The Weekly 2000 AD Prog #2460: The Horror’s Back In Dredd

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.

Just four strips in the best sci-fi anthology there’s been for the past 48 years. But that means there’s a double-length finale to Red Dragon, ending what’s been a bloody great, and rather unexpectedly so, prequel/sequel to Grant Morrison and Steve Yeowell’s Zenith. Alongside that, we have the penultimate Brass Sun and another visit to Nu Earth in Rogue Trooper: Ghost Patrol. But leading all this off, we have a new Judge Dredd chiller from Ken Niemand and Nick Percival, following up from ‘The Shift’, and leading into something rather big coming in 2026, as we have the opening episode of the three-part ‘Messengers’.

All of it starts under a Nick Percival cover, just hinting at the horrors to come…

2000 AD Prog 2460 is out in the UK now. You folks in North America might be having a few problems getting hold of the four-weekly packs right now with the current upheavals in the market. However, you’ve got to trust me on this, you should absolutely seek it out. First steps, head to your local comic shop and see if they can still order it for you. If not, there’s always the digital option from the 2000 AD web shop. It’s Thanksgiving week in the USA, and here at Bruton Mansions, NV, we’re still resisting the whole idea of a Thanksgiving dinner where sweet potato with marshmallows is a thing. Nope, nope, nope. Some things are beyond the pale.

Anyway, time to head inside the latest Prog…

JUDGE DREDD: MESSENGERS – PART 1 – BY KEN NIEMAND AND NICK PERCIVAL, LETTERS BY ANNIE PARKHOUSE

So, we’re back with Niemand and Percival’s vision of Dreddworld as a horror story. We’ve seen it develop though ‘House on Bleaker Street’, ‘Iron Teeth’ and ‘The Shift’, where Dredd has been walking in the Undercity, discovering all manner of horrors, all tied into ‘The Oubliette,’ something we’re promised we’ll be getting a lot more of nect year, with this three-parter leading into it all, something described in the editorial as ‘a major mega-epic heading your way in 2026.’ We have promises that the Oubliette will be featuring in tales in both 2000 AD and the Judge Dredd Megazine before that.

So, horrors are coming in 2026, and we’ve got Messengers as the harbinger of that.

It all kicks off in 1650, Brother Jeremiah is battling dark forces that are taking townsfolks, and back in 2147, where Mega-City One stands where Brother Jeremiah’s town once sat, you’ve got the resonances of The Shift cropping up all over the place. Dredd’s seeing spectres from his recent past, while Rico and Giant are down in the undercity hunting down Shift cases.

And further down still, we have what used to be Iron Teeth, now a wretched thing, plus the twin threats of Psi-Judge InInviata and the decaying psychopath Judge Roche.

So far, just putting things in place, giving us the whole creepy vibe that Niemand and Percival’s tales always do. It seems it’s only going to get darker from here.

ROGUE TROOPER: GHOST PATROL – PART 11 – BY ALEX DE CAMPI AND NEIL EDWARDS, COLOURS BY MATT SOFFE, LETTERS BY JIM CAMPBELL

The hunt for Fob Azure continues, with Rogue and his merry little band are looking for the lost Souther base where they put together the Genetic Infantryman program.

Except the way Ghost Patrol works, we’re not going to be getting there without a few minor diversions along the way, just as all those classic Rogue Trooper tales used to do. So here, we have Rogue’s ship under attack from the Nort Sun Legion, or Norts on hang gliders to be more specific. After that, it’s off under the toxic sea in a ship that’s already springing leaks, straight into more trouble.

Yep, ‘Ghost Patrol’ is doing a very good impression of classic Rogue Trooper, as in there’s no deep meaning behind it all, it’s just one fight after another, one bit of weird war after another. And hey, that’s okay, sometimes a load of fun action stories thrown together in service to a bigger adventure works just fine.

BRASS SUN: PAVANE – PART 11 – BY IAN EDGINTON AND INJ CULBARD, LETTERS BY SIMON BOWLAND

Wren and Ariel are back on Hind Leg, where it all started for Wren, meeting up with the resistance to the Inquisitors, with Ariel delivering a data package… and you already know where this is going, don’t you?

Well, yes. But that’s not the point, really. The point here is the way it’s played out, the stylish art from Culbard now full of colours, all those beautifully imagined characters milling around, while Edginton gives us background on the resistance and how it’s been working away on the inside for many years. Again, it’s an episode where the action is all in the tension that develops, as we wait to see just how things are going to go wrong, as we know they will. The staging of Culbard’s panels turn what could have been another set of talking heads giving us exposition into a masterclass of dramatic moments.

And then we get the twist that was pretty obviously coming, and we get an idea of just how devious, just how ambitious Inquisitor Marshal Sybilla is…

So, resistance busted? Where will this leave poor Wren? And just what manner of devious plot twist will Sybilla be responsible for next?

All will be revealed, or possibly not, in the next episode. As I keep saying, there’s so much to love in Brass Sun. Firmly rooted in the pulps, but elevated by both the concepts we’re seeing here and the execution both Edginton and Culbard bring to things. It’s wonderful sci-fi, truly epic in scale, gloriously played out.

Oh, and the next episode is the final episode of this one. And without spoilering anything, it’s a fabulous finale, just as you’d expect.

RED DRAGON – PART 10 – FINAL PART – BY ROB WILLIAMS, STEVE YEOWELL, PATRICK GODDARD, COLOURS BY DYLAN TEAGUE, LETTERS BY SIMON BOWLAND

Yes, sadly, it’s the final part of this one, a strip that I initially worried might just be a simple prequel/sequel to Zenith, only to realise my fears were completely unfounded. This has been so much more, quite brilliantly done by all concerned.

Williams has given us something that’s absolutely a tale of a tragic character, one we already know dies within 20-odd pages of Zenith, one we know fell into alcoholism after retreating back to the Welsh valleys after being cast aside by his super-powered former colleagues in Cloud 9, who would, of course, end up being definitely on the wrong side of things come the end of Zenith. But here, in the twin threads, so perfectly done by Yeowell’s technicolour past and Goddard’s grim black and white present, we’ve truly seen the tragedy of Red Dragon, a man destroyed by his demons, by his circumstances, by his choices.

Here at the end, everything comes together so well, all the threads we’ve been following tied up nicely. And what we have is a perfectly downbeat ending, wrapping up this tale of a tragic hero. In the colour Yeowell-drawn sequence here, we see Siadwell realise just what his actions have led to, giving us an understanding of just how he changed from the classic hero to the overweight alcoholic we next see in the pages of Zenith. Whereas in the dour pages of the Welsh valleys, we see Siadwell’s legacy here in the valleys, something fittingly dour and defeatist, the hopes and dreams of the journalists imagining they could tell a grand tale of a Welsh hero coming to naught, just as that Welsh hero’s life, in the end, came to naught.

I’ll not spoiler any of it, it’s too good for that, it’s something you need to experience in the reading of it. Suffice it to say it’s so damn good, completely different from anything you could have imagined when this series was announced.