The Weekly 2000 AD Prog 2452: Anderson Descends Into The Mists Engulfing Mega-City One

Taking a look inside the UK’s greatest sci-fi comic, the Galaxy’s Greatest, fast approaching 50 years of brilliance — it’s the Weekly 2000 AD.

Five strips, five really, really damn good strips this week. You’ve got a rather brilliant Judge Dredd by Rob Williams and Henry Flint, ‘And To The Sea Return‘, all chilling and spooky. Then there’s the psychedelic delights of the truly alien adventures of Void Runners, the incredible worldbuilding that I never thought we’d be reading of Brass Sun, and the classical sci-fi war tales of Rogue Trooper in Ghost Patrol. And finally, we have the second part of the prequel/sequel to Zenith, one of those rare 2000 AD superhero tales, with Red Dragon, focusing tightly on the doomed Welsh hero who we last saw in 1987.

Oh yes, five tales, all indicative of just how 2000 AD has always been the best sci-fi anthology for getting on for five decades now. Five strips, all completely different, all quite brilliant in their own way. Seriously, why aren’t you reading this?

It all begins under Mike Dowling‘s cover of Anderson imperilled due to those strange mists rolling in from the Black Atlantic in the Dredd tale, ‘And To The Sea Return‘…

2000 AD Prog 2452 is out in the UK now. As always, if you’re in the Americas, things are more difficult. You should really get down to your local comic shop and ask them to order the four-weekly bundles. You really won’t regret it.

Anyway, time to take a peek inside…

JUDGE DREDD: AND TO THE SEA RETURN – PART 3 – BY ROB WILLIAMS AND HENRY FLINT, LETTERS BY ANNIE PARKHOUSE

At the very edge of the Black Atlantic, things are getting strange and spooky for Dredd and Anderson. They’re investigating both the disappearance of The Barge, home to over 11.000 perps cubed onboard, and the mystery mist engulfing the City.

In the first page, we get this glorious bit of Williams introspection, Dredd’s thoughts telling us a sorry tale, one we saw Williams use in the previous tale, Tunnels, pointing out that Mega-City One and the Justice Department just isn’t the all-powerful force it used to be. You can hear the grim regret in those captions, Dredd admitting what he knew to be true…

But that’s merely a little interlude here, with Williams doing low-key political stuff that he’s so good at, plus, you can’t help thinking all this is playing into the bigger picture that Williams has been building through his Dredds.

Anyhow, on to the meat of this one, as the horrors engulfing this long-neglected part of MC-1 reveal themselves. And suitably horrific they are too, something Anderson’s only beginning to realise, as she digs deeper into why and how the mists have not just knocked out the comms and the tech, but also are damping her psi-powers. According to the very fishy-looking Enoch, it’s all to do with the black worms…

Now that line: ‘Oh, that’s easy. It’s because they are already inside you,’  – that’s a proper chill down the spine moment and then some.

It’s all very folk horror, Lovecraftian, infused with the old legends of the sea, and it’s very, very, very good indeed. Made all the better with Flint’s artwork, capturing so well the sickly green tone that’s infected all here. Perfect stuff.

RED DRAGON – PART 2 – BY ROB WILLIAMS, STEVE YEOWELL, PATRICK GODDARD, COLOURS BY DYLAN TEAGUE, LETTERS BY SIMON PARKHOUSE

Like I said last episode, I was initially wary of them bringing back one of the supporting cast from the now nearly 40 years old Zenith, that pop art superhero series by Grant Morrison and Steve Yeowell. Well, that wariness soon left me, as Williams, Yeowell, and Goddard have seamlessly eased into the vibe of Zenith here, celebrating what came before but putting their own twist on things.

As the title tells you, it’s all about the rather throwaway supporting cast member, one Siadwell Rhys, the Welsh superhero Red Dragon, whose entire tale was told, from initial intro as a washed-up, alcoholic has been hero finding redemption and a quick death at the hands of the Many-Angled Ones, the Lloigor – just 20 short pages from intro to end, but one that cemented the character as a fan-favourite.

Now, though, we’re in a tale that explores the legacy of the hero, what it means to be a powerful pyrokinetic in the heady counter-cultural days of the 60s, where Brit hero supergroup Cloud 9 have broken free from their military handlers and embraced the spirit of the times. And doing that exploration is journalist Martin Howe, still mourning his wife, dragged into the notion of writing something on Red Dragon now that a new generation have discovered his old books on Zenith.

Red Dragon switches between the now of Howe’s research trip to Wales, all done in suitably grim black and white by Goddard, and flashbacks to the technicolour, hopeful hues of the ’60s given to us by Yeowell.

As Howe’s miserablist voiceover for the first three pages, set against typically grim Welsh weather, tells us, there’s so much uncertainty over what actually happened with those surviving members of Cloud 9 – of course, we’ve seen what happened in Zenith – but this is a look at things from the world of humanity. And they have no idea of where they went after they announced a new program to assume guardianship of the planet. And now he’s back in Siadwell Rhys’s home, somewhat unnerved by the graffiti…

And following that, we’re back to the sixties just in time to see Red Dragon, the youthful, powerful hero Rhys once was, do a little bit of PR and a little bit of hero stuff, all the while being watched by those in Cloud 9 who have plans of their own…. and, as you’ll know from Zenith, those plans don’t consider humanity any more than cattle.

