2000AD - Prog 1873

Last one before the big jumping on issue. Can it wrap everything up and get my thrill power receptors primed for 1874?

Cover by Clint Langley

There have been three fine ABC Warrior covers so far this year and this is the best of the bunch. A fantastic image that got me quite excited to read the story inside. At the moment this is going to be in my top five covers of the year vote.

Judge Dredd: Fit by Rob Williams, Henry Flint and Annie Parkhouse.

A Titan epilogue. Beaten to a pulp Dredd is reconstructed by the speed heal and is back on the streets dispensing justice in no time at all. Meanwhile Robo-Gerhart and Hershey discuss his psychological status or maybe Gerharts's, or even Hershey's.

A pretty good one-shot. The incident with the dead slaves in a shipping container and Dredd tracking down and dealing with the man responsible is effectively handled in nine brutal panels. And it probably tells us everything we need to know about Dredd's current state of mind. I'm not quite sure why Gerhart seems to have relaxed his vendetta against him but I'm sure Rob Williams will pick this up again later.

ABC Warriors: Return to Mars part 12 by Pat Mills, Clint Langley and Annie Parkhouse

Hammerstein is getting the old gang together again and this time I understood the separation between Langley's different art styles for the exterior and interior scenes. And then we get a lovely final panel promising the return of Ro-Busters. I'm actually quite excited by this prospect.

Tharg's 3Rillers: After the Vengeance part 3 by David Baillie, Jon Davis-Hunt, Gary Caldwell and Ellie de Ville

The working class hero turns out to be the bad guy after all and then There's lots of stabbing. It looks very pretty but left me totally unmoved. I thought the first episode was quite promising but it turned out to be a bit of a dud.

Future Shocks: The Flowers of Viber Hinge by David Baillie, Paul Marshall and Simon Bowland.

Nope, no idea at all. Read it twice and still feel that I'm missing something. Is the title meant to be a play on words?

The letters page shows us some fine 2000AD Lego creations. I wish Lego would do a Kickstarter sort of thing for stuff like this. I'd buy a blocky Dredd, and the Cellar of Dredd would get them to their target in no time at all.

Grey Area: I.D. Please by Dan Abnett, Mark Harrison and Ellie De Ville

I'd still like to see a developing story arc in Grey Area rather than these one-off diplomatic incidents that they keep having to clear up. Still looks very nice though.

Pick of the Prog is clearly Dredd, and by quite some way. Although the last page of ABC Warriors/Ro-Busters was fun. Now let's clear the decks and prepare for 1874. I've seen some previews and it's looking great.

Retro review - Prog 172

I can't resist an old Prog from the days when they were printed on loo paper and here is another find from Orbital comics' back issue bins. Number 172 from August 1980 when I would have been waiting for my A level results. Just goes to show that if you pay attention in school one day you could end up with a highly paid job writing comic reviews for nowt.

Cover is by Brian Bolland and it's another great image which is no real surprise because I'm only buying the covers that I like. From the Art of Judge Dredd book I learnt that producing those stretched pictures of Dredd and Hershey was not straightforward. Nowadays it would be a couple of clicks in Photoshop, back then Bolland had to do some art school stuff with an overhead projector. The grey haired Judge Lopez looks even more like King Carlos than usual.

The Nerve Centre has letters about a publishing gap caused by industrial action which meant several weeks passed between the release of Progs 164 and 165. Again the authors sound like they are older than the original target audience.

The Stainless Steel Rat Saves the World by Kelvin Gosnell, Carlos Ezquerra and Pete Knight

Continuing the adaptation of the Harry Harrison novel this has Jim DiGriz back in revolutionary France and having to cook up some improvised weaponry to take down a Harrier jump jet. More cool stuff with Ezquerra's beautiful black and white art and those characteristic jagged outlines. Plus there's a circular panel, or a Whittle as I believe we now call them.

The Mind of Wolfie Smith by Tom Tully, Jesus Redondo and Jack Potter.

More psychic shenanigans as Wolfie comes up against the police. Again the black and white art looks lovely on the newsprint. Classic British comics goodness.

Then Tharg pops in to announce the names of eighty readers who have won prizes in a birthday give away. All blokes so I guess they got part of the demographic targeting right.

Judge Dredd: The Jigsaw Man by John Wagner, Brian Bolland and Tom Frame

Another brilliant slice of Judge Child madness as Dredd forces Lopez to take Oracle spice to get a lead on their hunt. Lopez trips the light fantastic and they land Justice 1 on the planet Bedlam where the man Dredd wants is literally going to pieces.

A perfect moment from 2000AD's history. Wagner and Bolland give us total madness on the appropriately titled Bedlam. The details on the colour centre spread are particularly sublime.

The V.C.s by Gerry Finley-Day, John Richardson and John Aldrich

After the wonders of Dredd the next thrill is always going to have a hard act to follow. I remember very little about the V.C.s and the art is probably my least favourite in this Prog. I'd forgotten how Colonel Moore looks exactly like the face of Darth Vader, which we wouldn't get to see until Return of the Jedi in 1983.

