Prog 2 - Judge Dredd

The first appearance of Judge Dredd occurred in Prog 2 because it was in development hell for a year and wasn't prepared for the first issue...which worked out fine for Pat Mills because it gave the readers another reason to pick up Prog 2.

A few things to notice here...It's New York and not Mega-City One yet. The text also says that the Judges were elected by the people to enforce the law. I always understood that the Judges took over to fill the power vacuum left by President 'Bad Bob' Booths Atomic World War fiasco. I don't think they were voted in at all.

The image of the Judge on the bike is a lifted piece of artwork from the original unpublished Dredd pilot 'Bank Raid' by artist and co-creator Carlos Ezquerra. The badge on the judge, if you look closely, just reads 'Judge'. It was decided later that the badges would have the Judges individual names on them so you could tell them apart. It wasn't caught in time for this splash page.

From the 'splash' we are infromed that there are a bunch of criminals holed up in the direlict Empire State Building. A judge is approaching to take them in...one of the criminals is afraid. 'Whitey' quiets him down with a great piece of dialogue 'Judges can bleed too!'. It is a perfect summation of how tough and near indestructable these 'new' law enforcers are. They're a special breed.

On page two Whitey is planning on killing the judge. One of the gang is hoping that the Judge approaching is Dredd, that Dredd is the 'toughest of the Judges!'. It's clear from the second page that Dredd is a name to be feared in the criminal world. His name is mentioned three times on this page before we actually see him.

Whitey kills the judge but is disappointed to find out that it's not Dredd but a Judge Alvin that he has murdered.
The scene changes to Justice HQ where we see Dredd in conversation with the Chief Judge.
The Chief Judge at this time is Chief Judge Goodman although here he is just called 'Grand Judge'. From the 'Grand' Judges dialogue we find out that Dredd is a damn good Judge. Crime is down because of him.

As they are talking a report comes in that Judge Alvin's bike has returned with Alvins dead body tied to it. There's a note attached to the body. It reads 'Who you gonna send against me now, punks. Judge Whitey.'

The 'Grand' Judge is mad as hell, he wants to bomb the building,that Whitey and gang are in, off the face of the earth!

Dredd steps in. He wants to go it alone.
Later, Whitey and gang hear the siren of the bike of another Judge come towards the building. Whitey is going to bag himself another Judge. But the bike is riderless. It's on automatic. It's just been a decoy.

Dredd appears behind them and takes out the gang.
Whitey, he leaves to last. Dredd punches Whitey knocking the judge helmet off his head. 'You committed the most odious crime of all, Whitey - killing a judge!'

Dredd has sentenced Whitey to life. Whitey is unrepentant. He tells Dredd that no prison can hold him and he'll bust out. He hates the Judges and all that they stand for. But Dredd isn't going to send him to just any old prison...no, Dredd is sending him to Devils Island for life!
On the last page we see Devils Island in all it's glory! The 'Grand' Judge thinks that Life on Devils Island is a stern sentence but in all reality the Dredd of later strips would just have executed Whitey for killing a judge.

What's interesting about the last page is that Dredd is hanging badges of the fallen on a wall..and there aren't many of them. The Judges weren't the dominant force here as they were in alter issues. In fact in later strips from this early Dredd period...it's seems as if there are just a handful of Judges and the Police weren't totally phased out yet.

It's interesting to note the 'Grand' Judges comment to Dredd about going out like Alvin because Goodmans days would be numbered. He is assassinated in 'The Day The Law Died!'.

All in all, a quiet opening for a character that would go on to be 2000ads most popular strip. Wagner and Ezquerra, co-creators of Dredd, didn't write or draw this strip. Wagner and Ezquerra had some issues with management at the time and walked away. Wagner would later return with his first Dredd strip 'BrainBlooms' and the magnificent 'Robot Wars' to take back over his creation. Ezquerra did have a Dredd story in the can before his falling out with management...but wouldn't come back to drawing Dredd until years later with 'The Apocalypse War!'

Prog 2 - Harlem Heroes

The Heroes have been decimated after the road liner crash. Only three remain to carry on. (Four, if you count Louis Mayers brain!) Giant , Slim and Hairy are working out in the stadium when their game is interrupted by an old man. After an insult by Slim, the old man won't give the ball back until he shows this young punk some moves. And show him he does...
But that ain't no old man! Giant recognizes the old guys aeroball moves...thats retired veteran Harlem Heroes player Conrad King!

Conrad has heard out the Heroes troubles and has come out of retirement to help the team.
Giant needs three more players to complete the roster for their next game. So, the Heroes go to the Sky Slums of Harlem (where the current crop of Heroes where discovered) to see if there are any players good enough to compete.

