Megablog

2000AD Prog 16: 11-Jun-1977

Invasion! #16

A Volg bounty hunter successfully slaughters two apparently impressive resistance members, but Savage manages to trick him into driving to his death into a rock quarry.

My thoughts on Invasion! on the whole can be found here.

Flesh #16

Reagan narrowly avoids being eaten by Ol’ One Eye as the Controller tries to dump her and Reagan both into the meat processor. Unfortunately, it looks like the spiders have gotten to him.

Reagan is the best fighter the Controller has, and yet for whatever reason--revenge for being threatened? Fear Reagan will blame him for this mess publicly?--he’s decided Reagan must die. It’s a step below seeing people as assets, as things that can get you what you want--it’s seeing people as a means only to self-preservation. Reagan is, at least in theory, a threat to the Controller.

Harlem Heroes #16

The assassin sent after the Heroes is now hiding amongst the Gorgon’s Gargoyles, a team of cyborg players set to face off against the Heroes.

There’s a kernel of something interesting in the idea of the Gargoyles deliberately playing up their mutilated uglyness for intimidation. It’s also interesting that the Heroes think the Gargoyles couldn’t possibly be human.

I think that’s as far as I want to take that line of thought, frankly.

Dan Dare #16

Mekron uses a being known as “the Blob” to interrogate Dan Dare, unearthing his origins and revealing him to be the same man Mekron once fought.

We return now to the idea of a clash between the old and new Dares, with Mekron declaring the Blob to have been exiled from godknowswhere for doing things incomprehensible to the human mind before using it as a mind-reading device. This reveals there’s no contradiction at all--the hamfisted narrative styles of old pulp mesh is simply going to assimilate bizarro artwork of the new version, and upon reflection might’ve done so already. After all, it’s not like the previous arc was especially new and exciting. 

Nerve Centre 

This year is the ten-year anniversary of when we all stopped fishing with hooks and lines and built giant robots to patrol the seas instead. God, I remember that. The collapse of the Fish Lobby was something to see.

I’m hard-pressed to argue that Robin Riggs doesn’t have a point when he calls for fewer, longer stories--or at least expansions for the ones with ongoing narratives. Harlem Heroes especially suffers from glacial pacing.

M.A.C.H.1 #16

John Probe is abducted by a mad munitions manufacturer looking to SHOW THEM ALL. He escapes. The strips seems increasingly disinterested in its central moral quandaries, or being anything but a straightforward action story, which is fine, I guess. Lowering my expectations gives me less to complain about.

I dig the hell out of the page compositions this goaround, though, which largely eschew such conventions as “panel borders” or “spacial reasoning”. I mean that genuinely. It gives the strip a very distinctive look.

Judge Dredd #15

Dredd hijacks an atmospheric control station in order to create a massive electrical storm, short-circuiting robots attacking the Hall of Justice. However, electrical storms have been outlawed since 2012! Surely this will cause no end of turmoil and angst for Dredd, who after all has pledged to unquestioningly uphold the law and hahaha na just kidding. Dredd is hailed as a hero, the law against storms a quick speedbump that’s easily solved by overloading the computer. There’s not even a nod to, like, Judges being above the law or something. Dredd breaking the law is a footnote.

Last week I was willing to give the comic credit for trying to come at fascism from a vaguely interesting angle, but I think this week makes it clear that this story is mostly just an excuse for a series of action setpieces, with no real thought put into it beyond “robot revolutions are fun to draw/read but also the status quo needs to reassert itself.”

2000AD Prog 15: 4-Jun-1977

alright where the fuck were we

Invasion! #15

oh right this shit

So Savage and the rest of the Brits are getting ready to attack a nuclear research station. A couple of men try to bluff their way in in Volgon, but a guard calls out a command in English and they respond, blowing their cover. Once again, the only competent man is Savage, who steals a truck full of acid and plows it into the research station, somehow blowing it up.

I promised before my big hiatus I was gonna try and be more insightful. So here’s my insight--boring as it is to read, I’ve come around on the basic conceit. The idea of this working-class man’s-man great-man-of-historying himself all over the place with superior intelligence, brawn, and plain dumb luck, consistently besting people who’ve worked their whole lives to become competent military men...you could, hypothetically, make it work.

Waaaay back when I said “social commentary has never been a major selling point for me when it comes to stories”. I phrased it dumbly, but I think what I meant was social commentary can’t be all there is. You need something to sustain it. It can be narratively substantial: interesting characters, engaging storylines. It can be fun to read: witty prose, interesting visual style choices, exciting action scenes. But there’s gotta be something to latch onto besides a deep meaning and a nifty premise. And it just...doesn’t look like that’s gonna happen for Invasion! any time soon.

So for right now, I think, this and my piece on Prog 14 are my last words on Invasion! outside of plot summaries. I don’t want to keep repeating myself.

Flesh #15

The beasts’ war on mankind begins in earnest. Dinosaurs are driving cars! Spiders are knocking on doors! It’s a madhouse!

Reagan’s managed to secure control from...the Controller...but it’s too late. Corporate isn’t sending reinforcements --it’d be unprofitable. And Joe, the only one who realized what a mad, stupid world he lived in, gets eaten by spiders.

To its credit, the comic frames this as a tragedy. Joe didn’t meet the toxic masculine archetype seemingly required to survive in this world, and Carver claims it was his lack of masculinity that dooms him. But Reagan insists that Joe was worth ten Carvers--not that Joe was somehow tougher or more masculine, but had more worth as a person for not being the testosterone nightmare Carver and Reagan are.

It’s time now for the final showdown between Reagan and Ol’ One Eye. After that, it’s over year of issues before we get any more Flesh. I’m gonna miss it.

Harlem Heroes #15

In this brief installment, Zach, the Harlem team babyface, must best one of the Scots in a sudden-death round. Nothing else really happens.

Look, they’re not all gonna be dissertations.

Dan Dare #15

And I mean, that brevity leave more time for Dan Dare, which I know is the thing you all really care about. Dare, O’Malley, and Rok are the only survivors of a crash landing on Mekron’s hidden planet, and surrender in order to gather information.

The big thing to dig into is the sudden infodump about Rok’s culture. His species honors their dead by eating their corpses, and he’s never heard of surrender. While it’s nice that the strip is becoming more willing to extend alienness onto “good” characters, it’s unfortunate that this also makes him a generic Proud Warrior Race Guy. Also, he’s got a laser sword, because clearly someone was hype for Star Wars.

The other big thing is that Mekron doesn’t recognize Dare, because he’s no longer drawn the way he was the last time Mekron was relevant. It’s becoming increasingly obvious that the strip is playing tug-of-war with itself, between the bizarro art piece it wants to be and the generic space opera mold old-time Dare fans expect. After all, Mekron and his generic world domination plans are a far cry from the intensely weird baddies we got last story arc. Making that tension an active part of the text is an interesting choice--or at least, it would be if either version of Dare was exciting to me.

M.A.C.H.1 #15

In “Bepal”, John Probe investigates the mysterious maulings of people who turned down the chance to get in on the opium trade. Though the victims claim their assailants were invisible, they were merely yetis, their white skin rendered invisible by the snowfall. Probe sics them on their master.

We’ve forsaken the Probe/brain computer buddy-cop act this week, which saps Probe of anything resembling human interest.

Obviously villainizing the “Bepal”ians for dealing opium, and South Asian people in general, is fucking awful, especially for a British comic.

Yeah.

Judge Dredd #14

Dredd combats Call-Me-Kenneth’s robot army by installing the “Old Law of Robotics” in his processing plant, creating an equal and opposite army of human-worshipers.

The comic continues to rely on Call-Me-Kenneth being a homicidal dictator to justify why robots might want humans to stay in power. Back in 2015, I rolled my eyes at the comic’s hamfisted attempt to weasel out of the implications of its pro-slavery storyline. But now I think I see what the story’s doing, giving us the first taste of the “better the fascism you know” ethos that’ll stifle any real change in the Dredd universe for generations. The comic at its best is about challenging the idea that a firm hand is needed to keep people in line by showing the logical endpoint of such a line of thought--Kenneth is simply another version of that.

2000AD Sci-Fi Summer Special 1977

Okay, so. This is a thing 2000AD printed sometime in summer, a massive 60-page behemoth of a book full of stand-alone stories used to promote the magazine proper. I have no idea when in summer it was published, but I marked it down here because “June 1st” was the best estimate I could find. As a result of not having been made on a weekly deadline, it’s a lot more lush--I mean, just look at that cover!--and a lot of the comics have actual shading in them. Not only that, but the roster has been rejiggered, and there’s a lot of one-shot thrills and even some prose pieces.

So! Let’s jump in, shall we?

Harlem Heroes

I’ll say this--it’s refreshing to see an entire match played inside of one issue. That said, I’m noticing a disturbing trend of the Heroes only ever deciding to play smart rather than use brute force like halfway through a given game, even though it always works out for them. It’s kind of a crappy way to build suspense since you’re left with a story that only has stakes because your leads were being stupid for the majority of it.

