The Weekly 2000 AD Prog #2291: Jaegir Heads To Nu-Earth And Into Trouble
by Richard Bruton
45 years and better than ever – it’s the UK’s greatest sci-fi weekly comic, 2000 AD and we’re here with The Weekly 2000 AD to give you a preview.
The four we had last week, Dredd: Special Relationship, Brink: Mercury Retrograde, Skip Tracer: Valhalla, and Dexter: Malice in Plunderland, are joined this week by the welcome return of Gordon Rennie and Simon Coleby with the latest Jaegir series, ‘Ferox’.
2000 AD Prog #2291 is out today, Wednesday 20th July and I’m writing these very words in the early hours of 20th July, so we’re doing this one fast…
JUDGE DREDD: SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP – PART 3 – Rob Williams, Patrick Goddard, colours by Quinton Winter, letters by Annie Parkhouse
Brit Cit commandos have taken over colony base. Dredd and his group are moving in to take it back. Meanwhile, behind the scenes in Rob Williams’s tale told out of order, we get to see Chief Judge Logan’s scheming coming to bite him in the ass. And then there’s the threat of the mysterious Modric, perhaps connected to Brit Cit Intelligence’s Circus… or perhaps not.
One thing’s for certain, three episodes into this and it’s a damn good Dredd. There’s mystery, there’s threat, there’s the very real possibility of Brit Cit and MC-1 going to full-on war here, and there’s Patrick Goddard’s wonderfully solid and kinetic storytelling leading us on.
BRINK: MERCURY RETROGRADE – PART 20 – Dan Abnett, INJ Culbard, leters by Simon Bowland
20 episodes in and I just don’t want this one to end – it’s just that outstanding.
After seeing the cult activities last episode, we’re back with Mas, our investigative journo putting things together, connecting the dots between HabSec, the Cults, Mercury, the Unions, the Corporations… but time’s tight to pull it all together and he’s going to end this episode a hell of a lot closer to the Union and Sect trouble than he really wants.
Like I say, and like I’ve been saying all along, Brink is just exceptional. It can carry on for as long as it damn well wants, 30, 40 episodes? Hell, let Abnett and Culbard have a whole year worth of Progs to tell this one – I can guarantee you it will be well worth it.
SKIP TRACER: VALHALLA – PART 5 – James Peaty, Paul Marshall, colours by Dylan Teague, letters by Simon Bowland
Nolan Blake and his friends are now on the Cube, looking into what the hell it’s doing at the edge of a black hole and broadcasting messages about Valhalla.
So, it’s over 600 levels up that they need to go and there’s a hell of a lot of nasties on their tales… which means what we’re going to have here, maybe, for the next few episodes will be Peaty doing a closed room action thing and Marshall’s great artwork delivering on the action.
DEXTER: BULLETOPIA CHAPTER 10: MALICE IN PLUNDERLAND – PART 3 – Dan Abnett, Tazio Bettin, colours by Matt Soffe, letters by Annie Parkhouse
We’re full on Yojimbo here, Dexter et al in the middle of two rival gangs and playing them off against each other to see who they’re going to work with. Mistaken identities, Abnett playing with a classic film plot, and Bettin’s artwork looking absolutely superb – he’s absolutely settled into the role as the main SinDex artist with this latest storyline.
Of course, this is SinDex, so despite every devious move Dexter, Carrie, Billi and the rest are pulling, I still reckon we’re going to see the bullets flying by the end of this one. But just having this little interlude, watching Abnett and Bettin move their chess pieces around the story board is a great thing.
JAEGIR: FEROX – PART 1 – Gordon Rennie, Simon Coleby, colours by Len O’Grady, letters by Jim Campbell
Back with Jaegir, back on Nu-Earth, back to Rennie’s taut plots, sparse dialogue storytelling, and perhaps best of all, back with more of Simon Coleby’s atmospheric darkness in Jaegir. Oh, and let’s not forget the stunning work Len O’Grady does on those colours either – you can practically choke on the noxious fumes he colours up on the first couple of pages… and the last three as well… superb art job all round.
As for Atalia Jaegir, she’s headed to the most dangerous place on Nu-Earth, The Miasma (whatever that is), looking for her father’s old lieutenant general, Kurga. It’s toxic as hell, there’s psychotropic agents leeching into the Nort suits, and there’s something moving in the undergrowth, something with horns.
Damn, it’s good to be back here in Jaegir’s messed-up dangerous world.
