Cover: Toby Willsmer
Publisher: Rebellion
Judge Dredd
Script: John Wagner
Art: Mike Perkins
Colours: Chris Blythe
Letters: Annie Parkhouse
Mechanismo Derek approaches a hostage situation. Children are held at gunpoint while their captors demand transport. Derek finds an angle and fires four ricochet shots simultaneously, ending the standoff without innocent blood being spilled.
Meanwhile, Dredd pursues a speeding vehicle only to find that the passenger has an explosive personality.
Wagner’s skilled in making easily accessible episodes while still building on decades of Dredd history. What more do you need than a fun action set piece and some intrigue?
Herne & Shuck
Script: David Barnett
Art: Lee Milmore
Colours: Gary Caldwell
Letters: Annie Parkhouse
Herne passes a little girl who is obsessed with princesses while he seeks out Brigantia, the first of the gods he has to convince to accept him as a demigod.
He finds her running a failing bar. To make matters worse, duergar are extorting her for protection money. Herne can’t help but antagonise them, and a brawl breaks out. Before he gets his head kicked in, he has to appeal to Brig for help, the woman he scorned, and he does that by believing in her just enough to ignite a flaming crown, which the little girl from the beginning sees. The extra belief gives her enough juice to end the fight decisively.
It’s a fun chapter which sets the pace for the rest of the story. It’ll be interesting to see how all these gods work together to deal with the threat gradually building in the background.
Young Death
Script: Kek-W
Art: Tom Foster
Letters: Simon Bowland
Judge Jaines invites Sidney De’Ath to get into trouble with her, which involves taking performance enhancers with her. He normally wouldn’t deviate from the law, but The Book says he needs allies.
At a bar, they trick the barman into serving Sidney, a minor, and tack on all sorts of other charges on top of that. A brawl turns into a shootout, and the pair walk out unscathed. Jaines impresses a new philosophy on him: Laws don’t break themselves. The real problem is people. That’s something you just can’t say to a budding serial killer. Especially one who has found himself in law enforcement, where his impulses are encouraged.
Each chapter gives us another look at Sidney’s world and a chance to see new artists put their own spin on it. This chapter’s artist is drawn by Tom Foster, who gives Sidney a gaunt, skeletal look, with entirely black eyes, when we can see them. I wonder whose art we’ll see next?
Azimuth
Script: Dan Abnett
Art: Tazio Bettin
Colours: Matt Soffe
Letters: Rob Steen
Andi, Dex and Suzi are stuck in the labyrinth. The Encryption is five seconds out of sync with local reality rendering, but there is no locality surrounding the Encryption, so they’re trapped in there with the Monitaur.
It chases them, catches them…and identifies them. Its only role is to verify the identity of everyone in the Encryption, so they hatch a plan to offer it something it can’t parse, thereby crashing it.
It’s cool and interesting to see how the monitaur works, but I’m ready to see the rest of Azimuth now that the basilisk has laid waste to it. With the Encryption being 5 seconds out of sync with the local area, is it possible to return to a short time before the apocalypse?
The Discarded
Script: Peter Milligan
Art: Kieran McKeown
Colours: Jim Boswell
Letters: Simon Bowland
Veera Banksy traverses Junkfall to find her father, struggling to appropriately communicate with Junkfallers, given that she can’t think of them as anything but criminals. It leads her to reject the hospitality of a prisoner. He was in the process of offering her a meal, but her cop-like behaviour closed off an avenue of investigation.
Lost in thought about the encounter, Veera gets jumped and taken to a character we recognise from part 1.
I’m loving The Discarded. The script and art deliver a perfect sci-fi, apocalyptic noir, and I gobble up every chapter, eager to find out what will happen when Veera meets Aaxon again.
Overall: 8/10
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/
