4 out of 5

These were all… pretty massive? Setting aside Portals & Black Goo, which just felt outdated from the get-go and never materialized into anything really effective, this was an important 2000 AD run in my mind: lots of in-the-trenches work, and pretty weighty ones, reminding us that, despite US deals and Regeneds, this is still very much an adult book.

In the Dredd slot, Niemand and Tom Foster conclude their mini-epic of Ex-Judge, ex-Titan convict, once-rehabbed-convict-now-back-in-the-life-of-crime Kyle Asher. While this run carried moreso the beats of finality than the tensions of the previous parts, it was the needed conclusion, and kudos to Niemand (and the editor for allowing Niemand the time) to walk us through Kyle’s relative rise and fall. There was never a different way for this to turn out, but a knife-twisting tale well told is still effective. Foster’s art was maybe a bit too stiff for when scenes required something a bit more dynamic – this was generally a noir, with back alley / shadowed crimes, while this last section had some bigger scale shootouts – but I wouldn’t have swapped out his work by any means, as that same stiffness gave things a very weighty vibe.

Void Runners had its last entry in 2342. The bulk of this I’d reviewed previously, and I wasn’t upset by the ending, except that I would’ve supported this continuing on, and this seems like that won’t be happening. That said, perhaps putting the kibosh on it is what kept it working – David Hine can drag things out, and his dialogue tends to slip in those cases, but this was a fun but well-paced tale.

Portals & Black Goo: I really don’t want to outright trash anything, but I also had trouble identifying much redeeming about this beyond Eoin Covenay’s art and matchingly moody colors from Jim Boswell, but even the visuals suffered with the cluttered script, jumping us around insensibly. The story, from John Tomlinson, about a food delivery service for the supernatural, is a kooky idea, but lordy was the execution… off. From the tone, which tried too hard to co-opt a modern voice and came across sounding like an oldie speaking to the youngsters, to the plotting, which tried to force stakes (and romance?) into what seemed like a jokey tale, none of the lore or the characters engendered much interest. The former felt continually secondary; the latter hardly existed. It was all premise.

Hershey’s post-Judge life… ends. This, similar to the Kyle Asher tale, arrived with a tone that just told you we were winding down, and as such, Rob Williams didn’t need to over-promise on story – often I find his tales to build up a lot of intrigue, and then fall flat, for various reasons, in the wrap-up. Here, though, we kind of start at the end, with Hershey calling Dredd in to deal with the final danglings of various Williams Dredd storylines, and then we spend each issue finally getting to rest with Hershey, her job at its end, doing something like a victory lap, or as much as one of those you can do when you’re dying. The final entry was very well received in the forums; I appreciated its All-Star Superman sense of compression, but I also think its somberness deserved a couple more pages (which were given over to a double-sized Azimuth… though it used those very well). I hadn’t connected with the previous Hershey iterations much, though I wanted to. I liked the idea; Iiked the look. This run allowed me to finally enjoy those things.

And speaking of Azimuth, I was totally plus Abnett backing this into a SinDex story, and the scenario refresh – Ramone sort of undercover from the AI – ended up being one of the best possible things that could happen for this strip, as we had sort of been backed into a corner. Dan is great at coming up with these revamps – even within SinDex, he’s done it before… We’re essentially watching Ramone still figuring out how to take down the AI, but flip-flopping the point of view to those operating within the technology was really outside of the box, and set us up for Ramone’s appearance within Azimuth perfectly, which also gave us a foot forward on his narrative, not having to structure things wholly around him figuring things out. It’s an ideal combo of discovery and momentum. Tazio Bettin’s art plus Matt Soffe’s coloring is also a dream: fantastic, Doug Mahnke like figurework, excellent character design, and a rich, but not overwhelming world. This better get a collection.

Additionally, we get two really solid 3rillers: a continuation of David Barnett’s Herne and his comic foil / magic dog Shuck in Maxwell’s Demon (art by Lee Milmore), and Eddie Robson (who used to show up on 3rillers all the time; welcome back!) and Nick Brokenshire on one of the most effectively paced three-parters I’ve read – Die Hoard – doing a riff on analog vs. digital (in a way) without being precious about it. Barnett’s story is just kind of a fun, isolated Ghostbusters type tale, and if we keep these simple and don’t try to over-lore them, I’d take more of these; Robson’s, meanwhile, effortlessly packs in a ton of world-building and characters in its few total pages, with Brokenshire’s art the strongest its ever been.

You know 2000 AD is in a good spot when you don’t have to glance back at the previous week to remember where a story is – you’ve been looking forward to it, and it’s already active in your thoughts. Nearly every thrill was like that this go-round.