Comic Bastards

View Original

Review: 2000 AD - Prog 1966

Strontium Dog remains excellent while the rest of the Prog is just sort of... there at the moment. Strontium Dog takes an expected turn, but how it gets there is still a lot of fun.  I could watch Ezquerra draw this title regardless of what is happening.  His style really captures a lot of the humor that occurs in this title while also capturing the cold menacing nature of the robots: it's really a weird, interesting mix of levity and grime.  Pairing that with a heist story that happens to be intergalactic is killer.

2000-AD-Prog-1966-1I adore The Order, and Burns continues to put together pages that impress.  I confess, however, to having no clue what's going on right now.  I know that at least in part that is how things are supposed to be going: the current arc is designed to pick up the pieces after the explosive finish of the series' first arc.  But the progress towards picking up those pieces has been both tremendously slow and sort of confusing.  I constantly have to go refer to the original arc to figure out what's going on. Something that would be forgivable once or twice is starting to feel like homework.  Even if I'm supposed to be in the dark, this many chapters in the dark in such a languid fashion is really a bummer, especially when compared to the first thrilling arc of this comic.

Everything else is slow too.  Dredd spends a whole chapter revealing one single thing.  Sexton and O'Grady continue their great work, but really only get one really killer page to draw this week.  Langley's work on ABC Warriors is still panel-by-panel pin-up-worthy stuff, but I just don't care about what's going on.  All of the stakes of the story seem anchored to events that I have no context for, and sometimes having to hunt for the throwback stuff feels like a storytelling failure, even if it's a treat for long-time readers.

Kingdom isn't necessarily *slow*, but it's completely built around the action, which is fine, but has never really been my jam to begin with.  Thins in Dredd and even The Order have room to pick up, so hopefully the lull breaks soon.


Score: 2/5


2000 AD - Prog 1966 Writers: Various Artists: Various Publisher: Rebellion Price: £2.55 Print / £1.99 Digital Format: Print/Digital Website