The Weekly 2000 AD Prog 2486: The Race Is On In Helium

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.

2000 AD Prog 2846, five great strips, everything that makes 2000 AD such a damn great read.

You’ve got five strips carrying on doing the great things they’ve been doing. The new Judge Dredd mega epic, ‘The Oubliette’, continues, with Dredd trapped in a mysterious dungeon from which there’s seemingly no escape. (But hey, it’s Dredd, he’ll find a way, you know he will). Then there’s one of my all-time favourite 2000 AD strips, Brink, just the most perfect sci-fi procedural that you could ever read. That’s followed by the finale of Silver, a fast-paced thing of an alien-conquered Earth and a vampire aiding the resistance. Then there’s Judge Dee, where we get celebrity writer Ben Wheatley (writer/director of some great, must-see films) giving us a fatally flawed Psi Judge and her demon. And rounding things out, there’s Helium, just this perfectly done pulpy sci-fi fantasy thing.

Yes, five strips, all of them different, all of them encapsulating just why 2000 AD is a perfect comic, one that, once experienced, will make you a fan for life.

All of it starts with a typically wonderful D’Israeli cover, showing us a little of what to expect from Helium this week …

2000 AD Prog 2486 is out from today, Wednesday 10th June, in the UK. It’s also out in the US and the Americas on 24th June. This is a huge thing, the first time you’ve been able to get and read the Prog the way it’s meant to be experienced, as a weekly thing.

Right then, with all that done, time to take a little look-see through this week’s Prog …

Judge Dredd: The Oubliette — Part 4 — By Ken Niemand and DanCornwell, Colours by Chris Blythe, Letters by Annie Parkhouse

After last week’s diversion back to Mega-City One to catch up with what’s going on now that Dredd is gone and (mostly) forgotten, time to catch up with the man himself, deep down in the Oubliette.

This was where we left him at the end of episode 2 …

The look’s unfamiliar, the surroundings are unfamiliar, but it’s still Dredd doing what Dredd does.

It’s just he’s down in an impossible prison, no one (well, almost no one) remembers who he is over in Mega-City One, and his only companion is a ghost of a dead girl quoting Milton …

Meanwhile, he’s having to deal with the Oubliette’s strange laws and environs, chiefly that no one down here properly dies; they die, they get resurrected, they start again. Which means he has no compunction in dispatching a set of perps from many years back to the depths of the Oubliette. Another blast from the past, almost played for laughs here, but, as his ghostly companion points out, “It won’t all be as easy as this.” And on he walks, searching for the secret of the Oubliette, looking for the way out.

Now, just as an aside, could the weird time effects of the Oubliette be some way for Niemand to give Dredd the youthful reboot he needs at some point? After all, one of the big things that’s always been adhered to in Dredd is that a year in the reader’s world equates to a year in Dredd’s world. If I’ve got this right, he was 38 in his first story, back in 1977 for us, 2099 in Mega-City One. So that makes him 87 years old right now. Granted, he’s got the Justice Department’s rejuve processes keeping the body going, but the years will still take their toll. Perhaps something here in the Oubliette, with its place outside time, will buy the old man a little time? Who knows, I’m just speculating in the wind here.

As for where ‘The Oubliette’ is going, it’s a damn fine strip, and a damn fine BIG Dredd. Like I said last week, the whole thing is a lot more than just Dredd down here doing the whole questing thing to get out. There’s the interstitial strips of The Finders, breaking up the bigger Oubliette story, like we saw last week, plus ‘The Black Tower’ over in the Megazine. It all builds and builds and builds towards something truly huge. Niemand’s already promised it will have lasting consequences for Dredd — although that might merely mean the death of a supporting character, we’ve had those highfalutin claims of ‘this changes everything’ before, and I’ll not be holding my breath expecting Dredd to be killed here or anything quite so extreme.

But here, and in ‘The Black Tower’, Niemand’s writing up a storm. Gathering up so many characters and plot strands seeded over the past few years, and doing it with class. Of course, in making it all happen, he’s got the more than able assistance of three stellar artists — Dan Cornwell here on ‘The Oubliette’, Jake Lynch on The Finders and Nick Percival on ‘The Black Tower’. All three essential parts of a modern Dredd artist line-up that really makes this, right here, right now, a golden era for Dredd.

Brink Book 7: The Call Of The Void — Part 15 — By Dan Abnett and INJ Culbard, letters by Simon Bowland

Wow, we’re up to part 15 already? As the naysayers will point out, nothing’s really happened here after almost four months of this latest Brink. Of course, those poor souls really are missing the point, failing to see what Brink, more than any other strip, does so well, and that’s to give us superb drama, edge of your seat stuff, where all the small moments, all the moments of intrigue, those conversations that fill the pages of Brink, all build and build to something better than pretty much anything else in comics you’ll read.

