The Weekly 2000 AD Prog #2487: Slowly, Inevitably, Deadworld Falls

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.

Prog #2847 brings us the second bumper Prog of the year, with double-length episodes for both the finale of this latest series of Helium and for Judge Dredd, which continues the forgotten lawman’s mega-epic of ‘The Oubliette‘.  There’s also the conclusion of Judge Dee and more from the brilliance that is Brink. Plus, a one-off Thistlebone prose tale and the start of a new series of The Fall Of Deadworld. Yep, it’s a bumper Prog stuffed full of great tales.

Everything kicks off under a Toby Willsmer Fall of Deadworld cover …

2000 AD Prog #2487 is out in the UK on 17th June. It’s also out in the US and the Americas on 5th July. Rejoice, oh ye American folks, finally a chance to read the best damn sci-fi anthology as it’s meant to be read, weekly!

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

Judge Dredd: The Oubliette — Part 5 — By Ken Niemand and DanCornwell, Colours by Chris Blythe, Letters by Annie Parkhouse

Right then, a double-sized treat for you this week, as Niemand and Cornwell pull double duty and give us 12 pages of Dredd down in the nightmarish Oubliette, a place out of time, where normal rules just don’t apply and where, as everyone seems very keen to tell Dredd, there is no escape.

But this is Dredd. You know he’s as stubborn as they come and he’s damn well going to find a way out. Although, right now, he’s just a little distracted by the creep who’s wearing his boots and his belt…

Well, all it takes is for Dredd to beat “the beast of the Oubliette.” And he tries. Again and again and again. Another strange thing about the Oubliette we’ve been told already: you can’t stay dead down here for long. You die, you resurrect. So, we get to watch Dredd fight for his boots and belt. And we get to watch Dredd die, over and over and over, for his boots and his belt.

Again, Cornwell’s doing such a great job on the art here, once more utlising that wordless multi-panel page layout once more, all to show us the many deaths of Dredd down here, and it’s a very clever way to show us just what he’s up against here, not to mention the rather ridiculous fact that Dredd’s so bloody stubborn, willing to die again and again and again just to get his boots and belt back…

Of course, there’s only so many times he can die a gruesome death before even this most stubborn cop wises up and switches tactics, giving Niemand the opportunity to bring another face from the past into things, something we’re getting used to in the Oubliette by now.

Anyway, boots and gloves reunited with owner, Dredd continues on. As his ghostly companion points out, after watching him seemingly pointlessly die all those times … “I get it now. Word about you will spread. The way ahead should be easier. Smart.” Or perhaps the stubborn old man just wanted his damn boots and belt back?

I Love the fact that they spent a double-length episode just having Dredd stubbornly die and die again. Not a waste of pages at all, giving us an insight into Dredd, a glimpse into the no death mechanism at play, and giving Cornwell a chance to really show us just how good he is.

Brink Book 7: The Call Of The Void — Part 16 — By Dan Abnett and INJ Culbard, letters by Simon Bowland

Again, as I keep telling you … Brink is superb. Has been since the beginning, a perfect sci-fi procedural. You really should buy all the collections, read them in one wonderful, can’t put them down sitting and then come back and read The Call of the Void from the beginning. You’ll thank me. You really will.

Anyway, you know the basic tale by now, surely. Earth uninhabitable, humanity launched into space on several cramped habitats through the solar system, policed by the Habitat Security Division. The new world breeds strangeness, cults spring up, murder, weirdness, more murder, more sect strangeness. And into this comes HabSec Security Officer Bridget (Bridge) Curtis, who keeps finding herself right in the middle of sect activity. Then, throw in the fact that Mercury and all the Habs around it went dark, for who knows what reason, and you have a fabulous tale.

Right now, Bridge and her comrades she’s gathered along the way are on the moon, LunaHab as part of a HabSec Taskforce to investigate the Mercury Event. One ship’s already on its way to investigate Mercury, the other was sabotaged on the launchpad. Bridge is investigating. The other big agency, Interhab Intelligence Agency (IAA), deep into sects in a bad way and determined to stop HabSec finding out the truth about Mercury.