Yep, all wariness has gone, this one works perfectly as an adjunct to the essential Zenith series – and it is essential, do yourself a favour and go read it if you haven’t already, you won’t be disappointed.

VOID RUNNERS: BOOK TWO – PART 3 – BY DAVID HINE AND BOOK COOK, LETTERS BY ANNIE PARKHOUSE

So, former lackey for the Ankorites, the glittering celebration of personhood and freedom that is Captain Alice Shikari, is on a mission to free the enslaved peoples of the Federation.

This is how Shikari thought it would go…

And this is how it’s going down on Rigel-16, where the enslaved servant race, the Manjukak, are having doubts…

Meanwhile, the Ankorites are putting their own devious plans into place on Rigel-16, dealing with the masters of this world, the Prima.

So, it’s psychedelic good versus evil empire bad. Sure, it’s a simple enough concept for Void Runners, but that’s never been the point. It’s all about the sheer exuberant otherness of this one that makes it such a blast. Hine’s leaning into the trippiness, giving us huge galactic otherness in spades. And in Cook, we’ve got an artist who can truly deliver all of Hine’s strange ideas of the alien nature of all this, whilst adding in plenty of his own ideas of how to go over the top on the strangeness. Yep, perfectly suited to writer and artist, both of whom, you can tell, are enjoying putting this one together as much as I’m enjoying reading it.

BRASS SUN: PAVANE – PART 3 – BY IAN EDGINTON AND INJ CULBARD, LETTERS BY SIMON BOWLAND

Okay, one last time, I promise, it’s such a joy to have Brass Sun back after all this time away. I genuinely never thought we’d be seeing this continuation, so it’s a pleasure to have it here.

The concept of Brass Sun was always one I’d look at in wonder, the very idea of having a whole world, a solar system that’s mechanically-based, a physical orrery scaled up to full scale, where the worlds exist, circling around the dying brass sun of the title, all connected by huge metal spars. But once you move past that, it was the characters that gave the series life, none more so than poor little Wren, the lost child who’s forced through circumstance to take on a mission to save it all.

Well, that was then. That was many years ago. And that’s where this new series really takes off, the idea that, as in real life, things have moved on many years in this world as well. Gone is the Wren we knew, and now we have Wren the young woman, the still grieving mother, who’s now taken up her mission once more. It’s Brass Sun in style and tone, but the tale has moved on. And then there’s the reveal, right there in episode 1 of Pavane, that, in the future, looking back, we discover that it all worked out just fine – the death of the Brass Sun was averted, and the legend of Wren is something that generations tell their children about. It’s a masterstroke of plotting that Edginton and Culbard have done this, and it gives what we’re reading now an extra edge.

So, we’ve reintroduced ourselves to this world, we’ve seen the now adult Wren begin a new round of adventures, so it’s about time we caught up with her once love, father of her child, Septimus. He long ago went back to the Prime Numbers order to lead the Enginemen. He’s now, as his love puts it, ‘The mighty Inquisitor Pontifex Septimus,’ those titles creating in us an idea that he’s not one of the good guys. But, he’s still trying to do all in his power to save the worlds from the catastrophe. And his new love has news of Wren.

So, the new threads are being drawn together, the pieces in place, in this new/old world of Brass Sun. As I keep saying, damn, it’s so good to have it back.

ROGUE TROOPER: GHOST PATROL – PART 3 – BY ALEX DE CAMPI AND NEIL EDWARDS, COLOURS BY MATT SOFFE, LETTERS BY JIM CAMPBELL

Last time, I talked of how the shift between the then of the massacre of the Genetic Infantymen, leaving Rogue as the sole survivor, and the now, 10 years later, with Souther veteran, Gordon Macinrow, being taken back to Nu Earth, wasn’t clear, leading to an unfortunate break in the tale for me.

Here though, it’s all a lot better. We open with Macinrow and his fellow Southers witnessing the massacre, seeing the GIs massacred, witnessing Rogue rescue his three fallen comrades that become Gunnar, Helm, and Bagman, and then shifting, via the old trope of memories clearly shown, to Macinrow making planetfall on Nu Earth, part of that group here to investigate what happened to Sergeant Huxley, one of Macinrow’s fellow soldiers in the war, now mysteriously disappeared.

Macinrow’s no fool, knows he’s here for something more than was advertised. What that is, he (and we), don’t know as yet.

But, after a couple of episodes where it was a little too nebulous and difficult – or perhaps that was just me? – things have picked up here. The divisions of then and now are clear, the initial sequences of the then, the massacre, the establishing of the legend of Rogue, are beautifully done by Edwards, really showing us history in the making. But once that’s done, there’s the real story here, the mystery of just what the hell they’re doing back here, a decade on. And it’s that mystery we’ll be exploring in the episodes to come. And that’s just absolutely fine with me.