Comic review: Adam.3- I dislike not liking this book

Story & Art: Scott Kolins
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Released: 12th August 2015




Um, how do I review this book?  How do I say something about it that isn’t going to sound unnecessarily unkind? I want to like it. I tried to like it, but it’s not doing anything for me.

It’s a book about a family, with an angry (adopted?) son, causing trouble, but the dialogue is so stilted, and so needlessly complicated, and irritatingly disjointed to read.

Why would you do that?

Why would you put so much effort into world creation, and make the dialogue so reader unfriendly?

The world that is being created here, it’s old and new. There’s technology, little orb things, but with a muscled up, Tarzan looking bloke roaming the jungle, chatting to animals (the animals talk back) and sorting out conflicts.

It’s cute, and there are jokes within the text, but I don’t know. Where’s the fun? Is it there? I’m looking, and I’ve read it over and over again, and it feels like work, yes, that’s it, it feels like work.

I can’t get anything from it. I’m flicking back through the pages and some of the art looks great, but none of it means anything, it doesn’t resonate, and I’m a guy that can find meaning in anything, but I can’t find it here. I look and I look, but I can’t find it.

I see the family conflict, and I see the need for revenge, to avenge injury, and I see the jealousy of a sibling, and there’s a greater threat, looming, but I can’t attach that narrative information to anything greater. It just kind of hangs there, alone, in it’s own little world, doing its thing, but not connecting to anything outside.

I can’t stand my meanness here. I dislike not liking the book. I want to like it. I want to rave about it, but there’s a cold awkwardness about it, probably caused by a combination of the dialogue and the generic muscled up protagonist. I have to care about him to care about the book, and I don’t. Is he too perfect? Is he too unrealistically drawn? Is he just a cartoon man that I cannot picture existing in any sort of reality? Perhaps that is why I cannot warm to him? He’s too unreal, and being unreal means that I cannot build any empathy for him.

That could be the problem. I think that it is.

The book looks different. It opens like an art pamphlet, but is that just form over substance? This is a first issue, it’s supposed to impress you, and to hook you, but it didn’t do either of those two things to me, and I feel bad that it didn’t succeed in doing so. Perhaps it’s going to be a grower. Perhaps it will read better as a trade. I hope that it does, because unfortunately, this debut issue is doing nothing for me at the moment.



Rating: 4/10 (Nice design and lovely art, but there’s something missing, and it failed to hook me.)

Comic review: Batman #43- Starring Bad Haircut Batman

Writer: Scott Snyder
Art: Greg Capullo
Publisher: DC
Released: 12th August 2015



Ah Batman, my old childhood friend, it’s been so long. How have you been buddy? I haven’t read about your adventures since the Joker was messing around with your mate’s faces. That little event ended with a whimper, with the realisation that the Joker was, well, just joking, but how have you been? Seriously, you tireless black uniformed upholder of the corporate/statist totalitarian status quo, how have you been my old bat mate?

Check out that haircut on the new Batman

Okay, I’ll stop being silly. I haven’t read the main Batman title for a while. I stopped because it wasn’t doing anything. It was neither hot, nor cold. It was lukewarm, leaving me feeling nonplussed and a little bit wet.

I picked up this issue just to see if it was doing anything that resonates with contemporary concerns, and in short, off the Bat (gettit?) it ain’t doing any of that. Oh crap, come on Scott mate. At least try.

So what is it doing?

It’s doing character stuff. Here’s the story- Bruce Wayne died, came back to life (as he always does) but this time he’s come back with memory loss, and the trauma that made him Batman in the first place didn’t happen, at least in his mind.

The abbreviated impact of this memory loss basically means that Batman is now Commissioner Gordon with a daft haircut, and Bruce Wayne is just plain old Bruce Wayne, a bit of a drip hanging out with his girlfriend and going to charity events.

The gist of the action in Batman #43 is that there’s a new villain in town (Mr. Bloom) and he has Gordon/Bad Haircut Batman trapped in a hot box. He’s going to kill him, but probably not. Plus, he’s messing around with established villains like Penguin, and I guess we need Bruce to snap back into being Batman again to sort out these two problems.

So, it’s a character book. It’s a book that is looking into the psychological reasons behind why Bruce became Batman. There is no connection to any real world concerns of 2015, and the very fact that the villain is a drug pusher means that it’s supporting the current situation in western countries where governments openly declare that they own our bodies, and can legally lock us up and ruin our lives if we partake in a substance that they do not want us to partake in.

Drug laws create crime. Drug laws create criminals, because of supply (dealers) and demand (users). Governments love prohibition, because prohibition means control, and that’s what governments want. They want control, and because of the drug laws being the way that they are, that’s exactly what they have right now.

