Review: 2000AD PROG 1934- Warp Out Time!

Writers and artists: Numerous
Publisher: Rebellion
Released: 10th June 2015



A warped out Slaine is on the cover of 2000AD this week, excellent, let’s see what’s inside.

A new Judge Dredd arc begins this week, and it starts with a mercenary trying to murder a judge. The interest in the story is in discovering, who paid him, and why? I’m not a fan of the judges, so I don’t really care, but it could be interesting, we’ll see.

The second story is more my kind of thing, mainly because it’s got ‘False Flag’ in it’s title, a term that scares the mainstream media so much that they don’t use it, out of fear that merely mentioning the term will get people to question what their government slave masters are doing.

 You know what? I agree with them. If everyday news consumers knew what ‘false flag’ actually meant (attacking yourself and blaming somebody else in order to justify actions that would otherwise be unjustifiable, see 9/11, 7/7, Gulf of Tonkin and Reichstag Fire) then there might be a moment when the news watching programmed masses start to question things and discover a thirst for truth about what their governments are getting up to.

The story itself (Absalom- Under a False Flag) initially confused me. It certainly wasn’t making it easy for the readers to get into it, and it took me a couple of reads just to understand what it was supposed to be about. It had some lame blokey jokes about people from Newcastle, the art was very nice, and the plot involved Police/Slave controller protagonists and one of their assets. I’m intrigued, and look forward to see where it goes next week. Oh, and it was set in a demon and magic filled future, so it could say something about the world as it is today, under disguise of it’s fictional sci-fi setting, but we’ll see. The title at least is a good start.

Third story is Slaine. This is the one where Slaine ‘warps out.’ In other words, it’s backside kicking time for the order following legions. Dialogue standouts from the week include the following nuggets of truth:

‘What seems to me to be white will be black, if you tell me it is so.’ (True words spoken by a loyal order follower who does not want to know the truth.)

‘They hate living flesh and will only tolerate it when it can be controlled.’ (Do you ever get the feeling that governments hate their own people? I do. People are always the real enemy of government. They want compliant slaves, dogs, and that is why they lionise order followers, soldiers and cops as heroes at every available opportunity, whilst cutting their pensions and letting them starve and die when the cameras are no longer shooting. A compliant population is a slave population, and that is the goal of all governments.)

Slaine talks about the ‘archons’ this week, the gods of humanity, the slave masters at the top of the pyramid. It’s fascinating, dripping with truth and revelation about the state of humanity as it has been since the dawn of time. What is an archon? Watch this ten-minute video, and find out:

It’s not possible to top something as essential as Slaine, but ‘Helium,’ the last story in PROG 1934 of 2000AD is fun, and easy to get straight into (unlike ‘Absalom- Under a False Flag). I am uneasy with the central narrative premise though, that being the commonly pushed mainstream lie that you can change a corrupt system by joining it. I dislike that premise, because it’s not true, and I see it everywhere, from television cop shows, to this comic book script. We need to break the illusion, and we need to expose the lie.

You do not change evil by joining evil. The opposite is true. By joining evil, you become evil yourself. Whistleblowers have that same mindset, that you can change evil by working for evil, and look at what always happens to them. They try, fail, and are persecuted because they tell the truth. Evil systems perpetuate evil deeds, and individuals within the system exist only to follow orders. When they no longer comply they are discarded, replaced by somebody with less morals, and more ambition and willingness to serve. That’s how evil replicates itself, it is how our world really works.

Once again I’ve put together a far too long review, but what can I do? I start writing about 2000AD and there’s so much to say, and I can’t help myself, being the blabbermouth that I am. Thanks for reading, if you got this far, it’s another great week in 2000AD, get the book, support UK comics.


Rating: 9/10 (Interesting new arcs begin here, plus Slaine continues to excel)

Comic Review: 2000AD-PROG 1928: Three? That’s just being greedy.

