Top Ranks! Maximum Thrill Power?

Look, I'll clue you in. Only two official slots left, but there are going to be three Progs discussed today... And now, without further ado, my foolproof stat-based system tells me that the second best ever Xmas Prog, and by extension, second best single Prog is...

Rank 2: Prog 2015
dated December 2014,
falling in between Progs 1912 and 1913

Nothing says 'Christmas' like giant letters spelling out the word 'Death'.
Art by Greg Staples

What’s in it?
Two Dredds, one a seasonal one-off, the other the first part of a long awaited, much-hyped epic.
The Visible Man, technically a continuation but basically a one-off
The Order, first episode of a brand-new series
Ulysses Sweet, first episode of a new (and so far, final) series
Jaegir, a one-off
Low Life, a seasonal one-off, and, sort-of, an epilogue to the whole series
Max Normal, a seasonal one-off
Savage, first episode of a new series

PLUS:
A pin-up
A handful of trailers for thrills to come
A letters page
A quiz! Love a quiz, me.

Analysis
I’m telling you, this is a GREAT prog. It sells itself on one story in particular – the much-heralded Dark Justice – and while my own opinion on that story overall, not least its opening episode, is that it’s not THAT special, it is still a very good story that anchors a prog filled with very good stories. No duds! But it’s not just about that – how many of those stories are actively excellent? What’s the overall balance of the Prog, and how well does it function as both a taste of 2000AD, a celebration of its deep past and a herald of its rich future...? Let's take a look.

Front cover by Greg Staples

Unique in the history of Xmas Progs, this cover specifically trails the presence of just one of the thrills inside the Prog. Sure, it’s a big deal story, but does it work as a ‘Special Prog’ cover? Well, for a seasoned 2000AD reader, it does. That Judge Death badge design is super cool, and the way it’s used is an announcement of ‘hey guys, time for a new Judge Death story that’s going to hit that sweet spot you remember from Judge Death Lives’. A casual or indeed new reader might, on the other hand, wonder why this Xmas issue has the word ‘DEATH’ in gigantic letters pasted across the cover. It’s a bold touch for the newsagent’s shelves!

8/10

Judge Dredd: Dark Justice part 1 by John Wagner and Greg Staples

This Dredd panel alone is something special
Art by Greg Staples

So here’s the thing – this opening episode is bold enough NOT to feature its star character, Judge Death. I mean, you get to hear his voice, and his badge is on the cover. But the fiend himself is not there. Indeed, the only taste of ‘dark Judge’ that we get is a flashback of Judge Logan tussling with Mortis. It’s a beautiful panel, as is the panel of Dredd firing his new lawgiver. And indeed, mostly what we get is a showcase for Greg Staples ultra-photo-posed action movie painting extravaganza. Honestly, I admire this kind of art more than I fall in love with it, but I think that’s because I tend to read comics quickly – stopping to linger over each panel here is worth doing. And yes, in part that’s because this story, even in its opening episode (which has to jump through some hoops to connect to previous events in Day of Chaos and the saga of PJ Maybe), really does struggle to find something new to do with the basic Dark Judges plot.

9 out of 10 (because of the art, man, the ART)

The Visible Man: the Screaming in the Walls By Pat Mills and David Hitchcock

That's funny! Because you can see through HIM, literally.
Art by David Hitchcock

When I first read this back in 2014, I did not get it at all. The Visible Man, and Woman, have returned to Earth from space to act as vengeance demons against wicked people. Huh? What’s that got to do with anything from the Visible Man story so far? Which was more or less about the idea of someone being poked and prodded by nasty-minded scientists and not liking it, with a hint of superhuman powers and going on missions.

Reading it now, in 2021, this story makes a whole lot more sense. It’s not about Frank, the Visible Man character from 1977. It’s about Pat Mills. He’s quite literally baring his soul to us readers, making himself and his motivations transparent, or, you know, VISIBLE. I don’t think in 2014 he had publicly talked about his own history of abuse, but of course here in 2021 he has dared to do that, to explain that he, personally, was subjected to abuse at the hands of a priest/teacher at his school. And this story, you see, is about exactly such a priest, who hides behind a veneer of respectability, has that veneer ripped asunder, and is then given his just desserts by a weird alien beastie that doesn’t look like Nemesis the Warlock, but is surely a callback to that character. A character created by Mills, you might recall, as a vengeance demon who attacks wicked, hypocritical, hyper-religious priest types.

None of that personal back story is on the page in this tale, but I can’t not see it when I read it now. As such, it’s beyond fascinating, a super important text in the overall output of P. Mills. As a horror tale for a casual reader, it’s merely quite good, oddly vitriolic, with the benefit of some super spooky scratchings from David Hitchcock. The Visible Man hasn’t returned since 2014 – after this devastating yet cathartic tale from Mills, I don’t see how he could.

