The Weekly 2000 AD Prog #2477: The Baroness Is Back And Blood Will Be Spilled In Silver

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.

Right then, back to the usual-sized Prog this week after the bumper-sized jumping-on Prog of last week. Although, as I said then, every single week is a jumping-on Prog, that’s the joy of 2000 AD. Every week gives you something new, and if you don’t like something, fear not, there’s new strips coming very soon. So, jump on now!

Anyway, we get more of the latest Judge Dredd in Flames & White Phosphorus, more stunningly good sci-fi noir happening in Brink: Call of the Void, and more glorious pulp sci-fi adventuring in Helium. On top of that, there’s a new, one-off, Future Shock to enjoy, and the return this Prog of Mike Carroll and Joe Currie‘s Silver in Malignant, where we’re down with the resistance on a conquered Earth, alongside the fabulous and mysterious vamp, the Baroness DeSilva.

That’s a damn fine line-up and no mistake. And it all begins under the latest Silver cover from series co-creator and artist Joe Currie.

2000 AD Prog 2477 is out in the UK now. And no, it’s still not quite available in your comic shops over in the Americas – that will be Prog 2481 on 20 May. But hey, don’t miss out, head to the 2000 AD webshop to pick up digital copies. And remember to chat to your local comic shop about them pulling a Prog every week for you!

Okay then, all that done, shall we take a look inside this latest Prog?

Judge Dredd: Flames & White Phosphorus – Part 2 – By TC Eglington and Paul Marshall, colours by Quinton Winter, letters by Annie Parkhouse

Two girls on a mission of revenge, one of them having lost a sister, are targeting the rich and powerful, specifically one Wilson Ranger, who just happens to have a hidden room full of incriminating evidence of said rich and powerful. Oh yes, echoes of those Epstein files right there.

Dredd’s already made it clear that he’s on this one and ‘if it’s a crime, then they are perps.’ But things got more complicated at the end of the first episode with the introduction of the mysterious Miss Onsleigh and her dangerous gardener. Although perhaps it’s the gardener in charge? Either way, they’re connected, and there’s talk of getting one of their Judges to destroy the incriminating evidence and eliminate the survivor. Which is exactly what happens on page one of this second part. As a Judge, Barr walks into the med facility, treating Ranger Wilson and kills him. Nasty. Connected indeed.

Meanwhile, there’s a second vigilante killing that the Judge’s are putting at the door of the two girls — a concealed landmine offing an arms dealer with links to Ranger. White phosphorous used in the bomb. And a vlog confessional that gives away just why the girls are doing what they’re doing.

Two episodes in, and the story just plays out, building on the first episode well, resulting in something that has a classic Dredd feel to it, complete with the sort of echoes of events happening right now that so much of Dredd has always had.

Eglington and Marshall really are doing a good one here, one that benefits greatly from Marshall’s art, always solid in the past, but given a real boost here from what seems to me a change in style, a change of line, a lighter touch on the art, all of it looking excellent.

Brink Book 7: The Call Of  The Void – Part 6 – By Dan Abnett and INJ Culbard, letters by Simon Bowland

Bridge is settling into her new role in Behavioural Analysis as part of the HSD Special Detail Taskforce. By which I mean she’s asking questions and bothering people, quite understandably, not all that trusting of anything and anyone here.

End of last episode, we had her find out just how HSD have been treating Lauren Steers Maslow, investigative journalist, and wife of Nolan Maslow, the journalist we followed in Brink Book Five, whose datafiles are being pored over by HSD for clues to sect involvement. And she wasn’t happy about how she was being treated, not as Bridge brought Lauren along as an asset, but also as the vulnerable witness she’s protecting…

After pulling her out of that interview, Bridge gets a little meeting with Cutwell, chief of mission security, and Vittori, director of the Taskforce. Bridge makes her case in Bridge’s way. Surprisingly, Vittori seems to agree.

But then things get interesting when Bridge pushes for them to look deeper into the InterHab Intelligence Agency (IIA) involvement in it all. There’s a couple of lines here, and a moment, where we get to see Cutwell’s reaction … and it’s telling …

I mean, come on, take a look at what Culbard does here, bringing Abnett’s dramatic scene to absolute life, as we get important moments in just a few lines and all that subtle character work in the art:

‘We really need to lean into the IIA angle. Especially an IIA agitator known as “Evan Leeden”.’
‘Leeden?’
‘What?’
‘Nothing. I’m listening.’

That ‘Leeden?’ from Cutwell is loaded with questions from us. We know Leeden’s just one of the aliases of IIA’s higher-up Danny Reardon, already here on Luna Hab, currently working another of Bridge’s assets she brought along on this one, Regina Castanada.

So, just as we’ve seen over and over and over again in Brink, those few words, that brilliant bit of staging and character from Culbard, mean we’re looking hard at Cutwell as an IIA asset. Of course, this being Brink and Abnett never being shy of spinning us multiple red herrings, who knows? But right now, Bridge’s early doubts of Cutwell seem very founded indeed.

Absolutely brilliant stuff. As has been every episode. The drama is just so perfectly done, all these episodes so far have simply been a series of conversations, but there’s a palpable tension happening already, with all of us, along with Bridge, looking deep at everyone. And then, of course, there’s the final page of this one, where Abnett really does throw us a curveball. Perfectly.

