2000AD Prog 1794 Review #2

Next up, M.Allen. That’s 2 for 2 on the cover now. In your face Flintlockjaw!! 

COVER:

We’ve been treated to some decent covers recently, and this one fits right in alongside them. It’s tight, with the marines looking like they know exactly what they’re doing. The red wash is cool, but it’s the street signs that do the job of making this look like a closed in, fire-fight in the metropolis affair.

And then there’s Dredd’s portrait, large enough to be a major part of the cover but blended into the background so he doesn’t dominate it.

Damn cool in my opinion.

DREDD:

I’m going to get it out of the way and say that the last couple of panels were to a pretty poor standard. Holden shows us how to draw debris flying about on pages one and two, so why does it descend into pixels at the end?

I must admit though, the reflection on the back of Dredd’s helmet on page three was class – there’s no taking that away from the man.

I’m still waiting for the frank discussion of costs versus benefits of the situation, but I think that may have gone along with Noncom’s position as advisor. The damage stacks up though and Renkin once again voices her request to let Sue Perkins Block get along with their independence in peace.

Dredd’s escape is a little beyond belief. I know it’s Dredd and all, but these are supposed to be Renkin’s best people and they’re all content to stand next to each other and wait for him to act. Hi-Ex rounds can’t be much of a secret. Wrestling a jetpack off a guy in midair is also a little dubious. More likely they both fall, crash, and burn.

THE RED SEAS:

The cone of silence was a nice idea, but its only purpose seemed to be as an excuse to have two very sparse pages. What does removing the sound from the room achieve? This is an eight foot creature made of rock jumping out of buildings and stomping through the high street. It’s literally as subtle as a brick through a window (see: page four, panel 1).

These five pages could have been cut out entirely by having Dolly Daydream reveal that the Antikythera was already stolen but could be tracked (and having Newton lampshade this doesn’t make the problem go away – shame on you, Edginton). There wasn’t really anything to make this part worthy of its place in the story.

AQUILA:

Will this story ever be without a fight scene? I hope not.

There’s some good work on the panel layouts here. The first, broad, unbordered panel to head up the page gave a greater sense of the barren scenery these solitary figures were traversing. Unfortunately the same thing is done on the second page in such a way that the backgrounds appeared to be parts of the same. Recalling this being done in the end of year prog 2012 I first tried to read them as a single panel.

It came together again in the fight scene though, with the very striking blood-bordered panel, and I’m a fan of overlapping and asymmetric panels during fights – it adds to the chaos and pacing.

Everything holds. The art is solid, there’s a fight scene, and we get a little more reinforcement that ritual & magic is kind of a big deal. Aquila might even be developing something of a personality with his line to the beaten Romans.

ICHABOD AZRAEL:

This story isn’t doing much for me. Rob Williams keeps changing the rules. First Ichabod remembers nothing, now he seems to know exactly what he’s supposed to do. At first our characters are scattered, now they turn up next to each other. It’s agreed that they need to find Charon, but nobody has suggested what they might do with him.

I could possibly get behind the spiralling insanity of it all if if wasn’t for characters like Zebulon Crow going around pretending it all makes sense.

The Hunter seems capable of Agent Smith’s trick of appearing from anyone he wants. Why doesn’t he do that with Zoe – that’s sure to bring Ichabod to new levels of despair.

LENNY ZERO:

So the question is: does Lenny know enough about Kramer to make her a weak link to exploit, or is he cashing in on some revenge whilst he pulls this heist off.

Sattelat seems pretty co-operative. Could Lenny use this to set the droid up and get it blown apart? It might be a little risky (if Sattelat is captured it probably has all kinds of ways to incriminate Lenny) but this whole thing is a ten-tonne barrel of risk.

Case in point – that data chip Lenny slipped into Buell’s sleep machine is still there, just waiting to be found.

The love potion scene was pretty cool, but would it have been too much trouble to have a couple of guys grinding their poles in view? For the sake of some variety, at least.

Having Lorem Ipsum running across Buell’s tablet seems like a wasted opportunity that could have been used either as a reference to a long gone story that only Orlok would get, or as an added touch of Mega-City humour. The scene itself however was a good way of getting necessary information to the readers.

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