4 out of 5

I feel like I’ve been pretty lucky with 2000 AD lately, as I don’t not look forward to any given thrill. There are ones I think are, er, not good, but they’re not dragging on me. (Yet, anyway.)

The Dredd spot here firstly concludes another low-key Michael Carroll epic, ‘In the Event of my Untimely Demise.’ Paul Marshall remains a really good foil for Carroll, as the sober tone and talking head focus allows Paul to focus on acting and not have to stretch for action; this thing plays out like a sci-fi political thriller. …It does kind of end on a whimper, as Carroll is planning more, but the swirling circle of gang conspiracies, and Dredd dealing with a psi crim who has a link to him, made for exciting, how-will-he-stop-this? intrigue, week by week. And Niemand’s starting up another Asher arc in 2341?? Too good.

Durham Red and Blighty Valley conclude. The former really impressed me, staying tight on Durham’s pursuit of a mad doctor, but adding even more character work to this revitalization of the strip, making it more than just sexy blood ‘n’ guts; Red is starting to have a personality (again). Very impressive.

Blighty Valley was also almost universally excellent, but I feel like I kind of lost the thread in the final arc. Thematically I followed, but the art and execution felt like it was reaching for concepts slightly beyond their grasp. Still, Ennis is, in my mind, entering an excellent “new” phase of his career, learning how to pare down his indulgences and commit equally to themes and story.

Void Runners also heads into its conclusion, and this was a strip I really, really did not expect to like, since I often find David Hine’s writing to be conceptually strong but with kind of weak dialogue, and Boo Cook looking great from afar, but too floaty in the micro. But: this strip of alien mineral mining – and the rogue who turns rebel against his (essentially) government overlords, and then take all of that and weird it up by 1000% 2000 AD vibes – this story perfectly plays into both Hine’s and Cook’s perceived weaknesses and leverages them perfectly. The tale has a kind of cartoonishness built into it that works with Hine’s dialogue style, allowing his darker themes to feel like interesting juxtapositions and not tonal mismatches, and Cook, I think, just isn’t great with “reality” – at least to me. This takes places totally on ships and within the gooshy insides of creatures, so the floatiness makes complete sense. Amazing character design as always, though.

PORTALS & BLACK GOO starts up in 2340, and this is the lull of this batch. John Tomlinson reads like he’s trying really hard to tap into modern teen talk, and it’s exactly that: try hard. Riffing on gig economies and comboing food delivery services with a world of vamps and werewolves and etcetera is fun, but no clear character motivations or story emerges in either of those beginning entries. It’s kind of an interesting mess of ideas, at least, and Eoin Covenay is delightful on art, tapping into some classic Yeowell vibes and all the energy that suggests.

Hershey is the other new starting thrill, from Rob Williams and Simon Fraser. Too early to say anything on this one, but we stopped the previous arc with some weight to-be-continued stakes, and we jump right in here. Fraser’s art seems to have loosened up a bit, in a great way. Looking forward to how this proceeds.

Lastly: Azimuth – Dan Abnett, Tazio Bettin. Bettin just keeps getting better and better every time, their artwork getting more dense and energetic, with some Andy Clarke vibes. While I have no idea what’s going on in this strip – it’s overloaded with tech puns and posits some kind of virtual world where our lead, Suzi Nine, has been tasked with solving a mystery of why some tech bigwigs are having bad dreams – Dan hits the ground running with world-building, ably assisted by Bettin. It just looks so damn cool, and we get the sense that Abnett is kind of purposefully throwing tons of unexplained terminology and lore at us so that he can drop another shoe at some point.

…And when that shoe does drop, in 2341, some smarter folk than me Knew It All Along, and some (from that group or otherwise) were completely pissed off by it, which I understand. Me? I pooped my pants with excitement. One of the most satisfying reveals of the year, even if buying into the ahead-of-time suspicions others had.