2000AD #2001

Posted: Monday, December 18
By: Craig Lemon

Writers: Various
Artists: Various

Publisher: Fleetway/Rebellion

It's the end of year blow-out issue of 2000AD, and what better way to follow-up last year's issue 2000 with #2001? The cover is a little uninspiring - last time there was this marvellous piece, but it's just a closeup of The Mighty Tharg looking evil (complete with glowing red eyes and whatever that stupid thing on his head his); you're getting 100 pages for £3.95, not bad at all - but as this is an anthology comic you've got to want to read at least half of the stories, or it's close to being a waste of time and money. So, what have you got?

Judge Dredd: Bad Mother is the twelve page opener by John Wagner and Cam Kennedy; a parody of the Big Brother TV series; although the contestants and their speech patterns are totally Brit-centric (how many non-Brits have heard of Alan Titchmarsh, TV gardener extraordinaire, for example?) thus gaining it extra marks if you pick up the references, the story isn't spoiled by not knowing the specifics of the people being parodied - just knowing about the concept of Big Brother is enough - this riff shakes things up a little by one of the housemates being executed each week by public vote, the last one left being allowed out alive, and Dredd comes in a last minute replacement. Entertaining.

Zenith: zzzzenith.com by Grant Morrison and Steve Yeowell is the best strip in here - Morrison's reluctant hero returns ten years later on in an eight-page offering, which, whilst it does lean heavily on past-Zenith stories, is still readable by the novice. It's just the references to Acid Archie, and the Lloigor's pocket universe that might confuse; but to long-time fans, this is a superb story (a crisis that threatens to engulf the universe is dispatched of in a panel or two) - the secret behind British PM Tony Blair is revealed, who assaulted Britney Spears is the twist, and the ultimate fate of Brit-pop band Oasis is shown. Excellent story, wish Morrison had more Zenith up his sleeve, though.

Sinister Dexter: Bullet Time is a five-pager by Dan Abnett and Andy Clarke: I hate the Sinister Dexter strips in the regular 2000AD; the two main characters are irritating, horrible people, who you'd just wish would be killed by some of these people they seem permanently engaged in firefights with. Fortunately, this story is a neat look at a typical adventure from the bullets' points of view. Yes, we find out what happens to each of 114 bullets in a 96 second period of time; gratuitous violence, sure, but the custom jobbie that is number 72 has to be seen to be believed. Nasty.

Tharg The Mighty: The Great Thrill-Power Overload! by The Mighty One and Henry Flint is five wasted pages - there has just been so many quality thrill-powered stories in the past, that the addition of issue #2001 to the database causes a Thrill-Power Overload and explosion, affecting, and afflicting, reality, until Tharg sorts it all out. Awful.

Button Man III: Part One by John Wagner and Arthur Ranson is the second best story here, and it's very close behind Zenith indeed. Harry Exton has retired from the Button Men game, he no longer kills for his "voice", he's living in Montana under an assumed name, having an affair with the dentist's wife, and is about to find out that you can never retire from being a Button Man. Twelve pages of gorgeous art, probably the best reason to buy 2000AD on a weekly basis from now on.

Bad Company: Down Among The Dead Men reveals what happened after the conclusion of the last Bad Company storyline, many, many years ago. Pete Milligan and Brett Ewins return for this five-page interlude, but you really need to have been reading 2000AD when BC first ran, or caught up with the now out-of-print collected editions, to get a grip on what is going on here. Shows potential for the upcoming series, but something will be needed to bring readers up to speed.

Nikolai Dante: One Last Night In The House Of Sin shows Dante treating his troops to a night in a literal love train, and what happens when the officers of the army commandeer it for themselves, with a rather charming last scene, not to viewed before eating some thick, sludgey stew. Robbie Morrison's and John Burns' tale is okay, just feels like an excuse to inject six pages of sex amongst all this violence.

Necronauts has its first 11 page episode, it initially feels as if it will be retread of Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlement, what with the promise of the teaming up of Harry Houdini, HP Lovecraft, Charles Fort and Sir Arther Conan Doyle; what we have though is Houdini accidentally opening a portal for rather nasty creatures to appear on Earth, whilst attempting to perform the ultimate trick - to die, then return to life, and reveal what the afterlife looks like. Interesting, although a little slow to get started with; things will really heat up when the four protagonists finally meet up, I expect.

Finally, it's Strontium Dog: The Sad Case. John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra craft yet another tale of Johnny Alpha, mutant bounty hunter - if you've enjoyed SD in the past, then you'll like this; if you hated it, you'll still hate it; otherwise you may find it vaguely amusing, but not really a strong issue-closer.

The package is rounded off with a couple of factfiles with pinups by Ian Gibson (Robo-Hunter and Halo Jones), the pictures are lovely, the factfiles a waste of space; four pages of submission guidelines for prospective writers and artists; and a couple of pages of introduction and letters.

So, I very much liked five out of nine strips, two were okay, two were rubbish; I got nothing out the text pages, maybe I know too much about this sort of stuff already, so you may get more value from these pieces. Even so, still a superb read for me, and I'm confident you will find gems you'd normally have overlooked too. Treat yourself, and enjoy!