9 out of 10

The Order part 1 by Kek-W and John Burns

It’s a hell of an opener! We have had the odd medieval-set story in the Prog before, but not one, I think, that ended up running for quite as long as this one. To be honest, there’s little here to give readers a sense of what ‘The Order’ is going to end u actually being about, but that’s no matter. What we do get is great atmosphere, a compelling lead in Anna Kohl, and one of the all-time great introductions to a new character, Ritterstahl, who begins life as a decapitated knight’s head that reboots itself… 

Now that's a character introduction!
Art by John Burns

10 out of 10

Ulysses Sweet: Psycho Therapist by Guy Adams and Paul Marshall

More silliness from the OTT oaf. To be honest, this outing rather assumes you have some memory of the previous series, as it’s very much about the relationship between the man and his embedded psyche-chip. That said, I always did like the 2000AD thing where any reader can/should be able to pick up any Prog at random and get sucked into a story, with no concern about understanding the details of what is going on, as long as it’s compelling enough. Pretty sure that the style of humour on display here, both in the words and pictures, is not to all tastes – but I like it well enough.

8 out of 10

Jaegir: Brothers in Arms by Gordon Rennie and Simon Coleby

Flashback time for Atalia Jaegir, who has reason to reminisce about her childhood relationship to her father and three older half-brothers. I struggled to follow what was going on in the present-day Jaegir storyline, but the flashback bits work well, and Coleby is a great fit for marrying up traumatic emotion with hard-ass characters and war-torn, nihilistic vibes. 

Is there a more hellish war than the version we get in Jaegir?
Art by Simon Coleby

8 out of 10

Low Life: the Really Big Christmas Sleep by Rob Williams and D’Israeli

This is the one story that doesn’t quite work in an end-of-year Prog. It’s basically an epilogue to the whole Low Life strip, which, I’m pretty sure, has not reappeared since. What it really is, is Dirty Frank saying goodbye to ‘the Low Life’ – as in, the Sector of MC1 where he worked undercover for many years, but it’s also yet another drip-feeding of the shadowy behind-the-scenes manipulation of Frank that has been hinted at for some time and will come to a head in future Dredd epic ‘The Small House’. Within that context, it’s a fine and poignant story – but as a standalone, it’s hard to get much out of.

6 out of 10

Max Normal: No Comics for Old Men by Guy Adams and Ben Willsher

A proper flashback to the past, this one, even more than the Visible Man story, which may feature a character from 1977, but this one directly references a specific story from 1977. Willsher in particular gets to have fun showing off his contemporary style, as well as a McMahon-pastiching in the flashback scenes – flashback scenes that directly ape certain panels. Adams, meanwhile, puts in a case as a wordsmith who is willing to really have a go at Max Normal’s fast-paced verse patter. A gamble that mostly pays off. Fun.

If you're on board with the constant chatter, it's fun times for you.
Art by Ben Willsher

8 out of 10

Savage: Grinders part 1 by Pat Mills and Patrick Goddard

9 books in to the Savage reboot and I find it a little hard to keep track of the overall story – Mills is never one to give much ‘previously on’ beyond the VERY basics – but this is one of the good ones, where we’re deep into Ro-Busters continuity, and the concept of people who a re super into cyborgifying themselves. It’s a welcome change-up from the usual ‘invasion / terrorism / freedom fighter’ narrative that is always intriguing but has become a little played out in this series. Goddard continues to be on his best form delivering war-torn semi-future London, and chucking in the robotic bits.

9 out of 10

Judge Dredd: the Ghost of Christmas Presents by Michael Carroll and Karl Richardson

Classic Carroll Dredd, really, delivering seasonal humour and pathos. Very good if not all-time great, and that's all you need.

8 out of 10

Onto the non-thrills!
I mean, you had me at ‘Christmas Quiz’, Tharg. It’s both an excuse to show lots of fun panels and dialogue bits from the past, down to the most obscure characters, and a chance to, you know, indulge in a quiz about my favourite comic.

There’s also a very cool Dark Judges Star Scan, although as it prominently features Mortis it means that one character gets double time in the spotlight.

Also very much worth noting the letters page this year, which features the first in a now-dependable series on Lego builds of 2000AD characters from the Rees family – and also an insanely delightful rendering of those Four Dark Judges (again) in the form of empty 4-pint milk bottles.

What’s NOT in the Prog?
Dan Abnett (and perhaps in particular Sinister Dexter) is a notable absence. I could mention some artists, too – Carlos Ezquerra, most obviously, but also Xmas Prog regular Clint Langley – but of course that sneaky Xmas Quiz allows Tharg to show off work from a whole bevvy of artists, including the King. Clever! It’s nigh on impossible to fault the selection of types of thrill – continuing contemporary stories, returning old stories, full-on blasts from the past, and indeed an all-new thrill – what more can one ask for?

