2000 AD in Stages

[Funt Solo]

I skipped it the first time around, but this time, when I got to Stage 17 - Unstable Growth, I couldn't resist dealing with Crisis (phase I).

[Funt Solo]

Updates on the site:
  Stage 18 - Split Tales
  Crisis (phase II)


I realize my placing new content on the site somewhat stifles a right to reply, so here's the new Crisis content as mostly text only:


Crisis (phase II)
Issues 15-27: 1989

The second phase of Crisis switches from two to three series (plus a regular surreal art slot). The first phase featured US superheroes in New Statesmen (albeit from a sci-fi foundation rather than from pure fantasy) and a near future in Third World War. The second phase moves things much closer to the present as two of the stories are contemporary (and all are now UK-set).




Third World War: Book II
The characters from the first Book return home to the UK from their corporate hoolaganism in Central America, and find themselves in a near-future Britain that's oddly prescient. Privatized police assist a state that's highly racist and cozy with corporations that run themselves like indentured labor camps. There's a sense of familiarity with today's gig economy corporate culture and stories of Amazon employees being tracked in and out of toilets. On the other hand, it harks back in time to the open racism of the Met Police in the era of the Brixton riots. Through a 2020 lens, it's too knowingly aggressive, as racism has become more covert in its approach - more 1984 than Lord of the Flies.

Eve finds herself involved both with Paul/Finn's militant escapades and also that of BADS, an armed black group organizing resistance against an oppressive regime. A side-plot has the policeman in charge of investigating BADS as a murderous pervert lusting after Eve.

Continues into the next phase...


Sticky Fingers
Sometimes compared to Love & Rockets, this is a contemporary piece about Weeny, a young woman who's trying to reform from a life of petty theivery and make a go of an apprenticeship as a carpenter. Two things stand in her way: her past throws up complications, and her difficulty in dealing with emotional stress (and close relationships) usually leads her to revert to past patterns of destructive behavior.

Definitely scoring points for realism, there's no easy fix for the characters' tribulations: life is complicated and people don't always make the best choices - even when they say they want to.

This is one series and done.


Troubled Souls
In a pre-peace pact Northern Ireland, a young protestant (Tom Boyd) is intimidated into planting an IRA bomb, but then realizes that a loved one is in the area. In the aftermath, Tom struggles to come to terms not only with what he's done, but with living in such a highly sectarian region.

This manages the trick of walking a fine line through a highly charged narrative, and never lets itself get too far away from the humanity at the core of the characters. It's an incredible breakthrough piece for Garth Ennis (writer), with painted art by John McCrea.

A spin-off series starts in issue #40...


Artoons
Brendan McCarthy's surreal, often political, often obscure art pieces. As an example: there's one featuring three religious figures (from the three key Abrahamic religions) with gaping mouths all claiming to speak with the voice of God. Their mouths, though, lead through to the empty space behind them. A holy book dangles from a hook (from on high).
These come to an end in this phase.

[Colin YNWA]

Sticky Fingers is brilliant and the complexity emotional impact seen in apparantly simple and trivial things shows the blunt meladrama of Third World War into sharp contrast.

[AlexF]

I hate to disagree (or do I), but I remember Sticky Fingers being rather soapy and kind of empty. As someone who has spent a lot of time in Camden, though, I can confirm it had an excellent sense of place.

And while I'm being a downer, I think Crisis suffered a bit from having very new artists delivering early work that wasn't always up to it. Baikie and Ezquerra in the first few issues = AMAZING. But completely untried Phillips, McCrea and Hine to follow on were just not on that level. But if they hadn't got that start, perhaps they wouldn't be the top flight penmen they are today? See also Volumes 2 and 3 of the Megazine...

[Funt Solo]

It's been really interesting re-reading Crisis and Revolver: I was in my late teens / early twenties when they were first published - so, thirty years later, I'm a bit of a different person. So, reading them now, they're landing differently to then.

I'd say, then, my favorite (at Crisis launch) was Third World War, but now it's New Statesmen. With TWW, I used to just take Pat's world view and accept it without question, and now I have my own world view. I'd say I agree with the sentiment a lot of the time, but not Pat's solutions (which tend to "eye for an eye").

