2000 AD in Stages

[The Monarch]

I used to despise creep but when it was reprinted in the mega collection i gave it a second try and its....actually not that bad?

[Colin YNWA]

The sadly passed Kevin Cullen art on The Creep (and Hershey as I recall) really worked so well with this series. Shame he didn't do more for Tharg.

[Funt Solo]

2000 AD Stage #30: Hopes of Growth
(Progs 873-888, 1994)

Hope...for the future! Hope...under fire! It is a dark time for the Rebellion ... no, wait - this is still Egmont here.

I think this is around where Tharg shedded from Burton to McKenzie. It gets brought up quite a lot in other discussions that an outgoing Tharg leaves their *best* submissions in the drawer as a gift to the newcomer. A way of easing them into the weekly grind of the Galaxy's Greatest's never-ending, insatiable hunger for thrills.

We can only imagine the enormous HUZZAH that must have lifted Tharg's spirits as out spilled...   




(Mind you, sarcasm aside, the 873 jump-on, on paper, looks really strong: Dredd, Rogue, Tyranny, Kirby and a new thrill - Dinosty - from Mills.)


Judge Dredd
Alan McKenzie, John Tomlinson, Mark Millar & John Higgins take turns scripting Dredd. The Sugar Beat takes Dredd to the Pan Andes Conurb and some racially-charged depictions of the locals. It's all a little bit Jeremy Clarkson. The Manchu Candidate provides another piece of set-up for a mooted confrontation with Sino-Cit and in that way plays a bit like Pirates of the Black Atlantic. The Enemy Below was memorable for the Clint Langley art.
Wagner's back in the next stage...


The Journal of Luke Kirby: Sympathy For The Devil
Luke's dad is stuck in hell and needs Luke to help him out. No pressure, then. (Disturbingly, women are relegated here to non-magic, top-totty duties as the narration tells us "women are no good at magic. But there was one kind of magic they excelled at". Oh dear. How parochial.) Previous parts of the tale have stuck with folkloric myth, to some extent, but here Santa Satan himself takes centre stage, and what was smoke and mirrors becomes set in stone and ergo less believable.
Returns for a new series in 1995...


Tyranny Rex: Deux Ex Machina, part 2
The first part was set in a sci-fi nunnery under seige by bio-mechanical mercs. Now, Tyranny gets teleported to a city policed by floating robo-Elvis heads that only communicate using his lyrics. And she has a magic spirit-ball companion. And then madder stuff happens. I *think* it ends with the rebirth of humanity, with Tyranny as god. And there are songs, so it may qualify as a musical.
You have to wait ten years for a follow-up...


Rogue Trooper [Fr1day]: [Scavenger Of Souls] *RETCON OF A REBOOT*
Friday is now on an un-named, war-torn planet (having arrived here using unknown means from the end of Apocalypse Dreadnought, where he was floating in a bubble in space). He finds a chatty alien biochip that says that he can take him to the Scavenger of Souls - an alien who, erm, scavenges souls. And stores them in biochips.

All of this is engineered as an excuse to rectify the problem of this Rogue Trooper not having biochips, by retconning them into existence on the Scavenger's spaceship as Top, Lucky & Eightball (the equivalents of Helm, Bagman & Gunnar). And Clavel/Clavell gets resurrected using exposition. Luckily, for no reason other than plot expedience, Friday happens to have slots on his equipment for a technology that didn't exist narratively until right now.

Chris Weston's of course an amazing artist, but he has a tendency to draw Rogue in this series grimacing as if he's constipated while he's saying things like "there has to be a way", "rrrr", "aaaaa" & "fight hard!". Get that trooper some castor oil, quick!

Having neatly fixed everything, Fleisher bows out now and the next series (next stage) has Steve White at the helm (ha!) of Retcon Rogue...


Dinosty *NEW THRILL*
Starting out as part of the opening line-up for the mooted Earthside 8 comic, this ended up being published here. Anthropomorphic dinosaur royalty have dominion over humans, which they treat as cattle. It's Planet of the Apes meets The Windsors by way of Jurassic Park.
Tis a one and done: although oddly there's a Star Scan in prog 1030.


Shaky's Beyond Belief *NEW CULTURAL ARTEFACT*
Aburdist pop art & commentary. For example, there's a monk carrying a cactus, and it says "Thai monks must carry a cactus plant at all times - as a sign of humidity!"
More in 1996, as it takes a while to get this high...