That said, some of the stories here are better than others, and to an extent the contents of the Quiz, along with the choice to run Max Normal and the Visible Man tips the balance quite a lot towards 70s/80s nostalgia, with The Order really having to do all the work of being NEW new, as opposed to old new (Ulysses Sweet) or Spin-Off new (Jaegir, Low Life). On the other hand, Ben Willsher’s deliberate retro-stylings aside, it’s notable that the range of art on display here is proper 21^st Century 2000AD, the kind that, I like to think, would make causal Xmas Prog readers take note and think there’s innovation in the old comic yet.

Final scores…

Average thrill-score: 8.3 out of 10
Non-thrill score: 5 out of 5
Balance of thrills old and new: 5 out of 5
Standalone specialness score: 8 out of 10
Cover score: 8 out of 10

Overall overall score: 34.3 out of 40

What does that leave us with? Well, yes, I really DID find that Prog 2000 was and is the single BIGGEST and BEST Prog ever. But aren't there TWO Prog 2000s? Why yes there ARE. The second Prog 2000 isn't as big, but it sure is mighty special. And before you think there's going to be a hilarious twist ending to this blog, in fact, no, clocking in at 

Rank 1.5, here's...
Prog 2000, (the actual 2000^th Prog, aka nu2000)
dated September 2016,
(falling in between Progs 1999 and 2001, obviously…)

What’s in it?
Judge Dredd, a crossover with Strontium Dog.
Nemesis the Warlock, an unexpected epilogue
Rogue Trooper, a one-off featuring the original Rogue, but also a prologue for a new series
Judge Anderson, a one-off featuring Judge Death, sort of
Sinister Dexter, a one-off but (as always) an in-continuity story
Counterfeit Girl, first episode of an all-new series

PLUS:
A set of one-page interstitial strips that are about Tharg taking a nostalgic tour of 2000AD, but are really an excuse to get some of the top artists from yesteryear to come and draw some 2000AD characters, please.

Analysis
I think for the first time since around Prog 2003, Tharg is really, really trying to make this a SPECIAL Prog, one that is keen to tickle the nostalgia button of fans who haven’t read a weekly Prog in years, as well as fans who drink in every new episode. And, you know, provide an entertaining comic just for anyone who wants to read a comic.

One way to mark THIS Prog as especially special – not one, not two, but THREE separate covers, something not done before or since, I think?

Note how everyone here is smiling except Cyber-Matt...
Try not to note the absence of more than like, three new characters...
Art by Glenn Fabry

Front cover by Chris Samnee; Cliff Robinson and Dylan Teague; Glenn Fabry (this last also available in black and white – arguably 4 separate covers. Still not X-Men 1 (1991 series) territory, but close)

So, you’ve got the ‘homage to classic cover’ option, the ‘Tharg reminding people of Prog 1’ option, and the ‘Here’s a bevvy of 2000AD characters, but oops, it still looks as they haven’t produced any memorable new characters in 10 or 20 years’ option. Frankly they’re all very good in their own different ways, if none exactly perfect. I do applaud Fabry’s choice to have all the characters smiling, but it’s WEIRD. And yes, I DO find it irritating that artists are obviously not reading recent Progs to have a keen sense of the many cool newer characters.

9/10

Judge Dredd: by Private Contract by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra

Dredd and Alpha (and McNulty and Kid Knee) team up to tackle some Stixes and Cals. All very well done, all rather indulgent – but it’s hard to read without grinning the whole time!

8 out of 10

Nemesis the Warlock: Tubular Hells By Pat Mills and Kevin O’Neill

Nemesis 'wins' in the end. It had to be thus?
Art by Kev O'Neill

Obviously we readers were warned in advance of the contents of this special Prog, but this one was totally out of the blue. It manages to be both a tribute to one of the greatest strips in 2000AD’s (nay, the Galaxy’s!) history, and also a tribute to the original Prog 2000, which featured the ‘ending’ to Nemesis the Warlock. Mostly, this ‘second’ ending serves as Pat ills way to say “You know, readers, I thought I was being thematically appropriate before to show Nemesis and Torquemada locked in endless conflict, both deserving their fate. But I was wrong. Dead wrong! Torquemada is a c**t of the highest order and it’s important to me to show him being properly punished.” At the time, I wasn’t sure I understood what was going on in ‘Tubular Hells’, but personal revelations since, by Mills, about quite how badly he was treated by his Catholic school teachers, make it clear. This story is personal, and in a way, it always was.

Putting that aside, because it’s not in the text of the story – it’s kind of a weird coda for Nemesis, with O’Neill’s modern style as anarchic and grotesque as ever, but perhaps a little lacking in minute details compared to the early days of the strip.

