2000AD, PROG 2093 REVIEW

Writers: Rory McConville; Kek-W; James Peaty; Gordon Rennie; Lawrence Rennie
Artists: Leonardo Manco; John Burns; Andrea Mutti; Karl Richardson
Colourists: Chris Blythe; Eva De La Cruz
Letterers: Annie Parkhouse; Simon Bowland; Elle De Ville
Publisher: Rebellion 


We move towards the final showdown in Judge Dredd: a Better Class of Criminal, as three-way warfare breaks out. The outgunned justice department encourages two criminal groups to wipe each other out in this fast moving episode which manages to squeeze in a decent amount of exposition. Dredd moves through three scenes without removing his hands from his hips, but otherwise the art from Leonardo Manco and colourist Chris Blythe is top notch, with some lovely lighting effects and interesting compositions. Hope to see much more of Manco’s work in the future.

More fast moving action in The Order: New World Order, and the battle between big robots, aliens wyrms, and American revolutionary army forces our heroes into retreat. Again, there’s some nice design, with some weird alien horses. A huge amount is squeezed into the Order each prog, it can be difficult to keep up.

The Order writer Kek-W previously took over scripting duties on Indigo Prime, where the decision to re-introduce the character Revere, who starred in an entirely seperate strip in the 90’s, divided fans. That plot twist has nothing on the sudden cross-over in this week’s The Order.

Tharg’s 3rillers are an unusual format (“Three-riller”? “Threeller”?). Too little story for a full series, too much for a one-off, they inhabit the uneven ground between, often feeling like a Future Shocks which doesn’t quite move fast enough.

Appetite starts with a celebrity interview gone wrong, as professional dirt-digger Adrian Jones finds himself covered in black vomit. As the story kicks into action, Jones finds himself in he middle of a conspiracy. It’s a decent enough first act, bt too early to see where this one is going to go.

Previously a 3riller which has been given it’s own series, Mechastopheles does it’s job in True Faith. After last week’s set up, this prog sees the big steampunk monster battle enormous demons, and sets up a bigger battle in the future. Kaiju battles are love or hate, but Mechastopheles is a smart twist on the genre.

Unit 86 is back in Grey Area: 86...or at least some of them are. After the shocking death of some of the gang, this episode introduces new members, and the awkward interactions that take place as different ways of working are thrown together. Mark Harrison’s art is as action-packed as ever, with alien crowd scenes as the border control agents have conflicting ideas about dealing with a peaceful protect. This episode is mostly set up for the conflict to come, but its a nice reintroduction to the characters and the conflict to come.