Superman is concerned, and not just about the haircut.

Batman #43 does not question contemporary drug laws that have destroyed the lives and families of millions of people. It does not question whether or not government owns your body, and thus has the right to tell you what you can and cannot do with it. Instead, it reinforces the status quo, portraying drug dealers as evil sociopathic villains, and the cops as heroic, morally upstanding heroes. In that sense, it’s a piece of crap that needs to be flung in the nearest bin, as it pushes a lie, and endorses human enslavement to a centralised control system.

Get the book if you don’t care about human slavery to centralised control systems. Get it if you want to read about the psychological motivations of Bruce, psychological motivations that have been looked at in so much detail already that there’s a veritable library of it out there if you want to spend your life studying the fictional brain of a man dressed up as a Bat.

Get the book if you read this review and it annoys you. Get the book if you just want to chill out, forget reality and read a stupid, childish comic book that supports everything that is wrong about the world as it is today.

I’ll be the weird guy, and I’ll dip in, and dip straight out again. The water is still lukewarm in Batman. It’s not saying anything, and it’s not even trying to say anything either. I can’t be bothered with that, sorry, but I have better things to do with my time.


Rating: 5/10 (Another look into the mind of Bruce, yawn.)

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)

Sweets Galore- The Best Little Sweet Shop in Town

Address: 21 Canal Walk, Brunel Shopping Centre, Swindon, Wilts SN1 1LD

Telephone number: 01793- 938130

Website:
http://s500499853.initial-website.co.uk/

Facebook Page:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sweets-Galore-Swindon/661370433904428




I’ve just been to my local sweet shop where I picked up a bag of Strawberry Creams, and a bag of half Sherbet Lemons and half-Strawberry Sherbets.

The second bag would usually have been full of Sherbet Lemons, but Sweet’s Galore is so popular that the Lemons ran out, so I had to be topped up with their Strawberry cousins this week.

I hadn’t tried Strawberry Sherbets before, and was given a free sample by the nice lady behind the till, and decided that, yum yum, I’ll top up my second bag with those deliciously flavoursome sweeties thank you very much.

It’s a happy day for me, as I’ve just discovered a yummy new sweetie that could easily begin to rival the awesome Sherbets themselves.

You’ll find me in Sweets Galore every Tuesday afternoon, topping up my weekly supply of sweeties.  I love the place. It’s great, the sweets are plentiful, the prices are low, and there’s always a friendly face waiting there to remind me that the past didn’t die, it’s still here, if we want it.

I say that because last week I was watching a television show featuring Heston Blumenthal doing his best Willy Wonka impersonation and bemoaning the fact that good old-fashioned sweet shops simply don’t exist anymore. Err, sorry mate, but they do, you just have to look for them.

You’ll find Sweet’s Galore in Swindon town centre (right next to McDonald’s). It’s not nostalgia, or a time warp, or a relic of a long gone, and much missed era. It’s a brilliant sweet shop, that is beloved by children and adults alike, and it's doing a roaring trade in Swindon town centre, right now, in 2015, and why wouldn’t it be?

It’s a friendly place, in a great location, and they sell what people want to buy. They stock a bountiful selection of traditional sweeties and new creations and they have everything that a sweet toothed person like myself could possibly desire.

If you like sweets, then they’ll have what you are looking for, and something new for you to try as well. The shop is a family business, the owners are cheerful, friendly and helpful and you will get a big bag of sweets for a couple of quid.

Heston Blumenthal might appear on television bemoaning the demise of the traditional, old fashioned sweet shop, but he evidentially hasn’t been to Swindon town centre any time soon. If he did pay us a visit then he’d find that the past didn’t die here, it’s still alive, just as good as ever, and it’s going to be here for a long time yet.

Sweet’s Galore doesn’t need me to tell them that they are doing a fine job. They already know, as they spend all day with a packed sweet shop serving smiling face after smiling face. So all that remains for me to say is, thank you Sweets Galore, keep doing what you are doing, and keep on being the best little sweet shop in town.


Rating 10/10 (Top sweets, top prices, friendly and helpful staff and a shop that always has a happy and contented feel about it)

Comic review: Civil War #2- Anarchy Versus Democratic Collectivism

Writer: Charles Soule
Artist: Leinil Francis Yu
Inker: Gerry Alanguilan
Colours: Sunny Gho
Publisher: Marvel
Released: 5th August 2015



I’m not too sure if anybody is reading this book, as the buzz on it has been non-existent, but I’m reading it, and I’m enjoying it as well.