Moreover, what prompts the change this time is finding out their opponents are robots, which--I mean, what, did you not want to try thinking first, just in case your opponents turn out to be humans and thus possess the potential to be smarter than you? I don’t understand.

All that said, hey--at least we went a game without dealing in grotesque stereotypes. So that’s a plus.

What Will We Look Like in 52,000 A.D.? (prose piece)

Well, um, for one thing, black people will die out due to interbreeding and recessive genes.

This is for real a thing they put in here. I’m not even kidding.

Like, I could go in depth about all the justifications they come up with for why we’ll basically be spindly giants with heads like Greys. But I’m not going to. There’s no point dignifying this.

Judge Dredd

After stopping a terrorist bomb, Dredd’s been hospitalized. Fortunately, he’s made a full recovery--except for his trigger finger, which means he needs to be reassessed, and in a live-ammo environment. A man named Dimitrov runs the test, and years ago, Dredd accidentally caused him to loose an arm. Uh-oh! Can you say wacky revenge scheme?

Weirdly enough, Dredd’s trigger finger only actually comes into play when he’s hanging from a precipice--he shoots any number of robots and even hits a target he describes as being like “a postage stamp at two miles” without once complaining about it. A bigger problem is that he has what seems like an abnormally small amount of ammo to work with. Maybe that’s part of Dimitrov’s plan? I dunno.

Like most Dredd one-shots so far, it’s kinda shoddy, with not really a lot going on action-wise to make up for it. Even the resolution, in which Dimitrov’s rigged his robot hand to do...something...when Dredd touches it and then it backfires, is weak. Also, Dredd calls Dimitrov a “yellow rat”. Looks like the rest of the prog is working to pick up Harlem Heroes’ slack.

Invasion!

Savage and Silk have to save the Brigadier from a firing squad. Because, y’know, the Brigadier is such a well-defined character that we care if he lives or dies. Especially if we’re picking this up as a promotion and have never read the mag before. Seriously, it could’ve been anyone, but they had to pick as a victim someone that anyone who’s been reading knows can’t die now because there’s a whole other plot going on.

Moreover--I don’t take issue with Savage being well-educated even though he’s a truck driver. I don’t find that implausible or anything. He can pull out all the random facts he wants. What I do take issue with is the fact that the same guy who knew enough about this random wall to know it was Roman and thus hollow enough for him to sneak through also has no regard for military tactics and actively resents having to rescue their lead strategist.

Savage is just whatever the damn narrative needs him to be and the solution to any and all problems. Why did they even bother bringing in Silk and the resistance if they’re not gonna do anything?

Will They Believe Their Eyes? (prose piece)

Okay, so this is basically an excuse to present the readers with some optical illusions. They justify this by claiming that people “see differently” in space and that understanding optical illusions is key to sorting out how astronauts perceive things. Specifically, it completely misses the point of the Necker cube, and the way its wire frame and perceived “transparency” effect things, by claiming that in space it is almost impossible to tell if something is moving closer or further away.

Y’know, I don’t have a problem with fake science in fiction, but if you’re not gonna bother understanding your subject matter, why even bother claiming something’s “educational”?

Dan Dare

And speaking of fake science out the wazoo...

Despite the upgrade in the rest of the issue, the art, bizarrely, is worse than usual here, with weird, scrunched up faces and nothing especially neat-looking about the Wa or their planet.

But I will say this for Dan Dare--xenophobic though it may be, at least the strange and unknown always have interesting reasons for wanting us dead. This time it’s the Wa, anti-matter telepathic froglike beings who want to blow up Earth so they can use it to propel their planet around like a spaceship. Dan Dare defeats them by punching one of them, thus making them think they’ve all been punched, than blowing them all up.

I really, genuinely have no idea what I can possibly add to that.

M.A.C.H.1

MACH1 is sent in to help an African nation defeat rebel forces looking to overthrow their government by taking out their air squad. He does so.

We never find out what, exactly, the rebels were rebelling for, or what this place’s government was like, which irks me, because it ends up basically just being “Government good! Rebels bad!” and that’s...er...maybe not a sentiment a British comic about an African nation should be advocating, so much.

Also the mighty-whitey implications are pretty obvious.

On the upside, I think this is the first time John Probe explicitly acknowledges that his head computer is kind of a bloodthirsty nutcase, rather than just writing it off as a thoughtless machine.

The Thing from Nowhere! (prose piece)

This is where the cover illustration comes from, incidentally. This story is included above because there’s no Nerve Centre and I needed something to make the cover not huge. And also because, well....

...this story is actually kinda neat! It’s basically about two bored space explorers gripping about how they never see anything interesting, until a giant monster appears and begins menacing them.

It’s structured nicely--I especially like how the story uses the sort of meaningless technobabble you’d find in Dan Dare to highlight just how banal this all is. I honestly don’t have a single mean thing to say about this. And the twist at the end is pretty funny. It’s lovely.

2000AD Crossword

Yeah, I’m not bothering. Why don’t you tell me how it goes in the askbox?

What’s Your Space IQ?

Perhaps IQ was not the right thing to put in this title of this quiz. There’s only 18 questions. So at best your Space IQ is 18. Maybe they use a different scale in space?

Also, the last question is “Apart from the moon landing, what, according to hundreds of thousands of young Britons, has been the greatest event of the decade?” And it’s the launch of this magazine. Cute.

The Phantom Patrol

Muddy composition, indistinct characters, and a meandering, repetitive plot make this a complete dud. A buncha British soldiers from WWII get rocketed back to ancient Greece, make a few halfhearted allusions to the Trojan Horse, and use their tank to do all sorts of conquering except on the occasions it gets stolen from them. The best it can offer in the way of commentary is vague gesturing in the direction of modern tech easily trumping “primitives” but even that never gets satisfactorily built on.

It’s also a quarter of the issue at 15 pages. Jesus. Normally I’d call this obvious padding, but I dunno if I can in good faith claim this is any worse than most of the ongoing strips.

Star Wars hype sheet

This issue definitively comes out sometime after May 25th: Star Was is spoken of glowingly and with great anticipation, which is not really a reaction it got before it was actually released (near as I can tell.) How 2000 AD frames this speaks to its worldview--it bills the Millennium Falcon as the ultimate battleship and the Jawas as a massive threat, because it can’t conceive of anything not being what modern hip Tumblr teens call “extra”. And of course the Stormtrooper outfits aren’t merely a cool bit of sci-fi kit but a direct descendant of current spacewear, feeding into the mag’s obsession with tangible and inevitably violent futures.

It also bills Han Solo as Luke Skywalker.

Flesh

Flesh is normally content to be about the awesomeness and uncontrollably of dinosaurs, with its character types limited to “peril monkey” or “vehicle for social commentary”. There is one exception, though--Earl Reagan, who we’ve seen go toe-to-toe with dinosaurs more times than is smart in a giant monster story.

This installment sees Reagan’s badassery acknowledged and ramped up, perhaps in an attempt to make him fit into the mold of the rest of the protagonist-driven comics 2000 AD boasts. A rival dino-meat company sends assassins and bounty hunters after Reagan, only for him to repeatedly avoid certain doom and eventually mail his assailants back to their boss in a meat box. It’s fun enough, but it doesn’t quite succeed at making Reagan memorable.

Then again, considering the rest of the 2000 AD protags, I’m sure it worked fine.

Stamps of Success (prose piece)

It’s a history of space-related stamps.

2000AD Prog 14: 28-May-1977

Invasion! #14

Bill Savage continues to be right about everything as a potential ally rats him and the rest of the resistance out the first chance he gets. He’s also got firsthand experience scoping out this base since he used to deliver nuclear waste there--yes, he delivered nuclear waste to a nuclear plant, which is a lot like driving around in a truck full of trash and dumping it into people’s empty cans. Anyway, Savage deals with the enemy forces, including the traitor, pretty much empty-handed.

I’ve been doing some thinking on this, because I do honestly want to say something interesting and insightful about Invasion!, and it’s hard. But I’ve found that what bugs me about both this and M.A.C.H.1 is that the idea that you can develop multiple characters seems baffling to both Pat Mills and Steve MacManus, respectively. Like, let’s be honest--most of the characters in the other features are completely flat, but at least the fact that there’s more of them creates the illusion of depth, since they have to react to each other on the regular.

And what’s more is that both Bill Savage and John Probe are explicitly advancing viewpoints. They say exactly what the comics want you to think: for Savage, it’s that good old working-man common-knowledge trumps military expertise (no matter how far-fetched that “common knowledge” is), and for Probe it’s that emotion trumps computer logic. Even setting aside the fact that being overtly preached to is incredibly distracting, their morals are useless because they’re never allowed to be challenged. What happens when Savage’s fun fact or intuition can’t immediately save the day? What happens when Probe’s sentimentality lets him legitimately fail? How exactly do their morals stand up to common error? These could be interesting stories, but instead, they’re just endlessly repetitive sacks of nothing.