Again, Brink is not just one of my all-time favourite 2000 AD strips but one of my all-time favourite comics. It’s right up there. It is genuinely that good. Again (and I realise I am nothing more than a broken record here), do yourselves a favour and go pick up the previous six collections. You won’t be disappointed at all.

Here in ‘The Call of the Void’, we have HabSec security office Bridget Kurtis, Bridge, on LunaHab, one of the earliest Habitats where refugees from a devastated Earth escaped to. She’s there as part of the HabSec Special Detail Taskforce, investigating the Mercury Event, where Mercury and all the Habs around it, went dark. It’s the BIG event in Brink, yet, as Brink so brilliantly does, it’s merely the background to all the wonderful drama going on here.

HabSec and Bridge have been investigating the Sect Crimes that beset the Habs, something that we all feel connects to the Mercury Event in some way. Well, at least that’s the way Abnett and Culbard are playing this. But they’re such master of misdirection that I could be completely wrong there. Anyway, HabSec is opposed by the Interhab Intelligence Agency (IAA), which Bridge and others rightly believe is deep in the whole Sect thing, and which really doesn’t want HabSec investigating Mercury.

And that’s where we are right now in Call of the Void. Specifically at this point, at the end of the last episode …

Okay, well, that seems important. But we’ll get to that in a moment.

So, as HabSec’s ship nears Mercury, there’s already been an unexplained death onboard, plus the possibility of a mysterious stowaway onboard. And here on LunaHab, IAA agent Leedon/Reardon is plotting just how he can remove Bridge and her associates, Lauren Maslow and Regina Castenada, from the game.

Things got weird, as they so often do, in the last episode when Bridge ThereShared (think a VR FaceTime) with Gita onboard the ship approaching Mercury, and the connection was either glitchy or something strange was happening, as their words were filtered, filling in sounds instead. When you’ve read all of Brink, you’ll know that things like this play out as important; the importance of language and sounds is always key to Sect strangeness. Oh yes, there’s things going on here. It’s just, as is usual in Brink, Abnett and Culbard aren’t ever going to be laying it out simply for us, and that’s so good.

Okay, back to the moment in this episode, as Cutwell takes Bridge into custody.

Cutwell and Bridge really don’t get on. Cue a lot of raised voices and blanked-out swearing (again, something you’ll really appreciate when you’ve read everything that’s gone before) between those involved, all while Bridge sits in an interview room, waiting to see just what the hell is going on.

And, as is usual in Brink, the conversations and the arguments give us a hell of a lot of detail, all of it masterfully choreographed by Culbard, whose art here is just career-high level stuff, making every conversation a thrilling bit of drama in how he stages things.

We get that Cutwell sees Bridge as a security risk, especially in her unauthorised contact with Gita on the ship headed to Mercury, and putting forward the theory that Bridge is running her own show here, up to and including the sabotage of the second ship meant to be on its way to Mercury, all to do with what Cutwell sees as Bridge’s infection with the whole Sect madness.

Then there’s Vittori, Director of HabSec Special Detail Taskforce, who bats Cutwell down, giving us a view inside the higher-up thinking at HabSec, that the Sect madness took down Mercury, killed millions, and Bridge is an essential part of understanding what the hell happened.

And then, beautifully done, Bridge gets involved, and the ensuing conversation, done with all that sparkling dialogue that Abnett litters Brink with, has Bridge talking about the weird sounds thing going on with Gita and the ship Mercury bound. Yet another bit of the strange to infiltrate Brink, just brilliantly done.

Oh, and then there’s a little time left to check in with Castanada, off on a Bridge-authorised venture down in the depths of LunaHab, somewhere a little too close to Leedon/Reardon’s operations. Oh, hell.

Simply put. Yet again, over and over. Brink is just so damn good.

Silver: Malignant — Part 10 — Final Part– By Mike Carroll and Joe Currie, letters by Simon Bowland

Oh, bloody hell, 10 episodes and done, as we say goodbye to Book Three of Silver. This is one that’s gone way too soon.

Over the course of Silver Book Three: Malignant, we’ve seen the Baroness crashland, recover, reunite with her brother, dispatch her brother, and move on, now pursued by a hell of a lot of Sepsis forces. We’ve also seen, tellingly, the workings of the Resistance to the alien Sepsis who’ve conquered this Earth, with Carroll and Currie taking the time to flesh out just what being the Resistance means, showing us just how the reality of being the opposition to the Sepsis means descending into a bloody, violent struggle, where there;s none of the idealism usually associated with the noble resistance fighters. No, this is war, and war is brutal, nasty, and morals have no place here.

But also, crucially, buried deep in the background of this third series, we’ve had a revelation coming slowly, with so many little moments where Bishop, former Resistance leader, has some information on the Sepsis that he’s wary of sharing.

Here, in the finale to this one, we finally find out just what that is. And, oh boy, it’s a doozy. It’s something that transforms Silver, takes the legs out from under the Resistance, and makes us, the reader, re-evaluate just what’s going on here.

