2000 AD's Greatest: Celebrating 40 Years of Thrill-Power!

by John Wagner, Alan Grant, Pat Mills

From humorously twisted Future Shocks to the dystopian escapades of Judge Dredd, 2000 AD has inspired generations of readers and has spawned some of the greatest talents in the comics industry. To celebrate the creative droids behind the Galaxy's Greatest Comic, a selection of writers and artists from across 2000 AD's forty-year history were asked to choose their favourite one-off story by a fellow creator and explain why they chose it. The result is this incredible anthology featuring work by Alan Grant, Kevin O'Neill, Rob Williams, Brian Bolland, Chris Weston and Steve Dillon selected by creators such as founding editor Pat Mills, celebrated artist Jock and recent newcomer Tom Foster.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Science Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics

112 pages, Paperback

First published February 9, 2017

About the author

John Wagner is a comics writer who was born in Pennsylvania in 1949 and moved to Scotland as a boy. Alongside Pat Mills, Wagner was responsible for revitalising British boys' comics in the 1970s, and has continued to be a leading light in British comics ever since. He is best known for his work on 2000 AD, for which he created Judge Dredd. He is noted for his taut, violent thrillers and his black humour. Among his pseudonyms are The best known are John Howard, T.B. Grover, Mike Stott, Keef Ripley, Rick Clark and Brian Skuter. (Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Travis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty decent grab bag of stories from across the history of 2000 AD picked by some contemporary contributors, but there are some glaring omissions. No Strontium Dog? Rogue Trooper? Slaine? Etc etc. When you've got as deep a bench as this comic does, then obviously not every major series is gonna get an airing in any given anthology, but holy hell, this feels sparse.

Still, there's some great stuff here. The Heart is a Lonely Klegg Hunter is a banger, and if you ever wanted a look at Shok!, the story that *ahem* "inspired" the movie Hardware, here it is.

[Kam Yung Soh · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a selection of one-off stories as selected by 200AD's writers and artists themselves, so there is no overall theme, apart from interesting stories. Some are from the early 2000AD days, while others are from annuals. But some of them are interesting.

Among those I enjoyed here which I haven't read before are:

- The Heart is a Lonely Klegg Hunter: a Judge Dredd story about an alien Klegg living in Mega-City One. It only wants to live as a humble citizen, but some people have other plans for it. Can it keep to its true self, instead of turning into a ravenous beast?

- The Strange Case of the Wyndham Demon: a story of a demon hunter versus an interesting kind of demon summoned into our world

- Beyond The Wall: a Judge Dredd story involving a juvenile who gets interrogated by Dredd for a suspected crime. But the crime would turn out to be for an enjoyment denied to many Mega-City One citizens.

- The Runner: another Judge Dredd story, only here he is the villain of the story after judging an innocent citizen whose crime was to 'just' run.

- A Close Encounter of the Fatal Kind!: about an SF writer who gets abducted by aliens. He outwits them and prepares a story to be submitted to Tharg (the alien editor of 2000AD) only to be foiled by his own mistake.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

An intriguing concept, this takes past and present contributors - writers & artists, mainly - from 2000AD (the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic!) and asks them to choose their favourite one-off stories from the comic’s 40 year history. Naturally, Judge Dredd features heavily and some great characters are conspicuous by their absence (more, I suspect, from the format requirement than anything else), but there’s a nice mix in everything else from humour to horror. As an early fan of the comic (I stopped reading in the mid-80s) it was great to see my era so well represented but I think every decade is catered for and it’s a wonderful, eclectic mix. If you love the comic, you’ll love this and I highly recommend it.

[Mylesgorton · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent anthology of "the best" 2000AD tales (and not all are Judge Dredd BTW) selected by 2000AD artists and writers. There are many here which I remember reading in the original releases, and all of them are strong stories and wonderfully illustrated. One I had not read before was The Runner which is about a runner in Mega City One (no surprise there I suppose) - and I am now enamoured with that story, partly perhaps because I run a bit myself. Anyhow - a cracking collection well worthy of celebrating 40 years of the Galaxy's Greatest Comic!!

[Tony · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having creators pick the stories is a fun way to mark the anniversary and it's a good mix.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

I prefer my fascists ficitional. 2 years in the iso-cubes, creeps!