The Weekly 2000 AD Prog #2245: Get Your Funt On With Sinister Dexter
by Richard Bruton
Time to head out to the land of 2000 AD, the UK’s greatest sci-fi weekly comic for four decades and counting… it’s the Weekly 2000 AD.
Under a very cool looking cover from Mark Harrison, we have more of four of the strips from last week – more Dexter, more Skip Tracer, the final part of Aquila, and a brand-new Terror Tales by Paul Starkey and James Newell, the winners of the annual 2000 AD & Thought Bubble script and art contest. And rounding it all out, it’s the finale to the quite wonderful Judge Dredd: ‘Now That’s What I Call Justice’ strip from John Wagner and John Higgins. All in all… pretty damn good stuff.
All right then, 2000 AD Prog #2245 is out from all those great purveyors of comic goodness on 18th August – go, go, go…
Ready for a look inside?
JUDGE DREDD: NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL JUSTICE – PART 6 – FINAL PART – John Wagner, John Higgins, colours by Sally Hurst, letters by Annie Parkhouse
This really has been a fabulous 6-week run of Dredd from John Wagner and John Higgins, a perfect little procedural with a twist, all the darkness and ridiculousness of Mega-City One wrapped up in Dredd’s hunt for a Judge killer.
Yes, it’s been a great story, all wrapped up perfectly here, including Wagner referencing his own Apocalypse War storyline as number one in the Now That’s What I Call Justice rundown.
And as for John Higgins’ work here, this has been a blast… and this first page… wow…
SKIP TRACER – EDEN – PART 9 – James Peaty, Paul Marshall, colours by Dylan Teague, letters by Jim Campbell
Skip Tracer, baby Eden, both of them captured by the Consociation, who’ve recruited the arch-nasty Nimrod to their cause.
Hands up all those who knew you couldn’t trust Nimrod here? Well, yes, hardly the most shocking of turnarounds in the plot, but hey, Skip Tracer’s more of a traditional out and out action thing here in 2000 AD, not the one to push things, just doing a good action strip pretty well.
DEXTER: BULLETOPIA CHAPTER 6: SOMEWHERE BEYOND THE SEA – PART 3 – Dan Abnett, Tazio Bettin, colours by John Charles, letters by Simon Bowland
Dexter’s trying to escape Downlode to spread the word about the AI taking over the city and wanting to take over the world. And so far… well, it’s not exactly going too well, is it.
They’ve got as far as Planktown in that escape and it’s all breaking down, no-one believes them, and his old mate, Finnigan, is right outside creating havoc and wanting to off his fellow gun-shark.
Havoc like this…
All in all, loads of fun to be had with this latest Sinister Dexter, with a super-cool looking Finn on the rampage. Really rather stylish artwork from Tazio Bettin as well.
THARG’S TERROR TALES: THE TORTURER’S APPRENTICE – Paul Starkey and James Newell, letters by Simon Bowland
This one is the prize for winning the 2000 AD & Thought Bubble script and art contest, although unusually we’ve already seen Newell’s art in this year’s 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special.
But this is one where you can definitely see why the pair of them won the contest, with a Terror Tale that comes with a nice twist in the tale, along with some good-looking artwork from Newell.
There’s a book out there, a book with many different names and signatures in it, a book that came into the possession of a bent copper after picking it up at a satanic bust in a church. And now she’s had the idea to go off visiting all the names inside, offering them their page in return for cold hard cash.
AQUILA: THE RIVER OF HADES – BOOK 1 – PART 10 – FINAL PART – Gordon Rennie, Patrick Goddard, colours by Dylan Teague, letters by Annie Parkhouse
Next stop for Aquila – out of hell, off to find Ammit the Devourer, get his soul back. Job done. Well, maybe not quite that simple, after all, this is Hades we’re talking about – this is going to be one to take up the entire second part of The River Of Hades series.
Yes, it’s time for more hack and slash stuff here in Aquila, which is exactly what the series is all about.
