2000AD #2243 Review
Artists: John Higgins; Patrick Goddard; Dan Cornwell; Paul Marshall; Tazio Bettin
Colours: Sally Hurst; Dylan Teague; Len O'Grady; John Charles
Letters: Annie Parkhouse; Simon Bowland; Jim Campbell (l)
Publisher: Rebellion
Dredd might be an angry guy with a club who beats peaceful protesters to a bloody pulp, but he’s also a super-powered detective of fifty years experience. Judge Dredd: Now That’s What I Call Justice is a hefty detective story full of heavy dialogue. Dredd and Judge Park are investigating a series of vigilante murders and discussing four deaths and two terror groups whilst reviewing the evidence. On top of this, we get a blast of television show detailing the exploits of a completely different judge, and we spend some time with the murderer, Simmy, and his priest brother. Five pages, people!
That’s a lot going on, but the details are wonderful. Judges discussing how a suspect was released on the “technicality” of being innocent, Dredd offering “guidance” to a more junior judge who is lead on the case, with the subtle body language that comes with it. All fantastic stuff.
In Skip Tracer: Eden, Nolan has been reunited with his previously unmentioned partner and discovered he has a psychic child, all just before the bad guys show up. Pamela was killed of faster that you can say “women in refrigerators” and the villains have Nolan and his offspring in custody.
Skip Tracer is a story I find a bit charmless. This week starts with a by the numbers “it was just a dream”, which lacks any build up and seems to just be a device to skip to the end.
The big fight actually does happen and comes to an a sudden conclusion in Department K: Cosmic Chaos. The dimension jumping judges have encountered some Jack-Kirby-Fourth-World villains, and some cosmic chaos has indeed ensued. Things get nicely wound up as a larger story is hinted at. Dan Cornwell’s fantastic art has all the necessary Kirby bubbles, and...is that Lenin?.
The long running Sinister/Dexter double act has been split into separate strips. Last week, Sinister, under the control of a world spanning AI, set of to prevent Dexter from fleeing the city of Downlode. This week, Dexter and his new friends are in the sewers, avoiding surveillance whilst encountering tentacled monsters and pirates. The cover might be a bit cosmic horror, but inside the story is mostly gun play. This is shaping up to be a nice, new idea.
Where does your story go after the main character kills god by stabbing him in the brain?
Don’t worry, internet, it’s not the real god. Instead it’s Cronos, who, if you know a bit about greek mythology or just read the text balloons in Aquila: The Rivers of Hades: Book One, was the boss god, father of Zeus.
Shaping up to be not only a riveting adventure story but also an education on the geography of Hades, Aquila takes us on a tour of icy Cocytus, the realm of traitors. Full of twists and violence, Aquila is rocketing surprisingly fast.
A Look Inside
