The Weekly 2000 AD Prog #2506: More Of That ‘Rogue Trooper’ Action

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.

Here we go, it’s another week of the greatest weekly sci-fi comic you could ever read. But this week, it’s the fourth and final bumper Prog of the year, meaning there’s six strips in here, all of them showcasing the variety and diversity of all 2000 AD has to offer you.

So, four series keeping on keeping on, including the latest in the quite brilliant Judge Dredd: The New Future, surely the very best Dredd of the year, with Williams, Wyatt and Henry giving us something very, very special indeed. We have more from the adventures of Durham Red, Ghosted, and Herne & Shuck. Additionally, you have two one-off tales of Rogue Trooper and Judge Anderson. All in all, pretty darned good.

Everything starts with another great Toby Willsmer cover of Rogue in action (although, seriously, when isn’t Rogue in action?)…

2000 AD Prog 2506 was out in the UK on 28 October. Yes, yes, that was a week ago and more now. Yes, yes, I’m late once more. Seriously, sometimes deadlines just whizz by, don’t they? It’s also out in the Americas on 11 November, si, you know, looking at it that way I’m not actually late at all. Right? Right? Oh, come on, give me a break here.

Anyway, enough already, let’s take a little looksie inside…

Judge Dredd: The New Future — Part 6 — By Rob Williams, Arthur Wyatt, Henry Flint, letters by Annie Parkhouse

You know the drill by now, The New Future is every bit the brilliant piece of Dredd political stuff that A Better World was. Seriously, you have read A Better World was superb, and The New Future is every bit as good.

Here, though, it’s Williams and Wyatt playing into the way Flint’s been creating the art, his use of tight grids on the page utilised by the writers to give us a tale of a countdown, a countdown of The New Future’s bomb. We go from 20 to zero right here on the pages, the countdown dominating the page, as we watch Dredd and his Judges shake down the City in their attempt to find the bomb. Time is short, and there’s a hell of a lot of City out there.

It’s a superb use of a narrative device, letting the story move fast, practically every single panel here switching the scene we’re seeing, and it lets Flint do his magnificent things that he’s capable of.

Chief Judge Logan’s convinced the Psi-Div prediction of ‘flames’ and ‘the children’ means The New Future are targeting the Academy. The Council evacuates alongside the Cadets, only for the Chief Judge’s transport to be hit by a bunch of those Grud and Guns nuts ambushing them.

After that, things go south; the Chief Judge’s assumptions proved wrong, the devastation for the future of MC-1 severe, and there’s worse to come.

Simply put, The New Future is superb Dredd, writers and artist all knocking it out of the park.

Rogue Trooper: The Long Shot — By Andi Ewington and Conor Boyle, letters by Rob Steen

Yes, there’s a hell of a lot of Rogue tales appearing in both the Prog and The Judge Dredd Megazine these days. Why, it’s almost as though there’s a movie coming out.

Here, as with all the best Rogue tales, we’re most likely in the big blue genetic Infantryman’s quest for the Traitor General, where the wilds of Nu Earth provide fertile ground for stories of war.

It’s Rogue picking up a distress signal, Souther in trouble, Rogue and his bio-chip buddies to the rescue, with a Nort sniper to get past on their way to making the save. Of course, things are never that simple.

It’s nothing more and nothing less than a nicely done Rogue tale, some particularly gorgeous b&w and tonal art from Boyle to seal the deal — his Mega-City 2099 over in the Megazine is something you should be looking at as well. But here, he adds a great look to a simple yet nice little bit of Rogue.

Durham Red: Hungry City — Part 7 — By Alec Worley and Ben Willsher, letters by Simon Bowland

Blinded and surrounded by folks who have bad things in mind for one of the scariest Strontium Dogs there is, Durham Red’s continuing adventures on the Resort Station of Mondo Carnivallo are proving to be a hell of a lot of fun. Worley and Willsher have been doing these Red tales for a while, simple yet damn good things, Willsher’s art popping off the page to tell tales packed with plenty of action and giving this much-underused character something to, ahem, sink her teeth into.

