4 out of 5

‘The Vort’ is one of the most amazingly dense high-concept sci-fi books I’ve read, with insanely vibrant art from D’Israeli.  When the story (via a twist, ruined here by moi) shifts gears and becomes Lobster Random, it’s still dense, and still pretty amazing, with can’t-knock-it funky art from Carl Critchlow, but the complete tone change from one narrator to another sucks out a huge percentage of our emotional connection with the tale, and things inevitably suffer a bit from having to be explained.  These criticisms may only come in comparison to The Vort, though; the Lobster-driven majority of the story is a lot of fun on its own, so the whole package – split across two months worth of floppies – still earns a high rating.

The Vort was initially presented under a pseudonym by Spurrier, the reason for which becomes clear at its conclusion.  The title is of a planet, to which our narrator – reporter Meridien Bless – has traveled with the head honcho of a company trying to mine that planet for resources.  The odd structure of the planet, with vortexes at either end, is only one small part of the page-coating world-building Spurrier and D’Israeli get up to, The Vort coated in organic mysteries given a lurid neon wash by the artist, and the dialogue dotted with mentions of an electromagnetic field that blankets the world – ruining electronics, eventually driving everyone crazy – as well as various other tech and future mutterings that, as with the best world-building, is taught to us via context and not by someone ‘splaining it.  The problem on The Vort, besides the troubling environs, is that the precious resources are being protected by the locals – “frogs,” big and unwieldy demons with backwards arms and a bevy of troops to throw at the company’s army.  Around Bless, as she observes the confusing imbalances on the planet (between Us and Them) and questions the need for being there, soldiers drop to either e-mag craziness or in battle.  Save Crispy, the scarred, silent warrior who seems unaffected by everything, and maybe shares a kinship with the planet he’s not sharing…

…And though I’ve primarily summarized it all, I’m not doing it any justice.  The Vort is thrillingly inventive, both visually and story-wise, and the kind of “this needs to be collected” material that we should bless the Meg reprints for housing.  This isn’t even touching on the tale’s conclusion, of course, which, with a wave of the ol’ narrative wand, reveals Crispy to be… Lobster Random.

The quick background, of which I was unaware at the time, is that Spurrier had written three previous tales with Lobster Random, with artist Carl Critchlow.  So I think this was a pretty amazing bait and switch – pseudonym, different artist, new setting – to 2000 AD readers, though I certainly have no real idea what the response was at the time.  The primary important thing is that the reveal came across as just as shocking even though I have no history with the character.  The set up makes it clear there is a history – whether already told or forthcoming – and had me salivating for more.  So kudos.

So now we switch to Lobster’s narration.  And this is where it changes a bit.  Lobster has no recollection of what brought him to The Vort, so The Forget Me Know pretty much fills in the cracks, and blows a lot of things up in the process.  The tone of The Vort is insanity, and ridiculousness; the tone of Lobster leans heavily on comedy.  His words are littered with pun-ny references to future nonsense, and he’s much more of a cigar-chompin’ wisecracker than the cynical observer Bless was.  So via Bless, we got a human point of view; through Lobster, it’s been-there-done-that-har-de-har.  Not bad, but different, and by its nature filtering out the more relatable POV found in The Vort.  The script still zooms by, and though Critchlow’s energetic art can be a bit hard to track sometimes, he has a great sense of visual comedy and motion so the pages never feel static.  Alas, this has been the last Lobster Random story for now (since 2008), and Spurrier wants it to go out with a bang, so he offers us a lot of answers in a short period of time.  On the one hand, this feels more like a traditional 2000 AD piece, hard and fast and funny.  On the other hand, all that world-building that was done comes crashing down.

Overall?  I loved it.  And I plan to pick up Lob’s previous adventures, because I’m sure the antics from then ’til this are equally entertaining.  But it’s hard – reading these in one sitting, back-to-back – not to compare the rather distinct feelings these stories triggered and lean toward the oddly (for all its excesses) more reserved Vort as the winner, and perhaps as something that deserved to be developed on its own.  At the same time, I loved the curtain pull-back, and appreciate that the weekly delivery of these story pieces via 2000 AD may have made the transition from Bless to Lobster less bi-polar.

Also included: the final chapter of Harlem Heroes (effing finally) and some future shock-y shorts written by Al Ewing.  Despite waiting forever for the ending of HH, I now sort of get that it wasn’t so important to read it with chapters 1-27.  It’s a different artist (Kev Hopgood vs. Steve Dillon and Kev Walker) and really feels like a “where are they now?” after-thought, even though it’s not.  Oh well, at least it’s here.  The Ewing shorts are nothing special; Go Machine is a confused concept about a world where robots are seen as second class citizens and a fellow with cybernetic grafts finds himself declared more robot than human…  It’s a great idea, just a little wishy-washy in its principles and OD’ing on them at the same time.  The second short, an actual Future Shock, is short and sweet and a good representation of what Shocks can do in a few pages.  Alas, it’s filler in a floppy, so the effect is distilled.