The Ballad Of Halo Jones: Book 3 (2000AD #451-466)

"I run on into the madness, with woman on my boots" - Halo Jones

Well after the epic that was DMZ I'm doing a UK comics month although I deserve a holiday I feel, so posts will be a bit sporadic, but I hope you enjoy what we've got. The final parts of The Ballad of Halo Jones and Zenith as well as wrapping up the first multi-book series of Devlin Waugh as well as the ongoing adventures of the V.C.s and Megacity Undercover.  There should be something there for everyone I hope. Kicking us off is the final volume of Halo Jones, written by Alan Moore and drawn by Ian Gibson for mid eighties 2000AD.  Halo Jones is a young woman who grew up in the poverty and low expectations of a place on Earth where societies flotsam was kept.  After escaping that enviroment and striking out into deep space as a hostess on the starship The Clara Pandy, we left her on a sad note as her friend who promised to meet her in one years time had decided to stay on Earth.  Downcast but firm, Halo Jones told her she was never coming back to The Hoop and that brought Book 2 to an end.  We join her now after a ten year jump and life it seems has worn her down further.  As her thirties are reached we rejoin her, unable to think of anything better to do than join the army and fight in an incredibly sci-fi war.

The prologue finds Halo getting drunk in a bar on a planet called "Pwuc" a place where people didn't go to but ended up at. After quitting her job on the Clara Pandy she wandered the inner systems looking for work to get further to the stars. Elsewhere a war in the Tarantula dragged into its second decade and the galactic economy was on the verge of collapse, "few jobs paid even enough to live on". And none paid enough for interstellar travel.

Halo perservered drifting from job to job, one day back on Earth there was a slaughter on the Hoop, after that she managed three days on a job cutting down sentient treats.   Records on what she did that are spotty but, "she was a woman with no money... she'd escaped the Hoop to find a bigger prison waiting outside".   Turning twenty-nine she finally realised it was inescapable.  So she spent her days gatting drunk, "on Pwuc the Catsblood never ran dry... only the dreams".

Rock bottom.

We join Halo waking from a nightmare, a lizard alien calls her saying a "glory barge" has arrived with possible jobs.   It's a military recruiter, he shows off a very tall female soldier to encourage the women to join.  It's Toy, Halo's fellow hostess from the Clara Pandy.   They go off together to have a drink, after a few glasses they chat a bit about what it's like in the service.

Toy asks Halo why she doesn't join up, which Halo laughs off.  Toy says it's good pay with travel to other galaxys.  It's mainly peace keeping work, "they told me there was practically no chance we'd get to Tarantula" says Toy.   Halo remembers her nightmare of being caught in giant spider webs, Toy invites her back to her cabin to rest and Jalo decides to join up, "I mean... what have I got to lose?"

Now a soldier she reflects that she was told it was supposed to be "a great big happy slappy family of caring sharing people" and we see two women wrestling over one having stolen the rations of another.   She's been assigned to "Beta Platoon" which turns out to be the place where soldiers with defects are placed. 

Then we cut to them on exercises, both she and Toy get "killed" so have a chat, Toy moans she always ends up dead. Then we see them in a lecture hall being told about degenerate savages on a planet elsewhere. Toy is ignoring the lecturer and listening to her favourite soap opera on her satellite implant. She end up getting a bit too into it and interrupts the lecture.

Joined the army.

We then join them in the mess hall as Halo flirts with and optical specialist, "today I learned to blind people with my thumbs" says Halo to him and he scarpers.  We then see them suited up as Halo complains to Toy:

Halo: "Toy this leaflet is a joke!  I never should have let you talk me into enlisting!"

They've also been sent to a warzone, much sooner than they should have been, as they jump out of the ship the sergeant says they might get lucky and be one of the sixty percent whose chutes actually open.

They have been posted to an occupied world called "Lobis Lovo" by the natives and "warzone 18" by the military.  Halo hates it there, hates having to search old people and kids in case they are terrorists, "I hate the way they look at me" she thinks.  But at least it's a job.  There camp is on the edge of a petrified jungle where the guerillas are hiding.

There are no recreation facilities so Beta platoon make there own entertainment.   Toy relays what she is listening to for their amusement.  Halo is getting to know the other women better, Mona is the nicest although she is terribly nervous.  There is also one called "Life Sentence" who refused to leave when her time was up.  She's re-enlisted eleven times and doesn't speak.

Next day they are given a pep talk by  general "Luiz Cannibal" a huge man with tusks.  Mona faints, he is chill about it and asks Halo if she finds him terrifying.    She says no and he says that pleases him.   She tell them they need to intensify their slash and burn within the petrified jungle. He tells them this is their training grond before they move onto more dangerous warzones. He then leaves as Halo reflects how warm his hand were when he cupped her chin.

Luiz Cannibal.

Later Halo plucks up the courage to speak to Life Sentence who tells her not to call her that, "it's not a life sentence, it's just my job okay?"  Halo apologises and asks her about jungle fighting, the woman tells her a story that three hundred women went into a thicket and never came out.  Halo asks what happened next, Life Sentence says nothing, if Halo doesn't understand she'll probably die. Halo asks her about the necklace of what she thinks is figs round her neck, but actually its made of ears.

