The Weekly 2000 AD Prog #2495: All Hell (And Heaven) Breaks Loose In ‘Nightmare New York’

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.

This week’s five strips include more of the big Judge Dredd mega epic, as we find ourselves back in Mega-City One, as The Finders make another appearance in Judge Rico. Then there’s the continuing delights of Brink, Nightmare New York, and The Fall Of Deadworld. Finally, as a one-off, we have another look back at the life of Young Death, as Kek-W and Lee Carter tell us a tale of things happening before The Fall Of Deadworld, with another tale of young Sidney De’ath in the time before he became Judge Death, destined to decimate a planet.

So, yes, as I keep on saying, another five strips showcasing all the best in what 2000 AD can be, all the diversity and innovation, all the variety and great storytelling. It’s always the perfect time to get onboard and experience the thrills of the very best sci-fi anthology there is.

All of it kicks off this week beneath a typically stunning cover from Cliff Robinson, with colours by Dylan Teague, showing us just a little of the chaos kicking off in Nightmare New York this week …

2000 AD Prog 2495 is out in the UK on 12th August. If you’re in the Americas, you’ll have to wait a couple of weeks later; it’s out there on 26th August through Lunar Distributors. Do go and ask your local comic shop to order it in for you.

Okay then, preamble done, it’s time to take a look inside …

Judge Rico: The Oubliette — Part 13 — The Finders — Part 4 — By Ken Niemand and Jake Lynch, Colours by Emily Roach, letters by Annie Parkhouse

Well, the whole of this latest Dredd mega epic has been split across three threads. First, you have ‘The Oubliette’ itself, as Judge Dredd finds himself alone in a punishing prison setting, moving relentlessly up in the Oubliette to get back to his city. Then we have The Black Tower over in the Judge Dredd Megazine, where we’re boots on the ground with Judge Rico as he faces the Black Tower’s traumatic incursion into his city. And finally, as with this week, we have the story within the story of ‘The Finders’, as Ken Niemand and Jake Lynch shift their focus onto the few in MC-1 who remember Dredd, now that he’s lost to time in the Oubliette.

The Finders are Joe Fargo, a multiverse alternative Dredd, now working as a PI, and washed-out Psi-Judge and now PI Lana Locke, and they’re being directed by Professor Hobbes. All three of them are characters from Niemand’s last few years of Dredd, where he’s woven an intricate tale of strange things, all building to this point. And all of it seemingly starting off with a throwaway silly tale of Dredd meeting his alternative multiverse counterparts in the Stallone and Urban movie Dredds. Yes, we’ve come a long, long way from there.

As before, we’re down in MC-1 with Fargo, Locke and Mister Jeremiah, a mystery man given to them by Hobbes; he’s one of the ‘Favoured Sons’ of Mega-City One, something that’s been percolating across many of Niemand’s tales these past few years.

The last time we were with the Finders, Judge Giant received a message from Joe Fargo, opening his mind to the forgotten man, to Judge Dredd …

Now, we’re with Giant, as he goes AWOL, the memory of ‘Judge Joe Dredd’ implanted in his head, a name he doesn’t remember but that seems to mean so much to him. He’s on his way to join the rest of the Finders in Alientown, where Fargo and Locke and Jeremiah come up against certain Alien beings that seem a little familiar, something Dredd’s met before. And here we’re deep in Dredd history, seemingly the key to it all, a mystery to be unravelled … although long-time readers will already be there this Prog with the mentions you’ll find in here, especially on the final page… but that’s for next week. If you’re not a long-time reader, fear not, you can just enjoy it plenty for what it is, a mystery slowly unravelling …

‘The Finder’s episodes are here to give us the ‘in’ on what’s happening with both ‘The Oubliette’ and The Black Tower, as Fargo, Locke and Jeremiah get to the bottom of just what the hell is behind all of this, all the madness engulfing MC-1 right now. The clues are all there; we just have to piece them all together. Niemand knows what he’s doing, perfectly controlled madness happening, all of it building to a crescendo, no doubt bringing Dredd back to MC-1 and resulting in an end to the Black Tower’s threat.