At least chuck, like, a dinosaur apocalypse at these guys or something.

Flesh #14

Or, y’know, a flying squid. That works too.

So, um, we’ve somehow gone from “everything is under control” to the Controller executing a bunch of employees by hanging for being cowards. Sweet jesus. I love how this just pops right the fuck out of nowhere, too. Reagan objects, quite rightly, but the Controller doesn’t care, because he’s got the right to execute his employees in an emergency and as we all know the thing you want in an emergency is less people. Then he has Reagan and Joe locked up for objecting. This is the sort of shit I can go for--the Controller, being an elderly business owner, can do what he please, and Carver can hide his bloodlust behind law and order. Contrasting viewpoints, even amongst the bad guys, as opposed to endless faceless mooks to mow down. And they create actual obstacles for the good guys.

Hell, even the dinosaurs are given personality, with Ol’ One-Eye desperately defending her status until it’s literally ripped from her. How the fuck is a giant monster gorefest better at this than a war story or a spy thriller? You would think, of all comics, this would be the one that treats folks mostly as canon fodder.

So Reagan and Joe break out, Reagan puts the Controller in a headlock and demands more reinforcements. The Controller points out that the dinosaurs haven’t attacked in six hours, but Reagan says it’s just the calm before the storm. Then a storm breaks out.

Hey, I never demanded subtlety.

...the hell happened to the flying squid I was promised on the first page? Or is that slang for lynching or somesuch?

Harlem Heroes #14

One of the ex-Hero brain-in-a-jars comes up with the idea of trying to defeat the Scots with skill and improvisation rather than just brute force. That none of the living members thought of this doesn’t really speak very highly of them.

I mean, just the fact that they weren’t previously using improvisation during a sporting match is. Um.

Anyway! Game’s tied! Sudden death! Huzzah!

I’m sure this is all very compelling stuff if you like sports.

Dan Dare #14

Dan Dare gives O’Grady crap for being neglectful and causing one of the crewmen to die--and, er, only one, I guess. I thought the whole ship was susceptible to this? Anyway, in grand Dan Dare tradition, it’s too late to worry about that, as we’re flying into a sun with a planet inside, now. There is, perhaps, also such a thing as throwing too much at your audience.

Meanwhile, Mekon gets pissed at a henchman for bringing back a hostage when he’s supposed to be wreak havoc. Stupid henchman, don’t you know abducting important people doesn’t cause any mayhem whatsoever? Also the hostage might disclose their location. Um, Mekon? No one said you couldn't just kill him after you got the ransom.

Mekon reminisces about how he was once thwarted by some asshole named Dan Dare, but he is dead now and won’t be giving them any trouble. Mekon really should be staying on top of current events. 

Nerve Centre

Tharg is over two billion years old, apparently.

He’s only just now learning this whole “justice” dealie.

What makes a man like this want to run a comic book, I wonder.

M.A.C.H.1 #14

Today in M.A.C.H.1 we have grotesque racial stereotypes! Huzzah?

Okay, so, um, MACH1 has come to Peking undercover as a ping-pong tournament player. Turns out China has found a revolutionary new farming technique that can end world hunger or something.

Then a villain named Shang Chin, a dude with a bald head, ponytail, and Fu Manchustache, traps him in a room with dragons over the door, a platform with a gong in it, and sets a buncha ninjas on him as well as a fucking samurai, all while talking about chess for some reason. His plan is to hoard the new farming technique, wait for China’s government to destabilize due to food shortages, and then use it to install himself as a new king. Um, was China going through a famine in 1977? Is there something here I’m missing? Because this plan sounds insane.

Anyway, MACH1 beats him up, and then he goes insane because he’s been defeated and that just doesn’t happen to buff Chinese dudes or whatever. He delivers the farming thing to London, where he’s assured that it’s been passed on to the UN and that everyone will get a share. Sure they will.

Judge Dredd #13

Okay, so, here we go. Call-Me-Kenneth is abusing his underlings, and likes Adolf Hitler, so that’s what makes him the bad guy. It makes sense. There’s a point to be made about the likelihood of any given revolutionary leader installing themselves as a new despot. Granted, Dredd’s outrage doesn’t quite square with his previous attitude of “we should kill all sentient robots because law and order”, so Kenneth is still less evil than he is by sheer dint of wanting to keep robots alive. And really, it doesn’t matter how awful Kenneth is, because the status quo of sentient beings as slaves is still worth overturning.

Anyway, Kenneth wants to take out Dredd’s brain and put it in a robotic replica of his body, for reasons. And he’s going to do this tomorrow, rather than now, also for reasons. Thankfully Walter finds Dredd and uses acid to kill the sentient handcuffs he’s wearing. Hooray?

Contest Winners

2000AD Prog 13: 21-May-1977

Invasion! #13

This week Savage intercepts a message from King Charles III, in exile in Canada, about an air raid on a nuclear facility. 

He concludes the story by thinking things are probably gonna go wrong and that it’s a good thing he’s here. I honestly can’t tell if he’s being genre-savvy or just narcissistic.

Flesh #13

The spiders have broken through! And I dunno what it is, but they just don’t create as much compelling imagery as the dinosaurs. Mostly they just step on folks. I think it’s the whole blood-sucking thing--it’s just not as carnal as getting ripped apart by giant lizards.

Carver and Joe enact a plan to contain the spiders, which mostly seems to involve firing at them a bunch and locking them in the rooms they’re found in--which, given that these things can eat through the floor, might not be a great idea, but no one ever claimed our heroes were especially bright.

Naturally, though, Reagan gets left behind, which Carver claims was a tough decision, because...reasons. Carver’s never been one for subtlety before, so I dunno why he ducks Joe’s accusation of murder. (Most likely it’s that Carver’s no longer in a position to call the shots and thus could be prosecuted.) 

Reagan figures out that the spiders have super-sensitive hearing and so distracts them with music and makes his way back to the control room, where the floor is being sealed up. Naturally, everyone’s thrilled to see Reagan, and not at all concerned that if he could still get out of there the spiders probably could to.

Turns out there’s much more spiders than they thought--enough that their collective heartbeat is audible, and I can’t imagine how many spiders would need to be around for that to be plausible. However, Carver and the narrator reassure us that “everything’s under control.” Sure, whatever.

Harlem Heroes #13

A couple of pages got corrupted, but that doesn’t seem to matter, as it’s really just a continuation of the Scots game. The Scots fans, naturally, are super-loud, and the Scots playing style is more aggressive and violent than the Heroes are used to, though that seems to be par for the course at this point. The Scots also seem to have an easy time outnumbering the Heroes, raising yet more questions about the number of players allowed on the field at once. 

Nerve Centre

Ah, the perils of running a comics magazine--the inevitable science-semantics questions, this time about how the Harlem Heroes’ jetpacks work. 

I’m not sure why you’d assume Earth entertainment looks primitive to an alien who’s editing a comic book.

Dan Dare #13

Naturally the more violent and less intelliegent half of Verath has darker skin. 

Mekon’s master plan is basically just to commit so much piracy that the heads of the Federation are forced to convene to plan a counterattack, and then wipe them all out. And the “dumb” half of Verath’s got a point--this plan is simple enough that you really don’t need Mekon around to cut himself in on the resulting power vacuum. Moreover, this plan relies on the Federation headquarters having ludicrously poor security. 

Meanwhile, Rok introduces Dare to the pilot of his vessel, Captain O’Grady, who is apparently the reason no one else has taken Rok up on his job offer. He doesn’t seem like a bad sort, except for his ludicris mustache and the blob on his shoulder that talks like a parrot. The ship is also apparently a hunk of junk, which is the quickest way to endear me to a starship, so neat! 

Unfortunately, something goes wrong, and the effects of relativity--well, just watch.

For the record--no, Dare. You actually didn’t. You said you’d be lucky to make it out in one piece, you said nothing about breaking fucking time. Dipshit.

Seriously, though, why does anyone use space travel in this future? It can be used to shoot people into suns and shunt them into alternate dimensions and break fucking time, but it seems to be completely useless as an actual mode of travel.

Oh--Dare and co. aren’t effected because O’Grady put a protective barrier around the command room since that’s where he spends most of his time. I’m not even kidding, that’s the stated reason. Now I can see why he stymied Rok’s recruiting efforts: who wants to work for someone with no regard for the crew?

M.A.C.H.1 #13

MACH1 saves a blimp from some terrorists who, naturally, want to use the nuclear power it runs on to blow up New York. Always with the blowing up New York, these terrorists. Get a new plan already!

The lead terrorist is literally just Colin Baker, what with the hair and the ludicris tie. There’s no color but the tie has polka-dots on it so I’m assuming if there was color I would be blinded.