Sam Slade Robo-Hunter by John Wagner, Alan Grant, Ian Gibson and Steve Potter

Ever wondered what a battle between robot gangsters and robot American footballers would look like? Ian Gibson shows that he can deliver his own brand of whackiness while Sam tries to hold onto the football shaped bomb. Goodness knows what Tharg was putting in the Droids' oil back in 1980, but it must have been powerful stuff.

And to round off a top quality issue the back cover has a fantastic Mike McMahon image of Dredd towering over his city.

Pick of the Prog has to be Dredd  and the Jigsaw Man, but what a line up!

Life on Mars

I don't do many book reviews here but this is my book of the year so far which I have read twice in quick succession, and I can't remember ever doing that before. The Martian by Andy Weir is what you might call hard science fiction about a possible Mars landing set in the near future. When the Ares 3 mission is hit by a violent sand storm on the surface they are forced to make an emergency lift off and head back to their larger space craft and return to Earth.

In the chaos of their rapid evacuation one of the astronauts is struck by a broken satellite array and appears to be dead. Their commander has to make the difficult decision to abandon the search for his body and launch. Except through a bizarre sequence of events he is still alive and the book details his struggle to survive and to make contact with mission control and his team who are already heading for home.

It's absolutely fantastic stuff and very gripping, Written as a series of log entries by the stranded astronaut, Mark Watney, although I'm probably not giving too much away when I say that Mission control and the other astronauts do get involved eventually. Watney is an incredibly resourceful scientist who uses all the equipment left behind to survive. It reminded me of the series Space Odyssey: Voyage to the Planets which we reviewed on the British Invaders podcast.

If ever a book could be described as a page turner then this is it. I gobbled it up and then went right back to the start again. Highly recommended and pretty cheap on the Kindle right now, or you could try and pick up a signed copy of the hardback like I did.

Megazine 346

Cover by Simon Fraser, who resists doing a homage to Crisis on Infinite Earths #7 and produces a lovely image. Dredd's helmet looks a bit small but apart from that fantastic. And no, she's not upside down.

Judge Dredd: The Call of K Cattrall by Arthur Wyatt, Paul Davidson, Chris Blythe and Annie Parkhouse.

This felt like a three parter that had been compressed down and seemed rather rushed as a result. No sooner have Dredd and Zheng figured out what is going on than they are strung up in the spaceship of the Creatures from the Black Lagoon. The Psi gun doesn't work at a plot convenient moment but that's OK because both Dredd and Zheng have a psychic trick up their sleeves. It's alright but nothing to write home about (are you still reading this, Mum?)

DeMarco P.I. The Whisper part 4 by Michael Carroll, Steve Yeowell and Ellie De Ville

DeMarco is the third Judge (or ex Judge) in a speed heal this month, I wish we had one of those at work. Meanwhile the episodic nature of this story starts to get a bit confusing. Who is DeMarco's hacker phone buddy? And why did Claude just go peacefully back to his cell? Doesn't matter too much because the freckled P.I. races on through her investigation while a bunch of guys in a tunnel come face to face with the Whisper itself.

This will probably make much more sense if I go back and read the whole thing in one go. Looks very nice in black and white though.

Evangelyne by Rob Williams, Rey Macauley, Matthew Wilson and Thomas Mauer.

The story of the revolver of destiny turns out to be a bit dull. It seems like owning a suicide gun is not such a great idea. Incredibly beautiful art and colours by Macauley and Wilson. I know nothing about them apart from this but I look forward to seeing more of them in the Meg.

Anderson: Dead End part 4 by Alan Grant, Michael Dowling and Simon Bowland.

Well we knew she wasn't really, didn't we? Anderson decides whether to go into the light or to come back for unfinished business. Meanwhile we get another speed-heal machine and some weird medicine. What is keeping that oxygen mask on her face, and what are all those electrodes doing? If they're for an ECG then the placements are all wrong, and if it's a Defibrillator then the screen is clearly showing a flat line tracing, and there is no point in shocking a flat line, it just doesn't help. Defibrillators work by stopping the heart fibrillating, and that produces a very chaotic looking reading on cardiac monitor screens, not the flat lines we see here. It's no wonder the doctor's shock treatment doesn't work. Still it is the future, they do things differently there.

Meanwhile it's good to see Dredd back on the streets taking care of business, and there's a nice little echo of Anderson's cardiac monitor blips in the paths of the tracer bullets and the lines on the building. Fantastic work by Dowling.

This continues to be the best story in either the Megazine or the Prog at the moment and is easily the pick of the month. No less than 5 articles this month so I'll get back to you about them (No, I won't).

Big Finish - Scavenger

Scavenger is release number 184 and it's written by William Gallagher and directed by Nicholas Briggs.

Thursday 28 May 2071: the day the Anglo-Indian Salvage 2 rocket launches. Its mission: to clean up space; to remove from Earth’s orbit over a century’s worth of man-made junk, and the Doctor and Flip are there to watch. However they are soon separated with Flip floating about in a spacesuit while the Doctor is down on Earth trying to persuade mission control to let him save the day.