So, episode 16, opening with Regina Castenada, one of Bridge’s allies, on a job for Bridge, looking into the lead they’ve got as to the IAA agent on LunaHab. It doesn’t go too well …

Again, Culbard’s art is just so damn good. Abnett’s control of events so good. The sudden death, the way Reggie and the HabSec officers sent to get her respond to it, all so damn good.

As for Bridge, she’s involved in the interviews with the crew of the ship on its way to Mercury, a ship with a mystery stowaway and a mysterious death of one of the crew. Over the VR equivalent of FaceTime, she’s looking for answers, and also trying to work out just why the transmissions are corrupted, words dropping out at random and replaced with strange sounds. It’s something that plays back into so much of what we’ve read before, the similarities to the swearbox tech, the strange sect phrases, all of it builds into the glorious sense of something foreboding, something important.

As usual, a bloody incredibly good episode in a strip that’s one of the finest ever published by 2000 AD.

Thistlebone: The Wild Maiden And The Fair Wolf — By TC Eglington and Simon Davis

Five pages of prose from Eglington, illustrated by Davis, all coming from their folk horror world of Thistlebone, one of the most chilling and terrifying strips to come out of 2000 AD in many years. Definitely one of those series you should track down in collected form.

Thistlebone was all about the strange village of Harrowdale, beset by mysteries from the woods, where the cult of Thistlebone sprang up, murderous events followed, sacrifices, worshipping ancient things, crazed occult groups gravitated to the place, and the sense of evil was palpable in the air.

Eglington and Davis created something quite wonderfully dark in Thistlebone, echoes of ancient tales, ancient ideas, given a contemporary spin, but always putting a chill down your spine.

And like any folk horror nightmare, stories spring up, The Wild Maiden and the Fair Wolf being just one. It’s a familiar tale really, an innocent maiden, working hard all her days, tempted by the mysteries and freedom found in the woods, where the wolf pack hunts. And on the other side of things, the She-wolf leading the wolf pack looks upon the fair maiden, and she too wishes for something else: to be human, to become the master of all things.

All it takes is Samhain, an offering to Thistlebone in the woods, and a shared wish from both to be like the other, and we’re off on a twisted fairy tale once more, all ending with a perfect final double-page spread where the format changes and Davis gets to show us, in tooth and claw, just how the horrors of this play out. Excellent stuff.

Psi Judge Dee — Part 8 — Final Part — By Ben Wheatley and Simon Coleby, colours by Jack Davies, letters by Simon Bowland

Well, we reach the end for Judge Dee, as Ben Wheatley’s first 2000 AD writing comes to a close. It’s been a rather damn good thing, eight parts of a tale of Mega-City One where it’s not all black and white, where poor Judge Dee has become corrupted by the things that have happened to her, where her possession by the demon Klato has forced her to make difficult decisions, self-serving decisions. It’s a strip where the morals are dubious, and one that’s keyed into the past of Dredd, with Wheatley showing his love of 2000 AD in bringing the classic ‘Haunting of Sector House 9’ and the demon Tamerlain back to MC-1.

As usual, no spoilers for the ending of this one, but let’s just say that there’s a final battle, Tamerlain and Klato versus Judge Dee, and then there’s the aftermath, where the threat of the SJS Judges, foreshadowed in the very first episode, come looking for Dee. By the end of it all, we’re left with an ending, but one that, not surprisingly, leaves things open to a return for Wheatley and Dee.

And I’d like that. It’s been a fine series after all, full of a different sort of hero, morally dubious, conflicted, maybe corrupt, maybe just the wrong Judge at the wrong time. But it’s been a blast nonetheless. And a big part of that has come from Coleby’s art, always a pleasure to see in the pages of the Prog. He’s brought a real darkness to things, ably showing us all the strangeness of a Psi-Judge, her demon, and a demonic possession spreading across MC-1.

The Fall Of Deadworld: Justice — Part 1 — By Kek-W and Dave Kendall, letters by Simon Bowland

In the world of Judge Dredd, the Dark Judges have long been the ultimate evil, alien fiends from another dimension, whose simple mission is to extinguish all life, a twisted reading of justice.

