Cover: Steven Austin & Matt Soffe
Publisher: Rebellion
Judge Dredd
Script: T.C. Eglington
Art: Paul Marshall
Colours: Quinton Winter
Letters: Annie Parkhouse
The Edison Awards are underway, and all the main players are there. Sam and Laura are dressed to kill, but when Laura tries to detonate the bomb, she finds that they’re out of range.
Sam takes the detonator and secretly aborts the mission, but Dredd traces her voice, having scraped her vlogs, so he shoots her, but the detonator clatters to the ground, setting off the explosive anyway. Ober-Lee, along with Sam, dies, and Laura is left to wonder if her tragic quest for vengeance was worth it.
I enjoyed Flames & White Phosphorus for Sam and Laura, but I didn’t love Dredd’s role in it. Any time Dredd was on the page, I expected to see him pursue crooked judges, but after he killed Barr, there was no follow-up. I was really just getting through it to get back to Sam and Laura. Luckily, their tragedy was satisfying. Maybe we’ll see Laura again in Texas City
Brink
Script: Dan Abnett
Art: INJ Culbard
Letters: Simon Bowland
Bonner inspects the sabotaged BRV-2 with Holly while Kurtis calls the crew of the BRV-1.
It’s nice to be out of the HSD offices finally, but again, not a great deal happens. It’s just made clear that HSD doesn’t know what happened, which we already knew.
Kurtis finds out that the crew are seeing another member who shouldn’t be there. Whether it’s a hallucination or real, we don’t know, as we don’t see it for ourselves, but it’s clear that the crew aren’t safe.
Silver
Script: Mike Carroll
Art: Joe Currie
Letters: Simon Bowland
While Red arranges safe passage out of England, rebels attack a sepsis vehicle, and all but one are killed. Luckily, he was a runner for the rebels, so he offers Procurator Morrison information in exchange for his life. In France, Alain nurses the Baroness.
Four scenes in five pages makes the whole thing feel cluttered. I love the art of Silver, but this season’s story has yet to cohere into a satisfying story. That being said, the end of this episode hints that The Shepherd is the Baroness’ brother, so I look forward to seeing a Sepsis-allied vampire fight the Baroness.
Future Shocks: Creature Featurette
Script: Lilith Allen
Art: Philip Read
Letters: Rob Steen
Full disclosure: I have written a script for Philip Read to draw, which is available to read in The77 #12. Don’t let that discredit my review, though, because there’s a very good reason I hired him: he’s an incredible artist.
A man points a gun at a pigeon. It explodes into tendrils and teeth, engulfs the man, and transforms back into its innocent form. The only witness is a raccoon, and there can be no witnesses.
The pigeon flies above the city, stalking the raccoon as it scampers by a row of windows. Inside, a woman cries alone. Next door, a man finishes his ablutions, only to find that he has run out of toilet paper. Life is pain.
The pigeon comes face to face with the raccoon again and finds that the raccoon is also a monster, a bigger, angrier one, and the pigeon is devoured. The only witness is a rat. And there can be no witnesses.
Loosely plotted, Creature Featurette is like a lyrical poem punctuated by horrific and hilarious art. Philip Read can do it all. People, animals, hard surface props, background logos, the works. I wish them both a long and lucrative career.
Helium
Script: Ian Edginton
Art: D’Israeli
Letters: Annie Parkhouse
Constable Hodge wakes up in a decadently furnished prison cell. She’s a captive, as are Bloom and Grimsby. Bloom is in the larder amongst human carcasses on hooks, while Grimsby has been completely disassembled, his head and air tanks suspended above his parts.
I’m a complete newbie to Helium, but I’m really enjoying it. While little action takes place in this episode, it establishes that the group is in a wildly different place to where they were last episode, so it makes me wonder, what’s next for them?
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/