I’m enjoying it for two reasons. Firstly, it’s taking the unsatisfactory ending to the original Mark Millar Civil War arc, continuing it, and making it better.

Secondly, it’s throwing in a lot of real world issues, issues that you don’t usually see being discussed within the overly corporate and neo-liberal ‘progressive’ world of Marvel comics.

In Civil War #2 there are two sides. One side (Iron Man’s Red) is about safety, control, totalitarianism really, but wrapped up in the need for order, for safety, to put the people in a giant spy drone, surveillance state prison for their own good. On the other side (Captain America’s Blue) there are two rules: 1- Hurt no one. 2- Help when you can.

Here’s the scary thing about it. The Red side looks a lot like collectivist, centralised government, neo-liberal western democracy as it stands today, and the Blue looks a lot like anarchy, or a society structured around individualism, morality and mutual self respect.

That makes Captain America an anarchist, and Iron Man a contemporary political leader, pick a party it doesn’t matter, they are all pretty much the same in the west today.

Is that not a fascinating concept to explore in a contemporary comic book coming out of a declining western civilisation that is falling into governmental tyranny and lawlessness, with perpetual wars for resources and control, whilst encroaching on the civil liberties of it’s own people?

Civil War is a comic book that is actually saying something about the state of the world as it is today. Do you know how rare that is in a mainstream comic book? It’s like finding a nugget of gold in an ocean of s***.

Added to that is a plot twist that suggests that the two warring sides are being manipulated by an outside force, and you have the ‘conspiracy’ aspect that people talk about today when they discuss groups like the illuminati.

These ideas are coming from the (obviously far more switched on than I’d previously thought) mind of writer Charles Soule, and are brought to life by the gritty, grainy pencils of Leinil Francis Yu.

The art also features washed out colouring, and deep, heavy black inking, adding drab, dusty realism to the narrative, and a sense of dry, dirty realism that forces the reader to take the narrative seriously, and not just treat it as another bit of comic book puns and powers fluff.

It’s only two issues in, but this book really has me hooked now. It has Spiderman in it, and he’s talking like an adult. There are no quips, puns and self-aware ‘cool’ moments either. I’m not going to go over the top on it as of yet, as mainstream comic books have burned me so many times in the past, hinting at a bit of truth telling then going back into their corporate, careerist shell, but this book really does stand out as something a bit better than the usual mainstream superhero fare.

I don’t know why people aren’t talking about it, but Civil War is a very intriguing book, there’s a lot going on, it’s touching real world concerns and it’s the only mainstream superhero comic book that is really exciting me at the moment. If you haven’t read it, give it a go. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised. I was, and I’m already looking forward to next month’s instalment. Me looking forward to a mainstream comic book coming out??? Do you know how rare that is these days? Thank you Charles Soule, top work here mate, top work.



Rating: 9/10 (Far better than I ever thought that it could be.)

Comic review: Neverboy #6- A call for experience, individuality, creativity, renewal and life.

Writer: Shaun Simon
Artist: Tyler Jenkins
Colours: Kelly Fitzpatrick
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Released: 5th August 2015



This concluding issue of Neverboy poses essential questions regarding the drained pool of creative inspiration that is currently stifling the comic book world and leading to a period of comic book stagnation, dominated by corporate, careerist ignorance and a refusal to deal with the vital socio-political issues of our times.

Old heroes, done to death, the well runs dry.

Comic books are stuck. Not because they are an antiquated, anachronistic form of old media desperately trying to cling on to relevance in this wonderful new digital age, but stuck because they refuse to reflect the age in which they currently inhabit.

That is my view, and I recognise that it’s not held by the majority of comic book readers in 2015. This is reflected in sales figures and the popularity of depressingly awful movies like the childishly bad set piece, pun and quip-a-thon, Avengers Ultron.

It appears that the majority wants unreality, silliness, the cool factor, explosions, quips, puns, one-liners, old references and tight uniforms. But just because the majority wants to put their collective brains in a jar and watch the Gladitorial games of our times, whilst the world around them burns, that doesn’t mean that I have to go along with them.

If something is stupid, then I’ll say that it is stupid, and I couldn’t care less if that makes me an unpopular social outcast. Telling the truth isn’t supposed to be easy. It never was in the past, so why would that be any different today?

I used to buy lots of comic books, but it’s getting less and less now as the weeks and month’s pass. I used to buy over ten books a week. This week I purchased three. This saddens me immensely, as I’ve always loved comic books, and I want to buy lots of them, but if all they are going to do is bread and circus, that no longer appeals to me.

I’m 42 years old now, and I cannot act like a child anymore.