But the Fall of Deadworld takes a look at where the undead nightmares came from, taking us across dimensions and back in time, to the planet that would become Deadworld. It was once just your normal sort of world, then came Sidney De’ath, the twisted little psycho who’d go on to become Judge Death, gather his troops and fellow Dark Judges about him, and decimate the planet, extinguishing all life, creating Deadworld.

Yes, that’s where we are here in the Fall of Deadworld, in the end times, as the Dark Judges spread their contagion. It’s a strip where we know the ending; we know that Deadworld becomes, well, Deadworld, and we know that the Dark Judges throw themselves across the multiverse to another Earth, determined to carry out their duties to extinguish all life.

But right here, we’re on the ground, right at the end, as the world falls, as the darkness takes hold. That’s all that the Fall of Deadworld is about. An end-of-the-world tale where we know there’s no escape this time, no plucky resistance that, at the last minute, figures out an unlikely plan to save the world. No, we know where this is going; we’re just along for the ride here.

There’s an awful lot that’s gone on before in the Fall of Deadworld, but basically, all you need to know is that there’s a nightmare end-of-the-world scenario going on, the Dark Judges are rising, the Sovs have taken advantage of the chaos and invaded, and young Jess Childs and her fellow rebels still think there’s some hope out there.

As we come into Justice, Jess Childs and the rebels are looking to rescue Judge Fairfax. It’s a real rag-tag group, Judges, muties, kids, all thinking they have a chance.

If you’re coming into it blind, don’t expect it to make much sense immediately. Like I say, there’s a LOT going on here, and there’s no way one episode will give you an in to the series here. But just run with it, settle in, keep the basics in mind — this is a world that’s doomed, the Dark Judges will create Deadworld and the fall will come, yet the plucky band of rebels don’t know that. With that in your head, just go with the flow here.

Oh, and don’t read too fast; spend a little time enjoying the art of Dave Kendall, whose art is just the perfect thing for this, grubby, nasty, dark, all whilst being an exercise in the art of storytelling.

Helium: Red October – Part 12 — Final Part — By Ian Edginton and D’Israeli, letters by Annie Parkhouse

The final, double-length part to this latest Helium, a huge load of fun for all, and one that opens where we left things last episode, with Hodge, Sol and Bloom having dispatched the King of Londinium. As Hodge said at the end of last episode …

But you didn’t think it was going to be that simple, did you?

Remember how I’ve always said that the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth, the man who sent the trio down below the Poison Belt to infiltrate Ris, the city they all came from, was a man just waiting to become the big bad of Helium? Well, here’s where Hodge et al realise that.

It all comes from the moment they set off their tracker, figuring they’d be picked up by a Commonwealth ship, albeit in the wrong location, after they crashlanded by Londinium instead of Ris…

And just like that, Londinium’s destroyed and the trio realise that they can’t go back.

Their only hope is to head into the lion’s den, driving and then walking into Ris. And along the way we get a little hint as to just what Ris once was. It’s not a big story point, perhaps, but it’s all part of the great worldbuilding that Edginton and D’Israeli have put into Helium …

So, by the end of ‘Red October’, it’s all shifted round yet again, and we’re all set for the next series of what’s a hugely enjoyable strip, packed with action and adventure, loaded with fascinating characters and situations, all brought to life by a creative team who really do work so well together.

Finally, there’s one moment here in this finale that really sums up all that Edginton and D’Israeli are doing here. Because, alongside all that pulp action adventuring, there’s always been this bigger tale unfolding. In some ways, it’s a nothing moment, two pages of the trio driving towards Ris. It could be seen as just a bridging sequence to get them from Londinium to Ris, just another example for us of D’Israeli’s beautiful work on Helium …

And it is beautiful. It really is. That first part, that top-down view of them driving through the mutated world of below the Poison Belt, all those deep purples and greens, slowly focusing on the strange flora and fauna. That’s just amazing work by D’Israeli there. But then, in what could be just an incidental moment, we get a close encounter with said fauna and the ensuing conversation between Hodge and Bloom is loaded with potential for events moving forwards …

Like I say, it may be nothing more than an interesting little moment to add something to a couple of transition pages. But, knowing how Edginton and D’Israeli have all of Helium under their effortless control, it could well be something far more important.

So, we bid farewell to Helium Book Three. Hopefully, it won’t be too long before we dive headfirst into Book Four.