It’s me (Richard) back with my THIRD review in three weeks! At least my doing this means you don’t have to listen to me slurring them out on the podcast instead. Small mercies and that….
Cover – I’ve met Alex Ronald. He’s a really nice guy. If I was him I’d be a total wanker to everyone and walk around with an “I’m Alex Ronald… fuck you!” t-shirt. His stuff is amazing! I did do a slight double take at the gun arm and wonder if this was the Hammerstein Jeremy Beadle variant but then I remembered this is actually how they are with small arms for the gun and big arms to smash your head in. Anyway, great stuff as ever.
Dredd – NOW we’re talking! The Dark Judges rise and all hell breaks loose. Watched The Horror Of Dracula on the weekend (starting a Hammer Horror marathon) so that shot of Death’s hand on the side of the vat was awesomely gothic. The carnage was suitably horrific and the shot of Fear in the background of the penultimate page looked like a cool re-do of a classic Bolland panel. And that Mortis transformation? Daaammnn.
As for the story…. Dredd is now en route to intercept the Mayflower and in a twist from the norm has been assigned a team of rat catchers as backup. Wonder if Wagner has been watching The Strain? Anyway, it’ll make for a nice dynamic shift as they won’t act and react like the usual trained Judges and while you could possibly argue it’s unlikely they’d be sent for a suspected Dark Judges situation, if it makes for a good story I dont give a monkeys. Got a serious colonial marines vibe from them too but pretty sure that’s intentional. Continuing to live up to the hype.
Ulysses Sweet – RON JEREMY CAMEO! Don’t pretend you don’t know who he is. You know. Yeah, you know.
Gotta love a comic that writes in a pre-emptive “fuck you” to its detractors. Another fun installment where Sweet takes out a crusading schoolboy who is a bit of a dick but at least is out there actually doing stuff instead of being a facebook slactivist…. but I digress.
Wasn’t quite sure how those guys nailed to crosses were supposed to be attacking but then the thought of them waddling towards Sweet like giant gingerbread men was funny so who cares? The format seems to be to give us another target/hit team combo each week to get torn to comedic pieces which is keeping it fresh. If we do have to keep Sinister Dexter coming back in 2000AD can we let these guys take a fresh shot at it? Might actually make it fun.
Orlok – Nope, still not grabbing me. This is a hell of a lot more…well, everything than last week but I’m struggling to care.
Orlok is now apparently in the guise of someone called Oberon which means he can fuck women with asthma (yeah I know it’s prob a drug inhaler) and bald german guys and live it up a bit. Other than that I’m not too sure what he’s doing or why and I’m not really feeling any pull to find out.
Art was really nice with cool touches like the Judge Pug and the Princess Leia on steriods body guard at the end but for me this strip might as well have “Coming soon to a Megazine ‘graphic novel’ near you” banner on it. As usual a quick squint at the 2000AD forums shows that I dont like this so apparently most everyone else does.
The Order – Looks pretty. Like REALLY pretty. Not really enjoying the story though for the same reasons as last week so rather than focus on the negatives…
Savage – Didn’t quite get what happened here. Savage faked out the robot’s controllers by pretending he was being injured so instead of just shutting the robot down they told it to obey his orders? Hoo-kay then. Still enjoying the strip and the artwork is as brilliant as ever (and I’d say that even if Goddard wasn’t a Welsh boy) but to be honest I just liked this where I loved it last week.
Overall? A good if not great prog, for this reader anyway. Pick of the bunch? Dredd storms it.