We're informed that there are more than nine street levels to this futurisitc Harlem. That's a lot of slum!!! How depressing! The only hope for youth there is probably playing aeroball...then again, they can't be all that poor if they've all got their own jet-packs.
At the make shift stadium they encounter a young punk called Zack Harper who gatecrashes on the game that the Heroes are watching...
But there's a problem. Harper is using an illegal homemade jet pack. The jet pack has a blow out and it's Giants quick reaction that saves Harper from falling to certain death!
After saving him, Giant calms down the crowd that Harper gatecrashed on. Giant gives them his word that the kid won't bother them anymore. Harper thinks that Giant is going to turn him over to the cops but Giant has other plans. He sees a lot of potential in Harper and decides to give him a try out back at the Harlem Heroes Stadium..

The kid is a natural. Slim voices concern over the kids track record with street gangs and that Harpers old man is in jail for armed robbery. I guess Slims theory is that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Giant is willing to give the kid a break though and Zack Harper becomes a Harlem Hero.

Another turn of good fortune for the team is two players, Chico and Sammy, who were loaned out to another team, after hearing about the crash, are coming back to help out.

Now Giant has a full squad of seven players they can continue their pursuit of glory in the World Aeroball Championship...but first they must get by The Baltimore Bulls. We end this chapter with the Heroes forming their trademark 'H'.

Tom Tully is a master writer of sports stories. He's included every cliche possible and it's all summed up in the last panel... a rookie, two reserves, a forty year old veteran and opposition fans heckling the Heroes.

What's not to love!

Prog 2 - DAN DARE

Dare, not waiting to be court marshalled, has stowed away on a ship heading to Jupiter. He wants to uncover the mystery of what happened to his last crew.

But...Dan has been spotted by a guard.

What's amazing from the center spread above is...look how crazy the inside of the ship is in that second panel! How the heck did Dare get spotted and how the heck do the guards manage to find their way around the ship?

It's an Escher-like nightmare!

And the guards are going to 'molecularise him 'on sight! A bit of a harsh penalty for a stowaway.

Dan fights the guard and delivers an awesomely bad/good punchline.
'It's called...FIST!'
Two other guards rush to help their compatriot but accidently get fried by the gun of the gaurd that Dan is trying to knock out. Notice Dan's matter of fact response...
The commander of the ship - Mr. Monday is getting a debriefing of Dares whereabouts when Dare appears. Monday asks Dan to explain himself and Dan relates the story of his last trip past Jupiter. Monday doesn't believe him because Jupiter is a hell-planet and is incapable of supporting life. He orders Dares immediate execution.

The ship is just passing Jupiter at the time when Dan is about to bite the dust when a wave of pure energy hits the ship causing a bit of chaos and then forms an alien creature in front of Dan's and Monday's eyes.

Enter the Thing from the Hell Planet....
And that's how we end this little chapter.

Again Dare seems to be the weakest strip in the early issues of 2000ad. It's not hard to see why..the dialogue is painful and a lot of the story doesn't make sense...the inside of the ship for example and the guards shooting on sight!

Also, if you were going to be a fugitive on the run wouldn't you at least remove the initials of your name from the front of your shirt.

Oh well...it does get better!

Until next installment...I leave you with a pic of my favorite martian...Mr.Monday!

Prog 2 - MACH 1

We start where we left off last episode with a nice recap.

The art for this installment is by the talented Ian Kennedy. I like Kennedy's artwork but it looks a bit out of place in a comic book like 2000ad. His artwork seems more suitable for romance/war comics (Commando, Victor). But is probably best known for his work on the 80's revamp of Dan Dare. Below is a Ian Kennedy center spread from one of the 80's Eagle issues...
Notice the name of the writers...yep!..that's Pat Mills and John Wagner!

The only other strip I can remember Ian Kenndey drawing for 2000ad was a couple of Dredd strips around the 400's. And again it seemed not to fit. Now, back to MACH 1...

The strip opens up with MACH 1 having hallucinations while he tries to get to grip with controlling a bomber. Then we have a flashback to the events leading up to that moment.

MACH 1 boss, Sharpe, informs Probe that they can't shoot the bomber down because of all the nerve gas on board. Probe offers another solution.

And the solution is...

Take an RAF Nimrod...catch up to the Vulcan...jump out of the Nimrod...land on the Vulcan...tear your way into the plane and kill all the terrorists!

And Probe does just that!