Writers and authors: Numerous
Publisher: Rebellion
Released: 29th April 2015



PROG 1928 of 2000AD is a bit of a laugh, and features a pleasingly juvenile obsession with breasts. I like that, and I like the fact that in a world obsessed with neo-liberal definitions of political correctness a comic book can still be just as silly as they used to be in the gloriously sexist comic book days of my youth.

The PROG doesn’t begin so humorously though, with Judge Dredd injecting some unpalatable, but essential truth into it’s narrative. That truth being that the state (in the form of its uniformed goons) will murder you if you fail to obey its commands. We are seeing this in the US at the moment, whether the protesting crowds realise it or not.

People in Baltimore are rightfully angry right now because Police are not being punished for their murderous actions, but the people appear to be under the mistaken belief that the murders are race related. They are not. They are power related.

The state (as embodied in it's uniformed agents) murders, because that is what states do, and when you vote for the red or blue liars you vote away your freedom, giving them the power to legally murder you if you fail to comply with their directives.

‘They know the law, and they know what happens if you break it.’ 

So says Judge Dredd, the order follower in a uniform, the man empowered by the state; the state empowered by the voter. The message is clear. Vote and you vote for state violence. That violence will be used against you if you fail to comply with the orders of the state. It’s not about skin colour; it’s about giving away your rights. That is Statism. That is what you are voting for.

Orlok had a special guest appearance from a slap headed female character who looked a lot like Tank Girl this week, but apart from that there was little going on. I’ll give it a pass though, as the story is usually interesting, it’s just a bit threadbare this week.

Slaine features the fantastically named villain ‘Lord Weird,’ and more insight into how childhood trauma creates a pacified and obedient adult.

Some adults use drugs to anaesthetise that childhood trauma. Others put on a uniform and ‘serve’ the authoritarian control system, masking their pain by causing pain to others, feeling like they are powerful when they are little more than traumatised children looking to gain power by joining a human slavery system.

Slaine is a rare man, a man who refuses to repeat the mistakes of his father, refuses to hurt people because he has been hurt, refuses to join a control system, defiantly shouting, ‘I am my own man.’ 

Slaine represents freedom, and his message is that to be truly free you have to fight to be free.

Slaine has unbelievably art, everybody knows that, but it’s also saying something important, something that needs to be said, especially in our increasingly enslaved, pacified times. That is rare, and that is why it is (and I’ve said it before) reason alone for you to be spending your money on 2000AD in 2015.

PROG 1928 of 2000AD starts to get funny now, and the last two stories (Grey Area and Strontium Dog) are tremendously amusing in a boyish, juvenile, let’s see what we can get away with, kind of way. Two is good, but three? That’s just greedy. Sorry, I’ve said too much, just get the book, have a giggle, and thank me later.

2000AD has been exceptional recently. I always get a lot out of it, and this week’s addition adds some giggles to the mix alongside the more serious, adult, let’s think about the nature of authority stuff that I always go on about in my reviews. It’s a tremendously entertaining book, and the perfect to way to start your new comic book week.


Best story: Slaine/Primordial: 10/10 (Still awesome)

Worst story: Orlok/Rasputin Caper: 6/10 (A bit tepid this week, but it’s still a good story)

Overall rating: 9/10 (Heavy giggle factor this week and a lot of fun)

Review: 2000AD PROG 1926- JUST BUY IT!!

Writers and authors: Numerous
Publisher: Rebellion
Released: 15th April 2015



2000AD is fast becoming my favourite comic book of the week, and in PROG 1926 this long-time Judge Dredd hater even enjoyed that strip as well.

PROG 1926 begins with ‘Judge Dredd- Enceladus New Life: Part Three, and even though I still despise the power tripping main-man himself, the story being told is a good old-fashioned mystery tale that has really captured my interest, attention, and whatever else I have that is hanging out there in the wind waiting to be captured. The structure of the story is clever, you want to know what happened to cause a space ship to turn into a suicide bomber minus the Allahu Akbar, and the art has a nice grain and grit about it as well.

Second strip this week is ‘Orlok- The Rasputin Caper: Part Three,’ and this is another case of me disliking the main protagonist but enjoying the story. This one features a nice dig at the corporate whore mainstream media of the future deliberately lying to the public. Looks like things in the future are much like things in the present then.

