We’re at the limit of where I was at in my initial read through of 2000 AD, before I decided to start covering them year by year instead of hundred issues by hundred issues. I think I stopped just before Helltrekkers, which was a nice surprise of a story. Dredd’s not got many long story arcs this time, but in its place there are only two Strontium Dog stories which are bangers, and things feel like they wrap up in Rogue Trooper. Only, I know there’s more, so it’ll be interesting to see how that pans out.

There’s some more Ace, some D.R. & Quinch, which means more Alan Davis, and Alan Moore’s about for both that and Halo Jones, which begins this year.

The issues covered here are: 2000 AD issues 350-398, 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special 1984, Judge Dredd Annual 1985, 2000 AD Annual 1985.

JUDGE DREDD

Issues Covered: 2000 AD 350-398, 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special 1984, Judge Dredd Annual 1985, 2000 AD Annual 1985

Mega-City One’s still recovering from the Apocalypse War. Bob’s Law has some initially unpopular rebranding of sectors, and some financial incentives (and hidden costs) calming people down

Citizen Snork gives us a focal character who wants to stand out by having a really big nose. Standard Mega City One stuff, really. He gets a ludicrous nose and becomes a celebrity, but that brings a nose-hunter and a competitor for number one nose.

Haunting of Sector House 9 has a whole Sector House get possessed somehow and the Judges have to deal with it. I like how sparingly Dredd uses the supernatural, but it’s still there enough that this con someone’s pulled works enough. 

Portrait of a Politician introduces Dave, an orangutan who’s good at sports betting and seen as being about as good a candidate as any other.

Super Bowl has the Judges following a sports team who have been threatened, but end up arresting everyone for a ton of different offences.

The Wreckers is short, but has some lovely Steve Dillon art.

Dredd Angel is our long story for the year, with Judge Dredd teaming up with Mean Machine, who thinks Dredd’s his dad. The pair have to venture out to the Cursed Earth and the tomb of Liberace. The cloned Judge Babies and the robots who house them are held there and people are going to nick them. 

The pair have all sorts of fun shenanigans with Mean almost realising the truth and Dredd having to occasionally play the part of his dad, steering him away from doing anything too bad.

Gator shows us that the gators in the sewers of Mega-City One are of course more horrendous than your usual sewer gators and Wally Squad has Dredd tailing undercover Judges with some betrayals and literal arm-smuggling.

City of the Damned’s first six parts take Dredd and Anderson into a somehow even grimmer grimdark future. Vampires are all over the place, including Judge Hershey, and there’s a weird multi-armed mutant thing. All apparently destined because the despotic Judge Child was killed. I’m looking forward to seeing where this goes.

Collected in: Judge Dredd Complete Case Files 7 (up to The Wreckers), Judge Dredd Complete Case Files 8 (Dredd Angel up to City of the Damned)

STRONTIUM DOG

Issues Covered: 2000 AD 350-359, 363-385 

There’s only a couple of stories, but they’re nice long ones and all Carlos Ezquerra, which is always nice.

The Killing is a Battle Royale! Johnny and Wulf have signed up for the unscrupulous planet Zed’s big murder contest and are using it to rake in the money for the amount of people with bounties who are taking part. The Zeds realise that the pair are working together and aren’t as fussed about this as they’ll have to kill each other eventually. They won’t though, as they teleport out and blow things up as they go.

Outlaw! has those dastardly Stix Brothers shake everything up for the Strontium Dogs. They murder folks, including a S/D worker. The new director’s happy to put a bounty on Johnny’s head, as he’s secretly Nelson Bunker Creelman, Johnny Alpha’s evil dad! The Stix Brothers saved him from his eternal torment and now he’s using this position to help destroy more mutants.

Johnny’s captured and The Gronk has a heart attack. Wulf and a band of mutants stage a rescue attempt, but The Torso from Newcastle’s one of the casualties. Johnny calls their pair out and they accept, only to get gunned down which is frankly what the pair deserve. It’ll be interesting to see how things change after all this disruption and death.