Right now though, she’s up against it, blinded and surrounded, but this is Durham Red, and this is the sort of thing she’s done plenty of times before, and here Worley and Willsher do page after page of great action, all kinetic motion, bloody violence playing out so well…

Every one of these moments of violence gets Red just that little more information about what the hell she’s up against here. Remember, this is a mystery for Red, where she woke up after a drunken rampage here in Mondo Carnicallo, with no idea what she was doing here. Slowly, surely, she’s piecing it together, and it’s a blast being there with her as she does it.

Ghosted Book Two — Part 7 — By Guy Adams and Megan Huang, letters by Simon Bowland

‘Wipe out everything that isn’t us.’

That’s the most important line ever uttered in Ghosted. Chant making a decision. Something horrific, impossible to comprehend. Six months in the past, she had a conversation, the solution to the alien invasion there in front of her. But it’s a final solution. Would she even consider it? Of course she would. Consider it, approve it, relish it.

Chant is a piece of work, one of The Trust, the group keeping the city-state of Kinshasa safe beneath its protective dome whilst the rest of the world falls to the alien invasion.

It’s the matter-of-fact way Adams presents genocide on a planetary scale that shocks and impresses, setting up Chant as an ultimate evil sort of character. Reading it, the blunt reveal hammers at you, shockingly simple, logical, yet unthinkable. It’s rather a thing.

Of course, just whether it will be done… well, that’s something we’ll find out. But I wouldn’t put anything out there as too much for Ghosted. Complex, dark, brutal ideas at play alongside a deliberate lyricism; almost cut-up prose at times, it’s so staccato. All alongside the deceptive simplicity of Huang’s artwork, where her style allows the complexity of the storyline to flow.

It’s one that’s grown and grown on me, to the point where I’m flipping right to it each week now — well, after I devour a new episode of The New Future that is.

Herne & Shuck: Storming The Stone — Part 7 — By David Barnett and Lee Milmore, colours by Quinton Winter, letters by Annie Parkhouse

Raggle-taggle Magician, his demonic black dog, Shuck, and his merry little band of misfits and magical types are now here at Stonehenge. They’re on a rescue mission to snatch young Caris from the clutches of the St Michael group.

Cue action movie stuff, as Barnett and Milmore take great delight in rushing us through this one, pulling off all the clichés in one glorious blast…

Yep, sometimes in Herne & Shuck it’s the character comedy, the back and forth of the dialogue that raises a smile. Here, it’s the sheer idiocy of the gung-ho nature of it all, Herne and the gang’s unrelenting positivity. Thing is, we know what they’re running into, and no amount of weaponry is going to save them when they come face to face with the demon at the head of St Michael…

So, enjoy it while you can, thrill along with Milmore getting to stretch his action muscles, with him and Barnett having a blast.

Seven parts in and we’re getting to the conclusion, not just to Storming the Stone but to the whole saga that started all those years ago with a simple little Tharg’s 3Riller. Whether that brings the whole thing to an end and finishes it off, I just don’t know. I do hope not, as I reckon there’s plenty of magical mystery stuff to explore with the gang. That’s assuming they make it out alive from this one.

Anderson: Psi Division: Egregore — By Liam Johnson and Simon Fraser, colours by Gary Caldwell, letters by Rob Steen

The welcome return of artist Simon Fraser to 2000 AD here — in advance of his return to the beloved Nicolae Dante with co-creator Robbie Morrison for the 2000 AD 50th Anniversary Special coming your way in February.

But before that much-awaited bit of Dante, something we never thought we’d see, we get to enjoy this little one-off Anderson, set in the now, post-The Black Tower, with Anderson one of the few Psi-Div Judges left standing. So it’s time to train up some newbies and some latents, although Anderson’s got her doubts whether it’s even worth learning their names…

‘Grud, I’m starting to sound like Joe’… nice line. And just cast your eyes over all that gorgeous-looking Fraser artwork. Wow indeed. And then you get the next page, and the wow goes into overdrive…

In the wake of The Black Tower incident, the souls of all those dead Psi-Judges are haunting the City, taking up residence in one poor bugger, and it’s down to Anderson to find them a way onwards.

A great little Anderson tale, reflective and quiet, concentrating on Anderson’s humanity and empathy as a way to fix things. All of it accompanied by Fraser’s artwork, always a delight to see.