Prog 78

I have started to get serious about this blog, so much so that over the weekend I went to the library and got a book out about 2000 A.D. Thrill-power Overload for those that are interested, and from what I have read so far I cannot recommend it enough. Informative and detailed, I hope it will widen my understanding of this comic I am reading and add some context forty years after the fact. I have put it aside for an hour while I read this week's issue, but I soon as I finish I will be gleefully diving back in. Before then, let's roll back the clock to August of '78.    

Prog 78

19th August 1978

2000 A.D. is adorned with a sensational-looking cover this week, but I'll come back to that later as it doesn't come from the opening story of Robo-Hunter but rather Ant Wars. All in good time, dear reader, all in good time. 

First, we have to experience the paradise that Sam Slade and Captain Kidd find themselves landing in. With an army of robots awaiting them as the ship's doors are scorched off, it is far from paradise, despite the sign welcoming them. 

Kidd looks to Sam to save the day, but there is little he can do in the face of overwhelming odds, and soon both are behind bars and on the way to the experimentation complex. It doesn't sound pleasant, and so it proves as they arrive to find it full of captives, a human concentration camp on a planet run by robots. 

Behind this brief summary, there was a lot of nuance and clever plot points. The robots are imbued with a sense of humour, and their response to Sam Slade's order early in the comic is a sardonic laugh. This sense of humour permeates through the story, with the Robots referring to paradise several times, and in the final panels, we even see some of the humans calling it paradise before manically laughing. Right now Sam Slade is the only sane being in an insane place. The relationship between Slade and Kidd wasn't played out as strongly as the previous issues and a large part of this was due to the time given to show the world they have landed upon and the robot city. This gave the comic a well-rounded feel, and some context for what will come next. We have started with some very strong characters, and we now have a world that is their equal when it comes to interest. Next week the two should come together and the story will really start motoring. 

Rating: 8/10

Best line: "Listen, you overgrown scrap-heap - Robots have got to obey humans!" 

Looks can be deceiving, a lesson we are about to learn in this week's Future Shocks. With an alien craft approaching Earth, the US military is on high alert. Scientists warn the General in charge to tread carefully, there is just as much chance that the aliens are friendly as not. 

The General isn't one to take advice, and when the aliens appear as revolting-looking slugs he takes immediate action, commanding his men to destroy them all, an order they quickly carry out. 

Seconds later a second alien craft appears, different in shape from the first. This time the aliens emerging from the door look like bears and immediately greet the General in English. The General gives them a friendly greeting in return, but the tables are turned when they tell him that the previous aliens are a friendly race, and these newcomers are here to destroy them all. The General has no time to digest this as he is the first to die as the bear-aliens open fire. 

An obvious warning to us all about judging on appearances, this wasn't quite the story I expected from Future Shocks. Given that the story stretched across three pages, I thought it could have been a little more subtle in its message. On second thoughts, there is very little subtlety on the pages of 2000 A.D. and this Future Shocks did what it needed to do as straightforward as possible. Although it may not have appealed to me, there was plenty in the story to commend it. The artwork was clean and to the point, and the story did poke the warmongers in authority in the eye. Not the best, yet it felt entirely in place in this week's 2000 A.D.

Rating: 6/10

Best line: "Never seen...anything so...loathsome in all my life!"

Dan Dare is fighting for his life as the tunnel he was sheltering in fills with emergency foam, while the mutiny still rages aboard his space fortress. 

It's a short-lived fight, as Dare pulls out his blaster and frees himself from the gel. 

Meanwhile, Hitman and the rest of the loyalists are making for the computer room, hoping to seize control of the ship.  There is a shootout with the mutineers, and it looks like Hitman is about to be shot by Logger when Dare suddenly appears to blast Logger in the back. 

The tide has turned and Haskins, leader of the mutineers, makes a dash for the computer room. He is intercepted by Bear, who we learn has only pretended to be a mutineer, but he swipes him aside and dives for the anti-grav shaft in an attempt to get to an airlock. 

Haskins manages to get to an airlock, and donning Dare's space suit that is nearby, he exits the fortress, making his way to the Eagle craft that is still flying nearby. He has no idea what awaits him, and he enters thinking he has made a clean escape. However, Gunnar Johanssen is still on the craft, and thinking Haskins is Dare he attacks him. While he is doing this he fails to put the ship on autopilot and they both come to a sticky end on the following panels as they are crushed by two meteors in the meteor storm which is still ongoing. 

It is a poetic end to the story given that Pilot Polanski dies the same way in the first episode of the story. Dare acknowledges this, before commanding his men to get the ship cleaned up and back onto their prime mission. 

