The Weekly 2000 AD Prog #2208: London Falling!
by Richard Bruton
The Weekly 2000 AD gives you a regular look inside the Galaxy’s Greatest, all the thrills are here… come join us… it’s time to peruse the Prog…
Monster mayhem hits London in Stickleback, there’s a very angry shark eating his way through the cornish coast in Hookjaw, Skip Tracer’s on the run, Constanta comes home to a not too warm welcome in Fiends of the Eastern Front, and Dredd is dealing with his favourite Mega-citizens in Simply Normal.
It’s all in 2000 AD Prog 2208 and it’s yours from newsagents, comic shops and digital stores from 18 November!
JUDGE DREDD: SIMPLY NORMAL – PART 2 – Kenneth Niemand, Steven Austin, colours by Chris Blythe, letters by Annie Parkhouse
Oh, it’s a tough old life being a Simp. Even tougher if the simp-love of your simp-life has been whisked off for simp conversion therapy. And that’s why a miserable Daisy is wandering the wrong parts of town, desperate for any way to rescue Pansy from the unspeakable horrors of being turned norm by the Simply Normal company.
Poor Daisy. Poor Pansy. Poor Dredd for having to deal with his favourite people. They might be relatively harmless, but damn they just annoy the hell out of him. But, as Daisy falls in with the Radical Simp Underground, Dredd’s busy looking into Simply Normal, convinced it’s not as legit, not as normal, as they say it is.
Great work here from Steven Austin on his very first Dredd tale, giving us plenty of MC-1 atmosphere with the Simps and then with Dredd on patrol. But the page that really works is when we’re back with poor Pansy, now just plain old boring and normal Erma Bagelstein, the sadness written across her face – very nicely done.
STICKLEBACK – NEW JERUSALEM – PART 8 – Ian Edginton, D’Israeli, letters by Jim Campbell
There’s monsters fighting atop London town, one of them an ancient beast of nightmare, the other the very spirit of the city, Valentine Bey, Stickleback’s mate, cosplaying for his life as the last God of London.
It’s devastation and mayhem, Stickleback style, Edginton obviously enjoying his Godzilla moment of writing a big, bad monster mash of an episode and D’Israeli letting loose with the action shots. Lots of fun for sure, but the real showdown begins once this episode ends, as old Stickleback Holmes’ plan makes its mark on London good and proper.
HOOK JAW – PART 8 – Alec Worley, Leigh Gallagher, letters by Simon Bowland
So, last Prog we found out that Hookjaw is some kind of shapeshifting elemental, finding strength through belief, which is a bad thing seeing as the village is currently full of tourists and acolytes who desperately want to believe in whatever the world’s offering them. And right now, it’s offering them a bloody great big shark with an insatiable appetite for some Cornish meat.
And no, never a good idea to pack out a rickety old coastal pier with too many people, especially not when there’s a bloodthirsty man-eating beast below ready for the buffet to be served.
But that devastation does give Gallagher to really go to town with a whole page of shark frenzy, something he’s been doing all the way through this series with great style.
SKIP TRACER – HYPERBALLAD – PART 8 – James Peaty, Paul Marshall, colours by Dylan Teague, letters by Simon Bowland
Well, with Skip Tracer and his manga-faced pop-star on the run from her manager and his stooges, we’re now right back to where the series opened. Things keep being thrown at them, bad guys to overcome, with Skip looking like he has some kind of last-minute, pull the irons from the fire, kind of solution to it all.
It’s one series that just keeps on keeping on, a by the numbers adventure with some very attractive Marshall artwork.
FIENDS OF THE EASTERN FRONT – CONSTANTA – PART 7 – Ian Edginton, Tiernen Trevallion, letters by Annie Parkhouse
We’re deep into the life of young Constanta now, the endgame approaching now that he’s fallen in with Skade and given at least some of his years to the witches.
All that remains is for him to return home, to his treacherous brother and become the Fiend that we know he shall become. And again, it’s the witches planting the seeds of that, a whisper passed from beast to beast to beast before eventually whispering in Skade’s ear… ‘take the lost Prince home to Romania.’
This is not going to end well – but then again, we always knew that. It’s simply been an entertaining and beautifully drawn journey to enjoy, the travelling far more important than the ending in this case.