7 out of 10

Rogue Trooper: Ghosts of Nu Earth by Gordon Rennie and Richard Elson

So look, this is a very intelligent piece of writing, playing that classic trick of making you re-think something about the original story’s set-up. I’m a sucker for Rogue stories that are really about the troops, and the idea of Rogue as a legend. This is one such story, one that twists it up by pointing out that the Traitor General is ALSO a legend, only a sadder, deadlier one. And as such, this leads nicely into ‘Hunted’, the series Rennie will start writing in the next issue.

He's the BAD guy.
Art by Richard Elson

But for all this cleverness, it’s a little unsatisfying as an action story. Elson, for all his strengths, doesn’t have space to do anything more than deliver a good job.

7 out of 10

Anderson, Psi Division: A Dream of Death by Alan Grant and David Roach

It’s one of the two classic Anderson creator teams from the early 90s, very much delivering what the readers want – Cass in nightgowns fighting Judge Death. For reasons that don’t entirely make sense, but also aren’t completely out of nowhere. Where later writers have really delved into what psychic powers might allow people to do, Grant has always been more interested in what effect psychic powers have on the mind of the person in question. It’s a big part of what has made Anderson’s stories typically feel more grown up than most other 2000AD series. This one episode, though, doesn’t feel as if it’s doing anything especially new, just doing something old rather well. And boy does Roach draw the hell out of it.

9 out of 10

Sinister Dexter by Dan Abnett and Mark Sexton

One of those episodes where it’s mostly talking, and some sex references. And, to an extent, an air of self-importance which this series doesn’t usually trade in. However, given that the whole concept is based on Pulp Fiction, all those things are actually super appropriate. Mark Sexton’s art raises the whole thing quite a bit – a new artist to the series and (at the time) a very recent addition to 2000AD as a whole. The story itself is more or less a repeat of the episode from the most recent Xmas Prog, in which it’s explained that Sinister and Dexter are back in the original Downlode, only no one knows who they are. Or do they..?

The ioverlap between comics and film storyboards made plain.
Art by Mark Sexton + Simon Davis

8 out of 10 (mostly for the art)

Counterfeit Girl part 1 by Peter Milligan and Rufus Dayglo

Aha, it’s the ‘all-new thrill’, so important to any celebration of 2000AD to show that part of what made it so good was that it was (and still is) always pushing new ideas. The Milligan/Dayglo team has a certain retro-feel to it, but the cyberpunk setting and identity theft concept are two bits of sci-fi that 2000AD hasn’t tried much, and frankly this iteration is by far the best (sorry, Shadows fans, I like this story better). There’s an awful lot going on here, and it’s a little hard to follow the story even in episode 1. Dayglo’s effort’s to fill out every last bit of space with detail arguably doesn’t help, but more arguably makes the whole thing a delight to wallow in, and meant that I welcomed the need to read it two or three times to make sense of it. Bonkers, in the best way.  

Sensory overload!!
Art by Rufus Dayglo

9 out of 10 (And perhaps I’m knocking it down from a perfect score because the story as a whole doesn’t quite come off)

Onto the non-thrills!

Well, let’s not forget that this is a mere 48 page effort, not a 100 page monster. So there’s only room for one double-page poster, from Cliff Robinson + Dylan Teague. Which is lovely and all, but like Fabry, only finds room for two recent characters (and they’re kind of the two worst drawn, which probably isn’t a coincidence).

Oh, but what about those interstitial comics pages? Now they ARE special. They’re not being as angry or personal or downright weird as ‘Tharg’s Head Revisited’ from Prog 500, but they really are very well drawn. They’re also finely-tuned nostalgia buttons. Press one and it activates the 2000AD fan pleasure circuits something fierce – even when Colin MacNeil has to draw some of the least-fondly remembered characters from the 90s. 

How to sum up the early 90s in five characters or less
Art by Colin 'I was THERE' McNeil

Boo Cook does the Lord’s work of forcing any reader to embrace the modern era, by stuffing in a huge number of 2000s / 2010s characters.

In sum, those 5 pages do come across as pretty special. I'll also note that, rather like a certain other VERY SPECIAL Prog, it's the extras, and the one all-new strip, that end up being the best thing in the Prog. It seems that although it makes sense for an editor to have very tight control over what stories to commission for such a Prog, it's no way to guarantee they'll be all-time classics.

What’s NOT in the Prog?

Well, for the sake of this exercise, the real thing that’s missing is more pages. Is it fair to compare this 48 page, excellent and special comic with the 100 page monsters? On the one hand, this Prog has less in it, and therefore less opportunity for range, the one thing an anthology craves above all. On the other hand, because it’s smaller, it’s easier for Tharg to hand-pick only the really strong stories to run.