Collected in: The Killing is in Strontium Dog: Search and Destroy 4. Outlaw’s in this preorder for Strontium Dog: Search and Destroy 5

A.B.C. WARRIORS

Issues Covered: 2000 AD Annual 1985

Red Planet Blues is a short story by Alan Moore as the ABC Warriors are helping some humans going through an old Martian settlement where it looks like everything’s been dead for a while. That’s not entirely true though and something sinister’s lurking under the surface.

Collected in: ABC Warriors: The Solo Missions

STAINLESS STEEL RAT FOR PRESIDENT

Issues Covered: 393-398 (parts 1-6)

Old Slippery Jim’s back and this time he’s working with his wife and kids. It’s been a while since I’ve seen him, and here we’ve got the first half of this story. The DiGriz family realise that the world of Paraiso-Aqui’s elections are rigged and decide to do a coup. We’ll see how this goes.

Collected in: The Stainless Steel Rat HB

NEMESIS: THE WARLOCK BOOK IV: THE GOTHIC EMPIRE

Issues Covered: 387-398 (parts 1-12 of 20)

The Gothic Empire is a society of aliens whose minds have been corrupted by human television. Oddly enough we’ll see this in American comics from the X-Men’s Mojoverse as written by Ann Nocenti, where the Spineless Ones’ dreams were invaded by human television and now they’re all mad from it. Here it’s a bit more genteel, at least at first.

The Gothic Empire is ripe for use by Torquemada even though he hates their kind, as they’re impressionable to the humans. 

Nemesis shows up and dresses smartly, fitting the early 20th century style the Goths have adopted. Even better, he has a robot valet… Ro-Jaws! He’s back! I love this stinky little sod. He’s a weird valet and does threaten to overrun the comic a bit with his antics, but he’s good fun nonetheless.

Appropriately, Hammer-Stein has been serving the humans along with Mek Quake, who’s going to kill Hammer-Stein for his failures until it’s decided that he’ll go on a mission to kill Queen Victoria instead. Torquemada’s having fun with all this, as a ‘Phantom’ dealing with the Hell-Fire Society, pulling strings behind the scenes.

Collected in: Nemesis The Warlock – The Definitive Edition, Volume Two

ROGUE TROOPER

Issues Covered: 350-355, 358-365, 367-392, 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special 1984, 2000 AD Annual 1985

Rogue Trooper is second only to Judge Dredd for the amount of coverage he gets this year.

Colonel Kovert hires a barely-willing Rogue for some covert missions, including taking him to a moon base where the Norts are trying to make their own GIs! It goes terribly, both for the base and for the Rogue/Kovert relationship.

You Only Die Twice kills Gunnar in his gun form and luckily he gets an experimental process to re-gen him. The lads are of course excited about getting their bodies back, but Gunnar’s acting weirdly. He’s been Manchurian Candidated and ends up back in a gun by story’s end.

Message from Milli-Com has a message of amnesty sent out for deserters, which might mean Rogue can turn himself in and get the lads into bodies again, but of course it’s a trap. The mission he’s sent on involves helping a bunch of Souther officers who die one by one, until it’s discovered that the remaining one wants to destroy the planet.

Portrait of a Rebel has Rogue show up at an apparently neutral city that’s been only fighting Southers lately. Rogue manages to trick them into fighting Norts, wrecking the agreement they reached with them.

Just Routine is a nice little slice of Rogue’s rubbish life, while Death Valley has him working with a Nort to deal with a field of living cane that is killing people. Oddly enough I’d read a Usagi Yojimbo story similar to this recently, but this doesn’t end as positively.

M for Murder brings back Major Magnam, a complete piece of shit. He’s been re-genned and is hunting Rogue for deserting. Thanks to some Nort traps, the hunt and the re-genning of Magnam don’t last.

Rogue’s hunt for the Traitor General concludes in To the Ends of the Earth, but he’s not going easy. Rogue’s own chip friends are turned against him, acting as trackers and even conspiring against him whether they like it or not. He wins and has enough evidence to expose the Traitor General, so I’m curious to see how this story continues in 1985.

