4 out of 5

This was a gap in my slowly building 2000 AD collection that my LCS had in the backbins.  So the effect of the stories might’ve worn off a bit, but I still think the review is accurate because I’m all impartial and shit.  (Except in that I’m reviewing things and giving them ratings.  Yeah.)

JD – the humorous two-parter Night in Sylvia Plath concludes.  This is a great piece of compressed storytelling from Wagner that slickly offers world-building aspects to new readers – Dark Judges, block structures, etc. – while also giving seasoned readers some chuckles from Dredd’s interactions and the characters.  A highlight, though, in returning to this, is seeing more of Colin Macneil’s art (colored here with a wonderful balance between pop purples and greens and the typical Dredd blues and grays), who has quickly become a Dredd favorite of mine with his unique light-handed comic book take on the world that somehow doesn’t betray the heavy jack-booted sensibilities of the strip, thus equally capable of handling humor and violence.  Thereafter Michael Carroll and Paul Marshall’s ‘Cascade’ would begin, which I recall begin somewhat anti-climactic and the art – in Marshall’s take on Dredd, in the framing, and Gary Caldwell’s bright but flat colors – feeling rather faceless, which it does here as well, admittedly starts off really well, building up from a funny start of a space-traveler returning from a year-long mission that, due to time dilation, has translated to 80+ years on Earth, during which a big chunk of the Meg is established and then transitioning smoothly into something appropriately cliff-hangery as the traveler starts to take on a cult-ish “down with the government” voice-of-the-people role.  So while my awesome future knowledge lets me know where this is going, ‘Cascade’ is an exciting beginning, meaning all the Dredd strips in these progs are pretty aces.

Aquila races along for its middle section, the titular muscled madman slaughtering beasties and taking heads prog by prog.  I didn’t really know what to make of this strip – gore for gore’s sake?  dark humor? – when I passed by it the first time, but a little more familiar with Rennie’s style and given some more installments to see it ramp up to its violent conclusion, I was able to appreciate it more.  Aquila is urged on by splattering blood across the page, which Leigh Gallagher and colorist Dylan Teague detail for us with disgustingly awesome inventiveness and motion, but Rennie keeps an effective balance between his actions, the escapades of a small band of upstarts with whom he’s planning to turn against his bosses, and the mustache-twirling evilness of Nero, Aquila’s would-be taskmaster, such that ‘Carnifex’ shows itself to have more of a plot than just a showcase for stabbings and more actual characters than just fodder for the same.  It’s still a dark and bloody tale – albeit with a slight smile at points – made heavier by the fly- and dirt- specked art, but in retrospect a good counterpoint for Slaine, which could be said to be of a similar model, which is pretty cool, to expand the 2000 AD palette further.  (In later progs we would get the exciting The Order as another offering in the fantasy over sci-fi realm.)

The Brass Sun, middle section.  This strip never grabbed me.  It continues to not grab me.  Wren and team are on their way to find some MacGuffin which will save their world, and INJ Culbard renders huge and fascinating possibilities as the simplest of lines and colors, which writer Ian Edginton apparently feels is acceptable to not embellish with the script at all, just offering the setting and then shushing his characters through them.  Everyone in Brass Sun feels like that – just shapes – riding on the surface of a cool concept.  It’s readable, for sure, just not very involving.  Thankfully the scripts are short.

…And even less positive things to say about Black Shuck, and funny that I’m seeing that this falls into the fantasy realm also but I’d blocked it out.  Leah Moore and John Reppion’s script about brawler Shuck, who gets wrapped up in a fight with some goblin king or something (a “Jötnar”), uses a story-telling device that jumps between some before and after scenes, or before and during, or some time and some time, which I can’t tell you because it never gets any fucking context or gives us a reason for the shifts beyond that I guess eventually we’ll need details from both times.  Except neither time is very interesting, aw, because Steve Yeowell’s art is uncharacteristically lacking in energy on this strip, and the panels feel barren, which is underlined with Chris Blythe’s coloring scheme, showing the distinct narrative shifts with either a bland yellow or bland blue color filter.  And everyone has a fucking beard and looks and talks the same.  Just to contrast with Aquila, you have no doubt who Aquila is and the kind of threat he poses; with Black Shuck – meh?  Shuck is just in a lot of the panels?

But Rennie closes it out with the opening chapters of Jaegir’s Circe, which I’m astonished to find out was only the second Jaegir story, since it really felt like – complimenting Rennie – there was a bigger history here.  As with Aquila, this is a good match of art and tone, with Simon Coleby’s kinetic and ugly (just, like, no one is particularly handsome or pretty) art selling the dirty world in which war-crimes investigator Atalia Jaegir exists.  Len O’Grady also rocks the colors, somehow using primarily browns and reds but making the pages hum with life – the subtle mastery of background colors and shadows, perhaps?  Either way, the start of this story begins to build up Atalia’s struggles with her past as she investigates the source of the poison Circe, each chapter offering an exciting twist or advancement in the mystery.

…Looking back over this, that’s 3 out of 5 for each issue, which should make the overall rating 3 out of 5.  I guess the double dose of Rennie and the above average Dredd tales makes the comparatively few pages of Brass and Shuck easier to swallow, as I never felt really dragged down by those stories while reading the progs.  Glad I could fill in some key moments in all of these tales.