MACH1 is on board because he’s acting as bodyguard for “United Nations peacekeeper” Dr. Klinger. He gets a whopping two lines--one where he emplores MACH1 to cooperate with the terrorists, and another at the end of the story where he triumphantly tells the press that he believes in always standing up to terrorists. Haha, politicians sure are two-faced! This biting social commentary totally makes up for the rest of this story being a hollow action setpiece.

Judge Dredd #12

We return to the robot-rebellion storyline, where fear has given Walter the Elmuh Fudd Syndwome he’ll be afflicted with for the rest of his life. Dredd spares him from execution on the basis that he’s still a good little slave and instead forces him to help him get close to Call-Me-Kenneth. Of course, everything goes sideways--Dredd starts bleeding thanks to a robot-dog attack, which puts a hole in their plan to pass Dredd off as an advanced human-impersonating android. And so they are captured.

Dredd seems to be dealing with a week of sleeplessness really dang well.

I know I said yesterday that the story comes off as kinda pro-slavery. And I also know that Dredd has a reputation as totalitarian satire. I dunno why it’s not reading that way to me, but if the subversion-shoe has dropped I haven’t noticed.

Contest Winner

For those interested.

2000AD Prog 12: 14-May-1977

Invasion! #12

This week Bill liberates a train of civilians headed to a death camp and turns the train into a bomb.

Flesh #12

The battle begins in earnest as the dinosaurs make it through the defenses and the spiders make their way up through the floor. The dinosaurs are held off with a perimeter of fire. It all happens a bit too fast, and the sheer number of beasties are causing some very, very crowded panels. 

Meanwhile, Reagan and the Controller--who resembles the Leader from Hulk comics crossed with Grand Moff Tarkin--argue over whether feeding the enemy rancid meat was the right thing to do, since Reagan is convinced it’ll increase their hunger rather than placate them. The Controller is only interested in keeping production up even with dozens of T-rexes trying to get in. Damn bureaucrats. 

Harlem Heroes #12

Looks like the roster shake-up didn’t last. Sorry, Dredd.

The team to beat this week is the Flying Scotsmen, continuing the troubling tendency for the teams to be national stereotypes. Because a game can’t start at the beginning of an issue, we get some padding as the Heroes enter an educational simulation detailing how aeroball came to Scotland. Also one of the Heroes picks a fight with one of the Scotsmen, that’ll be important later, probably.

Nerve Centre

Looks like I’m not the only one who wants the folks in the letters column to fight  each other. I gotta say, though, that I can’t help but quibble with Buchanan about the Dare artwork--it’s by far the most enjoyable part of any given installment. Had he picked at the writing, I’d be on his side for sure. 

I wonder if folks were actually sending Tharg plastic cups.

Dan Dare #12

Mostly place-setting this issue as Dare arrives in Britain--which is now a giant flying park--and meets Rok, a dog-alien from the planet Wolf-4 (naturally.) Rok is interesting because he’s the first completely alien being we’ve seen thus far that isn’t evil. Of course, this is because he’s based on a friggin’ dog, not something completely unknown like the Biogs are. Remember, folks: things that are unfamiliar are evil. 

Meanwhile, Mekon amasses his army, which mostly consists of boarding a ship, shooting a dude, and loudly declaring that he’s in charge now. Verath, the guy in charge, has two heads--one dumb and one smart. It’s the smart one that has no issue with losing command, while meanwhile the dumb one is outraged. Somehow I feel like the writers have that backwards.

M.A.C.H.1 #12

This week, the Americans try to prove that they’ve outdone MACH1 with a laser-tank. The laser-tank, naturally, get hijacked and it’s up to MACH1 to prove good-ol’ British ingenuity can top anything.

Except...y’know...MACH1 gets sent on infiltration and retrieval missions. He’s a spy. That’s his whole thing. Yeah, laser-tank makes him look ineffectual in terms of sheer firepower, but that’s not hard, MACH1′s got no built-in weapons. So what’s being proved here? On what metric are MACH1 and this thing even remotely comparable? Are they gonna send a giant tank that shoots lasers into enemy territory as a spy?

Judge Dredd #11

Is it possible to do a robot-rebellion story without it coming off as pro-slavery? If it is, Judge Dredd’s not working especially hard in that department. One group of robots declares “Call-Me-Kenneth says it’s right for slaves to kill their masters,” and I can’t really argue with that. 

2000AD Prog 11: 7-May-1977

Invasion! #11

This week, Savage and Silk evade the dogs from last time by figuring out that something’s been sown into the lining of their rescuee’s prison uniform, undressing him, then throwing the clothes at an incoming Volgan hovertransport and flipping it over so the dogs attack the Volgans.

Also, Savage uses his truck-driving skills to maneuver a dead car down a massive incline safely. I’m sure that’s a thing truck drivers have to do all the time.

Flesh #11

Things get ridiculous again this week as the impending dinosaur war turns out to be a real thing and a crapload of flesh-eaters turn up at the base of the meat processing facility. There’s an invisible fence keeping them out, burning them if they try to cross it, but that hasn’t stopped them from surrounding the place.

Also, there are giant spiders underneath the facility, having gotten that way because dinosaur blood is the spider equivalent of Wheaties. 

Judge Dredd #10

Another roster shake-up this week as Judge Dredd gets a major promotion up from the back of the magazine. 

Serialization has kicked in for the first time as Dredd resigns over the Chief Judge’s refusal to kill all sentient robots, only to rejoin when Call-Me-Kenneth launches a full-scale revolt.

“But wait!” you cry. “Call-Me-Kenneth was destroyed last issue!” Indeed he was! However, one Doctor Arnold Wisenheimer from the Stereotypical province of Germany has decided to televise his search for the fault in Call-Me-Kenneth’s circuits. He’s also decided to give Call-Me-Kenneth an upgraded head and body armor because...um...science. When he calls for a soldering lance to repair the faulty Obedience Circuit, the nurse--who is a woman and thus a fuckup--drops it, creating an activating charge. Then Call-Me-Kenneth uses the TV broadcast to call for an uprising, because that’s what you do on television in 2000AD.

So the robots uprise, the police(???) are useless to stop the problem and call for the judges, and Judge Dredd rejoins because the force is useless without him and the people need him. 

Dan Dare #11

The saga concludes! Monday uses the Odyssey to pull himself and all the Biog into the sun...somehow. (The crew doesn’t take issue with this? I mean we found out last issue most of them are dead but I feel like the operative word there is “most”.) Dan Dare returns to the moonbase where the fat boss man from earlier court-martials him and has him stripped of rank. The way the higher-ups figure it, without Dare’s intervention, the Biogs might never have heard of Earth, which seems fairly ridiculous as the (somehow escaped) Dr. Rodann points out, but whatever. Dare takes this in stride because it means Monday gets all the credit and Dare figures that’s fair.

Now unemployed and with no resources at his disposal, Dare figures he should probably figure out who told the Biogs about Earth to begin with. The final panel reveals, albeit in silhouette, that it’s Mekon, the guy someone wrote in about a while back. So, um, good week to be a classic Dan Dare fan, I guess. 

M.A.C.H.1 #11

This week’s moral is that sometimes you’ve got to trust your own intuition instead of the computer in your brain or the computer in your car or your backseat driver. And sometimes you have to wreck a car, even if it’s a really really nice car.

Nerve Centre

Johnathan Tasker (from Prog 8) and Mark Barber should go at it.

The letter writers’ ideas for what the future holds continue to be sadly unimaginative.

Harlem Heroes #11

Alas, poor Harlem Heroes. There were so many worse comics they could’ve shunted back here.

The Gruber-robot gets away, and has unfortunately given one of the Heroes serious brain damage. Which is strange, because the Heroes go on to win the game by being so damn mad about this--even though we’ve established that they need seven people in play at any given time and that the Giants have no reserves. You would think they’d need to forfeit the tournament, or at least call for a rematch once they’ve made up the numbers, but nope.

Anyway, Giant declares to the TV cameras that

and that they’ll just play harder and better to prove this.

2000AD Prog 10: 30-Apr-1977

Invasion! #10

This thing gets forty more installments. I checked. Ah well, we can tough it out, can’t we?

So Savage and Silk--Savage’s partner, who I’ve neglected to mention because he never gets anything interesting to do--have been tasked with breaking a brilliant aeroengineer out of Dartmoor Prison. The guy’s hesitant to break out because there’s rumors of beasts, and those rumors turn out to be true when the three of them run into large, snarling, dogs.

In a bit I found funny, the prisoners conclude that Dartmoor must be inescapable because the guards show the prisoners a bag of bones. Bones that would’ve needed to be retrieved. If you can get near enough to the beasts to retrieve entire skeletons, they can’t be that bad.