Just for the sake of being SUPER picky, it’s a little sad that ‘modern’ 2000AD is represented only by Sinister Dexter (by this point a rather old strip), and one all-new Thrill, which is great, but is kind of notable for having a nostalgic feel to it, by virtue of a writer who made his mark at that time, and an artist who is more or less deliberately evoking Ewins and B (not J) McCarthy. All made even more explicit by the Fabry cover, on which you have to look quite hard to spot any post-Year 2000 characters. I count 3 in total, and they’re all stuck in the background.

And yeah, although they can feel like space-filler, there’s something charming about getting some extra pin-ups, or listicles, quizzes and death-matches.

Final scores…

Average thrill-score: 8 out of 10
Non-thrill score: 4 out of 5
Balance of thrills old and new: 4 out of 5
Standalone specialness score: 10 out of 10
Cover score: 9 out of 10

Overall overall score: 35 out of 40

So, with that detour done, it's offical, David Bishop was right, Prog 2000 (the first), defied my own expectations to remain the BEST. PROG. EVER...

RANK 1: Prog 2000,
dated December 1999,
falling in between Progs 1173 and 1174

Accurate cover copy there.
Art by Brian Bolland + a cast of thousands.

What’s in it?
Two Dredds, both one-offs
Rogue Trooper, a one-off and sort-of a tying up of loose ends
Slaine, a one-off
ABC Warriors, a one-off but also a trailer for things to come
Nikolai Dante, a one-off tale and the set-up for a new story arc
Strontium Dog, the start of an all-new adventure
Sinister Dexter, a one-off but also something of an epilogue to the last year’s story arc
Nemesis the Warlock, the final episode of Book X, and in theory the final EVER episode
Glimmer Rats, opening episode to an all-new series

PLUS:
Three posters, to celebrate Zenith, Bad Company and ABC Warriors
Tharg’s thrill-power DEATH MATCH
And I suppose I should count ELEVEN (11) pages of ‘Data Files’, which serve as intro blurbs for each story – arguably vital for any new or long-lapsed readers picking up the Prog, and each containing micro-nuggets of behind-the-scenes info that might tickle the Prog Oner (not to mention members of the 531 club).
Oh, and an input page with reader letters.

Analysis
There’s something truly special about Prog 2000. Most obviously, because it marked the point when 2000AD, a comic launched in 1977, finally reached its namesake Year, the far future land of 2000. Thargbishop opens the Prog with a bumper-sized editorial, which in large part is a long list of thanks to the creators who made the Prog happen. In another universe, it’s also a fond farewell to 2000AD as a comic, indeed as an institution – had things gone a little differently, this could have been the final ever Prog, a sprint finish if you will. Hell, there’s a whole page dedicated to describing the genesis of the front cover, which is itself a pointed celebration of 2000AD’s success in surviving as a weekly comic when all others had failed.*

But in fact this was not the case. I assume that by the time this Prog was in print, Bishop and most creators would have known that the comic was about to transfer to new owners, to be given something of a new lease of life, and indeed would blossom anew into the comic that is still going today. Instead, the legacy of Prog 2000 was to inaugurate a new annual tradition – come hell or high water, Christmas would bring a new 100 page beast to read, and a 3-week break for Tharg and his minions.

I’ll also point out that Prog 2000 is indeed still the BIGGEST Prog ever. The page dimensions are taller and wider than any other Prog that followed, and the page count is substantially fatter than any Prog that came before. It was a pleasant surprise to pick this comic up and read it – I’ve been reading Progs digitally on an ipad screen for some years** - and those old Prog pages are nice and LARGE. They’re noticeably larger than most of the reprint collections, too, unless you’re going for the sumptuous (and expensive) hardback artist’s editions.

Prog 2000 is also doing a very particular job that no other year-end special is doing – celebrating the comic as an institution – and as such it had quite an imperative to represent the creators who were there at the beginning, and more than any other special was obliged to be actively nostalgic, at least in terms of picking which stories to run. I’ve no idea how difficult or expensive it was to achieve that dream, but boy did Bishop succeed: the Class of 1977 is represented by 2000AD’s creator Pat Mills, writing THREE stories and John Wagner writing two, with art from Brian Bolland, Kevin O’Neill, Dave Gibbons and Carlos Ezquerra. If you were to ask any given fan who their favourite writers and artist were, I suspect all six of those names would come to mind as quick as any other.

And by some miracle, if you were to ask readers today who their top creators were from the last 20 years, the other fine folk in Prog 2000 would likely also spring to mind, so much have they gone on to contribute: Gordon Rennie, Robbie Morrison, Dan Abnett, Simon Davis, Simon Fraser, Mark Harrison, Kevin Walker, Greg Staples – and there’s even room for an ex-Tharg, John Tomlinson.

I’ve left two names off because they technically weren’t 1977 players, but they certainly weren’t young turks in the Year 2000: Alan Grant and Cam Kennedy, two names one feels would be essential to any celebratory Prog event. Even better, they’re paying comical tribute to their old chum John Wagner.

