2000AD #2228 Review

Writers: Kenneth Niemand; TC Eglington; Pat Mills; James Peaty; Dan Abnett
Artists: Tom Foster; Simon Davies; Leonardo Manco; Mike Collins; Richard Elson
Colours: Chris Blythe; Dylan Teague
Letters: Annie Parkhouse; Simon Bowland; Jim Campbell
Publisher: Rebellion

Law enforcement officers shooting unarmed citizens in the street as they raise their hands in surrender? A corrupt police force using brutal and illegal methods to intimidate those they regards as undesirable? Welcome to the strange, future world of Judge Dredd: The Penitent Man.

Shot by a rookie cop, former-Judge Asher is taken into custody by the Special Judicial Squad. An angry Dredd is on their tail, determined to root out corruption within the Squad. It’s still the details in Mr Neimand’s writing and Tom Foster’s art that makes this all so appealing – the SJS department’s unique equipment, to Dredd’s demeanour towards a rookie judge shifting after a moment of reflection.

Could this be the last episode of Slaine, ever? It’s certainly been suggested so, with writer Pat Mills burning bridges even more fiercely that normal in his attitude towards Rebellion and his co-workers. How then, to end such an iconic series after forty years as a fan favourite?

The answer is to just stop, half way through a battle. Have the main character make vague references to an ongoing fight; throw in a satirical comment about the moral failings of the British Empire, and get an artist as good as Leonardo Manco to paint some gorgeous splash pages. The end. 

It doesn’t feel like an end. Slaine even makes a reference at one point to an action he intends to take later in the story. It feels it had a bit of re-writing done to tack a quick denouement onto to what was intended to be the end of a chapter, with threads abandoned by a writer who doesn’t want to do it anymore.

Could this be the last episode of Slaine, ever? Probably not.

The space Pope’s gone mad in the 3-ird part of Tharg’s 3-riller: Chorus and the Ring. Luckily, a space-nun/ninja is here to kick his holy ass.  It's just like how the real Vatican works, but in space. This goes as you would expect – a big fight resembling the big fight it all started with. There’s some nice design work in Mike Collin’s art

There’s a shift in pace in Thistlebone: Poisoned Roots. Things are still slow, moody and mournful, but we jump between several different characters, giving some sort of urgency to proceedings. Seema interviews another witness about the events of the doomed scout’s camping trip, and in a flashback scouts starting seeing weird things...but at the same time, Malcolm’s willingness to use poison starts to suggest an entirely non-supernatural chain of events.

Feral & Foe’s blend of traditional fantasy tropes and anachronisms are really fun. The whole thing feels like players in an MMORPG, occasionally forgetting that they’re supposed to be role-playing. The script is full of jokes, making light fun of video game structure, and the elaborate language of the fantasy genre. This really is a bit charming.