The Grudge-Father *NEW THRILL*
Uhm...a weird guy in a skin mask goes hunting for a monster that turns out to be the embodiment of hatred. There's a character called Prettymouth, and cats on laps feature predominantly. It's like ... James Bond crossed with a sewage processing facility (and that's me trying my absolute best to be fair and balanced).
Before anyone could stop them, they made a sequel, which gets published in 1995...


Sam-Slade: Robo-Hunter(*) - The Robotic Revenge Of Dr Robotski [*REBOOT of a REBOOT]
Here's what I wrote in stage #25: "it's a Millar script so the unstoppable, invincible, muscle-bound, heartless, murderous foe will get destroyed somehow on the second to last page (after a bunch of stuff gets ruined)". It holds true here.
Hogan & Hughes are back in the driving seat (well, one of them should probably sit in the passenger seat otherwise that'll be awkward) for Metrobolis, starting in prog 904...


The Clown: Behind The Painted Mask
A psychotic clown who talks to his deceased pony is being hunted by a police detective. This is complicated by both an alien invasion and a zombie outbreak. Which made me think of this.
This is the last we see of The Clown.


Babe Race 2000 *NEW THRILL*
The title is its own satire. Like, this is Death Race 2000 but they replaced all the drivers with heavily-armed strip club babes. WAY worse than Space Girls. And if you imagine that at least it sounds titillating, it's not that either. It even steals from Viz's Millie Tant by using the threadbare reasoning that anyone that complains about the sexualization of women is a fat, ugly lesbian. Needlessly offensive claptrap.
Despite the sky being blue and bears shitting in the woods, this actually gets another brief shot at stardom in the next Yearbook...


Bradley: The Sprog Prince
Bradley's back to being depicted in an alien world (despite years on Earth), and the plot is sort of The Prince and the Pauper.
More Bradley next stage...

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References:
- Barney
- The 2000 AD ABC

[The Monarch]

Tis a one and done: although oddly there's a Star Scan in prog 1030

methinks said star scan was a possible cover that got lost in the cabinet alongside that second time flies series

[AlexF]

I do love Chris Weston's commitment to a permanently super-tense Friday. The character kind of only works as a coiled beast on the edge of exploding into shooty-death outbursts. With those popping veins and spittle-flecked teeth you can practically hear that his brain has an unending drone of 'OBEY ORDERS. FIGHT HARD. DIE WELL.' giving him a constant migraine. Also it makes it easier not to read the words.

[IndigoPrime]

This era comes close to including a nadir Prog: 883 is properly atrocious, with the risible Babe Race 2000, the crappy second book of The Clown, a McKenzie Dredd, Grudgefather, and a Millar Robo-Hunter. That whole period was fingernails time for me and 2000 AD. Something would keep me reading—usually John Smith, but occasionally another strip, such as Like Kirby. But too often the majority of the Prog was pish.

In fact, having previously put forward 973 as the worst Prog, that at least has The Pit running (albeit alongside Wireheads, Flesh: Chronoside, Vector 13, and Kid Cyborg), and so perhaps 883 really is the nadir. (Also odd to look back at this and see how far Kek-W has come. Some of his early 2000 AD work is among my least favourite stuff to grace the Prog. But his recent contributions are mostly really good, if occasionally lacking in coherence.)

[TordelBack]

Sweet baby Jovus, I got out at the right time. The latter part of this stage I've only partially read through horrified fingers.  Even the Luke Kirby isn't that strips' finest hour, and The Clown is probably the next best thing for the whole 880s. The rest... shudder.  How did the Prog survive this?  How?

[IndigoPrime]

I suspect people were buying out of habit, and some people just knew no better. But at the time, the Prog was losing readers at a steady clip — and as I understand it, it took until Rebellion's ownership to steady the ship and ensure the comic became viable again.

Again, this period of 2000 AD is why I remain forever defensive of John Smith. He is basically why I stuck with the comic. Even his worst stuff was interesting and readable. His best was not only leagues ahead of the crap in the Prog at the time, but stands up among the finest in 2000 AD's history.

It's a crying shame that, for various reasons, he's seemingly no longer a part of 2000 AD's present. But I'm deeply grateful he was part of its past.