So yeah, as a package this Prog IS damn near perfect. Without adding more pages, it’s hardly possible to imagine which strips or which creators could’ve been squeezed in. In fact, Bishop DID make the effort to squeeze in Steve Yeowell and Brett Ewins. Never mind all that - getting the big guns in is one thing. Did they deliver?

Front cover: idea/design by Steve Cook, execution by Brian Bolland
-I mean, it’s perfect. Sure, viewed in isolation, it might not make much sense, but it’s telling a very clear story and you don’t need a vast amount of inside knowledge to work out what that story is. (And in fact Bish-Op DOES explain that knowledge inside the Prog). And yes, given the strips that appear in the comic itself the line-up of characters is perfect, Bolland draws them all to his usual perfectionist standards. He’s a terrible it for Nemesis the Warlock as a character but finds a way to make him work, and the small taste of seeing his Dante makes you wonder what he might’ve delivered on that character, a natural fit if ever there was one.

10 out of 10, baby.

Judge Dredd: Future Crimes by John Wagner & Mike McMahon
- a neat one-off story that works as well as any to highlight the essence of Judge Dredd. He’s like a cop in a futuristic city using Sci-Fi tools to fight Sci-Fi crimes. Oh, and it sucks to live in Mega City One. A particularly fine ending. It’s perhaps vital to mention that this is McMahon in his later period – a style he’d used in both Prog and Meg fairly recently, but it must have been quite jarring for readers who hadn’t looked at a Prog since McMahon’s Block Mania and Slaine days.

8 out of 10

Rogue Trooper: Remembrance Day by John Tomlinson and Dave Gibbons
- look, this isn’t really a story. It’s an attempt to explain what the hell the status quo for Rogue Trooper is, both to returning readers but frankly also to readers who’d never missed a prog! It’s explained that the original Rogue is definitely dead, and that his Nu Earth is no longer a warzone, but instead a planet-sized war memorial. It is pointedly not explained how Fr1day fits into the whole mess, although he may or may not be one of the first wave of GIs referred to here obliquely as ‘sigma’. Tor Cyan is also pointedly not explained beyond being some sort of descendant of the original Rogue, but means unknown.

Perhaps the real point was for poor Dave Gibbons to haver an excuse to redraw the original Quartz Zone Massacre one more time, now in spanking shiny colours. I say ‘poor’, but of course Gibbons is one of comics’ greatest success stories. Even Rogue Trooper, one of his own creations, has proved to be a lasting character. But, you know, he’s never been truly great beyond his first couple of years, that one horror story, and the one series that Gibbons himself wrote (but didn’t draw).

The Quartz Zone Massacre - still THE fundamental image of Rogue Trooper.
Art by Dave Gibbons

6 out of 10 – it is what it is, and you kind of had to have Rogue in Prog 2000. Nothing wrong with the writing or art, but it’s not exactly essential stuff.

ABC Warriors: Roadkill by Pat Mills and Kevin Walker

Speaking of characters who had wandered from their original brief…
Here we have Pat Mills following editorial mandate to stop wallowing in Khaos Theory and get those damn robots back to Mars to sort out ne-er-do-wells. They sure do do that!

This story is kind of the exact thing you might have in mind if you asked Pat Mills to “write one of those old ABC Warriors on Mars stories, but with a more modern bent, you know, real edgy.”

“Edgy?”

“Yeah! Like, what if one of the bad guys has literally pinned their face onto their skull with drawing pins! And maybe they’re ZOMBIES.”

“Sure.”

 

7 out of 10 Nothing wrong with the story or the art (indeed the art is a ton of fun), but it’s a lesson in being careful what you wish for…

Nikolai Dante: love and war by Robbie Morrison and Simon Fraser

I mean, if you were only going to read one episode of Nikolai Dante and wanted to get a feel for what the whole massive story was about, you kind of couldn’t ask for much more than this one. It zooms right in on the soap opera aspect, where Dante and Jena meet up in a poor district, she slaps him then punches him in the face, then they make passionate, naked love, then Jena runs off to join her Father’s side in a war that is clearly not Dante’s fault, but that she must blame him for or else there wouldn’t be 10 more years of plot.

But, you know, there’s lots of emoting and that panel with Dante crying in the rain, so it gets a pass.

Sex and regret - two great tastets that go great together.
Art by Simon Fraser

8 out of 10

Strontium Dog: the Kreeler Conspiracy by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra

Let us be mindful of two things: first, this story is a MASSIVE outlier in terms of what Strontium Dog is; second, it was the grand return of Wagner and Ezquerra to their beloved creation some 11 years since they’d last worked on it together. A lifetime ago, in 2000AD terms!