But it’s the journey, not the end, that matters here. Niemand’s constructed this intricate puzzle box of characters and situations, all part of this grand Dredd epic he’s created. Whereas the Oubliette episodes proper are all about Dredd relentlessly climbing ever upwards in the Oubliette, The Finders takes us behind the mystery, far more important in uncovering the truth yet to be revealed.

Along the way, we get all that brilliant Lynch artwork, all angular and expressive, showing us just why he’s one of a handful of truly great modern Dredd artists.

Young Death: Frederick — By Kek-W and Lee Carter, letters by Rob Steen

Over the past couple of years, Kek-W’s been giving us these tales of Young Death, each one a one-off strip, yet each one building upon the legend that will become Judge Death. These are to be read in parallel with Kek-W and Dave Kendall‘s The Fall of Deadworld, a prelude to watching the world fall, a glimpse into the young psychopath when he was just De’ath, not yet Judge Death, worst of the Dark Judges.

Here, he’s looking at ‘the book,’ reminiscing about when it first came into his nasty little hands, back in the days when it was Sidney and his pop, another psychopath, who delighted in teaching Sidney all that he knew, the sorts of things fathers really aren’t meant to teach their sons.

So, serial killer daddy De’ath and Sidney are out on a jolly little outing, only to find themselves caught up in the misadventures of another freak who loves to hurt people …

Well, the book is there, a book that foretold the coming of Sidney and his dear old psychopathic dad. But when the book comes into young Sidney’s hands, it tells him something very different, speaking directly to him, telling him the future, leading him down the path he was always destined to take.

These little Young Death tales are a fascinating thing, Kek-W getting into young Sidney’s head, plotting out key moments that turn him, in the end, at the fall, into the Dark Judge he is destined to become. Carter’s art works nicely here, detailed, expressive, getting all the necessary horrors over well.

Brink Book 7: The Call Of The Void — Part 24 — By Dan Abnett and INJ Culbard, letters by Simon Bowland

Oh, Brink, Brink, Brink, how good is it? Personally, I maintain it’s up there with the very best 2000 AD has ever published, Abnett and Culbard combining perfectly to give us these amazing dramas, this sci-fi procedural brilliance. Yet, whenever I see any mention of it online, there’s always those who chip in with the same old criticisms — boring, nothing happens, goes on too long. I just can’t understand what those people are reading, can’t grasp how wrong they can get it. Oh well, as someone must have said sometime, if you’re getting that sort of response from people, if there’s a whole load of folks loving what you do and another load of folks hating what you do, you must be doing something right.

Anyway, as always, I beseech you to go out and buy the previous Brink collections. If you’re with me, you’ll fall in love with this most wonderful of 2000 AD strips.

Right now, we’re on LunaHab, where HabSec Division’s running the Taskforce to investigate the Mercury Event, where the planet and its surrounding Habs, those last outposts of humanity fleeing an Earth they’d made uninhabitable, went dark. The Taskforce have a ship en route to Mercury right now, but they’ve also got massive interference from IIA, the Interhab Intelligence Agency, who may well be behind both the Mercury Event and all the strange Sect activity that HabSec officer Bridget (Bridge) Kurtis has found herself caught up in all this time.

HabSec and the Taskforce have scored a major coup here, capturing IIA black ops leader Danny Reardon/Evan Leedon, here on LunaHab to do bad things. When we left it at the end of the last episode, Reardon uttered these ominous words …

What did he mean? Exactly what have they got?

Well, that, as with so many mysteries in Brink, isn’t going to be answered anytime soon. Instead, as Reardon stews in an interrogation room, we switch back to what Bridge has been up to, attempting communication with the ship on its way to Mercury, a ship beset by weird happenings, a potential stowaway, a possible suicide, their forward comms array turned on without anyone on the crew doing it, and picking up a rogue signal from Mercury. Then there’s the communication issues, the ThereShare link acting up, and something strange happening with the language, where the words aren’t blocked so much as replaced with “sounds that are almost words but aren’t.”