Flesh #10

Turns out the thing to do when rocks are blocking a train’s path is to make the train go so fast it smashes through the rocks. Who knew.

Long story short, Joe, Reagan, and Carter--and god knows how many tourists--make it back to the trans-time base, which means we’re done with this trek through the jungle and can maybe get back to the fun stuff. 

Meanwhile, Ol’ One-Eye shrugs off a heart attack. Like a boss.

Harlem Heroes #10

Gruber’s assassination of Giant is foiled when another player gets in the way, but Giant is left with a permanent scar. The Heroes win the match with little difficulty, but Gruber’s made his way into the crowd and down into the pits. The Heroes figure they’ve got him cornered. 

This is a pretty big turning point for the story--solid proof that someone’s trying to kill the Heroes. But that’s all it is. What direction will the story turn in is still uncertain.

Nerve Centre

Oh, ozone and aerosol panic. How quaint. Also, nice to know we’ve been on top of clean energy for years now and still not done anything.

Yet another UFO citing (last one was in Prog 8.) Wonder if they feel obligated to print those. Certainly it doesn’t fit with the “what does the future hold” theme this week.

And, of course, hovercars. Dear lord, the other entries must’ve been dismal if they had to run that.

Dan Dare #10

There’s two neat bits in this one--the first is when a Biog ship starts throwing Jupiter’s friggin moons at Earth’s forces, and the other is when Dan Dare’s firing on the Biog ships accelerates every atom in them so fast they’re sucked into an alternate dimension. Which strikes me as sufficiently overpowered on Earth’s side that it really should’ve resulted in a Cold-War-esque standoff. Who on Jupiter’s team went “look, they’ve got weapons that could displace us in space and time as standard issue on shuttlecraft, but I think going to war with them is the smart move here?” At least Earth didn’t know the Biogs could arm themselves with moons.

Our cliffhanger this week is Monday deciding he’s gonna take “THE SUN TRIP” in the Odyssey which will somehow wipe out all the Biogs.

Y’know, it strikes me that absolutely no one in this mess has tried peaceful negotiations. Hrm.

M.A.C.H.1 #10

We return to issues of morality this week as MACH1, having apprehended an enemy agent up in the mountains, gives the guy time to rest when he claims his leg hurts. But it turns out he was playing for time, waiting for his own men to come get him. MACH1 takes them out easily and then stops his target from killing himself with a grenade, then promises the guy thirty years in prison explicitly to refute earlier accusations that he’s “soft”.

I’m going to be honest, I’m not huge on the idea that sentimentality nearly cost MACH1 the mission--but at the end of the day, I think, the keyword might be “nearly”. All buying into the busted leg ruse really did was cause MACH1 to have to do a bit more fighting than he might’ve otherwise. The story may be intending to come down on the side of “emotions: irrelevant”, but MACH1 having a heart never actually costs him anything.

Judge Dredd #9

We follow through on the themes from last week with the first appearances of Walter and Call-Me-Kenneth, and Dredd continuously going on about what a terrible idea sentient robots were. Again, though, there’s no nuance to it--the only difference between sentient robots and humans in Dredd’s eyes is that the former can potentially do a lot more damage. So there’s really not much more to talk about here.

Oh! Call-Me-Kenneth is dispatched with a conveniently-located steel beam which causes him to slice himself in half. (I guess the general policy against comic-book death hasn’t kicked in yet.) Once again Dredd doesn’t have to do much of anything.

Contest Winners

For those interested.

2000AD Prog 9: 23-Apr-1977

Invasion! #9

The rebellion tries to take down a ship. Savage can’t participate because he has no underwater training. However, the scuba divers are taken out with sonic weapons. Thankfully Savage has a back-up plan! He floods the ship with gasoline and then shoots it, setting it ablaze.

I want to find some satire in there if only because it’ll give me something to talk about. I suggested in the beginning of the week that the joke might be on how personally Savage is taking all this, but that element’s mostly gone now. It might be that he’s somehow more competent than everyone despite being a truck driver, but they seem to be playing that relatively straight. 

Yeah. I just...don’t know. There just doesn’t seem to be anything here besides a plodding war story.

Flesh #9

“Like all females, Ol’ One-Eye hated the idea of another one on her territory.” Jesus.

We’ve gone full-on Jurassic Park as a trainful of tourists attract the attention of nearby T-rexes with a horn and then get out to snap pictures. I mean, really. The main characters turn up in time to point out this idiocy, but it’s too late. Ol’ One-Eye--who’s survived again--has shown up and knocks some rocks into the tracks before eating a kid. (Thankfully, that’s censored.) 

I think I can officially say I’m bored of this now and would be okay with it stopping. Everything I found novel and entertaining has disappeared--namely, the old-west trappings and occasional giant robot. Hell, even the prodding at social commentary has up and vanished. What’s the takeaway from this installment? Tourists are morons? Yawn.

Harlem Heroes #9

The Heroes’ new opponents are Aztec-themed. Their stadium is in a temple and everything. The franchise owner made this decision when it turned out the thing was on the same property as his ranch. The crowd’s got facemasks, too, some of them real gold. This is a rich area. 

Is it still appropriation if the culture you’re appropriating is long-dead? And is that the point? I mean, there’s some jokes about how ridiculous the get-ups are, but nothing offensive being said about Aztec culture itself.

Meanwhile, the Gruber-robot from last issue has Giant in his crosshairs. So that’s happening. The rest is pretty much all recap.

Dan Dare #9

Turns out Dare was faking last time to get to the ship more easily, and he lets the rest of the party in on the news. He then helps the Odyssey escape by telling them to warp, which burns a hole in the living Biog ship but plops them right smack in front of a proper fleet, rearing for battle. Whoops!

M.A.C.H.1 #9

This week, MACH1 hauls a dangerous nuclear physicist out of the hands of a despotic government and collapses a religious site.

He does this by driving two Jeeps at once, a feat made possible by the fact that each has a driver’s side on the opposite side. One wonders what side of the road you drive on in Turkestan. 

Also, MACH1 argues with the computer over emotions that aren’t compassion this time--specifically, anger and humor. Which I’m pretty sure isn’t an emotion but whatever.

Judge Dredd #8

Oh, god, finally, something with a little meat on it’s bones. Someone’s threatened to blow up a robot exhibition unless a ransom is paid. At the exhibition, a robot is made to burn itself to death for the amusement of the crowd. Dredd is disgusted, because the robot can feel--though it’s not just a moral stance. He prefers nonsentient robots, and feels the sentient ones are “going to cause trouble someday.” (He’s right, of course, but never mind that for the moment.)

That’s really his entire issue. As you can see from the page above, thanks to the shrunken Nerve Centre, Dredd’s really just worried that his job is going to get more difficult. Even the robot on his side isn’t enough to cause him to examine this issue in a way that’s at all multifaceted. 

Back in Prog 5, we saw Maria complain that all Dredd thinks about is the law. Turns out that’s not a humorous exaggeration.

Nerve Centre

I am unconvinced any of these stories besides maybe Dredd benefited from the extra page. Why not cut the scuba diver bits from Invasion!? Why not cut from the waaaay too long scenes in Flesh establishing one particular kid as a brat no one would mourn? Dan Dare’s trip to his ship probably could’ve been shorter. And did M.A.C.H.1 really benefit from its cold open?

2000AD Prog 8: 16-Apr-1977

Invasion! #8

This week Savage drives a double-decker bus to get refugees to a hijacked airplane where they’ll be taken to Canada. The plane is fired upon and Savage...does nothing. Turns out the planes were firing heat-seeking missiles, and the plane they hijacked doesn’t generate heat (????) so the enemy planes missiles turned around and hit the enemy planes. Shouldn’t the Volgans have known this and therefore not used heat-seeking missiles? Hell, why would you use them when the target isn’t moving that fast and is right beneath you?

Anyway, Savage gets to claim his inaction saved the day because he knew the missiles wouldn’t work because his son, Kevin, knew all there was to know about planes, and Savage clung to his every word. Sure, Savage. Whatever.

Flesh #8

A redshirt and the doctor get eaten by assorted beasties. Ol’ One-Eye tears into a giant fish as the two pursue our heroes across the swap. Reagan gives Carver shit for being a callous asshole. A trap is set for Ol’ One-Eye. 

I dare say the novelty is beginning to wear off. Out in the wilderness, with no genre trappings around, it’s really just a generic giant-monster tale.

Oh, and there’s been talk of a “dinosaur war on the horizon.” The dinosaurs are getting fed up with man and now there’s gonna be a reckoning. I should probably mention that.

Harem Heroes #8

Giant manages to acquit himself pretty well, scoring a goal while clinging to a Russian’s legs, and is ultimately safely rescued and returned to the ground. We also get some more information on the “someone wants the Heroes dead” case, as doctors put the brain of Gruber, someone who died in a match against the Heroes three years ago, into a robot body, at the behest of unknown benefactors. I’d say being able to afford a surgery like that points to Ulysses Cord, but then, folks who live in the slums can afford jetpacks in this universe, so who knows.

