4 out of 5

Don’t ask me why I don’t have Prog 1910.  I DON’T KNOW EITHER.  But here’s the rundown:

JD – Block Judge finishes up.  It’s Wagner and freaking Ezquerra.  Ezquerra’s art has just gotten so much more solid and amazing over the years, and on this 12-part epic, he’s using this awesome wavy inking style.  Dredd leads a batch of Judges down in the nitty gritty on Block Detail, setting the mobs of a particularly nasty block straight.  This is pure Dredd – dark humor, over-the-top, violent, biting, but fascinating and nuanced as hell.  Instant classic.

Stickleback – The Thru’Penny Opera also finishes.  I’ve mentioned before I’m not big, it seems, on Edginton’s writing style, and D’Israeli’s suuuuper stylized art on this strip – about a band of odd freak criminals trying to, like, prevent the end of the world or something – definitely comes with a learning curve.  The strip isn’t really too new-reader friendly to me, which means the initial parts of this tale left me a bit dry, but the concluding moments actually moved along at a pretty good clip, the tone ramping up and up such that it matches the oddity of the look.

Greysuit – Prince of Darkness’ conclusion.  Pat Mills is super hit or miss with me, and Greysuit encompasses all of that.  Concerning the rebellion of a superpowered assassin, Greysuit stumbles between manned-up action, pokes at the government, and then stupid comedy.  It was an unfortunate lowlight of this collection, especially as the ending really juxtaposed the action and oddball.  If Mills had settled on a more balanced tone, it feels like it could’ve been successful.

Ichabod Azrael – One Last Bullet ends.  Rob Williams.  This was an incredibly fascinating meta Western that was almost too out there for its own good, trying to wrap itself around the creative process and gods and devils and life and death and black and white and color.  There’s something really amazing buried ‘neath the surface – Rob Williams really has some great ideas kicking around in his brain – and Michael Dowling’s art somehow balances a Severin-like mastery of oldie style with some modern touches to make it work in a sci-fi mag, but the idea is almost a bit too sprawling to feel like it hits its stride.  Definitely something to watch, just hard to figure out what to make of it.

Dan Abnett’s Kingdom – Aux Drift concludes.  Battle-smart soldier Gene fights some big bugs.  This serial ends in a flash, but Abnett and Elson (with deliciously emotive colors from Abigail Ryder) deliver the action sci-fi goods.  All of the characters in dialogue and body language just jump off the page, so you don’t feel like you’re reading just a comic version of some dumb blockbuster flick.  It might boil down to some fight scene, but you love these characters and root for them.  This was a consistently awesome addition to the progs.

The 2015 prog is a solid kick-off for some new stories – Wagner on another Dredd tale, hard to tell where it’ll be going at this point, but a full painted strip from Greg Staples and a promise of Judge Death seems like something to look forward to…  Pat Mills’ Visible Man one-shot takes some obvious nips at religion but the tale works thanks to energetic art by David Hitchcock.  Kek-W’s new thrill ‘The Order’ has a fun looking mash-up of robots and swords and sorcery; groovy classic looking art by John Burns.  Again, time will tell.  Guy Adams start a Ulysses Sweet thrill, about the crazy killer-for-hire Sweet.  This has an old-school in-it-for-the-yuks feel to it, buoyed by Paul Marshall’s comedic art style.  Hopefully something of a plot will emerge, but the opening is frantic enough to stay entertaining, so that approach is fine too.  A Jaegir flashback from Rennie that, unfortunately felt a bit forced for pagecount, and then a couple JD offshoots – Lowlife by Rob Williams and D’Israeli and Max Normal by Guy Adams and Ben Willsher.  The former starts funny and ends grimly, which makes it a dash unsatisfying as a one-off, and the Max Normal bit is rather self-referential but definitely fun.  Another Pat Mills bit – Savage – that’s tough to tell what the focus will be, but the first entry is an appealing start – and then the ish concludes with a solid ‘Christmas’ JD bit from Michael Carroll and Karl Richardson.  A well-chosen mix of intro thrills and one-offs, definitely worth the cover price.

So, as usual, some stories work better than others, but definitely an overall aces month for 2000 AD.