What a lovely cover... I mean it not exactly lovely is it, but it is great.
Inside there is a mighty lesson. One I need to preface. I enjoy both Dredd and Hershey... well the later has a pretty fine ending, given an ending can be a tantilising teaser to lead you into the next part of the story. Its a great way to do that. Dredd is a little more... standard... I mean its fun and the art is astonishing (as I should note it is in Hershey), but it does feel a little like 'look at all the cleaver things I've been building too' without any of the cleaver things really being rooted in anything I massively care about and so the feel a bit empty, if entertaining. I mean at least Rob Williams resisted having Dredd beaten and broken to within a inch of his life. The whole broken, maddened eye thing makes it look like he really had to rein in the temptation to smash Dredd up again... but since he was a little incidential there was just not need, nor justification...
... my beef however is another things with no real need or justification. Which leads to the lesson. Rob Williams is indulged here with two extra length episodes to wrap up his two stories. At the cost of Hope for a week. And I use the word indulged deliberately. Why... why do this. There is nothing here to make those pages feel earnt, there is no sense that either story was special enough - Hershey certainly gets closest - to make the bonus feel worth it. It feels like an indulgience that strangely makes the endings feel a little dragged and lacklustre, certainly for Dredd, Hershey is stronger, but still feels indulged.
This is emphasised all the more by the lesson Chimpsky dishes out on how to pack so much more into 6 pages to wrap something up. Its just brilliant. Packs so much more in than either Dredd or Hershey. Its thrilling, chilling, full of pathos, while being exciting, character driven and emotional AND has that quite magnificent last page to pull you into the next story, in a single page, crafted by PJ Holden, oozes character, foreboding and makes you beg for more. That page alone is a lesson to the two Rob Williams stories... though to be fair its a lesson to almost all creators, both art and Niemand's script working in perfect unison to craft perfection. Wonderful.
Too be fair cliche though it is Enemy Earth does a great job of showing how to use a 'regular' page count to achieve a lot. A fantastic, less frantic episode, the elements of which are well rehearsed maybe, but done very well here. Fantastic episode.
So yeah a Prog of two good ending I honestly did enjoy, even as they were indulged. But whipped into shape by the stupendous Chimpsky which was just monstrously good. Enemy Earth has its best episode so no complaints overall, shame Hope was lost as it added a lovely balance to the line up. Hey how if you've going to have a problem when a comics this good you're doing okay!
