Comic review: 2000AD PROG 1932- ‘I Spit on Your Gift of Obedience!’

Released: 27th May 2015
Artists and writers: Various
Publisher: Rebellion



‘All hail to the majesty that is my mighty organ.’

And so begins another week of 2000AD with editor extrordinare Tharg boosting about the superior spatial capabilities of his green storage box. How strange, is he an alien or something? Oh yeah, he is, I forgot. I didn’t forget about my weekly dive into his comic book though. So here we go again, with my weekly ramblings on the latest edition of 2000AD.

It begins, as it always does, with the big chinned control freak, good old Judge Dredd. Seems like he’s actually going to help somebody in this story, he’ll arrest them afterwards of course, but I guess that’s better than the real world Judge Dredd? At least he isn’t planting stuff on them and beating them up for ‘resisting arrest’ as they have their hands cuffed behind their backs.

Judge Dredd is a funny old character, a hero who should be a villain, but cannot be portrayed as a villain because of what he represents. The most enjoyable part about his adventures is reading how the writers do somersaults in order to portray him in a good light. This story is a perfect example of that, and the simple way to do it is to create people that are worse than him. It’s the old excuse that we need uniformed order followers to control us because there are bad people out there. What a laugh it all is, the justification for immorality in a uniform, and so the world keeps on turning, orders keep getting followed, and nothing changes.

Onto Slaine, and immediately it’s excellent, with dialogue about control, slavery and dog like human obedience to anti-human control systems. It’s a world removed from the Police state authoritarianism of Judge Dredd. People say this story is all about the art, but it really isn’t. The art is self-evidentially excellent, but read the story, read the dialogue. You are getting deep essential moral truths here. ‘I spit on your gift of obedience!’ The dialogue here really is the best, and alongside the spellbinding art you have something special, not special because it’s clever or witty, but special because it is all about truth, a truth that you don’t always get in comic books. Pat Mills, Simon Davis and Ellie De Ville, you are doing amazing work here, and it has to be released in a collected hardback format when it inevitably, and sadly comes to it’s conclusion.

‘Future Shocks- The Big Heist’, is a story about a bank robbery in space, as you might have expected from reading the title. It starts by addressing the main problem that comic book readers of 2015 would mention when reading about a futuristic bank robbery, that being why would there be any physical money at all in the future? After addressing that problem, the story gets straight down to action, and there’s a good twist at the end, a twist that makes sense and delivers a satisfying conclusion. It was a decent short, with basic art, but the structure of the narrative was professional and strong.

‘Tharg’s 3rillers- Commercial Break- Part Two’ introduces some aliens, sparkly bits and the idea of willpower holding constructs together, much like in the Green Lantern comics. The tone of the book is not serious, the protagonists joke and quip and it’s all done with a smile at how ridiculous it all is. I liked it, it’s light, it’s entertaining, the art is cute, colourful and cuddly and it’s a nice change of pace from the other stories in PROG 1932.

There’s lots of intrigues, political double-dealings and betrayals going on in Strontium Dog- The Stix Fix- Part Nine,’ and it can get confusing. There’s a strong vein of humour running throughout it as well though, and it’s always nice to see our hero insult people who cannot understand his language, it’s cheap, but it’s fun. The story is essentially about an every man caught in the middle of political shenanigans, he’s Johnny Whistleblower in space, but rather than having a whistle he has his fists, and oh look, he’s just stolen a gun. It’s fun, but it’s not in the same category of excellence as Slaine.

That’s it for another week in 2000AD. I enjoyed the book, as I invariably do. Slaine really was exceptional this week, and there are a couple of other treats to enjoy as well. It gets two thumbs up from this not alien, not green headed man with a decided average organ. Yuck that sounded gross. I was talking about my little brain, and it came out all gross. How did that happen? That’s it. I’m off. Buy the book, it’s good.

Rating: 8/10 (Slaine is the main course, but there are some nice side-dishes as well)