The Weekly 2000 AD Prog 2172: Alien Trouble Blows Up For Dredd

The Weekly 2000 AD… Week in and week out, giving you the preview of the new 2000 AD Prog. The UK’s best sci-fi weekly since 1977. four decades and still going strong.
This week, under a cracking Jake Lynch Dredd cover, it’s time for more of The Relic with Dredd tracking an alien on the loose, more Skip Tracer, continued episodes of The Zaucer Of Zilk and Feral & Foe, and a new adventure for those gun-slingers Sinister Dexter.

Cover by Jake Lynch

Prog 2172 is out in the UK and on digital on 11 March, with international copies coming out later – those of you in the good old US of A might need to ask for it at your LCS. Now, without further ado… The Weekly 2000 AD
 

JUDGE DREDD: THE RELIC – PART 2 – Kenneth Niemand, Jake Lynch, colors by Jim Boswell, letters by Annie Parkhouse
Qgggl, fourth of the third tribe of the children of Keeeb arrived in MC-1 looking for the remains of revered Grandfather Qgggu so that he can return them to his homeworld.
And it didn’t go too well, which is why Dredd’s looking into a break-in and theft at the Museum of Alien Anthropology.

One of those classic stranger in a strange land, where it’s not hard to see that it’s the humans who are the monsters. All well done by both Niemand and Lynch, who really does do a particularly excellent Dredd chin.

SINISTER DEXTER: THE FRIGHTENERS – PART 1 – Dan Abnett, Steve Yeowell, colours by John Charles, letters by Simon Bowland
With Ray still injured, Finn is off on his own, tracking down a contract in a bizarre funhouse. But there’s still that nagging problem of the killer inks and the destruction of the Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), Lilith.
That’s one of two great things about Sinister Dexter, a strip that’s proved troublesome for me in the past. But over the course of the years, it’s grown on me, Abnett’s dialogue works well, the jokes pay off, and Yeowell’s artwork does a grand job.

THE ZAUCER OF ZILK: A ZAUCERFUL OF SECRETS – PART 10 – Script by Peter Hogan, art and story by Brendan McCarthy, colors by Len O’Grady and McCarthy, letters by Jim Campbell
As you can see from the first page previewed below, the Zaucer’s daughter, Tutu, has turned up, thanks to one of those twisty & turny time things. So grown-up Tutu is the Criminaut, come back in time to save her dear ol’ dad.
So, things get complex, as time things do, and it’s taken Zaucer into interesting territory again. Yes, it’s always looked spectacular, thanks to the combination of McCarthy & O’Grady, but now there’s a little bite to the tale as well.

 
SKIP TRACER: NIMROD – PART 2 – James Peatty, Paul Marshall, colours by Dylan Teague, letters by Simon Bowland.
The Skip Tracer of the title, Nolan Blake, ended last episode with an old acquaintance turning up. The start of this one has Blake carrying the obviously injured Hastings – how we got from one to the other is where the other four pages here take us.
And it’s all to do with the Nimrod of the title, something that’s obviously a throwback to both Blake and Hasting’s time in the army.
More than that… not yet, that will come in episodes to come. But as is, Skip Tracer carries on doing all the things it’s been doing all along, telling a simple tale very well.

 
FERAL & FOE – PART 10 – Dan Abnett, Richard Elson, colors by Richard & Joe Elson, letters by Annie Parkhouse
More comedy-fantasy from Feral & Foe, the evil minions now playing (perhaps) for the other side, but more than likely looking after themselves first. Although they’re finding it way harder than they thought to get out from under the deal they made with Wretchfinder Huntsinger…

And that’s how they find themselves part of a team to track down the Butcher of Kurnoe. They’re really not happy, but it does make for wonderfully entertaining stuff to end the Prog.

 
And finally this Prog – the latest 2000 AD Art Stars winner – Federico Arevalo does Judge Death…