4 out of 5

While it doesn’t stray too far from what could be considered a standard 2000 AD sendup – a badass in space – Colin Clayton’s and Chris Mows’ ‘Synnamon’ adventures are a wonderfully fun spin to the template, enlivened by Laurence Campbell’s (pre his inked-up Hellboy phase) and Lee Townsend’s energetic layouts, excepting when the pacing / paneling / framing obfuscates the action a bit, but it’s a rare blip across these two tales.

The pitch of “Emma Peel in an Iain M. Banks type universe” (according to the Albion wiki) is apt: Synnamon slinks about, snarking to her companion computer (Ascheta) as she hustles and bustles and kicks her way through mission-impossible odds, working undercover for a government department that’s part of the colonized worlds of the “United States of Earth” – a la Banks, a unifying system that we sort of understand sort of works.  And this is the zingy appeal of the strip: Clayton / Mows’ compressed world-building that communicates most of what we need to know through casual details, without sacrificing character – this is especially important, given how the strip develops – or the pulse of the main story.  …Which starts out as a catastrophic A.I. gone bad plot, and then shifts to a conspiracy involving Synn’s origins, an incredibly compelling development that, alas, ends rather anti-climactically, in part due to Campbell / Townsend’s framing, as mentioned above.

Thankfully, this last-minute deflating doesn’t derail the entertainment that’s ensued during the lead-up.   Unfortunately, the same praise can’t be lumped on the odds and ends Tyranny Rex (by John Smith and Steve Yeowell) bits that back up the second floppy.  Yeowell’s art is too loose to work in black and white, and the two tales – focused at first – sink into the usual prosey wandering Smith flow.  Because the story is bite-sized, it’s not too bad, but if you’re like me and already soured on the character from the last floppies, these extras won’t convince you otherwise.