Third strip is the awesome in every conceivable way ‘Slaine- The Brutania Chronicles- Book Two, Part Three.’ The colouring, the art, the layout, and the overall look of this strip is excellent, lovely, beautiful, harsh, ephemeral, otherworldly, but real. This book has to be released in hardcover, and when it is released it will be a must buy for art lovers and comic book fans alike. The story this week is focussed on a cliché-spouting slave to a centralised control system. Hey, with that sort of corporate talent she would do very well today. A promising career on television or politics, or writing for a mainstream newspaper awaits a lady so unquestioning, so blind, so enslaved, so in love with learnt helplessness and a desire to do nothing but passively accept her lot in life. Like I said at the beginning of this paragraph, everything about ‘Slaine’ is awesome in every conceivable way, and just like I said last week, you need to get 2000AD just for this one strip alone.

How do you follow something as brilliant as Slaine? You can’t really, but ‘Grey Area- Just Routine Questions: Part Two,’ is a very good story that is posing a lot of interesting questions itself. The story here is about a planet of new-ager types who are happy to do nothing but be ‘spiritual’ and suck in their vegan guff fumes and think happy thoughts of niceness whilst congratulating each other on their passive inactivity. There’s a lesson to be learnt in this story, of how you cannot isolate yourself from the world, from reality, without it eventually busting down your door and forcing you take some kind of action. A life of ‘peace’ is nice, but is it really time right now in 2015 to hide yourself away in a cabin, to ignore what is going on all around you and hope that the world doesn’t eventually knock upon your door? That’s what is being explored in ‘Grey Area’ and that is why it interests me.

Last strip of this thoroughly entertaining and rewarding week in 2000AD is ‘Strontium Dog- The Stix Fix: Part Three.’ There is a vein of humour running through the strip that I’m enjoying and the story about a compromised prisoner being forced to help out some recognisably horrible centralised control freak types is along for the ride, assisting the humour and giving the narrative an element of seriousness that stops it from dissolving into a frivolous (‘Survival Geeks’) inconsequential joy ride.

The only thing that I didn’t like about 2000AD this week was the rather rough looking front cover. The rest of the book is superb, from the breathtaking Slaine to the clever and funny Strontium Dog to the questioning Grey Area and to the unlikeable protagonists but good stories in Dredd and Orlok. PROG 1926 of 2000AD is a fine comic book, and if you are not yet reading it then you really should be checking it out. 2000AD is a book that is on top form at the moment, and it really shouldn’t be missed. If you like comic books, then you need to get this book, it’s as simple as that.


Rating: 9/10 (Since the spring 2015 new start this book just keeps on getting better and better)

Best story: Slaine (10/10)

Worst story: All five stories in 2000AD at the moment are worthy of praise.

Review: 2000AD PROG 1925: It’s a lovely spring day in England, and all is right in the world

Writers and authors: Numerous
Publisher: Rebellion
Awesome Cover Art by: Simon Davis
Released: 8th April 2015



Last week’s 2000AD was great, it gave new readers a perfect jumping on point, and gave long-term readers a tremendous feelings of optimism for what is to come next, so let’s get straight down to it and see if this week’s 2000AD can build on that promising opening.

Judge Dread- Enceladus/New Life has some nice red colouring and a tension packed story-line involving whether or not the Judges will shoot down an out of control spaceship as it hurtles towards the city centre. There are echoes of a certain (suspiciously disintegrated) United Airlines Flight 93 here, and the end result also plays into what happened on 11th September 2001. Do you really think that they would allow what is essentially a flying bomb to hit buildings and kill innocent lives? That’s the question, and the answer is in a document called Operation Northwoods (See link at the end of this review).