My problem is that I’m a bit of a reality junkie. I pay attention to the world. I see what is going on, and it interests me. But then I pick up a comic book, and what do I see? I see the 1990’s being replayed, and it doesn’t interest me. I see nostalgia, and I see a love of government authority, mixed with race, gender and sexuality politics, attempting to put a new gloss onto what is a very old, tired and childish superhero toybox.

It’s not just a superhero problem though. I collect issue #1’s. Not because I think that they will be worth something in the future, but because I hope that they will be good, I read them, they suck, and I don’t buy issue #2. Hang on, I’ll just pop into my wardrobe and bring out my folder of issue #1’s.

The following is a random list of these #1’s and an explanation of what they were about:

1- 68 Bad Sign #1- 1960’s US serial killer and zombies.
2- Beyond Belief #1- 1950’s upper class detectives. Cute, charming and very anachronistic.
3- Savior #1- Plane crash and superpowers (like that old Bruce Willis movie).
4- Fight Club 2 #1- Weighed down by the 1999 movie, and doing nothing new.
5- Constantine- The Hellblazer #1- More 90’s reworking.
6- Weirdworld #1- Conan the Barbarian, but weirdly whiny and soft.
7- Doomed #1- Spiderman with slightly different powers and a smartphone.
8- The Tomorrows #1- Identity politics, Blade Runner and old art school references.
9- The Shrinking Man #1- Comic book adaptation of a 1950’s novel.
10- John Flood #1- Constantine clone who looks like Edward Cullen.

Now, here’s a quotation from Neverboy #6:

The imagination of a child, creating something new.

‘You’ve been using other people’s imaginations, and it’s destroying it for everyone. Paint something real- Something real to you, not to anyone else. Something that only you can see.’

Neverboy is a call for originality, individuality and genuine artistic creativity. It’s asking you to put down your isurveilance device, to put down your old comic books, and to experience something genuinely new. It’s asking you to go out into the world, to look around you, to experience life, then go back to the computer, back to the easel, and create something NEW, something that genuinely comes from within YOU. It is a call to the imagination of a child, of the new-born creative mind, unencumbered by the weighty backlog of what has come before.

It’s 2015, and the world has changed in so many ways since the 1990’s. Writers and artists need to tap into what is happening now, forget the past, and reflect what is happening in the world today.

A revolution is needed, and no, I’m not talking about a revolution based on Internet identity politics and university approved cultural Marxism. Social media arguments about race, gender and sexuality are not going to cut it. If comic books are going to start to reflect the real world then writers and artists will need to experience some of that real world, and that doesn’t mean arguing with a politically correct social justice warrior (or a right-winger) on twitter. Perhaps we all need to switch off, live a little, and then come back to this comic book thing again?

Be wacky, be weird, just do something new.

Neverboy has been a fantastic comic book, bursting with creativity, originality and vital, urgent philosophic questioning about the nature of artistic inspiration, about the wellspring of imagination, and what happens when the well begins to dry up and people continue to take, take, take without putting anything back. The art itself has been great, a celebration of life, not life indoors on the computer, or life with headphones on, but real scent life, vivid, colourful, beautiful, exhilarating, a bit weird, a bit wacky, but exciting, essential, exhilarating human life.

This wonderfully, genuinely creative title has concluded it’s short run with a message about doing something new that comes from within, not from the past, or a fake computer life. It’s a message that we all need to take onboard, myself included, and as I finish off this review/rant I take that message into myself.

I need to stop typing, stop complaining, stop twittering, stop reading, and to go out into the big old, beautiful colourful world, to find inspiration, to energise, create, reflect and live my life as it is supposed to be lived.

That’s quite a revelation, and one I took from this beautiful, rare gem of a comic book. I’m going to miss this one, but the message of life, experience, renewal, creativity and individuality that it contains will linger for a long time yet.


Rating: 10/10 (An intellectually engaging, fun, wacky and creatively inspired comic book)

Comic review: 2000AD PROG 1942- Spider Monster in the Snow

Writers and artists: Various
Publisher: Rebellion
Released: 5th August 2015


Last week I tried something new. No, I didn’t buy all of the Marvel and DC books about young girls, government agents and identity politics, load up on aspartame and overdose on mental illness masquerading as normalcy. No, what I did was a lot more sensible, and enjoyable, than that.

What I did was put on some Black Metal music (the new album by Abyssal is awesome, and not as bleak and despairing as I though that it would be) and read 2000AD, story by story, stopping along the way and reviewing the book as I read it.

This resulted in a disjointed and slightly odd review, with me making my mind up about the book in real time as I read, and reviewed it. I enjoyed the experience, so that’s what I’m going to do again this week, so on goes Antikatastaseis, and let’s get into PROG 1942 of 2000AD.