This was recorded back in June 2013 and goodness knows how long before that it was commissioned and written. So it is just an unfortunate coincidence that the set up seems quite similar to the Sandra Bullock movie Gravity. There's a similar chain reaction of destroyed satellites and a couple of astronauts floating in space having to use their wits to save themselves.

I've been struggling so far with this Sixth and Flip trilogy, neither Antidote to Oblivion or The Brood of Erys really grabbed me. This is better than either of those but not by much. The story works a bit better and Flip is less annoying than normal, but I think I need a bit of a Colin Baker break. I do love him and his grumpy Doctor but his stories seem a bit dull at the moment. And I had a slight problem with the way he pronounced one character's names. It's an unusual Indian name which most of the cast manage perfectly easily but each time the Doctor tries it sounds like Baker is taking a bit of a run at it. It's just a little thing but it stood out and bothered me.

Another problem was once the nature of Scavenger's host was revealed it was fairly obvious how this was going to end and I don't usually see these things coming. Best of the trilogy but only 3 out of 5 space helmets and bring on Peter Davison please.

Burn, baby, burn

I won a 2000AD trade in the forum short story competition and was pleased when Inferno turned up as I had not read it before. The main story is by Grant Morrison with gorgeous art from Carlos 'The King' Ezquerra, and lettering by Tom Frame.

And it's an interesting read in the light of the recent Titan story line. Another group of former Judges escape from Titan and head back to the Meg to wreak havoc. Their leader Grice has a personal vendetta to kill Dredd which begs the question as to whether there are any Judges on the prison moon who don't have a score to settle with old Joe.

This story originally ran back in the Prog back in 1993 not long after the events of Necropolis. Dredd looks particularly craggy, although he usually does when drawn by Ezquerra. Chief Judge McGruder doesn't fare very well in this tale, and Hershey turns up and handles things with her usual determined efficiency.

Grice's takeover of Mega-City One and expulsion of the Judges happened far too easily. Once that is done the story does become rather repetitive: Dredd confronts Grice and has plenty of time to just shoot him but doesn't, Grice disarms and overpowers Dredd, but before he can finish him off Dredd escapes, and then it happens again and again until the final showdown.

I'm not a Grant Morrison fan although his All-Star Superman is splendid. Based on this book he doesn't really get Dredd, and doesn't really do anything interesting with him. He clearly wants to make the point about Dredd being a mass murderer because there are two moments when he has no hesitation in pressing a button that dispatches hundreds of people. Makes you wonder why he had so much trouble pulling the trigger whenever he met Grice.

I missed the slowly building menace that John Wagner puts into his stories with such ease. This just felt like a lot of very short episodes on an endless repeat loop as Wile E Coyote fell into that canyon again and again. Still it does have a brief appearance of Walter the Wobot which is always fun.

Ezquerra's art is sublime as ever, it's just a shame that he didn't have a better story to use his talents on. There's a couple of back up stories written by Mark Millar, one of which is drawn by Ron Smith. I may have read something that Millar wrote that I liked but I can't remember anything at the moment and these were just two bits of filler.

Inferno isn't a terrible book, but not one I would heartily recommend. There are much better Dredd stories out there. Although I had some niggles with the recent Titan story by Rob Williams and Henry Flint it was much better than this.

Return of the Mach

Greysuit by Pat Mills, and John Higgins, with colours by J.H. and S.J. Hurst and letters by Ellie De Ville and Simon Bowland. This originally ran in the Prog back in 2007 and 2009.

The Greysuit of the title is an enhanced secret agent who begins to rebel against his programming when he discovers something unpleasant about a Minister in charge of his department. In a neat story point Pat Mills links the programme back to an earlier one which produced Mach 1 all the way back in 1977.

This is a much more gory strip than the original with lots of ultra violence when the Delta agents go into action against ordinary human beings. It reminded me of Mark Millar's Authority comic for the way it portrays what happens when super powered humans punch someone (see, I can remember reading one of Millar's books). Inevitably the secret department sends other agents to try and terminate the rogue Greysuit so he gets to pick on someone his own size as well.

The other thing this reminded me of was the Jason Bourne films which is no bad thing. And of course all the problems with the authority in this story plays right into some very familiar territories for Pat Mills who does like to remind us not to trust any privileged elite.

The art by John Higgins is new to me. Like most people I am most familiar with his work as a colourist on Watchmen where he developed a whole new colour palate to use on Dave Gibbon's art.  Here he does a good job as the artist although some of his male characters do tend to look the same as each other which is confusing. Interestingly for a book by a renowned colour artist the palate here is a bit weird. It may be because I was reading a digital version but there seems to be an awful lot of green hair in this story.

The setup and story are pretty cool, and I loved the link back to Mach 1. The battles between the super powered agents did get a bit repetitive after a while, but on the whole this is a cracking bit of thrill power. I look forward to its return to the Prog at some point in the future.