Here’s the sad truth. Yes, they would allow it to happen, but NO, they wouldn’t tell you about it when they do. This 2000AD fictional story ignores all of that pesky real-world reality stuff of course and the good guy judges do what you would expect them to do if you spend all of your time watching mainstream television. They save the day, just like they don’t do in the real world where life is essentially meaningless to government order followers in silly uniforms. Anyway, it’s an okay strip, the plot has intrigue and I enjoyed it. No ‘truther’ stuff, but I don’t expect to see any in a comic book that I can buy in WH Smith’s, which is bloody depressing, but there you go. The corporate whore state is nothing if not predictable. No truth is allowed in the mainstream, but you already knew that, right?

The second story in 2000AD this week is Orlok, the psychic painter bloke. It begins with your usual comic book portrayal of a violent anarchist. Poor old anarchists are always portrayed as violent criminals in comics, because anarchy means freedom from centralised control, and comic book writers (99% of the time) are slavery loving statists. Oh well, no surprise here then, so let’s see how this violent anarchist is dealt with, yawn. Ummm, the anarchists kidnap the psychic artist bloke, and actually get away from the cops. Keep your eye on this one. Perhaps it’s not going to be as formulaically statist worshipping as I thought? Yeah, I know, I’m hoping for the impossible, but that’s what I do.

Third story is the awesome Slaine- The Brutania Chronicles where our hero is fighting against a crazy religious cult leader who likes chopping people’s heads off for the demonic sacrifice demanding god of his nutty religion. Sounds familiar, don’t you think? Now, what other crazy cult followers can you think about who are slaughtering people for their demonic false little god?  If you don’t know what I’m talking about then off to the Google machine, or just pick up a newspaper. That real world bloody death cult is quite busy right now, and they are getting plenty of good PR support in the corporate whore mainstream newspapers. Back to Slaine. Everything about it is fantastic, from the art, the story, to the hidden meanings behind the narrative themes. It’s excellent, and you need to buy 2000AD for this story alone.

Grey Area is the next story and it also interested me in that it appears to be about a planet of new ager aliens who don’t appear to recognise that there are nasty things out there who will do them harm, and that if they don’t defend themselves then they are going to get their friendly, tolerant, peaceful, spiritually awakened heads kicked in. It’s a book about ignoring the self-defence principle, at last that’s how I’m reading it so far, and for that valuable lesson alone I’m both enjoying the story and having a bit of a laugh with it as well as I get to know more about this ridiculous left liberally tolerant mad universe that’s about to get it’s arse kicked.

I don’t really like the art in the final story (Strontium Dog) but the main protagonist is an old childhood favourite of mine, and I’m enjoying the story which is essentially a p*** take of what a future world with China and North Korean crazy dictators in charge would look like. Much like what we have now I would suggest just without the pointless fake elections that they insist upon every few years or so. But I digress. I enjoyed this one as well, it was funny, silly and the plot has elements of real world stuff in it that I (obviously) found very interesting as well.

I began this review by asking whether or not 2000AD could build on last week’s excellent jumping-on PROG of new story arcs. The answer to that question is a stomping and trumping Elephentine YES. They’ve kept the momentum going brilliantly. PROG 1925 is an excellent comic book that has lots of things going on, a fantastic feature story (Slaine) and very little weak points in between. Spring 2015 is looking very bright indeed, the day has been lovely, I’ve just read a fantastic comic and I couldn’t be feeling better. Oh dear, things are looking far too good. I’m starting to get a bit worried now.


Overall rating: 9/10 (Just as great as last week’s awesome Spring 2015 opening)

Best story: Slaine: 10/10 (Weird and wonderful)

Worst story: None. They are all pretty decent. 


Info about Operation Northwoods:
http://io9.com/5838778/operation-northwoods-the-1960s-government-plan-to-fake-terrorist-attacks-on-the-us

Review: 2000AD PROG 1924: SPRING 2015 STARTS HERE

Writers and authors: Numerous
Publisher: Rebellion
Released: 1st April 2015


It’s worth getting this issue of 2000AD for the simple reason that it’s the perfect entry point for new readers. New arcs are beginning here, and there are helpful ‘catch-up’ pages before each story. So get the book, try it out, see if you like it, because this is the perfect opportunity to see if 2000AD in 2015 is the comic book for you.

