2000AD, PROG 2067

Writer: Michael Carroll; Peter Milligan; Pat Mills; Ian Edginton
Artist: Paul Davidson; Rufus Dayglo; Patrick Goddard; INJ Culbard; Clint Langley
Colourist: Chris Blythe; Dominic Regan
Letterer: Annie Parkhouse; Simon Bowland; Ellie De Ville
Publisher: Rebellion

We almost get a montage of fishing, planning and violence in Dredd: The Shroud, as Dredd plots his escape from slavery. Having been captured and put to work in the snowy wastes of Russia, Dredd finds himself in an impossible and inescapable situation. But old Joe isn’t just a pretty face and has been putting together a plan. The Shroud is action packed and clearly has more up its sleeve (and probably something hidden underneath that fur coat that Dredd insists on wearing), but feels like it’s missing something. Dredd has been lost in wastelands before, and taken prisoner and made helpless before, and there are occasions when the experience has had a serious impact on the character’s slow arc. But for all its competency in storytelling, The Shroud feels a little lightweight and forgettable. Maybe its the empty scenery, or the barely seen villain, or the disposable characters.

It’s all been a bluff...double bluff...quadruple bluff...in Savage: The Thousand Year Stare. As the villain’s monologue reaches its third week, yet another unlikely turn of events saves Bill from a fate worse than death. The duplicitous Volodina reveals her hand, saving Bill from the trap she led him directly into for some reason, with a double barrelled slight of hand which even a cursory glance at previous episodes will reveal could not have happened. The evil Howard Quartz is revealed, once more, as the puppet master behind all conflict. Will Bill be able to bring his reign of terror to an end?

The answer is found in ABC Warriors: Fallout, set many hundreds of years later, where the puppet master behind the conflict is revealed, once more, to be the evil Howard Quartz. Using his vast fortune and array of rotary telephones, Quartz has set in place a plan to destroy the ABC Warriors, which is so simple, so devious, one could almost call it insulting.

Credit has to be give to Patrick Goddard on Savage and Clint Langley on ABC Warriors. Both artist have pulled off the trick of creating interesting panels despite the static nature of the scripts, and only brief flurries of explosive action.

“By rights, Bad Company should have died a long time ago” writes troubled soldier Danny Franks in this week’s Bad Company: Terrorists. As the company continue their search for the man who started the war that killed most of them, they are trapped, outgunned and outnumbered. This week is a well handled, very Bad Company, firefight with a mix of quick one liners and maudlin regrets.

Thank goodness then for Brass Sun: Engine Summer. This slow moving, considered masterpiece has exploded into action and in only a few, silent panels, the world is changed forever. INJ Culbard’s understated art gives us a vast universe, filled with very small, very human moments. Once again Brass Sun is a standout in an otherwise lacklustre prog.