An unimpressive cover for the 100th Prog – no original art commissioned, just art taken from two stories inside and a small version of the collectable poster (which itself is just a blown-up reprint of the cover to the first Cursed Earth prog). The logo got redesigned so that 2000AD and Starlord are no longer sharing equal billing, with the word Starlord merely underlining 2000AD.
More impressive than the cover is the reader’s art in the Nerve Centre – one of Tweak and family (misidentified as ‘drawings of Tweak’ but it definitely shows both Tweak and his family) and another of Tharg, Starlord and a host of the characters from both comics – there are loads of word balloons but unfortunately the picture is reproduced at too low a scale to read.
Ro-busters go from the centre pages last prog to the first spot this prog – both are coveted spaces! Pat Mills and Dave Gibbons bring on the fight, with Charlie quickly dispatching Tyranno-Mek, Fantas-Tek and King Konka while Howard Quartz and Northpool Council leader Ron Murdoch trying to pin the blame on each other. When it’s clear they’ll both do their level best to avoid any controversy touching them they come up with a plan to blame Charlie. As robots can’t lie, their plan will also involve killing Charlie. A navy destroyer is on its way to trick Charlie into going out, before it unleashes its guns on the giant robot. Mek-Quake acts (and talks) more like Mek-Quake this prog. Quartz paraphrases Adolf Hitler (“the bigger the lie, the more likely we are to get away with it”) and the next prog tag is a direct quote from Mein Kampf: “The Big Lie!”
Speaking of worshippers of Hitler, Cal is back for The Day the Law Died! As the city didn’t celebrate Dredd’s death by committing crimes, Cal has brought a new crime on to the lawbooks – happiness. Laughter is banned. Smiling is banned. Conversation is banned. Possession of any item likely to cause happiness will be shot. Enough of that though – we’ve pretended Dredd is actually dead for long enough. The command capsule of the roadliner was crash-proof so while anybody in the rear of the liner died instantly, those up front were protected by armour and crash bags. Floating down the Big Smelly (previously the Ohio River) they’re discovered firstly by scavengers and secondly by Fergee (who scares off the scavengers). ‘John Howard’ obviously knew he was on to a good thing with Fergee, as his introduction takes up half of the 6-page episode, with Dredd about to fight Fergee “with my fists – or not at all”.
Following an advert for Weetabix / Superman comes the first quarter of that poster – featuring a reprinted Mike McMahon cover surrounded by quotes from earlier stories.
Which should leave the next half of the comic for the returning stories, the first of which is Robo-Hunter. If you remember, the beginning of Verdus was in 2000AD and it made way for the merger with Starlord, so we get a prologue to bring all those Starlord readers up to speed on what’s happening. Just about the time that Slade, Boots and SJ-1 bring up to speed the droid residents of the apartment. Kidd helps to work out what happened on Verdus. SJ-1 was built with a few faults to emulate the problems which settlers would have when they arrived on Verdus. Subsequent generations of robots had those faults designed out of them but were still programmed to believe humans were superior to them, even after they far surpassed humans in intelligence, strength, dexterity and so on. Neat idea, but it didn’t help Slade and the others! The apartment droids come up with a plan – they are to use the sewer system to get to Big Brain, explain the situation to him and appeal to his judgement. But what do you get in a sewer? Rats! Or in this case – robotic rats programmed to deal with impurities (for impurities, read ‘Slade’). We had to wait for this return, but it’s well worth it!
Finally, Dare is back in Servant of Evil! Dave Gibbons is also back, for a second time this prog, providing the pictures for Tom Tully’s script. The unconscious and barely alive body of Dare is found by his arch-enemy The Mekon. Being an arch-enemy, he can’t just leave Dare to die, or even to hasten his death. No, he has to bring him to a place of safety so that he can torture Dare to death. He attempts this using the memorathon, designed to subject its subject to memories of their worst defeats. The very first of these causes Dare to lose his memory, paving the way for The Mekon to take advantage of this amnesia to help save the big-headed green one’s life (no, not Tharg). It’s entertaining enough though Dare has never been so superheroic as he is here (can you tell I’m not a huge fan of superhero comics?)
Grailpage: Mike McMahon’s page of the roadliner command capsule floating down the Big Smelly – it’s not a flashy page, but there’s something atmospheric about the lit-up capsule, light reflecting on the water.
Grailquote: Pat Mills, Excavator: “You are in our way. You are holding up our work schedule. Therefore we must destroy you.” Tyranno-Mek: “You are right – I am holding up your work schedule… therefore I will help you destroy me, Brian…” Excavator “That will be useful. It will save time.”
Back Prog Hack 