Return To Armageddon

By Malcolm Shaw, Jesus Redondo & Johnny Johnson

Review by Luke Williams

Published in the early years of 2000AD Malcolm Shaw and Jesus Redondo’s “Return to Armageddon” is certainly different.

A starship comes across a demonic looking alien encased in ice many light years from Earth. Freeing the alien from its sub zero prison, the starship’s human crew find it’s alive and do the only sensible thing, and clone it.

The formerly ice bound being, known as the Destroyer, is the harbinger of the apocalypse, destined to destroy the universe. Its clone, known as Amtrak, accompanied by a rather battered robot called Seeker spends 30+ episodes making bargains, trying to persuade the otherwise soon to be extinct people of the universe that the apocalypse is imminent, is killed, brought back to life, frequently mauled, betrayed and imprisoned.

Being an insufferable completist and with disposable income, I spent a few years collecting all the 2000ADs prior Prog 458, where I first started picking it regularly. Frankly, I can’t in all honesty say that I read each and every story prior in those back issues. “Return to Armageddon” in particularly seemed impenetrable and more than a little weird. However, seeing it going for a few quid in one of Rebellion’s clears outs, I thought it worth a punt. Now having read it, I can confirm that that my cursory assessment wasn’t far off the mark.

The late Malcolm Shaw and Jesus Redondo (with a few fill ins from Johnny Johnson) craft a barking mad story, imagine if horror imagine if Terry Gilliam and David Cronenberg decided to mash up science fiction, religion and put it in a comic.

Redondo’s art is kinetic and dynamic, he’s lauded in fandom, but kind of leaves me a little cold, the smaller format in this reprint does no favours to Redondo’s busy tightly detailed art. Johnny Johnson pinch hits for Redondo for two issues and does a passable impression.

In the history of 2000AD one off serials, it seems to barely get a mention, and in all fairness better than some of the work Tharg has had reprinted in the “Ultimate Collection”. But as a curio from the Prog’s early days, it’s worth reading, and one can only speculate what Malcolm Shaw could have come up with next.  Not a classic by any stretch of the imagination, but next time it comes up in a sale, throw Tharg a few quid for it, I don’t think you’ll regret it.

ECBT2000AD Ep634: Retro 29

Another blast from the past. Audio is a bit messy with this one.

Podcast available via iTunes or the Libsyn Webpage as a direct download.

ECBT2000AD Ep624: Retro 28

Flint flies solo
Cringeworthy flashback from 2010. The audio is a bit wacky in this one. It’s painful…but it’s short! (That’s what she said!)

Podcast available via iTunes or the Libsyn Webpage as a direct download.

The Stainless Steel Rat Deluxe Edition

“Stainless Steel Rat”, “Stainless Steel Rat Saves The World” &  “Stainless Steel Rat For President”

By Harry Harrison, Kelvin Gosnell & Carlos Ezquerra

Review by Luke Williams

This handsome hardcover collection collects all 3 of 2000ADs adaptations written by former Tharg, Kelvin Gosnell and the legend that is Carlos Ezquerra.  For those of us who don’t know the Rat (prior to reading this book that your reviewer would fall into that category) the Stainless Steel rat is otherwise known as “Slippery” James Bolivar Di Griz.  In a far future where crime is almost a thing of the past, Jim is a rebel, kicking against authority until authority finally gets the better of him. He is press ganged by Galactic Law Enforcement, Jim is as good getting out of scrapes as he is getting into them, making him an ideal candidate for the “Special Corps”, specialising in high risk, time and space spanning missions.

Through the 3 stories we see Jim tackle interplanetary espionage, corruption, theft, time travelling tyrants, a little bit of politics and most notably the pulchritudinous but lethal Angelina.

Gosnell and Ezquerra, adapt a fun packed world, Jim Di Griz is loveable rogue. A modern comparison in the Prog’ would be Nikolai Dante; someone who is spends less time grimacing and more on wise cracking, robbing you blind with a twinkle in his eye.

Gosnell was 2000ADs second editor after (Uncle) Pat Mills, but by the time the Rat was published in the Prog’ he had gone freelance, writing Future Shocks Time Twisters and went onto write the Oliver Frey painted Terminal Man in legendary computer magazine Zzap64 (Has that ever been collected?)

Never stopping to draw breath, the plot is pacey, the script punchy and witty. Despite being classed as sci fi, this is basically a collection of caper strips with ray guns, space ships and time travel and it’s great  fun . Art wise this is classic period Carlos Ezquerra, Carlos’s curvy technology (and Angelina) dynamic layouts and some gorgeous double page spreads. Carlos again uses James Coburn as a template, Jim looking a bit like Major Eazy sans forage cap & cigar but avec cheesy grin.

Rebellion have reprinted colour pages from the centre spreads when the Prog was on toilet paper, but  occasionally they have an annoying break in the middle due to the binding process, but that’s a minor complaint. The version that is reviewed was the webshop exclusive version, with a “likely to get dirty quite quickly unless you’re careful” white cover.