Mutiny over, we are back to normal for next week's issue. Well, as normal as things get for Dan Dare and his men. Overall I enjoyed this mutiny story well enough, although it did run for perhaps one or two issues too long. Despite running long, this final issue felt like a rush and it concluded quickly. Perhaps some of the fat could have been trimmed from earlier issues to make this one more well-rounded, but it is par for the course in Dan Dare and I seem to recall having similar feelings after some of the previous stories. It was the artwork that did the heavy lifting, with the page layout and the clean lines propelling the action more than the words themselves. A good demonstration of the strength of the visual over the written, this story was elevated by the artwork. I'm often drawn to the writing in 2000 A.D. and Dan Dare is the exception where I prefer the art over the written word. I hope that next week will see a better balance between the writing and the art, although I would happily read anything drawn by Dave Gibbons. 

Rating: 6/10

Best line: "Wait! He'll try to take one that rogue Eagle craft...which means he's in for the surprise of his life!" 

Although he's tied up and about to be operated on, Judge Dredd is still scheming and planning an escape. With his spinal glands about to be removed, Dredd uses the swing chair to catch the evil Doctor Gribbon flush in the jaw with his boots.

Freeing Spikes, they are stopped at the door by one of Gribbon's creations. Dredd is in no mood to mess about and quickly dispatches this obstacle with an accurate scalpel throw.

Gribbon isn't done quite yet and activates some concrete doors that trap Dredd in Spikes. However, Tweak appears just in time, ripping and eating his way through the concrete wall. There is still more drama yet as two green giants block their path, but the appearance of more of Gribbon's creations, this time fighting on Dredd's behalf, intervene and turn the tide. 

Gribbon has one final card to play and drawing a pistol he shoots Dredd in the shoulder. With Dredd prone on the floor it looks like Gribbon has him cold, but once again one of the little pill men appears, throwing himself in front of the gun, jamming it and killing himself and Gribbon at the same time. 

With the building burning around them, Dredd and his cohorts leave, with one final monologue from Dredd delivering a sermon and a pun. 

This is what Dan Dare could have been if the art and story had synced up just a little better. We had a very clever story delivered on a beautiful-looking plate. With humour and satire to the fore, it still carried plenty of grit and delivered a worthy message at the end of it. All these things Judge Dredd does well, and this was a fine example of the type of Judge Dredd stories we have had to date. Excellence in comic form, this was the capstone to a very interesting couple of issues and one looks forward to seeing what comes next. 

Rating: 8.5/10

Best line: "Drokk it! Gribbon's got a thicker skull than I thought. 

We've had to wait for the whole issue to return to the fabulous cover that introduced Ant Wars. With a newspaper cover hysterically informing us of the Ant Wars, we are well-primed by the time we get to the story. 

We pick up where we left off with Captain Villa, Anteater, and a Brazilian army officer fleeing the Ants in the underground sewer pipes. This seemed like a good idea at first as the larger soldier ants couldn't enter the drains, but they instead found themselves pursued by the much smaller worker ants. 

They do offer some resistance, and there is a skirmish between the ants and the three refugees, the outcome of which is decided by Anteater and his jungle skills. 

Back on the surface, the three men find cover while they consider their next move. They observe the ants turning multi-storey blocks into huge ant hills and decide that the airport would be the best place to find help. 

Arriving at the airport, they find it guarded by yet more ants. They wonder what the significance of the airport could be to the ants, a revelation soon to come. Seeing an aircraft coming from the sky, the Brazilian Officer pulls a pistol on Captain Villa and Anteater, telling them there's only room for one on this flight. However, as he runs onto the runway to meet to meet the plane he is shocked to find that it is a flying Queen ant. There is no time to escape and he meets a messy end right there on the runway. 

It looks grim for Captain Villa and Anteater, although Villa sees an opportunity with the Queen ant attracting all the giant ants from the surrounding areas, now might just be the time to destroy them all at once. We end with the fateful words "The Queen must die" 

I didn't much care for the artwork in this week's issue, yet there was still enough on the page to have me recoiling in horror. The sight of the Queen Ant coming in from the sky was terrifying, and just the surprise I needed to maintain my interest in this story. It could have easily fallen into a loop of Anteater saving Captain Villa time and time again, and having the Queen Ant arrive was just the wrinkle we needed to keep the story fresh. The death of the Brazilian officer kept things at a dangerous level, and the scene at the airport far exceeded anything else in this week's strip. Ant Wars was hyped for some time before its arrival, and so far it has lived up to the hype in every way. I have no idea what will happen next, and that is the very best way to be. 

Rating: 8/10

Best line: "Those wings! It's not a plane at all!"

Prog 78 final ratings:

Overall: 7.5/10

Best Story: Judge Dredd

Best Line: "Gribbon learnt too late that man cannot play at being God! His creations had feelings...emotions! He created life - but in the end it was the death of him!"   

Best Panel: