Preview: ‘Sinister Dexter: Bulletopia’ — The Gun-Lovin’ Criminals Return To Collection After 20 Years

Sinister Dexter, one of 2000 AD‘s longest-running serials, gets a collection of the recently completed, series-transforming Bulletopia epic — expect the bullets to fly once more…

The exploits of one Finnigan Sinister and Ramone Dexter, as created by Dan Abnett and David Millgate back in 1995, is one of the longest-running of things in all of 2000 AD. And throughout that three decades plus, Abnett’s written every single episode, something well in excess of a thousand pages.

But, thanks to it’s highly episodic nature and the plentiful number of artists who’ve contributed over the many years, it’s one series that’s criminally under-collected. As far as I can work out, there’s maybe five collections in total before this. Which is just a drop in the ocean of a series this long. In fact, this one’s the first collection, I think, in 20 years.

Thankfully, we’re back now with ‘Bulletopia‘, a big collection of the last big Sinister Dexter storylines, bringing us pretty much up to date. And it’s a storyline where huge, huge things happen along the way, with the lives of Sinister and Dexter changing completely, and with the city of Downlode transformed into something very, very different to the place these particular gunsharks have lived and worked these past 35 years.

To catch you up in the world of Sinister Dexter is pretty easy, as the basic concept is beautifully simple. The essential elements of Sinister Dexter are that this pair are gun sharks (hitmen) in the strange city of Downlode, somewhere in Central Europe, in a near-ish future. Over the years, they’ve accepted many, many contracts, but always with their credo of no cops, no innocents.

That’s the basics: just two fun-lovin’ guys killing their way through Downlode with equal parts violence and comedy — because Dan Abnett’s got a wicked sense of humour and does love his puns, right there from the title, sinister and dexter being Latin for left and right of course. But the most joyous of all the puns come in the story titles, just a breathtaking peppering of silliness from the mind of Abnett. [As an aside, my favourites include ” … and ‘Death shall have no Dumb Minions’, ‘Waiting for God Knows’, ‘Sumo Enchanted Evening’, and ‘Watch with Motherfunter'”.]

But having that simple concept just means Abnett’s crafted something that allows him to hang a hell of a lot of complexity off, spinning tales off in unexpected directions, bringing in a big cast of characters, and above all, giving us all a damn good time along the way.

As an example of those complexities that have developed over the years, there’s the saga of Sin and Dex’s boss at times, the kingpin of Downlode, Holy Moses Tannenbaum. It all rather kicked off when they killed him as a job. But he’s come back many times since then — sometimes it’s clones, but, more importantly, many of them are alternate dimension versions of their former boss.

Here in ‘Bulletopia’, we’re right up to date, all this taking place after Finny and Ray have offed yet another version of Holy Moses, only to find out that killing that particular version from another dimension resets their continuum, meaning no one in Downlode now knows who the hell they are — oh, except for top quality hacker Billi, the younger sister of Demi Octavo, their Holy Moses’s ex-wife.

And that’s where ‘Bulletopia’ opens. The boys are still gun sharks, but they’re now carving out their trade without the fame that had grown up around them. But Downlode’s got a new boss now, as a particularly virulent nano-tech-powered Rogue AI has pretty much become the city now. Total control. Absolute funting control.

All of which propels us into ‘Bulletopia’. And things happen very, very fast in Sinister Dexter, due to the way Abnett writes the series in small chunks, often just two/three episodes in a story, all of them building up to the bigger narrative that runs the entirety of this book. But it sets the pace. And the pace is guns out, pedal to the metal fast. Funting fast.

Very quickly, the boys get to meet (all over again) Carrie Hosanna, Finegan’s ex-wife and Tracy Weld, the love of Ray’s life, neither of whom have a clue who they are. Well, not until Finegan gives the game away to a really confused Carrie…

In the first 40-odd pages of this 200-page collection, Abnett throws a huge curveball, something that not just shifts things around but completely transforms the series-long partnership in a way you just never imagined Abnett would ever imagine doing.