Sticky Fingers is far too subtle a tale to have raised my interest then, but now I appreciate the kitchen sink realism. Weeny's fairly irritating to try and deal with, but very realistic. I end up rooting for her because she is trying to be a better person, but only succeeding in moving the needle a fraction from the beginning to the end of the story.

I gave up with Crisis around the late 40s, which was a mixture of budgetary constraints and ennui with the title. It was The New Adventures of Hitler that defeated me - although I have more patience for it now, especially as now I have the Internet for research and I can get some idea of where it came from.

My over-arching curiosity with these titles (with hindsight) is how they expected them to succeed. Their main readership were 2000 AD readers who, at the time, were into Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen - but Crisis started to drift closer to appealing to a different generation, and Revolver launched aimed at folk who could appreciate the 60s. The name references the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix was big in the 60s, Dan Dare was from the 50s. I guess it felt like they were writing for themselves, not for the readership.

Now, thirty years later, I appreciate all the efforts a lot more than I was capable of then.

[JayzusB.Christ]

Me, I'm delighted to see you're covering Crisis here.  I was in my early to mid teens when it launched, as far as I was concerned, and most likely wouldn't have appreciated it even if I could have afforded it.  It's a pity, as a lot of it seems a wee bit dated now.

As for the Revolver 60s thing, I don't think it was written for people who actually remembered much about the 60s.  It's just that 60s nostalgia was the in thing at the time.  We were all watching the Woodstock video and wishing we'd been around 25 years ago, and the Baggy scene was very much riffing on the psychedelic end of the Beatles stuff.  People were wearing Jim Morrison t-shirts, and Pete Milligan was going full Haight-Ashbury over at Shade The Changing Man, the only Vertigo* comic I read at the time.

*Although its snappy title at the time was the DC Suggested for Mature Readers line,

[Funt Solo]

As for the Revolver 60s thing, I don't think it was written for people who actually remembered much about the 60s.  It's just that 60s nostalgia was the in thing at the time.  We were all watching the Woodstock video and wishing we'd been around 25 years ago, and the Baggy scene was very much riffing on the psychedelic end of the Beatles stuff.  People were wearing Jim Morrison t-shirts, and Pete Milligan was going full Haight-Ashbury over at Shade The Changing Man, the only Vertigo* comic I read at the time.

*Although its snappy title at the time was the DC Suggested for Mature Readers line,

Oh, right. I was very much way over on the periphery of appreciation for the Baggy scene, being more into house and techno and what have you. I mean, I couldn't help but love I Wanna Be Adored, but that whole thing seemed to be happening to other people. Northern Scotland was never quite part of the zeitgeist.

[JayzusB.Christ]

It kind of passed me by too, to be honest, living in small-town Ireland. Though, to be fair, my older brother and his mates wore the huge jeans, colouredy hoodies and pastel converse, I was still going round in Robert Smith cosplay.  I have since realised that The Stone Roses is one of the best albums ever made.

But I do remember the 60s revival thing. Even the prog got on the case, particularly with Zenith - and say what you like about Grant Morrison, but he knew what was cool back then.

[JayzusB.Christ]

It kind of passed me by too, to be honest, living in small-town Ireland. Though, to be fair, my older brother and his mates wore the huge jeans, colouredy hoodies and pastel converse, I was still going round in Robert Smith cosplay.  I have since realised that The Stone Roses is one of the best albums ever made.

But I do remember the 60s revival thing. Even the prog got on the case, particularly with Zenith - and say what you like about Grant Morrison, he knew what was cool back then.

[Funt Solo]

I haven't put this up on the Stages site yet, so here's a first look...


Crisis, phase III (issues 28-38)

The third phase of Crisis is where it starts to lose cohesion, as a third long-form strip is replaced with a series of one-offs, thus hanging the hopes for readership continuity on just two strips.

The contemporary realism of two of the stories from the second phase (Troubled Souls & Sticky Fingers) is replaced by the nihilistic melodrama of True Faith.




New Statesmen: Prologue
Created to serve as an opening chapter for a reprint, this narratively seems to be more of a post-script summary, and so doesn't work too well for its intended purpose (as the foreshadowing too often seems like an open spoiler).
This is the last we get of New Statesmen, which seems a shame as there was a rich vein of characters from which to tell stories.


