The Weekly 2000 AD Prog #247: It’s Dredd’s City, Don’t Forget It

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.

Once more into 2000 AD, dear friends. Five more strips this week in the finest weekly sci-fi comic anthology you could ever have the pleasure of reading. Seriously, you’re missing out.

First up, the finale to the latest Dredd, as the very enjoyable Flames & White Phosphorus reaches its conclusion. After that, there’s more episodes from a triumvirate of great, great strips – Brink, Silver and Helium. All three excellent, showing you just how original, just how diverse, just how much variety you’ll find in 2000 AD. I mean, there’s Helium, this all-out pulp adventure on a polluted Earth. Then there’s Silver, a survivor’s tale of Earth under alien occupation, dark and nasty and incredibly fast. And then, best of them all, there’s Brink, just the finest bit of sci-fi procedural I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading.

Finally, this Prog sees the annual appearance of a Future Shock by a couple of creators completely new to us all – Lilith Allen and Philip Read. They were the two winners of the 2025 2000 AD script and art talent search at Thought Bubble comic festival. And this Future Shock, Creature Featurette, is their prize. It’s an annual event that’s brought quite a number of talents into 2000 AD over the years and, based on Creature Featurette, they’re two who are worth watching.

There you go, five strips, all wonderfully different, all of them damn good. All of it kicks off under a Dredd and his city cover by Steven Austin and Matt Soffe …

2000 AD Prog 2479 is out now in the UK. We’re inching closer to the first weekly Prog you can get over in the Americas – that comes with Prog 2481 on 20 May. However, all of you need to be headed to your local comic shop and asking them very nicely to order it for you.

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

Judge Dredd: Flames & White Phosphorus – Part 4 – Final Part – By TC Eglington and Paul Marshall, colours by Quinton Winter, letters by Annie Parkhouse

Four and out for this one, which is a bit of a shame, as there’s more to be explored here, more chance for Eglington to go deeper into the whole corruption thread, deeper into the very rich in Mega-City One doing the sorts of abuses that the rich and powerful seem to always do. This one established something of a shadow power in MC-1, and I hope Eglington explores it some more in Dredds to come.

As for the end of Flanes and White Phosphorus, we have the end to the campaign of righteous terror that the two young ones have been carrying out, finally getting their chance to kill Kyle Ober-Lee, one of those rich and powerful, the one with fingers in so many unsavoury pies, including the Justice Department, and its his Judges who are erasing all the evidence of the crimes at the opening of the finale.

As it is, it’s a convenient awards ceremony where it all goes down – seems the rich and corrupt in MC-1 can’t turn down a lifetime award. Which means we have Ober-Lee, the two vengeance-seeking girls, and Dredd all in one place. Cue the violence.

By its end, Flames and White Phosphorous give us plenty of things to ponder. There’s the tragedy of it all, the young lives transformed, wasted, yet still with some hope in the end. There’s the shadowy threat of non-Justice Department players with way too much influence, and there’s Dredd being Dredd. As he always will be.

What it was was four very good episodes with some great artwork from Marshall, in a slightly new and different style, very pleasing to this eye at least. All in all, an excellent little Dredd with a lot of potential to do more in the future.

Brink Book 7: The Call Of The Void – Part 8 – By Dan Abnett and INJ Culbard, letters by Simon Bowland

Okay, you know the drill by now, surely? Brink is absolutely my favourite thing in any Prog I see it. Ever since it first appeared, a decade ago now, it’s been right up there in my all-time greats of 2000 AD. And this latest series is just as good as everything that’s gone before. As always, you should really treat yourselves to the entire series, grab all 6 collections, you really won’t be disappointed.

So, as for Book 7, we’re deep, deep, deep into things, as Bridget Kutis has made it to LunaHab, a histoy of sect-related nightmares from previous exploits giving her a certain mystique amongst certain of her new collagues, all her to investigate ‘The Mercury Event,’ and mark her out as a rogue element for those in charge of the Special Detail Taskforce, HabSec’s grouping of agents tasked with working on just what happened when Mercury went dark.

Thus far, everything Brink for this series has been a series of dramatic talking heads, as Kurtis and her group settle in on LunaHab. And that doesn’t change at all in this eighth episode.

Bonner and Cutwell have a chat, with Cutwell rightly a little pissed at being pulled into an interrogation room by Kurtis. They head out onto the second Bulk range Vessel (BRV 2), meant to be on its way to Mercury alongside BRV 1, but someone on the LunaHab has sabotaged it. Adding a real sense of danger to the drama here.

Cutwell has her own ideas about Bridge, thinking her experiences with Sect crime has somehow corrupted her. Bonner won’t hear of it. And all that comes in three pages of Bonner and Cutwell doing the walk and talk, Abnett and Culbard doing everything they do so well in Brink, making a simple two-handed conversation sparkle, making it incredibly dramatic, making us look for any clue to where things are going, feeling all the tension building, building, building.

After that, we get another of Kurtis’s regular ThereShare vid links to her friend/colleague Gita, who’s currently in charge of BRV1, six weeks out from Mercury after an emergency launch in light of the bad actors trying to stop HabSec’s investigation. And Gita’s got a problem, just perfectly introduced to things…

Oh yes, there’s something happening, maybe, on BRV1, or at least Gita and the crew think there’s something happening. We’re left with a moment of revelation, suspenseful, something that ramps up the already could cut it with a knife tension here in ‘Call of the Void’.