[sheridan]

Sweet baby Jovus, I got out at the right time. The latter part of this stage I've only partially read through horrified fingers.  Even the Luke Kirby isn't that strips' finest hour, and The Clown is probably the next best thing for the whole 880s. The rest... shudder.  How did the Prog survive this?  How?

Well, for me it was tough.  The progs had gone from (usually) five stories written well and with excellent art to two or three stories with excellent art (so from about 90% great elements to 25%) - so I guess some of it was habit.  So much so that by the time it had started getting better again I was still cursorily reading through the once and not re-reading - part of the reason I'm doing a prog slog now is to revisit the things I only ever read the once.

[Funt Solo]

This era comes close to including a nadir Prog: 883 is properly atrocious, with the risible Babe Race 2000, the crappy second book of The Clown, a McKenzie Dredd, Grudgefather, and a Millar Robo-Hunter.

It's pretty low. I think the best story in it is The Clown - it has the benefit of having some absurdist humour, helped along by Robert Bliss's art. And the Robo-Hunter also has some good art by Simon Jacob.

It didn't occur to me to stop reading it, though. It's 2000 AD.

[Colin YNWA]

Well this put me in mind to check back on my self absorbed re-read thread and yep I called it there. 890 - 888 are just about the worst the Prog ever go. Its the absolute nadir in thrill power. Things start to pick up in 889 but its a slow and very gradual recovery over not weeks, not months... but alas years.

Still at least the very, very worst is out the way!

[Jim_Campbell]

perhaps 883 really is the nadir.

ISTR we actually came to a consensus a while back that it very likely was. Literally the only thing you can say about it is that most of the art is pretty good, and some of it is excellent, but you can't carry a line-up that poor on some nice art.

[broodblik]

That is the strength of an anthology having multiple stories running but this can bite you in your ass if everything is sub-par. I bailed just as Grudgefather started as the prog spiraled into a trend of mediocrity.

[Funt Solo]

2000 AD Stage #31: The Collector
(Progs 889-900, 1994)

This stage launches with a new logo on the fattest prog to date (a 44-pager), and then ends with the special event prog 900: the first prog to feature just a single story with the Dredd/Fr1day crossover Casualties of War.




Judge Dredd
In the '94 Sci-Fi Special, Mark Millar comes up with an amusing conceit whereby Mr Bennet Joins The Judges, but then has Dredd murder him in cold blood. Creative cruelty.

Meanwhile, Wagner returns to the prog with The Time Machine (a comedy of errors featuring a bumbling set of time-traveling Cambridge academics), Conspiracy Of Silence (see below), A Guide To Mega-Speak and the 28-page Fr1day crossover Casualties of War.

Conspiracy Of Silence is an important piece of canon that moves forward several plot strands about McGruder going insane, a nascent conspiracy to remove her and a secretive second Mechanismo program. It segues into the Meg's The Tenth Planet, itself a precursor to Wilderlands.

Newcomer Dan Abnett does their first prog work with Rad Blood (a Cursed Earth monster mash), followed by fellow newcomer Chris Standley who turns in Moving Violation (a butterfly effect tale of escalating disaster)  and TV Babies.

Wagner and Abnett are back with more in the next stage...


Mambo: The New Flesh *NEW THRILL*
Cybercop Rachel Verlaine investigates a corporate conspiracy (after an encounter with the droogs from A Clockwork Orange and a chat with her dad, who just happens to be a head in a jar). It's a cyber-punk body horror!
Returns in 1995 with Fleshworld...


Rogue Trooper [Fr1day]
So, try to keep up:
- Gerry Finley-Day and Dave Gibbons created Rogue Trooper and it ran with GFD from 1981 to 1985. It was set mostly on Nu Earth, but went on a short (but violent) vacation to Horst.
- Once GFD was out, Simon Geller wrote "The Hit" sequence (which was set on any planet they wanted due to magic alien teleportation), but it was a damp squib.
- Dave Gibbons rebooted things with The War Machine in 1989, featuring a new, grittier, biochipless Rogue: Fr1day. This was set on Earth, and ended when peace was declared! Huzzah! No more war. Wait...
- Michael Fleisher nixed the peace & took Fr1day through various missions to defeat corporate warmongers. It was on Earth, then in space, then on ... a planet somewhere.
- Fr1day was given back biochips in a transition tale: The Scavenger of Souls.

