5 out of 5

And this is Downlode, home of Finnigan Sinister and Ramone Dexter, provider of consistent entertainment ‘tween the pages of 2000 AD.

‘Death’ captures a particularly winning storyline, joyously further collecting S/D odds and ends, as with the last two months’ floppies.  Abnett has the boys pledging their allegiance to new boss Apellido (for the right price, of course), much to the frustration of Kal, since said boss tried to have him killed in the last arc.  Which cues our gun-sharks reiterating for the first of several times: Business is business.  You’d think this would come back to bite them when Kal goes to work for Apellido’s rival, The Mover, but Abnett isn’t that precious; a later showdown is a particularly funny, very SinDex moment underlining the score.

Still, the boys’ are roundabout brought to question things as other plot machinations stack up, leading to a great and bloody cliffhanger.

While Simon Davis’ work on the strip this far had been plus and minus for me, lacking movement when the antics would start to heat up and feeling over-acted, he was on point this arc.  Perhaps it was a fortunate balance of exposition and action, but there are still some big sequences that he handles perfectly, with emotive layouts and plenty of momentum.

Also included is a Christmas short, which hangs an interesting and amusing What Happened? question on events.

This is the strip firing on all cylinders, taking the attitude that makes it fun and funneling the story toward unpredictable twists and turns.