There’s a really nice front cover this week, with Dredd in what looks like an evil version of Superman’s fortress of solitude. Nice job Glenn Fabry. Now lets open up this beauty and see what we have inside.

Tharg is talking about downloading the comic this week. I’d rather touch something than look at it, so it’s always going to be the hard copy for me.

Onto my old nemesis, Judge Dredd, lost in the beautiful, poetically pure snow, so although I might dislike the old uniformed control freak, at least his adventures are going to be pleasing to the eye.  The narrative read pretty well this week. The story is getting increasingly simplified, and I like that. It’s about a Judge hating monster, looking for revenge against the trigger happy Judges. Go on monster, you can do it. Kick their authoritarian backsides, you will be doing us all a favour. The artist on this one is Henry Flint, and he’s doing an excellent job. His snow monster is part alien, part arachnid and it looks awesome.

That’s a good start then, let’s get on to the second story.

Oh crud, it’s the ever annoying, old man media student lame cultural reference machine that is Harry Absalom, the most irritating fictional character outside of a Kevin Smith movie. Okay then, here I go.

Two references to old television shows and a bit of Christianity bashing, insinuating that all of the priests are sex abusers, that’s what’s on offer this week. Good news though, as this is the end of the story.

It should have been something that I enjoyed, but the Christianity bashing (lame, easy and ubiquitous in atheistic 2015 UK) and main protagonist killed it for me. It was supposed to be about institutional child abuse (see the breaking news about ex UK PM Ted Heath this week) but all it actually did was have a go at Christianity. Not big, not clever, and it distracts from the real life paedophile MP’s that actually did abuse kids in the UK, and continue to do so today. It’s not the Church. It’s the state, dummy.

Hang on. I need to brush my teeth to wash out the foul taste of Harry, back in a sec.

Ahh, that’s better, minty fresh, now on to the next story, the happily colourful and always enjoyable Helium.

Good news, it’s enjoyable again this week, the dialogue is fun, and it ends with a villain determined to end the life of our sparkling heroine. This is a good one. There’s a lightness and sense of gaiety to it, and it makes me smile. It’s the subtly of the writing that does it, but the art certainly helps as well. It’s big, bold, colourful and fun. I like it, how could I not?

Oh good, the next story this week is the steadily improving Outlier. It’s going to be good. I’m starting to have confidence in this one. Is that breasts? Yes, there are definitely breasts in this one, so if you are a fan of the mammary glands you’ll want to pick up 2000AD this week. I jest, but not about the breasts. It’s good, it’s green, it has breasts and it’s all action. So another win for Outlier, and the story continues to be a lot better than I thought that it would be.

Oh dear, the last story in 2000AD this week is Jaegir. I haven’t been enjoying this one, although last week it did show how you cannot expect uniformed order followers to investigate their fellow uniformed order followers and get magical results that transforms immorality (following orders) into morality. Fingers crossed, wish me luck. I’m going in.

Oh, a brilliant start, with our protagonist explaining that following orders is actually a good thing because it saves lives. Nice one, I see what you did there. Turning immorality into morality based on blind trust in ‘leadership’ and authority figures. This really is army indoctrination going on here. Hey kids, be your own man. Don’t let them tell you that they are doing it for your own good. Don’t believe the lies, break from the programming, be free, be independent, be a real man.

Oh, it gets even better now, with the leader girl admitting that she is ashamed, that she was responsible for condemning three hundred people to death, but as she is doing this she is still talking about ‘duty’ like that is something that everybody should be proud of. What is this? Oh yeah, I know. It’s militaristic collectivism, but dressed up as heroism because the protagonist is a woman. Yuck, this one is starting to really get my gander up. Do I have to read on? Okay then, I’ll try.

I made it, just about. The story really is a piece of work. It’s a right muddle of messed up morality and justifications for wearing a uniform, following orders, doing your duty, fighting to survive and just about every other idea that comes straight out of an army recruitment video. I didn’t like it at all, and it leaves me feeling a bit depressed as I finish up this week’s 2000AD.

Okay then, happy face on, and now for a quick summary. I’ll ignore the muddled morality of Jaegir and the irritating Absalom, and give PROG 1942 of 2000AD a solid thumbs up. The art in Dredd was great, and the story isn’t as annoying as usual. Helium made me smile and Outlier continues to be a bloody good little story. Add in the great front cover and that makes 2000AD well worth purchasing this week. I’ll leave it here with happy thoughts, all of the bad is fading already, as I’m looking at the front cover, smiling and feeling pretty good about the book as a whole.



Rating: 7/10 (Some bad, but the good wins out.)