2000AD- PROG 1943: New story sends bitter, right-wing comic book reviewer to Cloud Nine

Writers and artists: Numerous
Publisher: Rebellion
Released: 12th August 2015



Here we go again, then, another week of comic book reviews, and as usual, I’ll start with this week’s 2000AD.

Ah, the cover, it looks alright, very 2000AD, very PC, very SJW, a mohawked woman, with a gun, large and in charge, actually so in charge that the cover would be perfect for the identity politics obsessed US comic book industry right now. It’s a good cover, but I know the story that it depicts, and I dislike that story. Oh well, on I go.

Let’s see what Tharg has to say for himself this week: Not a lot, and that’s that.

Let’s get to Dredd. The story is simplifying now, and it’s pretty much your basic comic book story of revenge crazed loopy villains versus the heroic judges. The Judges (cops) are portrayed as cops are always portrayed in comic books, as the mythological protectors of the poor innocent helpless, defenceless people. Remember kids, cops are heroes, cops protect you from bad guys, following orders is good, bowing to uniforms is good, join us, join us, join us.

The art in Dredd/Enceladus looks great, it looks like a blizzard, but the ideological meat of the narrative supports the status quo slavery system that we are all currently living within, and supporting with our taxes and cowardly, indifferent acquiescence. This ideology exists as subtle mind-control, pushing the message that you need uniformed order followers to keep you safe from the monsters of anarchy and real freedom. But hey, that’s Judge Dredd. If you love order following murderers in cool Nazi-esque uniforms, then Dredd’s the man for you.

Oh dear, Helium got a bit too serious this week. It has a very harsh last panel, one that doesn’t really fit with the light-hearted nature of the story at all. When you have playful dialogue, big bright and colourful art and colouring and a sense of fun about everything the last thing that a reader expects is a gruesome suicide and brain parts splattering all over the page. I’m still enjoying the playful banter, the big smiles and the fun, but that last panel was ill-judged, and hopefully that will be the first and last piece of needless gruesomeness that the story contains as it continues to progress.

Outlier is a tale of two moments of dialogue this week. The first (‘We need to get them fighting back.’)
is something that I can agree with.

I live a life surrounded by people who acquiesce to the world that is around them. They live their lives with their heads down. They see the shapes available in the wall, look for a gap and try to fit in, trapping themselves, and blocking others that want to tear the wall down.

How many control, and how many chose to be controlled? It’s the biggest problem in the UK today. Millions of slaves and a handful of slave masters. People need to stop joining, and they need to start fighting back. The people say yes, it’s time that they said no.

The second quotation (in Outlier) was the final quotation of the strip, a deliciously memorable and tension packed,‘That’s not your son,’ a phrase that is perfect in that it encapsulates everything that is happening within the narrative, and leaves the reader in eager anticipation for next weeks instalment.

That’s two pieces of dialogue. The former is something that I can get my teeth into and riff/rant on, and the later is something perhaps more traditional, some easily digestible narrative meat that everybody will enjoy. That’ll do, I can take that. I can rant, and I can enjoy. That’s what I do.

The next story in PROG 1943 of 2000AD is Cloud Nine, a vision of a world that has natural balance, nature laws of cause and effect and natural justice. However, the world has been hacked by a vampiric parasite that feeds on the creative, imaginative, free thinking people that live there. It takes them into itself, stealing their flesh, moulding it onto itself, satiating itself, renewing itself, living off of the life energy of those that would be free to use it for themselves.

You know what I’m going to say next, right? I’m going to compare Cloud Nine to government, aren’t I? Well yes, but not only government. Look at any parasite. Look at the comic book industry, the music industry, the movie industry, heck, just look at any industry that needs new recruits, that feeds on them to regenerate itself, cough, army, cough, cops, cough. Yes, Cloud Nine is one to watch. It’s going big picture, and this start is a bloody good one.

Nope, I’m still not getting anything out of cover star Jaegir. This month it’s all about inside the mind of the female protagonist. She’s worried that her failure will prove other’s right, that she is letting down her dead relatives. I never warmed to her in the first place, probably because she’s just an order following soldier, so going into her mind where all she is worried about is essentially herself, doesn’t really do anything for me at all.

2000AD ended with a whimper this week with an indifferent offering of Jaegir, but there was something new within PROG 1943, something that resonated deeply within me, shining like a beacon of liberty in a world obsessed with order following statism.

That beacon was Cloud Nine. It looked great, and it said a lot. An enslaved populace, being fed on by a centralised vampiric entity, hey man, that’s not fantasy, that’s reality, and I love seeing it being reflected in this week’s edition of 2000AD.

My comic book reading week has officially begun, and I’m smiling, but I haven’t read any Marvel or DC books yet. That’s tomorrow, when the US comic books are released. I love that country, and I love the people that live there, but man, their comic books are almost completely dominated by progressive libtardness these days, so wish me luck in finding a glimmer of sanity in their echo-chamber world of PC/SWJ nonsense. I try, I really do.


Rating: 7/10 (Get it for Cloud Nine)