Let’s also note something else: this story, as a whole, is bloomin’ marvellous. I can see why Wagner gave up on the whole ‘alternate history’ angle to approach Johnny Alpha, in favour of telling untold tales, but I think what he tried here really worked, at least for this one story.

As an episode opener, it has rather a lot of work to do, including a vast text crawl on page one to explain that this ISN’T the Strontium Dog readers had read about before, before going on to set up Johnny Alpha as, in fact, exactly the same character as before only with different gadgets and a mission that clearly contradicts older stories. As such, it does retread some old ground but it does it so well, and so beautifully, that I come away giddy to read more.

9 out of 10 – but I’d give this story as a whole a firm 10.

Slaine: Beyond by Pat Mills and Greg Staples

Like the ABC Warriors, it seems Slaine had also been given a ‘back to basics’ request. This is the story that shows Slaine crawling through Hell on his journey back from various time-displacement quests to return to his native land and pick up the story again. How that worked out is for another time; for the moment we get Slaine in a war of words against various innumerable foes he has dispatched from life in the past, including Slough Feg. And then at the end he Warp Spasms and kills them all again, even though they’re already dead and in Hell. Which is kind of metal, and very Slaine.

Staples paints the heck out of it; Mills does his best to stuff it full of innuendo but somehow it’s hard to care too much, feels like both Slaine and Feg are just treading water, rather than revealing any new secrets or personality traits.

8 out of 10

Sinister Dexter: Exit Wounds by Dan Abnett and Simon Davis
-in which Abnett does his usual clever clever thing of telling a tale that feels like the old SinDex one-offs full of word play, ably abetted by Davis delivering spot-on panel-based gimmickry, but is actually also giving us an epilogue to Eurocrash, where the hitmen chase down and off the final player responsible for the fall of Demi Octavo – well, apart from apparently leaving a loose thread that’ll need tying off in their very next mission, coming soon…!

9 out of 10 – that is, if you’re someone like me who likes Sinister Dexter both for the funny one-offs and the longer form continuity. If you’re not a fan, I doubt this story would convert you. Davis remains the best SinDex artist though, and this is

Nemesis the Warlock: the Final Conflict by Pat Mills and Kevin O’Neill
-technically, this is the final episode of Book X, which had been running in the weeks before Prog 2000. But this episode kind of had to function as something that made sense on its own as well, and in that it succeeds admirably. 

Termight architecture, and a tribute to the Grobbendonk
Art by Kev O'Neill

Much like the Dredd story earlier, returning artist Kev O’Neill was no longer using the style he had on the early books of Nemesis, which may have dented some bubbles, but it’s still stellar stuff, full of sharp lines and weird energy and, perhaps above all, really gnarly and twisted architectural and costume designs in the background of nearly every panel. He sure wasn’t phoning it in! Mills, on other hand is delivering the soundbites readers surely demanded, without managing to deliver anything new, or any last new characters or weird Termight-based concepts to blow our minds. You know, unless you call a fascist analogue character invoking  ‘the Final Solution’ a triumph of originality.

But in a sense this wasn’t Mills’s brief. What readers both old and new tuned in for was to see how on earth Mills could end ‘Nemesis the Warlock’, a series in which the worse villain already died at the end of Book 1, and along the way the characters visit the literal end of time, and the ‘hero’ explains that he is in fact a bored God who’s only in it for the lols. For my money, Nemesis and Torquemada are amongst the best characters in all British comics, and as such there’s no possibility for a satisfying winner to their endless enmity. I didn’t see it coming myself, but the ending in which these two end up in a time loop of infinite chasing/murdering each other is the only one that could work. Fitting though it may be, this ending is, dare I say it, unsatisfying.

7 out of 10

Glimmer Rats by Gordon Rennie and Mark Harrison

Sometimes, you need a thousand words to tell a picture...
Art by Mark Harrison

2000AD is ever a forward-looking comic, and even in this most nostalgic of Progs there must and should be something all-new. Glimmer Rats desperately wants to be the new Bad Company. That strip was introduced in Prog 500, the last time Tharg had put together a super special nostalgia-tinged celebratory Prog, and did pull off the trick of being an all-new thrill that went on to become a much-loved classic and even introduced three all-time great characters. Glimmer Rats didn’t do that, but it’s a pretty good story and it has a very good episode one. Mark Harrison was getting better all the time and he certainly had his fans in this era although I confess I didn’t really light up with Harrison until his most recent Grey Area / The Out style. Rennie, too, was already good but would get a lot better in a couple of years.

