The Weekly 2000 AD Prog #2461: Rogue, Norts, Fight, Fight, Fight, And Fight Some More

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.

Again, just the four strips in the greatest sci-fi anthology out there, and it has been for the past 48 years. The double-length strip this Prog is the new strip, Deadtown, by David Barnett and Luke Horsman, where the newly resurrected find themselves housed in the Manchester enclave known as Deadtown.

But alongside that, we get the second episode of the short three-part intro to the big horror stuff happening next year from Ken Niemand and Nick Percival in Messengers. Plus, the latest in Rogue Trooper: Ghost Patrol, and the finale to the spectacular rebirth of Brass Sun – and it’s a shocker and no mistake!

And it all begins under a new Alex Ronald Rogue cover….

2000 AD Prog 2461 came out in the UK on 3rd December. Now, I could play smart and say this Weekly 2000 AD is late because there was an embargo on talking about what happens in the finale to Brass Sun until publication date, but no, I’m just late with it. Apologies.

Now, as I hear it, you good folks in the United States of Trump might be having a few problems getting hold of the four-weekly packs right now with the current upheavals in the direct market. However you get it, 2000 AD is so worth a read. Brilliant comics, week in and week out. And if you can’t get hold of a physical copy, head to the 2000 AD web shop and pick it up digitally.

Meanwhile, here in Bruton Mansions, Nevada, we’re in the weird lull between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Which means Mrs B is busy making fabulous Christmas dog coats for Mabel and seriously contemplating buying a Grinch tree to go along with the five other trees she’s planning on putting up this year.

But enough of that, time to head inside the latest Prog…

JUDGE DREDD: MESSENGERS – PART 2 – BY KEN NIEMAND AND NICK PERCIVAL, LETTERS BY ANNIE PARKHOUSE

Okay then, so we know that ‘Messengers’ is just a three-part intro tale to whatever big, nasty, horrific bit of terror that Niemand and Percival have got planned for 2026, we were told that in the editorial last Prog. It’s all been brewing for a while now, through all of these Niemand/Percival collaborations, ‘House of Bleaker Street’, ‘Iron Teeth’, and ‘The Shift’, with both of those fine creators gleefully bringing back some out-and-out horror to Mega-City One. We’ve been introduced to the strange happenings of the Undercity, seen Iron Teeth beaten down by Dredd, seen the twin threats of Psi-Judge Inviata and the decaying psychopath Judge Roche, and heard a hell of a lot about ‘The Oubliette’, something that’s going to be a huge thing next year.

But here in ‘Messengers’, we’re dealing with the history of the darkness that exists beneath the city, with this second episode opening, once more, with events in 1650, where Brother Jeremiah is in the Dark Forest, walking through the dark, walking along paths that will become the Undercity of Mega-City One. He talks of a power that’s been here before the immigrants arrived, ‘something ancient,’ something “that had been here before the first European came ashore, before the Indians found this place”. The Indians left it well alone, but whatever was under the ground of America was ‘waiting for the newcomers to arrive.’ And it’s just possible that Brother Jeremiah will become whatever it is that will threaten the Mega-City next year.

Meanwhile, in the Dark Forest, 2147 version, we have Dredd getting more visions from the Shift, hearing of how ones that look like him killed this vision, and she talks of “The Fathers’ (of the city), the Oubliette, the Black Tower,” all building towards the something big that’s brewing. And whilst Dredd’s getting all that, Rico and Giant have something nasty telling them of “The two heirs, the blood-brothers and the protege…” and how ‘Both will go into the Black Tower, but which one will come back out…?’

Oh yes, it’s all about building the threat, bringing us the horrors to come, and doing it really, really well. Messengers is doing exactly what it’s meant to do, immersing us in the darkness, filling us with the dread that’s coming. It’s all very, very good.

ROGUE TROOPER: GHOST PATROL – PART 12 – BY ALEX DE CAMPI AND NEIL EDWARDS, COLOURS BY MATT SOFFE, LETTERS BY JIM CAMPBELL

Well, things continue apace here in ‘Ghost Patrol’. Like I’ve been saying, De Campi and Edwards are playing this one old-school, echoing the structure of all those classic Rogue Troopers of times past, giving us an overarching quest story – here the hunt for Fob Azure, the lost Souther base where the GI program was made flesh – but then diverting things with mini episodes, all built to give Rogue something to hit. It’s a classic structure, and they’re doing it real well.

Right now, as they’re coming up on Fob Azure, Rogue and his little team, including Macinrow, who was there on the ground when the Quartz massacre happened, have a fishy problem, a real big fishy problem down here in the toxic seas of Nu Earth.

All of which gives Rogue the chance to head out into the underwater depths and do bad things to the big fish. Next episode, the Norts get involved, meaning there are more chances for Rogue to hit the bad guy.