I’m not going to spoil it. Not a chance. But let’s just say that what Bishop knows absolutely changes everything here. Suddenly, the whole point of the Resistance is gone. It’s that transformative.

Kudos to Carroll and Currie for switching things around this way, for upping the ante so much here. Roll on Silver Book Four. It’s going to be good.

Psi Judge Dee — Part 7 — By Ben Wheatley and Simon Coleby, colours by Jack Davies, letters by Simon Bowland

Oh, poor Judge Dee. She thought she was on top of things. Sure, she had the demon Klato inhabiting her, due to an exorcism gone wrong, assisting her in her cases, the reason she’s become top of the Psi-Judge charts in terms of breaking cases. But things change.

She was already morally compromised with Klato, their deal being he’d help her crack the cases; she’d feed the souls of those they busted to him. But recent events have taken her sliding down said slippery slope to corruption. Hence why she’s now allying with a group of Sovs, never a good thing, where they’ve gone down the route of the enemy of my enemy as they attempt to take down the demon Tamerlain, newly at large, and ready to wreak havoc on Mega-City One.

Bringing back Tamerain, last seen in the classic ‘Haunting of Sector House 9,’ gives us a sense of Ben Wheatley’s love of classic 2000 AD. Yes, he may be a lauded film director/writer, but he’s showing us, in every twist of Judge Dee, that he’s a real long-term fan of all things Mega-City One.

Anyway, back to current events. Again, poor Judge Dee. As I said, she thought she was on top of things, figured her relationship/deal with Klato was a longstanding one. Except demons don’t tend to play fair, and Klato’s no exception. Hence why he’s doing the dirty on Dee right now, and why he’s planning something far, far more destructive than anything Tamerlain has in mind. Damn, you just can’t trust those demons, can you?

So, Dee’s on the back foot, as always, screwed over by Klato (I mean, who’d have thought), who’s now going after complete devastation of the City. Yes, poor Judge Dee. You get the impression she’s screwed whichever way this goes. Right now, desperate as she is, making a deal with the Sovs makes a certain twisted sense …

Oh yes, things really are going to hell in a handcart for Judge Dee. As we all knew they would. That’s what happens when a Judge crosses the line. And Dee, well, that line’s way, way, way behind her right now.

That’s really been the great thing about this story, looking at how corruption can happen so easily, where one bad thing just escalates into something that now threatens the whole City, and Judge Dee, hideously morally compromised, finds herself with no easy way out, her moral descent complete, her downfall almost certain. You don’t get out of things that easily here in Mega-City One.

Judge Dee is screwed, no chance of getting out of this, and that whole morality play of it all is what’s made this one such a good story.

Helium: Red October – Part 11 – By Ian Edginton and D’Israeli, letters by Annie Parkhouse

Well, as we near the end of this series of Helium, we’re treated to a fine example of some of what makes Helium so darned fun and so darned good, a rip-roaring bit of action as the cast of characters careers across the purple-hued landscape in all those magnificent machines designed by D’Israeli. It’s just five pages of glorious chase scenes.

After all, we’ve done the worldbuilding so well in Helium, Edginton and D’Israeli fleshing out this strange, post-apocalyptic war Earth, where the world is split by the toxic Poison Belt, a permanent reminder of mankind’s folly. There’s the world above, where the remaining population lives atop the highest peaks or on huge aiships. And then there’s the world below, isolated outposts of humanity living in giant terrariums to escape the toxicity. And then there’s our trio of lead characters, all of them refugees from below the belt. Constable Hodge and her loyal protector, Sol, came from royalty, her the princess, and he was her bodyguard, both of them escaping after a coup that led to the deaths of all the royalty of that particular kingdom. As for Professor Bloom, he’s convinced he has the answer to saving the world and can make the whole world habitable once more.

All three are here down below on a mission from the Prime Minister of the above, someone who I’m absolutely convinced we’ll discover is a bad ‘un in time. And that mission’s taken them to the terrarium realm of Londinium, where they’ve made themselves very unpopular with the King and his subjects.

All of which leads us to the now, and that rip-roaring chase through the wilds of Londinium’s outskirts, thanks to a bit of kit found by Sol last episode …

So, five pages of real fast chase scenes, but don’t let the pace take you away from spending a moment to appreciate all that D’Israeli brings to Helium. All the way through, his art’s been just this glorious technicolour thing; the character work is, as always, just the best it can be, but the colours he adds give so much. Look at the whole palette now we’re out in the wilds under the dank glow of the dismal green hues of Poison Belt, the use of the purples and oranges, or the garish lit blues of the interior of the gloriously designed car/tank thing of D’Israeli’s design. Damn, it’s just wonderful to see.

Anyway, Helium just keeps on doing its thing, all this adventuring going on, the reliance on cliffhangers, the worldbuilding, the ongoing tale of Hodge’s origins, the (I’m sure of it) eventual betrayal by the Prime Minister above — all of it just gives me that thrill of something that’s both surface fun and gives added depth. Glorious stuff.