Collected in: Rogue Trooper: The Complete Collection – Book 2

ACE TRUCKING CO

Issues Covered: 378-398

Oh god, they’re back.

On the Dangle has Ace fleeing from prison, breaking out his crew, his ship and joining up with a pirate who he also breaks out. Evil Blood has one of the most on the nose names out there. Ace and his gang aren’t taking up a life of piracy, but are actually undercover to rescue a (literal) pig of a princess. They’re free and have a new nemesis.

Strike! has the crew of the Speedo Ghost unionise against Ace and frankly, good for them. They rake him over the coals a bit about his shit behaviour.

I will say, it doesn’t feel quite as bad as the early Ace Trucking, either because I’m getting used to the faux-trucker speak or they’re getting a bit less extreme with it.

Collected in: The Complete Ace Trucking: Volume Two

SLAÍNE

Issues Covered: 350-367, 2000 AD Annual 1985

The Shoggy Beast concludes with a big of a comedy of errors as Slaíne ends up sleeping in the same bed as the man who turns out to be The Shoggy Beast. He kills him, which upsets the beast’s old human mum.

Sky Chariots has Slaíne donating his mammoth and then when a Drune kills a tribesman’s son, he follows the attackers to some ships… that fly! He and Ukko end up in another land and he ends up having to protect Slough Throt for a bit. He finds out Throt’s plans for Ragnarok and he ends up killed by animals. Also his plans are wrecked.

Slaíne’s off travelling after in Cambria and meeting dragon farmers, apt as the story’s called Dragon Heist. They’re a bit odd and think that Slaíne’s there to steal their dragon. They make friends… kind of, with Nest, a girl who’s the latest of the witchy women with unscrupulous relatives. Her dad’s dead, her uncle’s a jerk and tries to sacrifice her to Mata, a wild dragon. Slaíne gets his own ride; a dragon called Knucker, Nest kills her uncle and then they’re all off to the next adventure. 

Collected in: Slaíne – The Definitive Edition, Volume 1

HELLTREKKERS

Issues Covered: 387-398 (1-12 of 29)

Originally created by John Wagner, José Ortiz & Horacio Lalia

This is one of the first stories I’ve read in a while where I went in with literally no idea what it was about.

Helltrekkers is set in the Dreddverse, as a community of people have decided Mega-City One’s too much for them and have decided to travel the Cursed Earth to find a place to call home. The problem is that pretty much as soon as you’re out of the gates, the Cursed Earth will try to eat you. 

Sure enough, they go through the Sauron Valley which no, isn’t about mad scientist pterodactyls in jorts, but is filled with dinosaurs from Jurassic Parks gone wrong. Things go a bit Flesh, and then there’s some disease, some acid rain and a family of bastards who look like they might become a threat. We’re under halfway and things already look pretty rough for the travellers.

This feels very much in the spirit of Flesh, Planet of the Damned and the other early 2000 AD/Star Lord strips which saw doomed people in deadly places.

Collected in: The Helltrekkers

RPG Ideas: If they were competent, I’d say Vesna Thaw and if they were in a location then The Quiet Year. I guess you could do The Quiet Year with a convoy on a map. The doomed journey does make me think of Trophy Dark and what’ll be left of the travellers when they reach their location.

D.R. & QUINCH

Issues Covered: 350-359, 363-367 

Originally created by Alan Moore & Alan Davis

Apparently the Tharg’s Time Twisters story about the delinquent alien students wasn’t intended as a pilot for an ongoing strip, but I’m pleased it was. As I said last time, it feels like it works for me more than Ace. I don’t know if it’s just Alan Davis’ art, or the interiority of Quinch or that the arrogance of D.R. is obviously the hubris of an idiot instead of backing up the competence (relative to the rest of the world) that Ace has.

D.R. & Quinch Go Straight starts as the pair mean to go on, with the pair in court for their many crimes, trying to prove that they’re honest and decent folks by starting a home for dangerous maniacs called “Massacre House”. It goes wrong, of course, but D.R. and Quinch end up going on holiday with the charity money they received.

