3 out of 5

The excitement of the thrills starting in prog 1900 is distilled by a pretty balanced mix of slightly above average and slightly below average tales in 1897 – 1899.

We see the conclusion of ‘Cascade,’ Michael Carroll and Paul Marshall’s return and dispatch of The Lawlords, a ruthless race of alien dictators who nonetheless convince (through some trickery) the Earth populace that they’re a better alternative to the judges.  All the last-ditch methods seem to fail until Carroll rocks out a pretty true Dredd solution to matters, though the series ends way too openly (leaving room for more Lawlordsness), something that the Jaegir story in these progrs does as well.  Marshall’s art is clear and effective but combined with Gary Caldwell’s flat colors, ‘Cascade’ looks a little early 00s: blocky, simple panels.

Aquila’s Carnifex comes to an end as well, with Aquila blood-letting and gore-ing his way through plenty of gross, gross baddies and then treating Nero to a gross, gross end.  The point of Aquila has seemed to be brutality, and Leigh Gallgher’s very Corben / Fabry-esque detailing (well matched with Dylan Teague on colors, finding plenty of variation in the mire) sells that point in pretty much every single frame, but Rennie’s God-of-War revenge bit hasn’t landed with me, the characters are varying shades of disgusting and so not all that compelling.

Brass Sun – Floating Worlds ends.  I’ve complained about this strip elsewhere, that its high-concept clockwork world just seems to wander in the execution, INJ Culbard’s weaknesses as an action artist brought to the fore all too often for showing us what should be a world of wonders but is often just stiff characters on flat backgrounds.  The team finds some MacGuffin, fights something, further MacGuffins are established.

And the almost silly Black Shuck concludes, about a dude cursed to be a werebear (which Steve Yoewell can’t help but make look a bit comical) fighting a Dragur, with plenty of cheesy dialogue from Leah Moore and John Reppion.  I love Yeowell’s swooping lines, and I realize he is a 2000 AD alumni, but his work always seems better suited to either the surreal or the naturalistic.  This more fantasy-themed work is very unexciting in his hands, and Chris Blythe gives almost the entire strip a very bland wash of blue and brown.

So these middle three strips drag the experience down a bit.  To be fair, though, the only one I really didn’t enjoy was Shuck; Carnifex kept you turning pages to see whose blood was spilled next, and Brass Sun has a general WTFness about it, even if it never seems to amount to anything.

Bringing the tone back up to par is Rennie’s Jaegir – Circe strip, with Atalia shutting down an enemy capable of hopping between bodies with some snazzy bravado (although, as mentioned, the final open-ended panel is a little lame).  Jaegir is the kind of gung-ho strip Rennie does best, and Simon Coleby’s rough hewn art sells the war-ravaged world, supported by Len O’Grady’s magnificent use of yellows and browns and greens.

To fill a gap in 1899, there’s a pretty awesome Future Shocks by Eddie Robson and Nick Dyer, which is frankly one of the best examples of compressed sci-fi I’ve seen in quite a bit.

1900 starts three new tales – Block Judge, by the inimitable Wagner and Ezquerra, which would turn out to be one of the most awesome Dredd bits in a while; A Stickleback series by Edginton and D’Israeli, which has Ian’s same sort of all-over-the-place feeling as Brass Sun but remains somewhat more on point, and D’Israeli’s art is insanely unique; and a badass Kingdom opener by Dan Abnett and Richard Elson.  So it’s the start of a pretty good batch of stories.