Tuesday 15 November 2011

2000AD 11 Feb 1978


Not visited Tharg's periodical for quite a while, so lets have a delve shall we?
Mr Dare is on the cover, replicating his Eagle days, and, boy, Star Wars was showing its influence in this tale - "Laser Swords", "Dark Lords" and a "Star Slayer Empire" - but its still a rollicking read and back then my number one tale. Looking at it now, the "Stomm" expletive seems odd outside of Dredd's world and the character himself could be anyone. In fact, in the action scenes, the way Dare carries himself and his innner monologues, that could be Johnny Alpha or even Dredd fighting there.
"Visible Man" was terrific, then and now, not for the plot - which is a bog standard man on the run tale - for the terrific art by Montero. It really is terrifically gruesome, each episode usually having a frame to show off Frank's predicimant, and here we have him wolfing down some wedding cake:

Brilliant Dredd tale by John Wagner under the nom de plume of "Howard", with brilliant early Dredd art by Brian Bolland. Its an excellent tale with an excellent premise - war between America and the Sov's is fought out by two small bands of warriors on Luna-1. Its got excellent action for sure but its unusual for the time in that it end with a proper anti-war message, literally rammed home by Dredd:

"Invasion" is still plodding on, but its got lovely, gritty art, which i thought was by Mike Dorey, but turns out its J. Clough. That look on Savage's face as he stands there with the rocket launcher is a classic:

And last up we have "Inferno", a truely naff tale - but Belardinelli's art is still oustanding.
Can't think of anyone else who could draw a simple fire extinguisher firing look so weird and unique:

"AIEEEE!" WATCH:
Oddly, considering the action going on, none.

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