Although saying that, the one thing you should always keep in mind when it comes to Abnett is that there’s pretty much no hard left turn he won’t gleefully take us down.

I mean, you only have to look at where he went next after ‘Bulletopia’, veering off to the world of Azimuth. The collection of that one’s out later this year, with Abnett and Tazio Bettin creating someplace strange, dropping Dexter into a completely new world, much to the surprise of all reading it.

But that’s later. Right now, it’s back to Bulletopia, where bullets are funting flying…

Yeah, the whole switcheroo happens early on here — one of those what-the-funt moment that Abnett really does seem to be able to pull out of his hat at will. As it was only in the first quarter of the book, I did debate with myself all through writing this whether to give the game away, but decided against it, even though it’s just a particularly staggeringly good moment where you realise that there’s absolutely nothing that Abnett won’t throw at this series, no road he’s afraid to go down, and no status quo he won’t drive a funting car through.

What it does lead us to is a perfect set-up for the rest of Bulletopia, where things just never let up, never slow down, and we’re all off on one massive chase through so many bits of Downlode for Fin and Ray. The Rogue AI’s always there, ever-present, ever dangerous, and the race to escape Downlode is on.

As an introduction to the world of Sinister Dexter, ‘Bulletopia’ might seem like a strange choice, given all that happens in the early parts, given that it’s skipping over years of SinDex stories to collect this one from the last few years. But it’s actually perfect. It’s Abnett setting out his stall and then turning everything on its head, then going all out to keep the pace absolutely frenetic till the very end.

As such, it benefits so much from the choice of just three artists — Steve Yeowell, Nicolo Assirelli, and Tazio Bettin. Now, in the past, one of the downsides to Abnett writing it in short, punchy, episodic fashion was that there was never a definitive SinDex artist. More often than not, each short tale would get a new artist. Many of them are bloody great artists, it’s true (although by no means all), but the lack of artistic consistency hurts the thrust of the bigger saga.

Here, though, we open with Yeowell doing his thing, always so fine, simplicity in his layouts, minimal in his backgrounds, but so strong on the storytelling. Then it switches, and we welcome Nicolo Assirelli for a little while, another great artist, before it’s back to Yeowell for another few episodes. And then, brilliantly, bar the final episode in here where Yeowell returns for the final chapter, a coda of sorts, we have a hundred pages of Bettin. And Bettin’s absolutely wonderful here, really taking Abnett’s story, of that chase through Downlode and giving it life, going with every bizarre new locale or situation Abnett heads into and just bringing it to vibrant life.

Having just the three artists, and complementary artists at that, really grounds it all, gives it a cohesiveness that SinDex was all too often lacking in the past.

Suddenly, instead of collections that brought together any number of disparate little stories and so many artists, ‘Bulletopia’ sets Sinister Dexter off on a major storyline.

And it’s a bloody good major storyline at that. Fromstart to finish, it just rolls on and on, never letting up, particularly once we set off on the chase to escape the AI, Abnett and Bettin doing such great things. And finally, a big tip of the hat to Abnett for having the vision to see it all through and give us this, a bloody epic Sinister Dexter collection.

Sinister Dexter: Bulletopia, written by Dan Abnett, features art by Steve Yeowell, Tazio Bettin and Nicola Assirelli. John Charles and Matt Soffe provide the colours while Jim Campbell, Simon Bowen and Annie Parkhouse handle the lettering.

Originally published in 2000 AD Progs 2184-2186, 2194-2195, 2198-2200, 2210-2211, 2241-2245, 2247-2248, 2258-2262, 2281-2283, 2289-2294, 2297-2299.

Now, a little preview of bits of Bulletopia, first, the opening part from Steve Yeowell…

Next, Nicolo Assirelli art from a little bit further on…

And finally, Tazio Bettin art from after the big switcheroo and once the race to escape the AI is on…