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. 

Happy Anniversary, Judge Dredd!

It is 38 years since Judge Dredd first appeared in the pages of 2000AD, in Judge Whitey (Prog 2,3Mar'77), written by Peter Harris, with art by Mick McMahon.

Creative differences meant that the strips originators, John Wagner & Carlos Ezquerra, did not script and draw the first episode, respectively.

So, it wasn't until Prog 10, when the two Dredd creators reunited on the first multi-part story, Robot Wars (Progs10-17,30Apr-18Jun'77) that Judge Dredd finally captured the readers imaginations, becoming the comic's most popular strip... and never looked back!

Top: Judge Dredd fights carpentry droid, Call-Me-Kenneth, who leads a robot rebellion,as a sort of robot...messiah, urging all mechanoids to rise up against their human masters, and oppressors with the battle cry: "Death to the fleshy ones!" - in Robot Wars, Progs 10-17! Art: Carlos Ezquerra

Meet Judge Dredd! Dredd makes his debut, in Judge Whitey (Prog2,3Mar'77). Mick McMahon (a).

Classic cover art for mega-epic, The Judge Child (Progs156-81,15Mar-11Oct'80), by the brilliant Brian Bolland! 

No Dredd, but perfectly capturing the mood of the strip, with the crazy inhabitants of Mega-City One, and their latest craze - gettin' uuuuuglee! Otto  Sump's Ugly Clinic (Progs186-88, 15-29Nov'80). The incomparable Ron Smith (a).

Awesome artwork from the 'Mighty' Mick McMahon,for this cracking cover - Judge Dredd, The Fink (Progs193-96,3-24Jan'81).

Judge Death returns - this time with 3 frightful f(r)iends - Fear, Fire & Mortis - the Dark Judges! Judge Death Lives! (Progs224-28,8Aug-5Sep'81) - Stunning art by Brian Bolland.

The longest mega-epic so far, the brutal conflict with Mega-City One's greatest enemies from the Sov Blok, East-Meg One: The Apocalypse War (Progs245-70,2Jan-26Jun'82), by solo series artist, Carlos Ezquerra.

Another bona fide classic from Mick McMahon - Judge Dredd gets more than he bargained for when he investigates some strange occurrences in the Cursed Earth, in The Starborn Thing (Progs309-14,26Mar-30Apr'83).

Judge Dredd descends into the Undercity, after ex-Judge Prager, who had taken the 'Long Walk' down to the lawless streets below MC-1, returns with a warning that a white werewolf and it's pack is stalking the dark world below, occasionally surfacing to grab victims. Thinking Prager has gone crazy from spending too long in that terrible place, Justice Dept. have to rethink when the former Judge begins to turn into a monster before their eyes! Cry Of The Werewolf (Progs322-28,25Jun-6Aug'83). Superb art from Steve Dillon.