Comic Review: 2000AD PROG 1933- ‘I can’t close my eyes to the truth anymore.’

Writers and Artists: Various
Publisher: Rebellion
Released: 3rd June 2015



2000AD is the one comic book that every UK comic book fan should be reading. Forget Batman, forget the Avengers, forget the bored office workers in their 90’s fight club, 2000AD is the place to be, so let’s jump in, shall we?

Poor old Bud was always too average looking to have a happy ending, and so it proves in the concluding part of ‘Judge Dredd- Breaking Bud,’ as he’s carted off to jail in front of his disapproving wife. The story instead gives the happy ending to a far prettier antagonist, a girl who like Bud was also a criminal, but all of that if forgotten in a final panel as she celebrates with her equally as attractive boyfriend.

It’s a hard fact, but looks are important in this world, and it’s a different set of rules for the beautiful people. Ordinary looking blokes like Bud are the losers, that’s their role, and the only surprising thing is that he was giving such a prominent role in this Judge Dredd story at all. There was hard reality in this story, most of it unintentional, but what it said about poverty (caused by corporate/government policy), law (it serves the rich, and protects the wealthy) and attractiveness (pretty girls have more value than downtrodden average looking men) had a lot of truth about it.

Slaine starts with a quote that reminds me very much of my own life and how people react to me when I talk about concepts such as truth and reality. ‘You really need to stop thinking, Gort. It’s bad for you.’ It always surprises me how prevalent this mind-set is, the idea that yeah life is horrible and corrupt, but don’t worry about it, don’t think about it, just do what you can to get ahead and succeed. I could never get with that, to me it was a selfish, callous, evil way of thinking, and I didn’t want to live like that.

The real world has a lot of problems, but the main one is the mindset of normal people. Imagine a world where everybody is only looking after their own interests, not caring about anything but themselves. That would be a horrible place to live in wouldn’t it, but look around the world and what do you see? I see that mindset as dominating, and the only way the world will ever change is if we change it, that change is up to us, we can do it, but only if we really want to. It’s up to the individual, the man or woman that refuses to join, refuses to stop thinking and refuses to join evil for a career or pay cheque.

I’ve already talked at length about how great this story is, so I’ll leave it there this month. One quote, one section of the story and I’ve just written a large section about it. I would find it easy to write 3,000 words a week on Slaine where I go through it panel by panel, but who would read that? It takes huge discipline to say so little about something so great, but I’ll finish here. Read it, it’s great.

‘Future Shocks- The World According to Bob,’ starts off with a bloke lying on his CV, saying that we’ve all done this, not me of course, but I always was a bit weird. I enjoyed the story. It had truth to it, a continuity of government, lies becoming reality and history being constantly re-written in favour of the winners. Sounds like everyday life in the morally bankrupt UK of 2015 to me, now what’s on the BBC tonight?

‘Tharg’s 3Rillers- Commercial Break’ is more silliness and aliens and fluffiness, and even though the aliens end up getting burnt alive it still reads as inconsequential and more of a pose-down featuring pretty butt kicking girls more than anything else. It was cute, but I didn’t see the point, perhaps as a light counterbalance to the other stories? Perhaps, but this one won’t linger long in the memory.

‘Strontium Dog- The Stix Fix’ concludes 2000AD this week, and it’s time to let the dog off the leash. The Dog doesn’t believe in second chances, you act badly, you get what you deserve. It’s brutal, and it finishes the story on a high, showing that the Dog is no joke, and leaving the reader with the slightly awkward and guilty feeling that although the bad guys got what they deserved, did they really deserve all of that?

I was going to do a Blitz Review (very short and to the point) of 2000AD this week, but it just didn’t happen. The book always leaves me with a lot to say, and look at what I’ve just done again, another long review where I go on and on and on. Congratulations if you got to the end of it, thanks for reading, and I’ll see you all again, same time, next week. I intend to be briefer, but you know what I’m like.


Rating: 8/10 (Dredd had a good ending, and Slaine is as spectacular as ever)


*Quote in the intro to this review is from Slaine by Pat Mills. It's in this book, get it now.