DOHERTY

More tales of Nu Earth here, the occasional – well, more than occasional, but given that there’s a new Rogue Trooper animated movie out this year, that’s hardly a surprise, is it?

But these Nu Earth War Tales do give writers, and thus far it’s mostly been Rennie, a chance to play in the rich storytelling field of the war between the Norts and the Southers, something that’s always been there in the background to Rogue’s tale.

Here, we’re going way, way back. Back to Nu Earth before it became the irradiated nightmare world of war. Well, at least for one panel. But that vison of utopia soon gives way to the now, where the beauty of Neuropa City have transformed into Fort Neuropa, under siege by the Greater Nordland Republic, saved from destruction only by its energy shield, besieged for years now.

We’re deep into the personal, the audio journal of Winston Donee, medical officer of Nu-Dover, Anglo Sector, giving us a glimpse of the origins of Nu Earth that I’d never really thought of before. But it’s obvious really, Nu Earth? Well, it’s Earth, isn’t it? Of course it is, all those fascistic Norts, all the resonance with Earth politics. Is this the first time it’s been writ large this way? I don’t know, my knowledge of Rogue Trooper is limited, but I think it might be.

Anyway, as Winston’s diaries progress, he talks of people going crazy, we see the various factions of the Southers under siege come together to discuss what’s happening, an idea that nationhood is somehow less here, where the combined forces of these Southers can prevail. A union of nations under their Souther banner, a union of nations coming together. But, in the face of paranoia and Nort attacks, can this really succeed?

By its end, it’s all turned, rather well, into a very politically on the nose bit of sci-fi, in the way that all the best sci-fi reflects the world we’re living in. And this really does, perhaps too obviously in its end, reflect all that’s going on in Britain today.