Brink just keeps on doing what it’s always done, telling a tale of the long game, every episode building things, all done masterfully by Abnett and Culbard. Every week, I turn to it first, and every week, I’m left hanging, desperate to know where this finest series is headed next.

Silver: Malignant – Part 1 – By Mike Carroll and Joe Currie, letters by Simon Bowland

Taking place immediately, and I do mean immediately, after the end of Silver Book Two: Perfidious, where the Baroness DeSilva comes crashing back to Earth after having successfully aided the rebellion against the Sepsis in blowing up a nuclear facility. In fact, here’s the very end of Perfidious for you….

Now, as befits a new series, a little recap. It’s simple, really. We’re in 2001, and Earth has been successfully invaded/conquered by the alien race, the Sepsis, a few decades earlier. Against the Sepsis, there’s a rag-tag group of resistance, willing to do whatever’s necessary to fight back. Case in point, they went and resurrected centuries-old vampire the Baroness DeSilva, with a view to her aiding the fight. The enemy of my enemy and all that. The first two series raced through things, so much action, rather stunningly done.

Now, we’re at the opener of Book Three, Malignant, where things do slow down just a little. Don’t worry, though, I’m sure it’s very much the calm before the storm.

We’re in Saint-Tren, Eastern France, 6th November 1997, population 31, where the Sepsis’s human agents are busy doing the shitty things they do. Taking the strong, rejecting the weak, farming humanity. Cut to 28th November 1997, and there’s just one man left in Saint-Tren now, everyone else left dead.

Finally, cut to 2nd September 2001, and Saint-Tren’s population just doubles with something landing hard from the sky. I think you all know just who it is that landed here.

So, yes, a remarkably quiet opener for a series that’s been absolutely action-packed thus far. Yet it gives Carroll a moment’s pause, gives him the opportunity to reintroduce those who serve the Sepsis, through fear, through evil, through having no other choice. And it gives Currie a chance to show us that his art is perfectly capable of giving us quiet moments as well as action-packed ones, although he still manages to imbue each panel with style and menace, all of it done in the sort of fine Euro-tinged stylings we’ve come to expect.

Oh, welcome back Silver. I’ve missed you a lot. Given all that’s gone before, I’m expecting great things here in this third Book. I very much doubt Carroll and Currie will disappoint.

Future Shock: Clean Slate – By Liam Johnson and Lucas McCoy, letters by Rob Steen

What if all your indiscretions of the digital age and more could be left behind? Well, that’s just what Clean Slate offers here in this latest Future Shock, staple of 2000 AD from pretty much the beginning, one tale, told in just five pages normally, beginning, middle, and twist in the end. Although here, Johnson and McCoy do it in four — a huge endeavour to make things work.

This particular subject, Steven Jacobs, has wandered in looking to wipe his past, a new dad and husband, with an embarrassing trail of social media posts, including really loving quoting Nickelback. You can see his problem, right?

Of course, when you’re wiping out a past, there’s always that risk that you’ll wipe out a little too much, and that’s just what happens here.

Like so many Future Shocks, you can see the end coming. Frankly, that’s been the case for a hell of a long time now. I mean, there’s only so many ways you can do this sort of tale, so many ways you can hope to spring any sort of surprise on an informed reader. In fact, you can probably blame Alan Moore for much of the problems with Future Shocks. As I explained in my preview/review of The Complete 2000AD By Alan Moore Volume 1, he covered so much in his time that there really wasn’t all that much more to be said.

However, what Johnson and McCoy do here, albeit you can see where it’s going from the off, is still a damn good little four-page FS.

Helium: Red October – Part 2 – By Ian Edginton and D’Israeli, letters by Annie Parkhouse

Yes, it’s part 2 of Helium: Red October. Ignore what it says in the preview page below. After all, getting 50 Progs a year out is some mean feat; the occasional slip-up with the numbering can be forgiven, surely?

Anyway, we’re right into things now with Helium, Edginton and D’Israeli’s wonderfully pulp action adventure on an Earth split between those above and those below the toxic Poison Belt. Last Prog, we had Hodge and Sol, officers of the law above the Belt, tasked with heading below, to investigate and infiltrate the Ris, that kingdom deep in the toxic wastes of Earth below. Of course, both Hodge and Sol are refugees from the regime down there, Hodge the lost princess of the Ris, Sol her loyal protector, now strongarmed into their new mission by the none too trustworthy Prime Minister of the kingdom above the belt. They’re accompanied in this task by Professor Pontius Bloom, a scientist from below who swears he has the solution to saving Earth, capable of reversing the effects of the Poison Belt.

As we left them in the last episode, they were preparing for their new mission to take them below the Poison Belt, only to find themselves falling foul of a Torus, a nasty airborne predator, sucking the life out of anything it touches, with the last thing it touched being Sol.

Damaged, but not out of it, Hodge, Bloom and Sol have to watch as the Commonwealth ship goes down, and as they float beneath the Poison Belt towards the Ris Empire. The mission begins now.

Edginton writes this so very well, all pulp action and adventure, the two warring empires, the idea of a people above controlling the skies and a people below making the best of the poisonous wastes, two worlds at war, the leaders of both not to be trusted, and Hodge and Sol in between it all, the only relative innocents in it all.

And then we have D’Israeli’s art, all this sublime work showing us all the action, all the drama, all the peril, just so perfectly done. And those gorgeous colours, lighting up the skies with yellows, purples, oranges … just so good.