Dan Dare #8

Dr. Ziggy Rodann, who’s quickly becoming the real hero insofar as she’s now doing things that aren’t just “flee from danger”, takes control of the Odyssey from the bug thing and crushes encroaching Biogs in the airlock, temporarily saving the crew even though the ship is still stuck inside the Biog ship.

Speaking of fleeing from danger, Dare and the others decide to retrieve the Odyssey, which mostly involves...well...guess. The Biog’s living ship offers Dan immortality if he betrays his comrades, and he agrees, which...as cliffhangers go...I mean, I don’t actually care about Dan. So.

Nerve Centre

Ian Olson likes that the monsters in Doctor Who aren’t scary and isn’t fond of most “science films”. I’ve got to say, brave move saying shit like that with your full name attached. (I largely agree, hence the pseudonym.) Tharg refers him to Star Wars for some reason.

Geoffrey and Paul Aspinall ask for Dan Dare continuity porn, and Tharg obliges. You go, guys. Take a stand for traditional nerddom.

M.A.C.H.1 #8

Oh dear lord, the sexism. MACH1′s childhood friend Maria has been kidnapped by a woman named Pilar, who runs a criminal syndicate and is holding her for ransom. Maria a spotless face and long flowing hair. Pilar’s covered in wrinkles and has short-cropped hair. At one point she holds a knife to Maria and says “one more move, senor, and I will change the girl’s face until beside her, I look beautiful.”

Also MACH1 claims Pilar “plays in the men’s league” and bitches that Maria’s fiancee didn’t have the guts to stand up to a criminal syndicate. Jesus.

Judge Dredd #7

Judge Dredd goes after some vintage-car thieves. 

This is another one of those comics where events just kinda happen until Dredd gets an opertunity to make a dumb one-liner about the law. This time one guy tries to escape on a moving sidewalk but Dredd orders it to run backwards--“something that should never happen to the law.” 

Also Dredd’s upper face is censored for being too dang ugly. Sure. Okay.

This comic is very hard to have opinions on for some reason. 

Contest Winners

For those who’ve been following along with the Nerve Centres. See below the cut.

2000AD Prog 7: 9-Apr-1977

Invasion! #7

Over the course of the issue, Savage and his men blow up a train, a convoy, and two helicopters. Then, over the course of four panels, we find out that there’s a traitor in the resistance, find out who that traitor is (a nameless extra), and send him to trial. Because hey, why have intrigue or anything that might teach us about the characters when we can have shit blowing up, am I right?

To think I once gave this thing the benefit of the doubt.

Flesh #7

The one-eyed T-rex--creatively named “Ol’ One-Eye”, I should probably mention--goes mad and starts killing for sport after Reagan uses a toxic gas canister to drive her away. Reagan’s squad is ordered not to rescue him and to instead continue rustling the herd back to base. Reagan and Carver declare another truce and, having survived, decide to team up to make their own way back to base with Joe, the doctor, and two redshirts.

Without the dinosaurs around, the humans get real boring real fast. Thank god most of this issue is focused on psychoanalyzing Ol’ One Eye.

As for whether any of the residents of Carver City got out okay--who knows? No one seems too broken up about it though. 

Harlem Heroes #7

Okay, so I was wrong about the Russians’ sending in thirty guys at once, they just have a lot of reserves and so they can easily rebound from player injuries. Fortunately, the Heroes start exploiting the Russians’ resulting tendency to take stupid risks. Unfortunately, it looks like someone sabotaged Giant’s jetpack, forcing him to abandon it and leap to his apparent death.

Yet another one that’s just a big fight scene. Zach gets some cool moves in, though, including exploiting the air-focusedness of the game to get in some ground moves.

Dan Dare #7

Turns out the Biogs need the Mother Biog to produce energy. Turns out the Mother Biog is incredibly easy to kill.

Dan “tames” a living axe by beating the tar out of it. Because that’s how you tame animals.

Dan, Monday, and what few other survivors there are make their way back to the ship, but, as you can see from the top, that doesn’t go so well.

At least there’s not a lot of technical jargon this time, though that’s probably down to the story speeding up, which I’m hoping means we’re losing this feature soon. I mean, I’d far rather get rid of Invasion! or M.A.C.H.1, but hey, I’ll take what I can get.

Nerve Centre

Gee, thanks for the spoilers, Tharg.

Also, hey, letters start next week, so this section will no longer be a waste of space!

M.A.C.H.1 #7

We return to the “emotions vs. logic” thing this week, as the computer’s got a point this time around--breaking off a rescue of a British government agent to save MACH1′s mountain guide is not, strictly speaking, a smart move, and MACH1 is made to suffer for it. Still, I like that we’ve got a hero who cares about things like that.

The rest is...not great. MACH1, knowing the “pretend I’m weak” thing probably won’t work this time, tries it anyway, and it works, and then he breaks out. It’s weird. Like, yeah, he’s turned off his enhancements so he doesn’t have to fake weakness, but still--a perceived ill prisoner is still the same guy who tossed a car door off its hinges. It shouldn’t be that easy for MACH1 to convince his captors that he’s not worth the extra security.

Anyway, he manages both to save government dude and his guide and takes off in a helicopter by using a high-ranking captor as a hostage. And then tosses the captor out of a helicopter.

MACH1′s regard for human life is very selective.

Judge Dredd #6

This is a weird one. So there’s been a “Statue of Judgment” built besides the Statue of Liberty and practically dwarfing it. It’s a statue of a judge. No one in particular. Mega-City One has the resources for that, sure.

Then a fight breaks out, and one of the guys fighting steals a sky-taxi once Dredd shows up to break it up. Then Dredd goes to the top of the Statue of Judgment--which has no visible spectator platforms, but sure--and shoots the guy down so he lands on the Statue of Liberty’s crown. Then he says “no one can take liberties with the law.”

2000AD Prog 6: 2-Apr-1977

Invasion! #6

Oh, good, we’re moving from “banal” to dumb. The Volgans are holding public executions of civilians each time the resistance strikes, so Savage steals a buncha clothes and somehow makes sure he and his men are the next set of hostages in disguise. He and the guys gun down the executioners and the television crews, and skedaddle, secure in the knowledge that the Volgans will never hold public executions again.

Except, y’know, the more likely outcome is that they search the hostages for weapons next time, or maybe add more security, or pre-record the executions to make sure they don’t have another humiliation on their hands. Way to go, guys.

Flesh #6

“Claw against claw! I like yer style! Yer got class! But in a claw fight, ain’t nothing faster than ol’ Claw Carver!”

Yes, despite the fact that there were plans last time to burn the dinos out, Carver’s still going mano-a-dino, because he’s completely insane. Meanwhile, Joe’s made a full recovery! Yay, I guess. I dunno. I’m not really attached to any of the characters.

Upon setting the town ablaze, Carver makes good on his promise to kill Reagan by tossing him into the flames right in front of One-Eye. He’s also bitter about his town burning down, which, y’know, wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t decided to break his own damn rules and fight, thus causing the incident that let the dinosaurs in. But again, he’s crazy, so we’ll give him a pass, I guess. 

Harlem Heroes #6

The Heroes take a massive underwater tunnel to Russia for their first international match. The Russian team plays thirty people at a time, all of whom our powerhouses, and this is legal, I guess? One player thinks to themselves that “it’s almost as if they’ve been programmed to knock us out of the World Championship”--as though this were suspicious and not just how sports worked. 

The Russians are all dressed in furs and have little hammer-and-sickles on their nipples, which is....eh....yeah, also, the American announcer declares that the Russians “all look alike” and that he’ll be calling them all Boris. Good thing he doesn’t try that crap with the all-black Harlem Heroes, eh?

Dan Dare #6

It’s just hitting me now how friggin’ Lovecraftian this comic is trying to be. For the umpteenth time something is described as “beyond understanding”. The art’s not that good, you guys. The only thing that makes the alien base “beyond understanding” is the baffling decision to render the entire thing in barely-visible bright blue ink. Great use of one of your three color pages, guys.

Incidentally, one of the alien races communicate by changing color. In a black-and-white comic. Brilliant.

This issue is consumed with backstory. Here’s the short version: the color-changing blobs that ate Dan and Monday are Biogs. Everything on their planet is alive, including fuel. They conquer other races to burn, but their current subjects aren’t producing enough, so they’ve come for Earth.

Dan and Monday, natch, aren’t having any of this, and escape, with some other guy who apparently survived the initial attack.

Nerve Centre

Tharg will likely someday run into Uncle Traveling Matt.

Also, yeah, sure, some of the letters have been diverted to Mars. A convenient excuse.

M.A.C.H.1 #6

This week MACH1 “only” rips a boat apart and sends Nazis careening into some rocks. Something about sunken gold and a terrorist organization called “Werewolf”.