D.R. & Quinch Go Girl Crazy introduces a potential Yoko situation as D.R. tries to impress a girl, Chrysoprasia, pretending to be respectable as she’s fairly innocent and religious. In a fit of jealousy, Quinch kidnaps her and shows her all of D.R.’s terrible behaviour. Joke’s on him though, as she’s into that. She takes on the name Crazy Chrissy and when the pigs arrive, D.R. and Quinch end up blaming her for their crimes.

D.R. & Quinch Get Drafted has the pair assume that getting drafted to a war (they created back in …Go Straight) means visiting exotic places, getting all their food and drink comped and so on. They get locked up for killing their own platoon by mistake, meet Crazy Chrissy again and end up saved by Quinch’s mum.

D.R. & Quinch Go to Hollywood takes a bit of a pivot as their pair steal an illegible movie script and pass themselves off as famous directors. They hire an equally illegible actor and while the film is mostly improvised, it becomes a cult hit. The screenwriter they stole it from ends up having been asleep instead of dead and takes his terrible manuscript back, leaving the pair back at square one.

Collected in: The Complete D.R. & Quinch

RPG Ideas: Each of these separately feel like they might work well as odd Fiascos, or maybe even something like Going for Broke, a sitcom RPG where the players argue, come up with terrible plans, have things go wrong and end up at square one.

THE AMAZING MAZE DUMOIR

Issues Covered: 368-369

Originally created by Alan Hebden and Ian Gibson

The reading list I’ve got lists some quite short stories like Agent Rat and this story. Jebel Claw’s escorting Maze Dumoir to testify about a guy called Gorgon Van Kline. The pair crash and he finds out she’s a spy. The pair are also being pursued by slavers and luckily Maze gets them out of trouble. It’s fine, I like some spy action and a female protagonist who’s good at what she does. That said, what she mainly seems to do is strip off. As far as I’ve managed to see, she doesn’t exist outside of this story.

Collected in: 2000 AD Presents: Sci-Fi Thrillers

RPG Ideas: There’s not a huge amount to go with here, but Spy-Fi is a fun science fiction spy RPG which has some nice dynamics between the characters, the enemy and the GM.

THE BALLAD OF HALO JONES: BOOK ONE

Issues Covered: 376-385

Originally created by Alan Moore & Ian Gibson

Out of the new stories for the year, here’s the one with a reputation as something big. That said, it starts interestingly small for this first book

The Hoop is a world with no jobs or prospects, various gangs and musicians, but nothing much for young folks to do. Halo Jones and her friends are stuck here, watching ships going in and out, but never leaving. Halo hates this, and is still living a life with no prospects, with mandatory curfews. It’s this which causes the initial drama as an attempt to go shopping becomes a quest and has our cast locked out at night. Her friend Rodine’s a fun mess, Even accidentally macing herself at one point. 

When they get back, one of their friends is dead and that’s it, Halo’s done with The Hoop. She gets a hostess job on the next flight out. Sadly there’s only one spot available, so Rodine will have to stay behind. We’ll see how things go in book two.

Collected in: The Ballad of Halo Jones: Full Colour Omnibus Edition

RPG Ideas: Given the scope of the story so far, it’s a little tricky, but I’m going to say Flotsam. It’s a GMless RPG about the lives of people low down in a space station or shop. There are conflicts and dramas, but you also see the regular lives of these people. Players take on a character and an aspect of the world. If you want to see its destruction, then maybe Downfall instead.

CONCLUSION

It’s tricky picking highlights. I enjoyed a number of the Rogue Trooper stories and both the Strontium Dog ones. Dredd was fine, with Haunting of Sector House 9, Dredd Angel and City of the Damned as the standouts.

Helltrekkers is fun, but I’m reserving judgement for 1985’s post. Maze Dumoir could have been interesting but was a bit of a damp squib. I think Nemesis Book IV and Halo Jones were definite highlights, and it’s been fun watching Slaíne working with some a witchy girl to overthrow her awful relatives this time.