Yep, classic Rogue, De Campi and Edwards giving us all the action we want from a Rogue tale, evoking the classics of the past, taking us who knows where by the end of this one. There’s nothing deep or complex here, but hey, that’s just fine.

DEADTOWN: PART ONE – EPISODE 1 – BY DAVID BARNETT AND LUKE HORSMAN, LETTERS BY SIMON BOWLAND

A double-length opener to a new series by Barnett and Horsman, all taking place in Manchester of 1998. But instead of the remnants of Brit Pop and Oasis tunes everywhere, we have the aftermath of a Russian satellite that crashed down into a cemetery and caused the resurrection of 3,000 dead folks. And now, five years on from the crash, those Revenants have been given rights through Parliament, most of them ending up in Deadtown, where the dead find new life. Or at least try to.

So yes, zombies given equal rights, walking amongst us, meant to be equals… it’s all introduced neatly on the first page, all of what I’ve just said right there, giving us the “in” to this new series. Of course, you can pass a bill, but that doesn’t mean that the living are going to accept the new regime. Or, like the copper says on page 1, ‘Bloody rights for dead people? World’s gone crackers.’

Anyway, it’s Day One for Detective Constable Bill Rook, one of the dead, now returning to duties as a Manchester cop after dying in 1958. He’s paired with DI Gayle Ewing… and it’s all a bit awkward…

Ewing’s got reasons for volunteering to be the dead cop’s new partner, something we see in the final pages of this one, personal reasons. But now, they’re off on their first case, happening right there in Deadtown, investigating the second death of Jimmy Pills.

All told, this is really well done, taking a simple premise and running with it, bringing in issues of prejudice and fear of the unknown, the immigrant issue brought to the page with a fantastical twist. So far, so good. And of course, it’s another chance to see what delights Horsman can bring to the page.

BRASS SUN: PAVANE – PART 12 – FINAL PART – BY IAN EDGINTON AND INJ CULBARD, LETTERS BY SIMON BOWLAND

Brass Sun is on its second life. The first one happened with such great style and invention when Edginton and Culbard made a fabulously inventive world come to life in the pages of 2000 AD, a killer concept of an entire solar system as a real-life, full-scale Orrery, a clockwork solar system of planets, moons, asteroids, orbiting the dying Brass Sun, connected with giant physical spars. Young Wren found herself thrown into a quest to restart the Brass Sun, encountering all manner of strange things along the way, beautifully done by both Edginton and Culbard, a spectacular bit of pulpy sci-fi, epic in scale.

But then there was a pause. Rather a long pause. A seven-year pause. Edginton got something like writer’s block on the story, and it seemed we wouldn’t get the continuation of the story we all needed to read.

Which brings us to Brass Sun’s second life. Instead of simply carrying on from the events in its first run, Edginton did the more difficult thing and brought the layoff into the story. As the years had passed between then and now, so had they in the world of Brass Sun. Things happened. Wren was lost, the quest abandoned, her heart broken by the death of her child.

All of which meant that this new Brass Sun gave us something new and different, a new quest for Wren, yet one that plays into all that happened to her in the interim. It was a perfect decision, giving real emotional heft to what we’re reading, even more so as the first episode of this new Brass Sun tale set things up as a retelling of a classic adventure in the past of a world where the Brass Sun was saved, where those living in its life-giving glow praised Wren as their saviour.

And then we were catapulted into the past, to this tale of Wren of the now, broken, drifting, to be propelled onto a new version of her quest as Ariel O’Connor scoops her up and brings her into the resistance to the Inquisitors and their mission to save the worlds, no matter what the human cost.

And that brings us to right now, the final episode, the one that 2000 AD embargoed until publication date. Because what happens in here is the thing that sets up the next series, and does it with a shocking bit of violence, a brutal death that will propel Wren further into the resistance. Ooops, it’s not Wren that dies, I’ve given that away already.

But despite the embargo having passed down to my lateness of getting this Weekly 2000 AD done, I’m not going to be spoiling what actually happens here. because some things need to be read to get the full impact. And trust me, it’s a moment, it really is. And shame on anyone who spoiled it.

As it is, the finale to Pavane gives us an ending that’s shocking and brutal, giving us a true villain, just as Wren gets to tell Septimus that their dead daughter, somehow, is still alive.

Like I say, I’m not sharing what happens, but if you’ve been reading these Weekly 2000 ADs, you’ll be able to work out just who that new villain is.

So, the end to the first series of Brass Sun Version 2. It has been everything and more than you/I could have hoped for. Edginton’s block appears gone, thank goodness, and we have all that epic sci-fi anew. Alongside him, Culbard’s art just shines through, as those of us who love what he does knew it would. It’s a masterclass of how to make anything, whether that’s pulp action sequences or talking heads, look vibrant and enthralling.

So, farewell to Pavane, it was a wonderful reintroduction to the world of Brass Sun. Now, we’ll just be counting down the days to the next series, Desolation Road.