Cover: Toby Willsmer
Publisher: Rebellion
Judge Dredd
Script: Rob Williams & Arthur Wyatt
Art: Henry Flint
Letters: Annie Parkhouse
What an episode! The Judges flail, raiding anyone who MIGHT be part of the New Future, killing random civilians, all the while the clock keeps ticking down. Judges fail. Logan’s plan to clone Hershey goes up in smoke.
So tense. The countdown takes up the leftmost column of the first four pages, so it’s always in the periphery, unstoppable, as the Judges desperately try. When the double-page spread hits, it releases all that tension, and it’s so cathartic. Tragedy follows catharsis as Logan seems to have a heart attack. I really feel for the guy. What a kick in the spuds it must be to see your legacy burn right before you die.
Rogue Trooper: The Long Shot
Script: Andi Ewington
Art: Conor Boyle
Letters: Rob Steen
Rogue answers a distress signal but suspects it’s bogus. Bagman reminds Rogue of a time when he used a decoy in their millicom days, when he still had a body. Rogue uses the same tactic to draw out the Nort sniper, but finds that the Souther signal he was following was just a corpse with a radio.
This story didn’t thrill me. Decoys are a fairly well-known trope in military fiction, so did we really need to see Bagman’s old ruse to get the idea? So much of the page count is occupied by flashback and preparation, and the real action starts very late in the strip. Because of that, I found The Long Shot pretty dull.
Durham Red
Script: Alec Worley
Art: Toby Willsmer
Letters: Simon Bowland
Red spears a Seizuki Clan truck from above, threads the broken bar stool through the steering wheel, then levers it to the side, overturning the vehicle. She finds out about Donnie from the clan member. The spider woman holds Coltt hostage.
The action is creative and cool, but it feels pointless. We saw Donnie weeks ago, and we saw that he killed a Seizuki capo, so it’s not new information. To me, it feels like we’re being misdirected into thinking that Donnie is the one who set up Red, when he doesn’t seem capable of scheming like that, so the misdirect isn’t convincing.
Ghosted
Script: Guy Adams
Art: Megan Huang
Letters: Simon Bowland
Chant and the official plan and begin to research chemical warfare against the aliens. The official has second thoughts, but she’s already taken it too far, and Chant melts her with her own chemical agents.
I find their discussion long-winded, but the staging is interesting. Page one shows the official looking out of a window at the war unit fabrication centre, then the conversation with Chant happens in front of a window looking out onto the dance floor of a nightclub, drawing parallels between the two. I would like to see the different story threads to cohere, though.
Herne & Shuck
Script: David Barnett
Art: Lee Milmore
Colours: Quinton Winter
Letters: Simon Bowland
The podcasters inexplicably hack St Michael, allowing Herne, Shuck, Jordy and Beth to break in. While the main force storms the base, the podcasters are attacked.
In reality, podcasters are just people with microphones, so I don’t know why in Herne & Shuck they’re hacking experts. Herne’s assault on the military base of St Michael goes ludicrously well in a flurry of violence. Though I find the story unconvincing, I enjoyed the art of the magical effects seen as the gang break into St Michael.
Anderson, Psi Division: Egregore
Script: Liam Johnson
Art: Simon Fraser
Colours: Gary Caldwell
Letters: Rob Steen
Anderson attends a psychic disaster with a group of new psi-div recruits. It emerges that the disaster is the combined psychic energy of all the dead psi-judges, and she eases their passing by listening to them and remembering them.
Johnson masterfully introduces some new psi-judges and establishes the post-Oubliette world within 2 pages before they meet the threat. Fraser’s art is great, stepping between a solid, believable style to a more cartoony, exaggerated mode when it all supernaturally kicks off.
Allow me a tenuous segue, won’t you? Liam Johnson won the 2019 Thought Bubble Talent Search, and that’s what I hope to do this year. Regular readers may remember that I put my name on the list last year, but didn’t get randomly selected. Undaunted, I’m braving the six-hour train journey to throw my hat in the ring, and I’m bringing a collection of my work, so if you see me there, feel free to ask for one, and I’ll give it to you for free!
Overall: 6/10
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/
