4 out of 5

We have four main stories carrying us through this run of progs, and I find it amusing that Brink – I believe – out-parts the big crossover event, Oubliette, concluding at 28 parts. And, I mean, no shade to Oubliette, which I enjoyed for the most part, but Brink is the reason to buy these: this was, as ever, a very talky run from Abnett and INJ, but damn it was an especially creepy one, up through an absolutely chilling final page.

Let’s start back with my least favorite run in this set, though: Deadworld. I have my issues with Kek’s writing in general, and there’s the overarching been-there-done-that gorilla-on-the-cover vibes of Deadworld overall, where I can’t help but feel like we’re just writing into a void that finds the Dead Judges super cool, and painted art of dead judges doing grody things super cool, and… I mean, isn’t that exactly what this strip is? As it’s gone on, and on, since there’s a foregone conclusion of where it ends (with this version of the world / judges turning into the Dead Judges we know), every new entry has felt like a test to see if people are still down to read more. And I guess they are. I’m not really saying anything revelatory, and every 2000 AD series is at the whims of its audience, this just feels like the most surface level big at appealing to the fanbase (yes, even moreso than the lore nods of Oubliette!). There’s definitely credit to Kek for legitimately trying to build out this world, but that’s where I run up against his writing often feeling like over complicated distractions from denouncements that didn’t even really require the distractions. This entry, Justice, started pretty well with our scraggle of survivors teaming up with some Sovs, and ended with some end-game style character twists, suggesting we really must be nearing the conclusion, but over its 12 parts I lost the thread multiple times, and that’s kind of my status quo with this story.

Tl;dr: if you like or don’t like Deadworld, this one ain’t changing your mind.

But then – Kek also gives us Nightmare New York Part Two, with David Roach on art, and… it’s pretty dumb. I mean, relies on a magic stick that cancels out people’s magic powers, which is a very yellow kryptonite thing to pull out of a hat, and as with my storytelling criticism above: the ending reveal of the bad guy’s plans makes the entire runaround feel pretty pointless. However, I think the mashup of old-timey New York and various culture’s mysticisms is pretty fun, David Roach is a wonderful followup on art to the departed John Burns, and Kek’s employment of wry humor feels more evenly applied here than usual. Plus: anytime there’s a psychic rat as a main character, I’m in. In this entry, Lil gets kidnapped; she discovers other people with powers, both put to “good” and “bad” uses.

Niemand’s Oubliette continues to be split up across the Dan Cornwell-illustrated main story of Dredd climbing the Oubliette tower from the inside – a many-leveled gauntlet of figures from Joe’s past – and the Jake Lynch illustrated “Finders,” which has Rico, Old Joe, and PI Lana Locke on the tower’s outside, trying to find their way to Joe. It’s definitely very cool to see the threads coming together, but I think most people, myself included, felt a little (no pun intended) divided on the way this story was splintered between here and The Meg, as well as how Kenneth’s hint dropping over the preceding year or so of Dredd stories led to something that, hm, never really felt all the world-shattering. Like, the very setup suggested some big secret baddie at play, which led people to criticize the nostalgia-tickling references scattered throughout the tower – you’ve already put people in mind of an Easter Egg hunt for some underused villain-from-the-past, which distracts from current goings-on – and that there had to be some mental manipulation shenanigans happening, and even if Joe was stuck in his gauntlet, his deathlessness while inside undermined the immediacy of things, which was further undermined by splitting the story into pieces. I’ve said it several times, but again: this will read well when collected, I’m sure. And it wasn’t unfun by any means, I just want to say I understood the underwhelmed (as per the forums) reception. Standing back from those top-down critiques, the Finders itself was great – Niemand’s home grown cast are great additions to the Dreddverse, he has a great sense of “voice” for Rico and Giant, making them distinct, and this one felt the most unknown in terms of What Could Happen Next, which held true up through its conclusion. The Oubliette definitely wandered, but Cornwell’s art and the structure of a video gamey level-by-level conquest made each week’s success enjoyable to read. The tl;dr here is that not only will it read better collected, but if it was easy to run through my digital progs and know the “right” reading sequence, I’d be rereading it now, without hesitation.

I did forget to mention the Oubliette tie-in of Anderson, Psi Divisions The Void because, alas, it was forgettable. It was the true definition of a tie-in comic, which was novel to see in 2000 AD, but man did this feel completely unnecessary overall, and because it (apparently) tied into Oubliette, it makes you read what’s otherwise a kind of passably inoffensive story about Cass brain-hunting a mutant thing (from Liam Johnson and Rob Richardson) as part of that other story, which is what turns passably inoffensive into forgettable. I’m curious if there are more ties here than I’m recalling; ultimately not factoring this too much into the ranking as it didn’t take away from the reading experience, though it didn’t directly add to it. Indirectly – oddly, for what I’m picking on it for – I like the idea of backups supporting the main story, even though both this and Finders kind of stumbled in the offing.

Some notable Future Shocks from newish (to 2000 AD) writer James Lovegrove – alphabet themed entries, done in a cartoonish style with varying artists while covering dark topics – and a fantastic Rogue oner from Andi Ewington and Nicolo Assirelli, with Rogue separated from his chipped-mates and going through quite an ordeal to get them back. This one-shot, to me, puts some of the last few multi-part Rogue tales to shame, with no small thanks to Assirelli’s moody, expressive artwork and John Charles’ ever-amazing colors.

Finally: Brink!

I just kinda want to close it there. This one is just… man. A great, weird mystery with a potential undercover agent onboard the Lunar station, paralleled with encroaching oddities at the off-site ship on which Gita is stationed, and with whom Kurtis can only connect intermittently, through always failing technology, threaded into tense standoffs with IIA and internal double-crosses and just damned, damned fantastic characterization and writing. And yes, you’re right that I sometimes think INJ is not great at depicting some scenes, and they’re not my favorite artist overall, but they are integral to the tone established for this book, for sure, and it’s “flatness” makes all the complexity of its space horror that much creepier overall, I think. It’s hard to explain much about Brink without ruining its story, as it’s so dense that anything beyond “space cops investigating a cult” is telling too much, but there you go. Charmingly, you could start here and still “get it,” and honestly still be completey wrapped up in it. But man, this is one that also pays to periodically reread, since Abnett is so good at layering in details organically along the way.