3 out of 5

Alan Grant undeniably knows Cass Anderson. She may’ve started as a joint Wagner / Grant affair, like many Dreddverse key characters, but soon enough, Alan was writing her solo, and using the character to indulge in his various art and music and psychology and religious interests, allowing Cass’ mind reading abilities to justify taking her on the trippiest of trips that’s likely been taken by any MC-1 denizen. I haven’t always been on board with this approach – I don’t share Alan’s same interests, and have tended to find some of his explorations a lot of fancy verbiage over story shallowness – but it created a “voice” for Cass, and definitely created a journey for her character.

Knowing her so well, it’s also probable that Grant knew when her story / stories were… over. While 2000 AD has a more linear timeline than Marvel and DC comics, we’re still likely going to have the main players around for a while. But Grant kind of told the ultimate cycle of Anderson stories, peaking (in my mind) with some psychedelic post-Judge Death business, amazingly arted by constant PSI-artist Arthur Ranson. And so what is there left to do?

That leaves volume 5 with attempts at answering that question, and it’s mostly return Anderson to a status quo, weird-case-of-the-month approach, with anarchic plant activists, and the MC-1 version of Salem, and sentient city blocks. These stories can be fun (especially the sentient city blocks, thanks to Dave Taylor’s amazingly weighty, yet comic, artwork), but Grant struggles to find a tone for Cass, trying to maintain a sense of stakes against her sass; being mindful of her past while furthering a narrative.

So we open up with something of a coda to the Half-Life business, and Ranson’s last Cass outing pitting her against Phobia and Nausea. Again with the great visuals, but the story feels a bit like a retread with a different baddie; Grant sort of wholly clearing the Judge Death slate. After the Dave Taylor story, we shift to the Boo Cook era. Now, admittedly, I have some negative bias here: while I conceptually like Boo’s bubbly, pastel-hued style, the artist’s cartoonishness – despite how detailed their work can be – tends to make pages feel rather flat, and that’s not a great look for the dense cityscape of Mega City. Plus, this is pretty early Boo, when oddball camera angles were overused without much purpose, and panels tended towards the simple; it doesn’t help to elevate the already wavering tone. But after a few outings, Cook gets things under control, and the last couple strips – that flatness aside – look like “modern” Boo, and, at least when taken a page at a time, are often quite beautiful. The last story in the collection (besides a couple ho-hum bonus strips) is, again, Grant trying to add some nuance back into Cass’ narrative: it’s a story in which she’s forced to question if she’s starting to get too old for this job; if it has meaning for her anymore. Those reading along will find some similarities with the Postcards saga, but it’s nonetheless a logical way to sift through Cass’ life. The actual story supporting this is rather weak, unfortunately, but it at least felt more in line tonally with the better Cass stories.