4 out of 5

Even though the Dredd spot here is very uneven – despite finally getting to Niemand’s Oubliette epic about halfway into this chunk of progs – the overall run is boosted by very substantial entries in three series that carry across most of these progs: Edginton and D’Israeli’s Helium; Abnett and Culbard’s Brink; and Carroll and Currie’s Silver.

Back to Dredd: things kick off with the middling Black and White Phosphorous from Eglington and Marshall. Marshall’s art continues to kind of weird me out a little; I’m not quite sure I’ve decided on the right “fit” for Paul’s style, which is always a bit crooked (literally; his characters look like they have a line drawn down the middle that throws off their symmetry) and cartoony – kind of a Ron Smith vibe, which makes him good for somewhat lighter fare, but he’s often plopped on weightier stuff. Phosphorous isn’t exactly weighty, but Eglington is tickling at some social constructs – actual current day class studies; what rebellion can / could / should look like for the oppressed – and the story never quite clicks, tonally. And Marshall doesn’t help walk that line. Niemand comes in for a few non-Oubliettes then, with a perfect oner with Nick Dyer on art, then the two-part Crossed Lines with Mutti, which feels like it could’ve been shrunk to one thrill or expanded to three for better pacing, but, as ever, nails the balance of Joe’s persona.

Then… the Oubliette, with Dan Cornwell, which flip-flops every few entries with Jake Lynch on The Finders. Over in the Meg, I’ve mentioned how the way everything Niemand touches right now is Oublietted can feel a little undermining instead of properly serving the epic vibe, but I think this specific approach in the prog – of doing some Oubliette entries with Dredd (which is a gauntlet of bloody battles and nostalgia, as Joe climbs up the floors of a mystical tower, haunted by friends and foes from across 2000 AD history) and then Finders with Old Joe on the tower’s outside, dealing with the strange psychic impact of the building’s appearance – is working gangbusters, possibly primarily because it’s weekly, and the parallels / juxtapositions of the storylines and art styles and characters just kind of makes more sense. The Oubliette bits themselves keep threatening to be a bit too nostalgia-laden, but I ultimately have faith in Kenneth, and have zero doubts that this will read amazingly once all collected and sequenced.

In Helium, Edginton and D’Israeli toss our tough constable, her cyborg companion, and the fussy professor, down to the poisoned surface for a harrowing run of constant escalations that winds through a whole host of cyberpunk and body horror influences and kind of appreciably streamlines the Helium lore in a way that makes it easy to focus on the characters and their plight. I guess the overall Helium storyline is explored more in terms of world than necessarily evolving any over-arching plot points (until the story’s conclusion), but with the series’ return a few years back, I feel like the creators have really been dialing in on getting us to care about the cast in a way that actually has me invested in those plot points more than I was previously. A great run.

And some kind of award should go to Carroll and Currie on Silver for turning this series around significantly. While I had confidence in Carroll, I was admittedly less sold on Currie, who’s kind of Quitely-like linework was sort of selling a false bill of goods – Joe’s action and eye direction were not very readable to me, which is a misdirect from the seeming precision of that linework. In general, there was some of disconnect on between art and script that never made the story’s tone click, though the idea of a grumpy resurrected vampire fighting off alien invaders is a great one. We just kind of needed Baroness DeSilva to settle in with some human compatriots for the right reasons – giving us a team to root for instead of everyone unpleasantly bickering with everyone – and this arc delivers that, alongside Joe finding his own balance between chaos and quiet in his work, syncing with the storytelling. Also a great run.

Brink – you don’t need me to tell you this rocks, but making Bridget into a known quantity (people trust her expertise now) has been a great decision, and Abnett keeps finding ways to explore the Sect conspiracies from new angles. Here, we’re on a lunar base, as a known quantity and the Sect’s threat fully acknowledged, it’s now a matter of stepping through politics – other specialists; convincing others where the true threats really are or aren’t – while Dan plays out the mysteries of undercover assassins and technological espionage.

Several Future Shocks and so on fill out the extra space; Paul Marshall is a pretty good fit for a Paul Starkey 3riller about patriotic stooges, as the uncertainty of how comedic or serious the tone is supposed to be ends up being part of its eventual Gotcha. I’d be down with this story being explored more…