The fuck are Nazis doing running around in 1977, anyway? 

Judge Dredd #5

This week Dredd takes down “Frankenstein 2″, a man who’s basically just been running illegal organ sales and operations, and has not in fact been resurrecting dead bodies. Not exactly a man who “makes the original Frankenstein look like a Jelly baby”, as per one of his mooks.

Dredd declares that the rich folks who backed Frankenstein 2 are “the real villains”, which I can get behind, kinda. 

2000AD Prog 5: 26-Mar-1977

Invasion! #5

Things get more military this week as Savage stages a demonstration and uses explosives from a demolition’s expert to take out a buncha tanks. The working class will cow these guys yet! Or something.

Then they decide they’ll hide their resistance party in some bombed-out ruins.

I’m sorry. This is real banal stuff. And if I can’t keep you entertained, I can at least keep you informed.

Flesh #5

Flesh continues to be the perfect chaser for Invasion!. There’s a real sense of joy to its mayhem, as this week’s mostly consumed with dinosaurs fighting each other. I think that’s the main problem with Invasion!, racism aside--it’s premise just isn’t interesting enough for it to get anything out of playing itself straight.

Reagan gets the gland he needs to cure Joe, though now the doctor’s changed his tune and only thinks it’ll work. (He’s a drunkard, what do you want from him?) Then, Reagan and Carver declare a truce to use fire to drive the dinosaurs out. Oh, right, should’ve mentioned--there are no guns allowed in Carver City. There’s also no dinosaurs allowed in Carver City. (A robot sheriff, decapitated after declaring both these facts: “I am not programmed to deal with this situation.”)

Harlem Heroes #5

The Heroes win the game, and are immediately rewarded with a massive sponsorship and an even more massive spaceship from a media mogul named Ulysses Cord. Giant, of course, is immediately suspicious, but realizes that without solid evidence he can’t talk the rest of the team into refusing the offer.

This is a decent installment, I guess. It’s really just here to move the story forward. That said, we’ve got a murder mystery with very little in the way of suspects, seeing as the Heroes are the only characters we know much about. So Cord’s sudden arrival is fishy, sure, but not quite as ambiguous as it should be. 

Would you trust a man who dressed like that? (Also, geez, dude, look at folks when you’re talking to them.)

Dan Dare #5

Dare and Monday are swallowed by one of the monsters and transported...somewhere. Meanwhile, the bug-like creature is demanding control of the ship in exchange for the life of medical examiner Dr. Ziggy Rodann. The guards can’t bring themselves to fire, so it helps itself to Monday’s Martian ship-mind-control-chair thing.

I like Rodann. She demands the monster be fired upon even if it means her life, and that combined with her being a doctor makes her the first...well, I was gonna say “first halfway decent female character”, but as far as I’m aware she’s the first woman to have a name and multiple lines in the entire magazine. Yikes.

Still, at least she gives me something to praise besides the art.

M.A.C.H.1 #5

MACH1′s on vacation. An arms dealer tries to lure him to a party then threatens to kill a buncha beachgoers when MACH1 sees through this. The computer tries to convince MACH1 that surrendering is an error because he’s more important than the beachgoers and he should’ve risked their lives to save his own. Who the hell programmed this thing? MACH1 is supposed to stop threats to the British public so why has he been saddled with a computer that doesn’t care who lives and who dies? What sense does that make?

Whatever. MACH1 breaks out and punches the bad guy’s plane and crashes it into a truck. Then he goes back to the beach and has a little mope about how he’s more machine than man now and how much it sucks to be those beachgoers.

I like some of the concepts at work here--and I especially love the way MACH1 rejects the computer’s insistence that “emotions: irrelevant”, insofar as they appear to be poking holes in the hardened-macho-fantasyness of the comic. But the characters have so little going on that I can’t bring myself to actually care. It’s also pretty hamhanded.

Still, it’s a marked improvement over the last four installments. I’ll take what I can get.

Judge Dredd #4

A CGI-versus-practical-effects allegory? In 1977? What? 

Yes, that’s right, this week’s perp is a monster-movie aficionado who uses animatronics to murder executives at a corporation that sells “Sensor-Round”--basically holographic environments for your home. Dredd defeats a giant robotic “Krong” by launching his bike at it so it falls off a building (of course) and squashes the perp.

2000AD Prog 4: 19-Mar-1977

Invasion! #4

This week, Savage outs a Volgan spy by revealing that a miner’s got perfect hands. Then he kills him. This convinces the resistance that he’s good enough to head up a squad despite his lack of military strategy or nuance. But hey, I guess that can’t replace working-class street-smarts, or whatever. Look, he’s the main character, what do you want from me.

Flesh #4

Just when I thought this comic couldn’t get any crazier. Reagan’s taken Joe to a domed city to get himself looked to. Turns out Joe’s problems extend further than having been chewed up--he got an infection from the T-rex saliva, and the only cure is a T-rex throat gland.

Carver, the guy who runs the town, is a violent maniac who wears a dinosaur claw where his hand used to be, and he doesn’t take kindly to outside sicknesses, so he and Reagan wrestle. Unfortunately, his cyborg marshal is programmed to stop street fights by killing the participants. Fortunately, he misses Reagan and Carver.

Unfortunately, he shoots a hole in the dome, letting the dinosaurs--including the vindictive one from last time--in. Reagan, rather than running for his life like a rational person, prepares to cut its throat out so he can cure Joe.

AWESOME.

Harlem Heroes #4

Giant gives Zach a stern talking-to, which motivates Zach to get his act together. They manage to tie the game. The team gets a transmission from one of the brains of their “deceased” teammates suggesting the accident that wiped out most of the players in the first issue was no accident! DUN DUN DUN

Not much to say for this one, as it’s mostly a prolonged fight scene. It’s well drawn but it’s super-light on story.

Dan Dare #4

Dan and Monday manage to land successfully and get out on Jupiter with the help of the technobabble on their spacesuits. Unfortunately, one man’s technobabble goes horribly wrong and he’s crushed into nothing by gravity. They encounter a neat-looking alien. And the thing from last issue wakes up and attacks the pretty young female medical examiner.

Also, Dan reveals himself to be a Buck Rodgers rip-off. He’s from the past because that’ll justify all this talk of how future technology compares with past technology and give us a helpful lesson on human ingenuity or something.

Dear lord this is dull.

Nerve Centre

Still no letters being printed. I peaked ahead and future issues have letters so I’m pretty sure I don’t just have defective copies.

Also, the feature’s smaller this week, to make way for an ad if anyone in the audience is interested in being a child soldier.

M.A.C.H.1 #4

This week, MACH1 loudly declares he’s gonna kill the president of a made-up country. Then he’s taken prisoner. Then the president decides he wants to see him. Then MACH1 reveals he has superpowers and kills everyone. Then he steals a tank to make a getaway.

Mildly clever moment of the week: MACH1 pretending the torture he’s put through hurts so they won’t suspect he’s got superpowers. 

Mildly funny moment of the week: a mook bemoaning what a dumb move letting MACH1 see the president was. 

Mildly depressing moment of the week: the writer putting the line “you’ve seen too many spy movies” in MACH1′s mouth with no self-awareness whatsoever. 

Judge Dredd #3

The mutants here are pretty mild considering what we’ll get later--a cult that can only see in the dark but otherwise appears completely normal. Somehow they manage to steal the Mayor’s kid in broad daylight, along with a buncha other folks, which says wonderful things about how useful the Judges are.

On Prog 1:

philsandifer​ said: You totally missed Margaret Thatcher’s execution in Invasion!.

I’m sorry, it was drawn kinda small and I don’t know what Thatcher looks like off the top of my head. If it makes it better, I think it’s hilarious now that I know.

wolfechu said: Wait, was Britain invaded during WWII? Any part of it? It's not been a thousand years since we had people hopping over the channel and causing a ruckus, but I'm pretty sure Operation Sealion never actually happened...

2000AD Prog 3: 12-Mar-1977

Invasion! #3

So the guy who was stalking Savage last time was part of a British resistance group. A bunch of them find him in his motel room and attempt to take him along, but he’s having none of it, since he’s a loner, and a loner’s got to be alone. A motel employee calls the Volgans and Savage saves the asses of the British resistance guys before taking them back to headquarters in his van. He’s decided to join up.

It’s the sort of twist that’s probably necessary at this point and gives the comic a bunch more tropes to half-assedly poke at. But it’s no less dull than the first two installments.

Flesh #3

Joe is saved from certain peril, but that doesn’t mean we’re short on carnage this week as a Tyrannosaur shows up specifically to get the last laugh on a couple of guys boasting that “monsters ain’t no match for 23rd-century man!” Joe is nearly taken by the Tyrannosaur too, but Reagan shows up just in time to leap onto its head and zap its brain through its eye. Unfortunately, this doesn’t kill it because its brain is too small--even though you would think that would mean the electricity could easily fry the whole thing--and now it wants revenge on Joe.

