5 out of 5

Closing out the first storylines of 2015 to pave the way for editor Matt Smith’s next jumping-on issue of 1924.  Just noting that a letter writer in 1921 echoed my same praise for Matt Smith: that 2000AD is just on duffing point lately, and though the letter is masked in Tharg-isms, we know it’s in support.

1920 amd 21 finish off Wagner and Staples ‘Dark Justice’ Dark Judges bit, which couldn’t help but peter out at the end, since you can only ever really run away from the DJ’s.  The trick was making running away really tough, which Wagner excelled at, and Staples, as mentioned last time, totally overcame my judgements of painted art by keeping the action fluid and emotional throughout.  Still a fun ride, even if the last chapter is just sorta like, “see you next time.”  Progs 22 and 23 do some Dredd one-shots, 22 (‘300 Seconds’) by Ian Edginton and Simon Coleby an amazing summary of all that Dredd’s about, and 23 (‘Perps, Crimes & Videotape’), a solid slice of silly fun by Alec Worley and the expressive Carl Critchlow.

Eddie Robson has been popping up recently on Tharg’s 3rillers.  1920 finishes up Station to Station, which feels a bit stuffed with social commentary for a short story but not over-stuffed, per se.  Still an impressive handling of a big tale in a small space.  More impressive – massively impressive, actually – is the equally high concept 1%, which is Morrison-esque in its wrangling of a huge bundle of sci-fi slipped in between the panels of an easy-to-read tale, and INJ Culbard actually delivers competently focused art the whole way through, never once stumbling over detailing as he often does.

Survival Geeks hilariously concludes, more and more amusing each prog, Gorden Rennie and Emma Beeby’s tribute to, well, Geek-life, with saucesome splash page work from Neil Googe – kaiju versus Cthulu! – that’ll blow your mind that it’s appearing in a weekly mag.

The Order concludes.  While its penultimate chapter(s) got a little confusing in shuffling around characters and inter-dimensional ‘wurms’ and olden-language explanations, with John Burns delightfully classic Severin-esque art doing its best to give uniqueness to each of the old dudes in The Order but nonetheless slipping in clarity when the action was at its peak…  This was a small price to pay for an exciting new Thrill, which whipped out some fun final-hour twists that leave plenty of story yet to explore.

And Savage: Grinders ended, prog by prog becoming the best thing from Pat Mills I’ve read to date.  His work is generally too ham-fisted for me, and Savage did play with politics a bit more than I prefer, plus it had a really dry, rough start…  But it quickly shaped up into a fun tough-guy brother versus brother yarn, with the final chapters satisfyingly resolving all of the arc’s main plotlines and giving us an awesomely pulpy final few pages that promise good things to come.