Cover: Kieran McKeown
Publisher: Rebellion
Judge Dredd
Script: Rob Williams & Ned Hartley
Art: PJ Holden
Colours: Jack Davies
Letters: Annie Parkhouse
A satellite should be safe from the weather, but inside, a storm is raging. It batters Dredd, but he reasons that anything generating that much power will be red hot, so he solves the issue with a heatseeker round.
Dredd dispatches Facechanger’s gang one by one, beating the last one by kicking their spine out via his crotch.
The weather crisis solved, Oola Blint moves on to the next scam, promising the rich that she can provide them with antivenom. PJ Holden shines again and draws the dying with feverish, diseased glee.
This chapter of Climate Crisis serves more of the same. Not in a bad way, but like layering salt in a simple, effective dish, littered with fun moments of violence. I particularly enjoyed Facechanger’s use of his powers by briefly transforming his face to look like Dredd’s, purely to freak him out.
Brink
Script: Dan Abnett
Art: INJ Culbard
Letters: Simon Bowland
Brink shows where its priorities are by starting this chapter with an onboarding meeting for Kurtis. Holly Cutwell, a smiling HR agent, asks Kurtis a series of questions.
The smile drops when Kurtis cuts to the chase: sect actors are working to undermine investigations, and they need to work together to find the undercover agent, but they don’t see eye to eye.
On Luna, Castenada talks to Bowen, a mining infrastructure rep, at a bar. It’s not Castenada’s narration we’ve been following, but Bowen’s, and it’s such a subtle sleight of hand, but it casts dramatic irony over the whole thing. What does Bowen want, and what will Castenada do when she finds out he’s manipulating her?
It’s another slow burn, but Brink isn’t interested in the big, bombastic movements of an action-thriller, but in the details. The layering of motivations and forces gathering power.
Tharg’s 3rillers: Who Is Adrian Apollo
Script: Liam Johnson
Art: Steven Austin
Colours: John Charles
Letters: Rob Steen
Adrian sneaks aboard Melt-Zar’s space station on a bin lorry, where he finds a stockpile of fuel, which Melt-Zar plans to sell at a premium once trade routes are blocked by war, but Adrian opens the airlock and blasts it out into space.
We hear all this secondhand, from Apollo, so when his handler asks him why he’s lying, it sets up a fun final instalment. Everything we’ve been told could be false, and there are so many moving parts: the romance between Adrian and T’Sone Vex, the high stakes of intergalactic war, and, framing that, an unreliable narrator. To do so much in only ten pages is impressive.
Future Shocks: Strictly Business
Script: James Peaty
Art: Mike Walters
Letters: Annie Parkhouse
Bernstein blasts out the hatch of Phoenician Heights, a casino, while talking with Max, his handler, who briefs him on a job: kill three targets and get paid.
The first is Elrond Quisp, an arms dealer from Delta Prime who made his money after the coup. As Bernstein kills him, he gives us his motto: Nothing personal, nothing political, strictly business.
The next target is Fiona 9, an interior minister from, again, Delta Prime.
After he kills her, Bernstein is shocked to find that he is the third target, having initiated the coup on Delta Prime.
I found the twist predictable. In a Future Shock, whenever there’s a mystery of “who,” the answer is almost always “the protagonist.” Nevertheless, the action and the character designs are varied and fun.
The Discarded
Script: Peter Milligan
Art: Kieran McKeown
Colours: Jim Boswell
Letters: Simon Bowland
Veera could detonate the bomb right now and destroy the chip, but to do so would be to kill her father.
It’s great. Can Veera strike a balance to hold onto the truth of the system’s corruption without falling victim to another insane system?
The truth of the chip is that it pursues power, however it may get there. It works as a fine metaphor for capitalism, where everything in its orbit gets sucked in and repurposed for its own ends.
It’s action-packed, it’s emotional, it’s a great read.
Overall: 7/10
Tony Holdsworth is a comics writer based in Dundee, Scotland, who reviews 2000AD each week.
His comics can be found here: https://tonyholdsworth2.wordpress.com/category/portfolio/
