2000AD, PROG 2110 REVIEW
Artists: PJ Holden, INJ Culbard, Richard Elson, Steve Yeowell
Colourists: Jim Boswell; Abigail Bulmer; John Charles
Letterers: Annie Parkhouse, Simon Bowland, Ellie De Ville
Publisher: Rebellion
Beneath a lovely Chris Weston cover that sees Dredd fend off some especially nasty jelly babies, a citizen’s involvement in medical trials goes horrible wrong in Judge Dredd: Trial By Fire.
After the high stake politicking of The Small House, it’s a nice reminder that 2000AD can throw out five pages of Dredd-related silly nonsense to break things up. PJ Holden’s art seems a little more comical than normal, which fits perfectly with the light hearted theme. It’s stll Dredd, though, so that light-heartedness does involve a series of small, naked men bursting from the chest of an unexpecting innocent and causing chaos. It's like an especially violent reimagining of Pixar's Inside Out, as a man's negative emotions escape into the real world.
Rory McConville’s script manges to throw in an interesting new character in Tek Judge Kirby, who is introduced as if she’s always been here, and Mr Holden gets to add yet another impressive uniform design to his repertoire.
Elsewhere in the Prog, the script writing machine that is Dan Abnett produces three strips...
Kurtis finds herself in a cage in Brink: High Society. Her cover has been blown, but having thrown Blasco to the wolves she may have bought herself some time. It’s another tense conversation, whilst elsewhere efforts are made to break into the secret vault.
On the face of it, its another episode of Brink where little happens, other than the nerve-wracking tension of a computer interface that refuses to change. But all that just means that when violence does come, it’s all the more shocking. Brink might be a strange otherworld, but it’s characters some of the most realistic humans in science fiction.
Kingdom: Alpha And Omega fades to an end...or it would if not for a final twist. It’s more of a quiet denouement, but then explodes again in the final couple of pages, where we get a lovely splash image. Alpha And Omega spent a lot of time sitting around, making sure everyone was caught up, but when it did move forward it was brisk and to the point. At the end, Gene is almost back where he started, but the world has changed entirely
Things go full James Bond in double eisode of Sinister & Dexter:The Sea Beneath The City. As a supervillain unveils his dastardly plan, can the gun-sharks stop him and save the city of Downlode? Well... probably.
The Sea Beneath The City could have just been Finnigan and Ramone delighting in the bizarre Bond antics of bad guys with secret underground lairs, over the top plots to conquer the world, and women with suggestive names. Instead, it piles on layers of jokes. Ramone still has an unfortunate case of the thought balloons, there are workplace conversations about the inequality inherit in the capitalist system, the problems of a mechanised workforce, and jokes about eels. If 2000AD teaches us anything, it’s that even nonsensical stories can have a message.
A Look Inside