[The one-off slot]
These one-offs tend towards the semi-autobiographical and often feature strong messages of social justice, although sometimes they're just memorable slices of life.

• The Student Konstabel - a depiction of the author's troubling experiences as a conscripted cop in apartheid era South Africa.
• Meet The Parents - a study of the awkwardness of forced civility in the face of a clear generation gap.
• The Clicking of High Heels - semi-autobiographical description of the daily grind of aggressive, sexual male attention suffered by the protagonist as she tries to go about her day.
• Two Pretty Names - exposes the hollowness of racism as a blind old Nazi befriends a BAME youngster.
• Don't You Love My Brother? - a message of hope as a comedian provokes a muscle-bound Nazi into ... coming to terms with his brother's black, gay lover.
• The Unusual Obsession of Mrs Orton - a Tale of the Unexpected where a mother descends into madness as she tries to capture an elusive but persistent vandal that nobody else believes in.
• Banged Up - a powerful depiction of life on remand and the mental struggle to keep your dreams alive during such a traumatizing experience.

Continues into the next phase...


The Crooked Mile
A one-pager on the back cover in which an everyman angel passes comment on some aspect of contemporary society.
Ends in this phase.


Third World War: Book II (part 2)
Chief Inspector Ryan's dark obsession (and murderous impulses) aimed at black women focus strongly on Eve but (true to form) as she rebuffs his drooling advances (disturbingly wrought by Hicklenton) his rabid thoughts turn to vengeance and punishment. In that regard, the story here is less about black empowerment and more about a depraved individual - although it's clear that there's a lot of allegory at work here.

Eve decides to join the Black African Defence Squad rather than continue her government-sponsored international interdiction job, and there's some time spent fleshing out Liat, the leader of BADS (although he seems governed himself by a black verson of Mills' triple goddess from Slaine).

It all goes a little Mission Impossible towards the end before running four episodes of epilogues. Again there's a strong focus on Ryan, now giving him a somewhat valid reason for his hatred (his mother's murder), which dilutes the idea of racism being an evil in and of itself.

Continues into the next phase as Book III...


True Faith
A dark tale that tries to explore the mindset of nihilistic killers. Nigel's an outspoken aethiest loner at high school that fancies Angela from the Scripture Union - but his advances are taken by her as a desire to join. He crosses paths with a grieving widower who's decided to murder God (by torching churches and gunning down vicars), and who needs an assistant.

It's like Batman and Robin, if Batman were a deranged, murderous plumber hellbent on the elimination of Christianity and Robin were an inept young man with incel-like sexual anger issues coerced into being his assistant. Deciding that the Demented Duo aren't quite enough, things are turned up to eleventy-stupid when a far more organized supervillain with the same agenda (and an army of uniformed, highly armed goons) recruits them.

The disturbing denouement seems to glamorize perpetrators of mindless, murderous violence as a solution to assholes. Thing is: the punishment for assholes shouldn't be death, should it?

One series and done.

[Funt Solo]

Just dropped a major set of updates on the 2000 AD in Stages site:

• Stage 20 - Necropolis
• Meg: Vol. 1.0 (America)
• Crisis (phase IV)
• Revolver
• Crisis (phase V)
• Revolver / Crisis Specials

Feedback welcome here, thanks.

[Tiplodocus]

I still remember THE CLICKING OF HIGH HEELS (though Cosh has the originals). It was great. Shame it's still relevant.

[Funt Solo]

Just updated the site with:

- Stage 21 - Rough Diamonds (700-722)
- Stage 22 - Full Colour Potential (723-749)
- Stage 23 - Khronic Ills of Tooth (750-779)

[broodblik]

The problem during stage 21 - 23 it became a more regular case where I would only enjoy 2 (as low as 1) out of the strips running in the prog. The most of the strips in many cases I had a big dislike in.  I cannot remember since my return to the prog that I ever had a case where I even could have said I enjoyed only 3 strips.

[Leigh S]

You can throw in 20 and the next few stages with that broodblik - Spot on though - it isnt so much there are only one or two stories to really enjoy in these times - there are stages now when the Pog is firing on a simialr hit rate - it is the fact the other stuff is actively objectionable and that will only get worse before it gets better