Cover: Lee Carter
Publisher: Rebellion
Judge Dredd
Script: Rob Williams
Art: Henry Flint
Letters: Annie Parkhouse
Dredd attends a hostage situation in which a disgruntled cit holds a preschool hostage. The cit wants to be surrounded by Judges, and he gets his wish, but they stand over his corpse. Elsewhere, Chief Judge Logan shows Beeny the new, secret cloning program he’s set up. Elsewhere STILL, Oswald Roth returns home, reluctant to tell any Judge about the corruption he’s unearthed!
Part two of The New Future is a very slow burn, but given that this arc is supposed to last for the rest of the year, it can afford to take the time to set up all these strands. Dredd heads will recognise Roth from A Better World, which, to my shame, is on my to-be-read pile, so his significance is lost on me right now, but I’m sure that once I’ve read the previous entry in this saga, I’ll be much more intrigued by his appearance. Despite my lack of context, though, he’s firmly and quickly re-established in a single page.
I can’t finish this review without commending Henry Flint. His layouts are obviously great as he expands and compresses time. Single images are split into two panels to control our attention, as on page 3. What I really enjoy, though, is how the last two pages are completely different scenes, but they lie on the same double-page spread, each page with a column on the left side showing a man trying to fight for the future of Mega City One. It draws attention and makes me compare Logan and Roth, so I wonder how they will go about ensuring the vision of the future they see.
Ghosted
Script: Guy Adams
Art: Megan Huang
Letters: Simon Bowland
Acksley lies on a surface with her flesh, organs and bone exposed. An alien enters the chamber and communicates with her in the form of short clips from various films and TV. It tells her to sneak into a city with a bomb implanted in her.
The actual events of Ghosted are fairly simple: Acksley has been abducted and modified to be a suicide bomb, but in the absence of complication in the plot, maybe we should look more closely at the execution of the story. On page 1, the panel borders have chromatic aberration. The text talks of blurring borders, and with part one drawing distinct lines between nations, we can probably expect these lines to blur. The lines between humans and aliens might even be blurred. But why? It’s not clear yet. If Brink taught me anything, it’s to hesitate before passing judgement. I’m hoping to see Acksley’s quest begin in earnest next week.
Durham Red
Script: Alec Worley
Art: Ben Willsher
Letters: Simon Bowland
Durham Red discovers that she was in Hungry City on holiday and that she killed Bugsy Cacciatore, billionaire casino owner, but she doesn’t remember why. An assassin knocks on her door.
I tell a lie; we don’t necessarily know that Durham killed Bugsy, just that his head was on her lap when she woke up, but at this point, it’s a reasonable assumption. Despite Durham’s only actions being “going back to her hotel and watching the news,” the stakes are still high and interesting. It spurs all sorts of questions, like: why was she at the casino? Why did she kill Bugsy? Who’s at the door?
Azimuth
Script: Dan Abnett
Art: Tazio Bettin
Colours: Matt Soffe
Letters: Simon Bowland
Old Al, the captain of the ship, asks Dexter, Anderson and Suzi too many questions. Suzie Ninemil follows him back to the bridge to question Al, but finds him talking about the trio to someone on the radio.
The idea of change and transformation looms large in this episode. Dexter’s pistol evolves, Al transforms into a robo-creature with an insane design, but Suzi, a cadavatar, does not change. Or at least she hasn’t so far. Things transform all the time in Azimuth, so who knows how any of them will finish the story?
Herne & Shuck
Script: David Barnett
Art: Lee Milmore
Colours: Quinton Winter
Letters: Annie Parkhouse
Herne and Jordy go to visit Terry in a mental health institution. As Beth explains to the podcasters, Terry was put there after an exorcism gone wrong. Terry resists at first, but Jordy pistol-whips him, and he gives up the information.
I feel bad for Terry. He lands in an institution because of Herne’s cock-up and then gets brutalised for info. No wonder he resorts to cliché crazy guy dialogue, referencing the old Kia Ora ad when he notices that Shuck isn’t with Herne. I suppose I’d do the same if I’d been hit in the head with a gun. Luckily, Herne is less of a psychopath than Jordy, and being nice, as it always does, succeeds in accomplishing their goal.
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/