Summary - original :: dribble :: reboot :: retcon :: retcon. (There is no canon! George Martin will never complete The Winds of Winter. Jar-Jar Binks. The MCU. It's an existential nerdpocalypse!)

Anyway: Steve White (with Henry Flint on art duties) takes the new chipped-up Fr1day out for a spin in the 1994 Sci-Fi Special's Some Mother's Son, an action-soaked frying pan-to-fire tale heavy on the FWOOOM! but light on a dramatic question (or a location). 

In the prog: Mercy Killing let's us know for the first time since Apocalypse Dreadnought that we're now on Nu-Earth (which I don't think has ever been part of the Fr1day reboot until now). Despite lots of shouting "skev", a shit-ton of military jargon and some great action sequences the problem is outlined in the credit page of the first episode: that Fr1day and the chips "pursue an uncertain destiny". The Norts have been replaced with religious fanatics (the Kervanu) and the Southers with just anyone else we meet. It's like the perfect recipe for churning out story after story without really committing to anything - almost as if the purpose of the comic is just to endlessly repeat itself to generate money.

Mercenary Attitudes introduces the oft-repeated concept of "knifing", except with guns. Also, a super-ninja babe joins forces and exposits all over the place about the Clavell/Clavel Corporation before dusting off into space. Isn't that just like super-ninja babes, though? Wait: is that still the plot? How many times do we need to kill this Clavell/Clavel guy? It's almost as if the purpose of the comic is just to endlessly repeat itself to generate money.

Apart from the prog 900 Dredd crossover there's more requests to urgently knife in the next stage. It's almost as if...


Armoured Gideon [The Collector]
Frank Weitz is dreaming of the good life when Bill Savage blows his door open with his trusty shoota: "Cock-a-doodle bleedin' do!" Thus begins the mother of all crossovers, making Mills' attempts to insert a T-Rex dynasty into every aspect of 2000 AD pale into insignificance.

The backstory is that Armoured Gideon has been chasing and attempting to eliminate Bill Savage (and Blackhawk, Sam Slade, the Neon Knights, Abelard Snazz, the Harlem Heroes & the Helltrekkers) but is being foiled by The Collector, who is "rescuing" them.

An inter-dimensional game of cat and mouse ensues, taking in Shako, Harry Angel, a Geek, MACH Zero, Wolfie Smith, the Mekon, Harry Twenty, Nick Stone, Max Normal, Artie Gruber, Dan Dare, the ants from Ant Wars, Ace Garp, Matt Tallon, Captain Klep, Tharg, GBH, Agent Rat, Robot Archie, Judge Dredd, Judge Death, Mean Machine Angel and Rick Random.  And those are just the ones I recognize.

Returns in 1995, minus the crossover cast...


Slaine: Queen of Witches
Quantum Salmon Leap, episode two. Slaine, mortally wounded by Elfric/Alia at the end of Demon Killer, is rescued by Boudica/Danu's hair and gets to continue his fight against the Roman invasion of Britain. Amusingly, the Roman standard bearer has to march along beside the testudo formation: brave guy, doomed. History will tell you that the Romans are ultimately victorious, so Slaine and Ukko time tunnel it back to their own time.
Slaine's back for more mystical blood-letting and deific rumpy pumpy in 1995's The Name of the Sword...


Brigand Doom: House of Games
The '85 Sci-Fi Special had Social Justice Warrior (aka Brigand Doom) take down The Beggar King: a low-life entrepreneur who'd made himself The Godfather of Grime (as in mucky living and behavior, not the modern music genre). In House of Games, Inspector Nine continues to pose and pout around her apartment while Doom (looking dapper but smelling danker) helps her root out rampant government corruption.
Personal Hygiene of Doom returns in the next Yearbook...


Strontium Dogs: Crossroads
Gronko & Ferals team up with Bullmoose, there's news that the S/D agency is back up and running and Durham Red's being hunted by agents of the Gothking. We've switched over from Ennis to Peter Hogan, so the plot is being updated to his world (or galactic) view. Red and Feral meet for the first time and he shows her his warp spasm.
Serves as a precursor to a short Red three-parter next stage, and more Dogs-labeled yarns in '95...

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References:
- Barney
- The 2000 AD ABC

[TordelBack]

Out of all that lot (Conspiracy of Silence aside), only Mambo had any real potential.  Alas, even the great David Hine couldn't really get it off the starting blocks. See also: Tao de Moto.