Here’s what I made of it, and I’m not going to talk about it in massive amounts of detail, I’ll just briefly scan the stories, and let you know what has potential, and what I personally think is going to be the highpoint of 2000AD in these coming Spring months.

First story is good old statist control freak, Judge Dredd. The beginning of this story introduces a prison planet and a bog standard (in Judge Dredd stories) mad crazy serial killer, dog on his head type person. The crazy bloke is easily sorted out, so don’t worry about him. He was just there to be beaten up whilst introducing readers to the setting for this new Dredd story. The art looked a bit rough, but the story is just beginning, so I’ll give it a few weeks before I pass any sort of judgement on it. It was a brief intro with a fight scene, and it worked well.

Second story this week was Slaine. Everything about it screams awesome, from the art, the ancient British mythology, to the talk of how death isn’t really death at all, just the end of the body meat suit, as the soul is immortal. I loved it, and can’t wait for next week to see how the story is going to progress.

Third story ‘Grey Area’ has an interesting premise, with the narrative focussing on an alien holding pen, reminiscent of quarantine for animals, designed to protect earth from horrible intergalactic diseases. The art was a bit dull and messy, but the idea is good, and it intrigues me.

Fourth story ‘Orlok’ has a great idea with a Pre-Cog artist who can predict the future through his paintings. This artist is interested in freedom and democracy (I hope it’s real democracy, and not the fake two party democracy currently enslaving the west) so he’s an obvious threat to the state. That’s a great idea and the art is very good as well. This story could be a good one.

Last story of the week ‘Strontium Dog’ has flat art, but the story interests me. It has elements of real world 2015 concerns in it, with the protagonist working against his will as an agent of a totalitarian future state, so pretty much like any blackmailed person working for our own totalitarian (new world order) state in 2015 really. He even has the orange jump suit, so beloved of the US and their proxy army buddies in ISIS. What did I just say? That those loonies in ISIS are working for the west? Yep, they sure are.

The west (plus Saudi Arabia and all of the other Sunni totalitarian states) are using ISIS as a proxy army to fight against the Shia states supported by Russia. Syria has been going on for a while, and now it’s happening in Yemen. ISIS are not a threat to the west, they are allies to the west. Western governments need ISIS to carry out their unpopular foreign policy objectives and to give them a reason for establishing a Police state back home. That is why they allow them to behead people on the Internet without doing a damn thing to stop them. That’s a tough truth, but it’s truth nonetheless.

Real life is just as interesting (or mad) as any comic book, so when real world elements come up in the books I’m not going to shy away from talking about them. If I don’t do it then who else is going to? Don’t expect any other comic book reviewers on the Internet to stick their heads up and talk about these issues. It’s a sad fact, but they don’t care about these issues at all. All they want to do is to bury their heads in the sand, raise their asses in the air and be willingly raped by the real world authoritarian maniacs of our times.

The vast majority of comic book reviewers on the Internet care only about re-tweets from writers/artists and future career opportunities where they can write boring reviews for boring websites. Truth be damned. They would rather talk about panel layouts, narrative flow and how 'cool' everything is than bring up anything that has real world relevance, the bloody cowards. If they were reviewing comic books in Nazi Germany they wouldn’t care less about what was going on around them there either. That’s their mentality, and that’s why they completely and utterly suck. Rant over, sorry about that, back to 2000AD.

Looking back at what I have just written (not the angry rant, just the 2000AD bits) I have to conclude that this jumping-on point issue of 2000AD has been a great success. Five new stories and none of them are bad. One of them has amazing art (Slaine) but all of them have a lot of potential to be very interesting indeed. I’m so happy. My comic book reading week has began on an up, and my 2000AD reading in Spring 2015 is looking very promising indeed.



Overall rating: 9/10 (If you want to check out 2000AD you won’t get a better opportunity than this)

Best story: Slaine- 10/10 (Awesome sauce)

Worst story: None of them. At this early stage all five stories intrigue me.