Flesh remains content to coast on spectacle alone, which is fine, because again, cowboys versus dinosaurs. I’m not a giant-monster person generally, but Flesh is short and doesn’t drag so there’s plenty of momentum for the sheer lunacy to carry through alright.

Harlem Heroes #3

Man, if any comic deserved to get moved further up the roster, it’s this one, though that’s mainly because Dan Dare and M.A.C.H.1 don’t have a lot going for them. I could’ve lived with Invasion! getting a demotion too, frankly.

This week is consumed with a game against a team of cops--and Zach, having had one too many run-ins with them, is eager to get one over on them. Unfortunately this leads to a bunch of stupid mistakes and ultimately he collides with a TV camera and is sent plummeting.

I’m not sure how to feel about all this. Like, normally in “local kid makes good” stories, said local kid has skill, or smarts, or something, and just needs discipline or additional training. Zach’s kind of an asshole, and the only thing he had going for him when he was recruited was that he built his own jetpack--a useless skill in a regulation league. Now, we’re supposed to be on Zach’s side at least a little, because the opposing team and the spectators give him shit for being a delinquent, but at the same time he’s a complete fuck-up. So it feels an awful lot like the writers are casting aspersions on folks from his walk of life.

Dan Dare #3

Oh, hey, first use of the word “drokk”! Neato. 

The art continue to be the highlight here, as does some of the neat ship concepts and alien biology. Unfortunately, they’re propping up a real dud of a story. Dan is immediately forgiven because of course he is, and he and the Martian Commander Monday head to Jupiter before getting hit with a space storm. That, and some of the science jargon is just ridiculous--I can understand narrative captions with the occasional fun fact, but Dan and Monday reciting Jupiter facts to each other and talking about how “in the 20th century you could never” is where I draw the line. We get it, guys, it’s the future. Shut up.

Nerve Centre

Y’know, Tharg’s been asking for letters for three weeks now, with a different prompt each time, and yet he’s printed not a one of them. I suspect he’s eating them. Or maybe devising a letter-opening robot is more time-consuming than he anticipated.

Speaking of robots, this is the first instance of the “2000AD is staffed by droids” gag. Alas, poor Sub-Editor Mark IV.

M.A.C.H.1 #3

MACH1′s on a new mission this week, to spy on what appears to be a fishing ship that just happened to position itself over some crucial wreckage. Of course, it’s not a fishing ship, and MACH1 has to leap through the hull of the ship, fight a guy in a giant robot diving suit (because you want that kinda weight when you’re diving) and set himself on fire to save the day.

A running thing in the comic that I hadn’t remarked upon before: the skull-computer feeds him all sorts of technojargon and he gets frustrated and has to translate it into plain English while figuring out what stats he actually needs. It’s the sort of banter you usually get between mission control and a field agent, but it’s not really doing anything to elevate this above a half-decent action serial. It’s just the same joke over and over.

Of course, as we know, M.A.C.H.1 is allowed to be interesting one scene per week. Here, the computer can’t figure out how to beat the guy in the robot suit and so declares it impossible, only for MACH1 to do it anyway. It’s typical man-over-machine posturing but it loses its edge when your hero can literally only do the things he does because of robotics. 

Judge Dredd #2

The standard line on Dredd was that it was always intended to be a big selling point. Why, then, is it shunted to the back of the book? I wonder.

Interestingly, this week Dredd’s victory is muted. He recognizes the perp who has his face changed because of vocal recognition, and he got the opertunity because the perp was dumb enough to pull up and say hello. Dredd wins by sheer luck.

2000AD Prog 2: 5-Mar-1977

Invasion! #2

This comic is just a dude walking around with a shotgun, killing evil Asians.* This army wiped out the British government in eight hours, so I maintain that the joke--insofar as there is one--is the ridiculousness of a personal vendetta and the absurdity in the fact that he gets away with having one in a totalitarian regime. It’s still not especially funny.

This installment reveals Savage is being stalked. Okay.

Also there’s a scene where he rips off Dirty Harry.

* ADDENDUM: I did, eventually, suss out that they’re supposed to be Russians, but I’ll be damned if I ever acknowledged this in a post, so let’s just nip that in the bud right now. (Granted, I’m not sure if that’s better, but.)

Flesh #2

More ridiculous cowboy-dinosaur action this week as a giant killer robot is added to the mix. Fleshdozer, the meat-processing machine, malfunctions and kills two guys, one by dropping a dinosaur on him and another by feeding him to the grinder. Dude number two will be packaged as meat regardless, possibly as part of some snappy commentary on health standards.

Joe Brotowski--yes, really--continues to have moral qualms about killing dinosaurs for meat for a whopping one panel, same as last week. Reagan, his boss, continues to tell him to man up. Then they’re set upon by pteranodons for a cliffhanger. 

There’s something really matter-of-fact about the captions that make them fun to read in a Sam Elliot voice. “The ten-ton styracosaur landed on Huck.” “Then another pteranodons swooped down on him.”  Sure, we get a little bit of the exciting-action stuff with gratuitous exclamation points, but it’s sporadic. Like different narrators are tagging in and out of the comic. 

Overall, it’s still fun and goofy as all hell, but I feel like the novelty’s gonna wear off eventually.

M.A.C.H.1 #2

Picking up from last issue, Probe has just finished booting ass and databasing names when a terrorist reveals that this was all a diversion and the real plan is to dump a buncha nerve gas in London by plane. Why would you tell him that, moron?

So MACH1--who’s real name is never used for some reason--does what any spy would do, cyborg or not: gets in his own plane (because one happened to be there, conveniently), jumps out onto the terrorist plane, rips it open, kicks the pilots’ asses, and flies it safely away from London. Hurray.

There’s one tiny interesting bit where the nerve gas leaks into the cockpit, which causes him to start hallucinating instead of killing him, because cyborg, apparently. It’s solved pretty dang quickly, though, with a combination of HEROIC WILLPOWER and the computer just telling him the demons aren’t real.

Besides that, there’s nothing even remotely interesting about this one, and I won’t be sad to lose it. 

Dan Dare #2

There’s some interesting stuff in this one--for instance, the inside of the ship Dare’s stowed away on is an Escheresque nightmare thanks to “gravity control”, and human colonists on Mars evolved differently thanks to its low gravity. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but makes for some neat visuals.

The plot remains stock as ever. Danford Q Dare III puts the hurt on some more guards and uses “a twentieth-century weapon--it’s called fist!” Then he has to state his case to the Martian, who doesn’t believe him, but it doesn’t matter because the thing from Jupiter attacks and it turns out to be a giant bug-thing. It’s not especially compelling stuff, honestly.

Nerve Centre

I honestly think there should be a 2000AD amusement park if only so we can get that dude to walk around in that costume and pose with children. Make it happen, publishers!

I wonder how long the toy giveaways are gonna keep up.

Harlem Heroes #2

Huh. We’re five features in. I assumed Dredd’s arrival this week would’ve kicked something from the rotation.

This week, the three remaining players--Giant, Slim, and Hairy--go out recruiting, and end up with an old-timer named Conrad King and a troublemaker from “the sky-slums of Harlem” named Zach Harper. Plus two other guys transferring from another team. 

There’s something wonderfully pessimistic about the whole “sky-slums” thing and the idea that, come 2050, racism and classism will still be major economic forces. Sure, it’s self-evident now that those problems won’t evaporate in the next thirty-five years, but sci-fi of the mid-20th century was anticipating some major changes. 2050 may as well be forever from 1977 (why else would the magazine be called 2000AD?) and while sports have gotten glitzier and medical tech has gotten fancier, the world presented in Harlem Heroes is largely the same as it was then. That said, the absurd technology necessary for Aeroball to work pokes a few holes in this--inner-city black kids may still be poor, but they can afford low-power jetpacks.

That said, social commentary has never been a major selling point for me when it comes to stories, and the characters are too flat and the story too stock for me to care. I’ll concede it’s better than every other feature right now, but that’s not saying much. 

Judge Dredd #1

It’s tough to talk about this one as it exists rather than how it relates to all the crap we see in the future, so I’m not even gonna try. But I also don’t wanna deteriorate into the usual talking points--the continuity hiccup of setting the story in New York City, how lean Dredd looks, yadda yadda yadda.

What struck me, reading this as part of the prog for the first time, is how much Dredd feels like it’s building a world, in contrast to the rest of the thrills, which all seem to be drawing on familiar genres and images and tweaking them slightly. Dredd is a police story, but it’s one where criminals are stranded in the midst of traffic. Sure, it’s a commentary on the increasing presence of highways or whatever, but there’s no modern parallel in reality or fiction to the specific act. And rather than come up with some crazy sci-fi name for the new police force, they chose an existing word--Judge--and give it horrifying connotations.