Cover: Cliff Robinson & Dylan Teague
Publisher: Rebellion
Judge Dredd
Writer: Rob Williams
Art: Henry Flint
Letters: Annie Parkhouse
The prison barge is gone. The sea itself conspired to hide its escape, killing the wind and the building a wall of mist, and all Dredd has to go on is the perp Anderson dragged in.
Alec Marx had a worm in his head, one native to the depths of the Black Atlantic. During the interrogation, Anderson scrapes his mind for where he got the worm, and away they go.
Flint draws Marx with such demented glee. His pen strokes are frantic and give everything, the people, the worm, the world, a shivering madness that threatens to burst into reality, and yet everything is panelled out in neat rows. The one time that the panels break from regularity is the scene in which Anderson probes Marx’s mind, where the panels tilt and separate. It’s a small flex to show that this story is going places, and I’ll be there when it does.
Red Dragon
Writer: Rob Williams
Art: Steve Yeowell & Patrick Goddard
Colour: Dylan Teague
Letters: Simon Bowland
Welsh superhero Red Dragon blasts through a clothing store’s window display. It’s Soho, it’s the ‘60s, and everything looks wonderful. Optimistic. And then the colour drains from the strip, and we meet Martin Howe,
Martin has just buried his wife. He wallows in grief awhile before a documentary director invites him to spend some time in Red Dragon’s hometown, Llangenech.
Williams solidly grounds the story in Martin and in the present moment, with Trump’s inauguration referenced in the strip. In a story starting 25 years after its last instalment, there will be nostalgia. The past always seems more colourful, but I’m positive that what they discover in Llangenech will show that the past has exactly the same palette as the present.
Void Runners
Writer: David Hine
Art: Boo Cook
Letters: Annie Parkhouse
Subjugators torch the headless body of an innocent Manjukak and dump a comically evil-looking barrel into the Prima water supply. They beam up to their mothership, and we find that they are working for Lord Phalaris, who is about to negotiate with the Prima. The Prima are bound to fold to any demands when the Subjugators’ viral load hits the main vein of the river.
Meanwhile, The Liberators are chilling with the Manjukak and talking about their way of life, but the fun stops when a Manjukak brings a head to the party.
Rigel 16 is beginning to flesh itself out with a nice sprinkling of political intrigue and comedy. The prog has some nice tonal variety at the moment, with Void Runners being a nice breather between heavier stories.
Brass Sun
Writer: Ian Edginton
Art: INJ Culbard
Letters: Simon Bowland
A ripper of a chapter. Last week set us up and did the groundwork so that this chapter could reap the harvest. Wren fights some cyborgs and escapes with Ariel, her pilot. It’s such a fast-paced part, but it shows us a tonne about the characters, about how Wren is still trying to carpe that diem, even after everything she’s been through.
I’ll never say no to a swashbuckling sci-fi adventure, so roll on next prog.
Rogue Trooper
Writer: Alex de Campi
Art: Neil Edwards
Colours: Matt Soffe
Letters: Jim Campbell
Jock Macinrow, veteran, returns to Nu Earth. While Lieutenant Nygaard eagerly anticipates landing, Jock has flashbacks to the first time he hit the ground – literally. Some of his squad didn’t even get to set foot on Nu Earth before they died, and they died brutally.
I really appreciate Edwards’ work in making sure that characters don’t die in a sexy way. By that, I mean that when they bite the dust, their bodies just become inanimate meat, with heads bludgeoned by unseen crystal formations, or melted by the acidic air of Nu Earth in the previous chapter. There’s nothing heroic about death in war, and I suspect we will see a great deal of it in chapters to come.
Overall: 9/10
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/