As always, Brink is sublime drama, this sci-f procedural that just fills each episode with nothing but conversations, but these are conversations with so much going on, all the history of what’s gone before weighing so heavy. And Abnett and Culbard just make every moment fly so high here. Sheer brilliance.

Silver: Malignant – Part 3 – By Mike Carroll and Joe Currie, letters by Simon Bowland

Back to Earth now, 2001, and an Earth conquered by the alien Sepsis. Resistance leader Bishop recruited the Baroness, centuries-old vampire, to assist in disrupting the Sepsis operations. Well, I say recruited. More like literally dug her up and sold her on an enemy of my enemy deal.

But the success of the Baroness and the resistance in hampering the Sepsis’ operations has come at a price. The Sepsis are lashing out, and the others in the resistance are blaming Bishop. All is not well with the resistance, with scheming and plotting breaking out everywhere. Add to that, one of their own, in Sepsis hands, offers to turn on them and give them the entire British network of insurgents (the Sepsis refuse to call them rebels) in one fell swoop.

Meanwhile, the Baroness continues her recovery in the small French town, living off pigs’ blood, and planning a little road trip to reunite with her brother. And her brother, well, more on that next time, no doubt. Let’s just say her brother might not be all she thinks he was.

Again, Silver just moves so fast, multiple storylines, multiple intrigues, all of it building this picture of a conquered world, a complex picture that Carroll and Currie are building so very well.

Future Shock: Creature Featurette — By Lilith Allen and Philip Read, letters by Rob Steen

A special Future Shock now, as Creature Featurette is the debut in 2000 AD for both Allen and Read, with this Future Shock being their prize for winning the 2000 AD Thought Bubble script and art talent searches.

And, I’ve got to say, I absolutely agree with the judges on this one. This is one of the best Future Shocks I’ve read in quite a while, certainly the best debut Future Shock from two talents who I really do hope we see a hell of a lot more of in the Prog.

It’s a short four pages long, meaning Allen’s story and script has to be incredibly tight. Thankfully, she’s done great with it, deliberately not reaching too much, not filling the story with so much detail that it falters under the weight of it.

No, this one’s a simple one, but brilliant in that simplicity. Allen’s described it as “A Lovecraftian pigeon monster has an existential crisis.”

And really, that’s all you need to know of the story. Pigeon. Lovecraftian. Existential crisis. Add in a raccoon and a deadly chase. And that’s all you’ve got.

But damn, within the simplicity of the outline, there’s so much going on here, so perfectly executed.

Of course, with a simple storyline that’s not drowning in dialogue, a hell of a lot of the heavy lifting in ‘Creature Featurette’ falls to Read as the artist. And he absolutely nails it, giving us something equally simple as Allen’s story, a lightweight look, very easy on the eye, the sort of simplicity of storytelling that takes so much hard work to get right. He’s managed to capture everything that was needed to make this work, filling the pages with detail yet making it look clean and fresh.

Absolutely great work from both Allen and Read. Like I say, based on this, I would love to see their names appearing in theprog again as soon as possible.

Oh, and as I found at the park this morning walking the dog, you won’t look at pigeons the same way again.

Helium: Red October – Part 4 – By Ian Edginton and D’Israeli, letters by Annie Parkhouse

Right then, we shall end this week with Edginton and D’Israeli’s pulp wonders of Helium. Thus far, we’ve seen Hodge Sol and Professor Bloom pushed into venturing down below the poison belt that separates this Earth, on the orders of the Prime Minister of the kingdom above the belt (who really isn’t to be trusted).

And, wouldn’t you know it, as soon as they land, things start going pear-shaped…

Captured. By assailants unknown. All of which leads us to this fourth part, as Hodge, masked and lavishly dressed, in a strange bedroom, waking up to try to figure out just what she’s got herself into this time.

Well, as that first page below tells you, she’s now in the care of the preened and primped Lord Francis Newham, equerry to his most Royal Highness August Angevin Plantengent, rightful king of England. She’s in Londinium, heart of the Empire. He tells her she’s got an audience with HRH, and that her friends are all safe.

Thing is, Bloom’s a damn good copper, and knows a lie when she hears one…

Seems there’s plans for Hodge in this strange little England, and she’s really not going to like them. As for Sol and Bloom. Well, let’s just say that, no, they’re not safe, not safe at all.

Oh yes, Helium continues to twist and turn in a most delightful way, Edginton playing up to the pulp elements, introducing yet more of the strange denizens of the worlds below the belt, and D’Isreali just filling all the pages with sumptuous detailing, all of it so well done, adding so much to the story here. I mean, just take a look at that first page below. That first panel, it’s all elegant luxury, antique furniture, but then, on panels 2 and 3, you see the door, a strangely rounded, mechanical door, at odds with the luxurious antiques that litter the room, something more suited to a sea vessel, something solid and industrial. Is it important? Probably not, but it really gives you the sense of the strange world Hodge finds herself in. Details like that are littered through D’Israeli’s art here and in all the episodes of Helium, absolutely delightful work, his colours so bold and strong, and his character work just excellent.