Mark Allen reviews 2000AD Prog 1998…
This week’s prog brings us five stories of betrayal, subterfuge and violence – perfect for those midweek blues when you want to blow everything up!
In Judge Dredd, the character’s creators John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra conclude their latest story, Ladykiller, with the eponymous lawman chasing down a cross-dressing terrorist through zoom tunnels before a final showdown. Ezquerra’s chunky motorcycles and weaponry are a distinct pleasure to see, and both the script and jagged panels keep the action at a frenetic pace. Wagner casts a villain of vast difference to Dredd: where the Judge is stoic and decisive, the jittery PJ Maybe is a pathetic nervous wreck. Needless to say, things don’t end so well for him.
Jaegir: Warchild continues a dystopian story that sees its lead discovering a massacre in her underground home before discovering the disturbing, all-too familiar source of the violence. The art swings from atmospheric silhouettes to detailed horror, never shying away from the dank setting or grotesque villains, and brings a chilly, pessimistic mood to proceedings – which is just fine with this reviewer.
Scarlet Traces: Cold War brings a thick-lined, cartoonish vibe to its ongoing tale of familial revelations, broken alliances and alien invaders, which somehow makes the Martian tripods featured even more frightening. There’s a whiff of Image’s recent Prophet reboot in Scarlet Trace’s imaginative design and melodramatic backstory, and that’s never a bad thing.
The penultimate story is Outlier: Survivor Guilt, a continuing space opera that throws drone ships, star-bound battles and the threat of oblivion together in a sweeping story, albeit one that might not quite click for new readers. There’s a lot going on, and some of the characters – especially the villains – suffer from looking somewhat indistinguishable due to a prevalent style of facial hair. Nevertheless, the droids and ships look gnarly and somehow organic, giving them an uncanny air that assists the desperate, unsettling tone of the story.
The prog closes with another Mega City One story in Anderson, Psi-Division: The Candidate. Emma Beeby and Nick Dyer fill their pages with political intrigue and mounting violence but don’t neglect their characters, creating striking portraits of their lead characters with a smart structure and leaving us on a nail-biting cliffhanger. These script and art droids really know what they’re doing…
Rating: 7/10
Mark Allen
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