8 out of 10 (the story as a whole I’d give maybe a 7 out of 10, this opening episode has plenty of promise so I’m rating it higher; overall Glimmer Rats reminds me quite a bit of one subplot of Michael Marshall Smith’s Spares if anyone’s into hellworlds where you have to take drugs to keep from going mad)

Judge Dredd: old pal’s act by Alan Grant and Cam Kennedy

-a very silly, very charming tale in which Dredd chases John Wagner in a flying bathtub, and the famed writer ends up as a brain in a jar with no hands, and no access to a writing device – apparently, the thing that would drive him mad the quickest…

Wagner v Dredd, and only one can win.
Art by Cam Kennedy

Pretty tough to analyse a story like this, it’s enough to say that it made me smile.

8 out of 10

What about those plentiful non-thrills?
It’s the biggest mixed bag here. Yes, you can’t argue with the usefulness of the Data Byte pages that set up each story – this major milestone Prog WAS (one fervently hopes) going to attract the eye of some new readers, and certainly the eye of readers who had left the fold even before Johnny Alpha made his final sacrifice it in 1990. So there’s practical value in bringing people up to speed on who each character is, what their deal is, and what the hell has happened to them in the last decade. But they don’t half take up a lot of space, and poor Robo-Cook, no doubt worn out from his sterling work designing the cover, didn’t exactly go to town putting them together. I will say that each page contains some tidbits of background info that are like golddust to 2000AD historians – and bear in mind this was long before books such as Thrill-Power Overload were conceived.

I’ll also say that it’s well cheeky to run a whole databyte page next to a poster of Zenith and Bad Company as if that justifies namechecking these two stories on both the cover and the contents page. At least it’s true that both thrills did return eventually, one and two years later. Those posters, along with the ABCs by Ashley Wood, are all… fine. Would it have been better to have one of those stories (or indeed any story) here in lieu of those databytes? YES.

On the other hand, Prog 2000 also contains my single favourite non-thrill of all time: the Thrill-Power Death Match! Unlike the Great Tourney Years of 2020-2021-2022, this was settled by a committee of three: old hand Steve MacManus and new hands Bishop and Diggle. They argued the toss not between which strips were better (although that clearly does play into things a little), but more literally arguing who would win in a fight between the titular characters. Mostly, though, it’s a clever excuse the name-check literally every single series from 2000AD, from Judge Dredd to Danzig’s Inferno. And indeed to get in a little picture from half of all the series (if they won their fight). Bizarrely, I even agreed with the decisions for about 90% of the fights, which is unheard of in this kind of thing. Please do this again, Tharg! You’ve got 20 more years-worth of strips to add now, too. My money’s on Shakara for the big win.

The Space Girls march confidently into Round 2...

 

What ‘s NOT in the Prog?
Well, I’m a big fan of teases for thrills to come, and Prog 2000 is curiously empty of these. There’s the mention that ABC Warriors and Slaine will have new series, and Nikolai Dante gets a lovely splash-page trailer for Tsar Wars, but otherwise the only other thrill to get space is Missionary Man – which does in fact start in the very next Prog, although that’s not said on the poster.

Teasers and such have a place in any given end-of-year special. Prog 2000, being as it is a very SPECIAL special arguably had to do a bit more work. To whit, dare one wonder about who is not in the issue? Frankly it’s so stuffed you can’t really ask for more creators or characters to squeeze their way in, but one feels it’s a slight shame that ex-Thargs Burton, McKenzie and even Gosnell didn’t get a look-in, even in Droid form. At the time, though, the sting of the early 90s was likely still smarting too much, bridges perhaps still on fire. Let’s assume also that it was a tight budget that required so many data bytes and less strip…

Overall the Prog is a nifty mix of thrills old, new and brand new – the one thing I think it genuinely lacks was some air to more all-new thrills just around the corner. Comic of the future, and all that. (And note that it doesn’t matter how well any of those thrills actually turned out; I would’ve got excited for mention of Rain Dogs, Red Fang, Pussyfoot 5, and def for Judge Dredd: Blood Cadets / Sector House and the return of PJ Maybe).

Back to the positives in Prog 2000: the input pages! This is another highlight, with some superbly well-written letters, all finding different ways to celebrate their love of 2000AD, most name-checking major moments of thrill-power from the previous 23 years. Ranking letters pages is a game not even the keeper of the beast would consider – but yeah, this one’s a cracker.

Perhaps the most important question – can I read and enjoy this one Prog as a single thing?
Answer: a resounding YES.

Final scores…

Average thrill-score: 7.8 out of 10
Non-thrill score: 4 out of 5
Balance of thrills old and new: 5 out of 5
Standalone specialness score: 10 out of 10
Cover score: 10 out of 10

Overall overall score: 36.8 out of 40

*With apologies to the Distinguished Competition from the Thompsons in Dundee.

**Except for the year-end Progs, which I still buy and read in print.

So that's it, then, Prog 2000 is THE best Prog ever...?
Of course this isn't the end. Nest time, let's look at these same rankings in a different way.
And we haven't even considered some of the many 2,300 or so other Progs that might lay a claim to being more densely thrill-packed, if shorter in page count...