Oli Davis Comic Reviews

Helium is the Scrotnig Story of the Week again. I'm pretty confident it will be for each week of its run. Ian Edginton and D'Israeli have created a wholly absorbing world, a mixture of steampunk, Wild West, science fiction and horror.

2000AD Prog 1936's Scrotnig Story of the WeekAbsalom has been a horrid read so far, and not in fun, demented, Crossed kinda way. It's protagonist is too coarse to empathise with, the dialogue muddied with clunky turns of phrase, and now, this week, it's"it's"pretty darn good. Gordon Rennie barely uses a single line of cockney slang in this instalment, instead writing Absalom as a downbeat mediator, the man tasked with sweeping everything up after the chaos settles. Absalom's present day story is bookended by a 1983 flashback, detailing one of the orphans at the children's home Absalom is investigating. It's gruesome in a good way. A very good episode, and with Rennie's incredible Jaegir returning next week, the writer is on something of a roll.

I interviewed Rennie not too long ago about the strip's first arc for its release in the US. There, he called Kapiten Inspector Jaegir the most developed character he's ever created. It's true. Imagine if the Nazis had won World War II. Then imagine, years later, that their government established a division to investigate war crimes. That's Jaegir's job, travelling from human rights atrocity to human rights atrocity, judging what (weak) moral parameters have been crossed. Now she finds herself in Tartarus, one of the most controversial communities forged in the Nordland war. Spectacular stuff.

After two surprisingly terrific weeks, Absalom cools off a little this issue.

Ian Edginton is an incredible world builder, but he loves certain tropes so much that it can feel like he's just copying and pasting devices from previous stories.

Absalom gets the front cover treatment this week. Tiernen Trevallion's work on it is terrific; few draw creases as well as him. Look at the left arm of the nearest police officer in the strip's second panel. The air stinks of decay.

A 2000AD issue is only as strong as its weakest strip. Going by the last eight weeks, and Outliers' varying degree of quality (mainly down the end of the scale), the comic's overall rating has suffered. This week's Part 8, however, is terrific, with T. C. Eglington finally striking the right balance of action and meaning.

Any scene in Helium could be replaced by one in Brass Sun and you wouldn't know the difference. Ian Edginton's doubling up on plot points, narrative devices and overall tone is undoing all his fantastic world building work.

Helium still feels like it's treading water. Actually, scrap that expression. Helium still feels like it's treading an ocean of poison gas. That works better.

The Harmonious Free finally seem to be listening to Bulliet's warnings, but otherwise its a rarely uneventful instalment " particularly for an opener.