If you are a bit sceptical of comic adaptations of novels, (what’s the point etc?), put that to one side. This is old school 2000AD fun, prior knowledge of the character unnecessary. A good fit for the Prog’ fast paced, lots of action and most importantly, humour.

The book is now out of print on the 200AD webstore, but still available digitally or via other online outlets (or so they say anyway).

Mek Memoirs (Facsimilie Edition) : By Jack Adrian & Kevin O’Neill

Mek Memoirs

By Jack Adrian & Kevin O’Neill

Published by Dark & Golden Books

Review by Luke Williams

 

Kevin O’Neill is a legend of British comics, his idiosyncratic, anarchic art style harking back to classic British humour comic artists like Ken Reid and MAD magazine contributors  like Jack Davis and Bill Elder but with a hard sci fi edge. He is legendary for being “banned” by the Comics Code Authority (ask your parents) for his contribution to a “Green Lantern” strip written by Alan Moore, possibly even more noteworthy for being a controversy not instigated by Moore.

At the start of his career, O’Neill took various jobs, including design work for film magazines and comics, and to help raise his profile, worked on fanzines and self published comics.

Mek Memoirs  is a reproduction of one of King Kevin’s earliest comic projects. Stuck in the dead end of IPC humour department, Kevin needed to find an outlet for his passions, the work that he really wanted to create.

Writer Chris Lowder, aka Jack Adrian famed of early 2000AD and Starlord amongst other work,  and Kevin put together this first episode of what was going to be a reportage style future robot war story. It has a surprising amount of salty language, pitching this towards the more “adult” market and perhaps where both creators saw the future of comics, or at least what that future should involve.

 Stylistically, it is unmistakeably Kevin O’Neill, the textures of his early work have a touch of Ron Turner about them, but you can’t hide that imagination. The robots featured are grand and bizarre designs, and the human characters belie that humour comics influence. This is the seed that would grow into classics such as Ro Busters, ABC Warriors, , Nemesis the Warlock his design of Walter The Wobot and this writer’s personal favourite, Metalzoic .

Thankfully, reports of his retirement following the end of The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen were exaggerated and he’s working on a strip for this year’s Battle Action special, written by Garth Ennis.

Mek Memoirs is a “slight” volume. It’s unbound , has 8 pages of strip with another 4 pages of editorial and commentary from O’Neill and a new cover on top. For £8 plus postage that’s a little pricey. But it is a reproduction of O’Neill’s earliest work; a historical document for us Kevin O’Neill stalkers and a nice companion to the Cosmic Comics volume  published by Hibernia and Gosh, reissued last year with added content.

It’s worth hunting out to see the earliest work of a true original.

https://goshlondon.com/mek-memoirs-pre-order/

Further reading

Nemesis The Warlock : A Potted History

ABC Warriors : A Potted History

Metalzoic Review

Metalzoic Mega City Book Club Podcast

Starlord

 

Skreemer

By Peter Milligan, Brett Ewins, Steve Dillon and Tom Ziuko

Skreemer is an oft overlooked collaboration between old mates, Peter Milligan, Brett Ewins and Steve Dillon. An odd fit for DC and a series you couldn’t imagine them taking a punt on now, it was Vertigo before there was Vertigo, later reprinted in TPB form under that sadly now defunct imprint. It’s an unusual strip which could easily fit in 2000AD now and is here by dint that 3 parts of its creative were working on lots for “The Galaxy’s Greatest” at roughly the same time as it was published.

Skreemer is an unusual mix of near future dystopia and gangsters, or perhaps to paraphrase Ewins’ from his introduction a sci fi “Long Good Friday”. Veto Skreemer is an orphan who is brought up in an America where gangs now run the country following some unexplained cataclysm.  Skreemer rises to head one of these gangs, but throughout his life has had visions of his own doomed future, a future he tries to escape via a long term grand plan. The story is told by a mysterious narrator, jumping back and fore in Veto’s life and how it parallels and intersects with the narrator’s own family history.

In the introduction to the collection Ewins’ cites James Joyce as an influence on both himself and Peter Milligan , the latter revisiting Joyce in later works such as “Shade, The Changing Man”.  In places Skreemer is horrifying and often brutal, this is a very grim book. Reader sympathies lie with the narrator and his family, but weirdly and despite being a psychopath, Veto himself is also a strangely sympathetic character; possibly because he sees himself as being so helpless and beholden to a future only he can see.

The Ewins / Dillon art team is an odd mix, they had previously worked together on a one off Bad Company called “Simply”. There are pages which look like Ewins has been inked or even finished by Dillon, whereas other pages were all Dillon and then vice versa.  Ewins’ pop art sensibilities soon blend seamlessly with Dillon’s square jawed realism. Tom Ziuko’s colours are suitably sombre if a little on the muddy side.

A quick search on the internet reveals It can be picked up quite cheaply as a trade. A forgotten gem of a book.