After he rips his way on board...
he smashes open one of the terrorists skulls....
throws another out of the plane...
punches the last terrorist in the face causing instant death whilst...
suffering hallucinations by a leak in one of the nerve gas canisters...he safely makes an emergency landing and gets a debriefing by Sharpe!

See! Nice and easy!

Prog 2 - Flesh

Reagan is showing the rookie Joe Brontowski the ropes when a Fleshdozer is sent out of control by a not-so-stunned Styracosaurus. To emphase how dangerous the job of a ranger can be...there's a death on nearly every page of this installment...starting with poor Huck!

What a way to go! A ten ton dinosaur dropped right on top of you. 2000ad was so violent for a kids comic and was always pushing the boundaries. I'm sure if most of the violence in 2000ad was printed today in a 'kids' comic...there'd be a national uproar at how comics are warping our children. Only adults get uptight about that...as a kid reading this stuff, I thought it was really cool.

On page 2 a friend of Hucks gets caught in a grabber and is thrown into the Fleshdozer. Reagan tries to warn him of the danger but it's too late.
Reagan doesn't bat an eyelid at the death around him. It's like an everyday occurence to him and he continues his little tour of the Trans Time facility. The disturbing thing is that now the meat has been contaminated with human flesh...but there's no reference to it. Hucks friend's bits and pieces get packed in with the dinosaur bits and pieces. I guess there's no quality control at Trans Time.

Reagan shows Joe (and the readers!) what happens with the meat after it's put into huge crates. It's beamed up the time stream to the 23rd century. And we also learn why the dinosaurs are extinct!
Reagan decides to head back out with his boys and round up some more dinosaurs. They come across a herd of plant eating Alamosaurs and proceed to round them up when their spotter planes are attacked by Pteranodons. Joe is flying one of the planes and his fellow crew man has his throat ripped out. Joe fires a shot but misses and is himself attacked by another of the winged monstrosities. He doesn't have time to shoot so he decides to strangle the fiend instead!
There you have it! What better way to end this installment by having a guy trying to strangle to death a flying dinosaur cliffhanger!

2000ad folks!
Not your average comic book.

Prog 2 - INVASION

To be completely honest...one of the main reasons I wanted to do this blog was to show off some fantastic artwork. And this splash page is fantastic artwork!

An interesting note about Invasion is that the fictional Volgans were in fact supposed to be Soviet Union troops but the higher ups got cold feet and wanted fictional baddies instead. A bit of a shame really but worked out quite well in the long run for the 2000ad Universe. Pat Mills would later revisit the Volgans with the ABC Warriors and a more modern take on Savage.

The story opens with scenes of more Volgan brutality. The Volgans are killing the survivors of their nuclear attack on a major city (the strip says a midland city!) and hanging politicians from the nearest lamposts...which is not necessarily and bad thing. :-)

A group of Volgans are celebrating in a pub, rubbing the locals faces in it, when up pops Savage.

Savage proceeds to blast them to pieces and in totally bizarre fashion...he runs out of ammo and leaves the room to reload! The volgans come to their senses and try and rush Savage. Which Savage kills them all...leaves the bar...blows up their tank outside and walks off into the sunset while a stranger watches for the shadows and says...

The dialogue by todays standards is pretty funny. I couldn't help but think that the 'Stranger' is a Friend of Dorothy.

But that's not the only piece of dialogue that made me chuckle. Check out the panel below for some Dirty Harry inspired spoken words...but not as cool as the original.

Overall, it's pretty standard fare. The artwork is pretty damn good except for one panel. The panel I've posted below...It looks like Savage is shooting clones and the soldier in the middle is either doing a bizarre dance or has a huge headache!
One more thing of note. The tank crew that Bill offs in this episode are the
soldiers responsible for murdering Bills wife and kids. How Bill knows this...we
aren't told.

Prog 2 - Cover

The covers for the first few issues of 2000ad were not the stuff made of legend. Fairly average fair, to be honest.

This did improve as the year went on when the comic started to get it's footing. Another fun free gift this issue...biotronic stickers that you stuck on your arm! I wonder how many kids punched walls expecting their arms to go through and got busted knuckles instead.

It's a kind of tradition for the first two or three issues of a new comic to have free gifts. Nowadays it's fairly commonplace to have more free gifts in a kids comic than to have content! Funny how things flip.

Nothing memorable about this cover at all. As you can see Dan Dare is still the main attraction. Judge Dredd does have his first appearance in this issue but I don't think the 2000ad gang were confident enough in the strength of the strip yet to give Dredd the front cover. In fact, if I can remember, Dredd was a bit of developmental hell for Pat Mills.