And then there’s that ghostly presence onboard.

Again, it’s a Brink of five pages of fabulous drama, Abnett and Culbard creating something very special indeed, everything told in the small moments, the dialogue full of meaning, the action happening rarely but importantly. Everything here is in the long game, the bigger tale being told, and what a tale it is. Again, the final page is a doozy, really opening things up once more, giving us all so many questions, the answers to which Abnett and Culbard will get around to answering in their own sweet time, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Nightmare New York — Book Two — Part 8 — By Kek-W and David Roach, colours by Peter Doherty, letters by Annie Parkhouse

The historical fantasy continues, and the stakes get ever higher, as Roach’s art rises to new levels of greatness. More on that in a moment.

Where we are is Lil and her newfound friend Mose, the firedrake, trapped down in the depths of Professor Praetorian’s Dime Museum, who’s proving to be every bit the nasty bastard Lil’s dad was, with the same demonic plans for Lil …

We’re in for an episode of exposition here, with the Professor explaining to Lil the rules of arcane law, how the balance of power between heaven and hell operates, and how anything to disrupt that balance — you know, like Lil — is incredibly valuable.

And that’s where Roach comes in, with this bit of beauty, a war between heaven and hell …

Of course, the impact of it is lessened somewhat by seeing Cliff Robinson and Dylan Teague‘s cover showig us just the same scene. But never mind, it’s still quite the impressive and quite gorgeous page, Roach really showing us just what he’s capable of here.

Anyway, that’s the worst-case scenario here; of course, there’s still the actual magic to be conjured to get to that point. And that’s what happens in the rest of this episode: the activation of a magical lodestone, and the start of what might become something rather huge, unless Lil’s new family in the bakery, the witch and his wife, can do something to stop it. And seeing as they’re knocking at the door to the Professor’s place by the end of this, I’d imagine they will. Well, that and the assistance of Lil’s rat friend.

Kek-W goes large here, huge ideas, massive magical peril, all establishing Lil’s as yet untested powers and importance. Seems he’s got a plan for Lil — although we knew that when we saw older Lil appear many years later talking to Inspector Mucha of the Kek-W/Roach series Spahir. I imagine there’s plenty of Nightmare New York to come thanks to that little tease we got, and honestly, I’m looking forward to it all.

The Fall Of Deadworld: Justice — Part 9 — By Kek-W and Dave Kendall, letters by Simon Bowland

Kek-W’s takeover of the Prog ends here — three strips in one Prog is a pretty impressive accomplishment for any writer.

The Fall of Deadworld is exactly that, a chronicle of the collapse of the world that will — and it definitely will — become Deadworld, home of the Dark Judges, destined to extinguish all life before they look elsewhere, eventually landing in Mega-City One and coming up against Dredd and Anderson.

The hook of Fall of Deadworld is that inevitability and the voyeuristic thrill of being here along with the futile resistance, brave things, doing everything they can to stop what we know is inevitable.

Here, we have Fairfax and Eastwood, both Judges, both corrupted and broken in different ways, attacking the Dark Judges, with that impossible hope that they can be the ones who end this fall. It’s Fairfax taking on Judge Fire, whilst Eastwood sneaks into their base with a view to ending them once and for all.

Meanwhile, Death has to deal with dissent in the ranks, as Judge Fear attacks at his most vulnerable moment. All of which means Kendall gets to show us, in gloriously dark art, what a battle between two Dark Judges looks like. As before, it’s Kendall’s art that truly elevates this, his grotesque shapes and vile bodies perfectly showing us the nature of the evils we see, his colouring vivid and effective. By the end of it, Death reigns supreme, of course. But there’s still Eastwood’s final act, once more giving us the possibility, that we know is futile, of finally ending the threat of the Dark Judges.

It’s a long-running series, but it’s also one that’s seemingly accelerating towards an end here, with the stakes higher than ever before. We know how it ends, but watching it careering towards the inevitable is just a fascinating read.