Next day Beta platoon drives out on patrol into the petrified forest. They come under fire and the vehicle crashes. They take cover behind it.  Toy and Halo flank the tree where the sniper is:

Halo: "It hardly seemed real.  Something kept taking bites from the gravel at my feet.   And above the gunfire I could hear a woman screaming 'Anwo koyok ga!'  The bullets were all the translation I needed".

As Toy and Halo move they argue about if this constitutes combat or combat experience.   Toy says if they are still alive at the end it's experience.

They thow a "trembler" grenade at the tree and it knocks the sniper out of the tree, "...and then Bekti shot her in the back".  Bekti celebrates, but when they check the body they realise she is a child proably not more that eleven.  But they refuse to accept that and Halo thinks, "the sniper got older all the way home... and by the time we reached the base she practically died of old age"

We then jump to Beta platoon on their first night reconnaissance, the blackbox recorder of sergeant  Verna Krause who says he thought they were ready.  He narrates the rest of the chapter, they went out together, the sergeant and six privates including Halo Jones.  Everything was going fine until they ran over a "mole mine" and it blew up their vehicle.

Disaster on patrol.

One died, the rest were trown clear, but they came under heavy fire and Bekti was gunned down.  One of them threw a grenade and two guerillas caught fire.  There was an exchange of fire, more were gunned down and he was mortally wounded.  His recording falters then ends.  Halo picks it up and appears to be the only one left alive.  "Oh sweet Matthew, Marx, Luke and Jung... what am I going to do?" says Halo to herself.  But then Toy is also alive, albeit badly wounded on her foot.  She can't walk so Halo looks for something she can drag Toy back to base on.

Halo, supporting Toy start walking through the forest.   Toy is in too much pain to walk though so Halo decides to construct a stretcher for her as they have no proper first aid avaliable to them.  Halo patches Toy up the best she can and builds something for her to lie on out of the petrified wood and cloth from her uniform.  Toy is in thoughtful mood.

Toy: "This feels funny being laid up like this.  I feel... I dunno. I feel like there's stuff I should be saying. Stuff you don't talk about except when you're like this."

She admits to Halo that she is big and loud and has a hard time expressing her feelings, "I... I really like you Halo" she says.  Obliviously Halo says she likes Toy too, she's her best friend.  Toy sadly replies, "best friends. That's what I meant."

Halo drags Toy back to where they had crashed on their reconniassance mission, it's been grafittied on and the corpses stripped of gear.  Toy is becoming delirious and starts reliving when the robot dog Toby attacked them on the Clara Pandy.   Halo tries to figure out which is the right way out of the forest but starts suffering delayed shock.

Halo has a breakdown.

She keeps dragging Toy who has stopped responding to her as Halo rambles on saying she feels distant, she's always been afraid something like this would happen but now here she is coping with it.   She keeps talking to herself until she bumps into Mona and some of the others who'd come out to look for them.  One of the medics attends to Toy but drops the bombshell, "how long ago did she die?"  Halo completely freaks out, and the combat report says she had to be sedated and Toys belongings were signed over to her.

She wakes from a dream where she is dancing on the Clara Pandy with Toy and Rodice, "and then I wake up.  And Toy is still dead.  And I cry my guts out" thinks Halo.  She signed her release papers to leave the army, Luiz Cannibal came in and asked her to stay but she shook her head.  The person processing her papers said Halo would be back, maybe in six weeks or six months but she'll be back.

The tranquilizers finally wore off and she found herself on a street corner of the planet "Hispus" with no home and no job.  She queues up for a job, when she says what she is experienced in the person she's applying through suggests the army.  She gets a place to live but there is no work.  One say she hacks off all her hair:

Halo: "I just feel like doing something ugly and painful and stupid".

She wonders if they sell the Catsblood alchohol there.  She goes out and buys a second hand gun that she tells herself is for self defence.  She takes it apart and reassembles it several times.  She sits in her window and aims down the sights at the people outside.  Then she realises what she is doing is crazy and she needs to get out of there.

Can't readjust to civilian life.

"But there's only one place I can go" she realises. She returns to the woman who processed her release papers and signs up again.  The woman tells her that ninety percent of people who leave prematurely come back.  She tells Halo to run along and get her uniform and as she rips up Halo's release papers, Halo says "where else have I got to go?"

She's put back in beta Platoon, their new sergeant is a woman called "Juno Myrmidon" taking the late Krause's place.  Mona tells them they are beig moved to the planet Moab and this one has a combat rating of "warzone one". Life Sentence is and official member of Bata Platoon.  in the ness hall some of the women try to bully halo over going crazy, scaling herself and being a disgrace to the uniform.  Life Sentence throws hot liquid in their faces and tell everyone to leave Halo alone. She whispers to Halo:

Life Sentence: "Don't worry.  Gonna take care of ya. You re-enlisted.  You're like me 'Life Sentence' right? Huh huh huh huh.  Two of a kind now you understand what I'm saying?"

Next they are shown a film about Moab, it has enormous gravity whicg requires the wearing of tortoise-like suits.   But it also has an effect on time too, but Halo stops listening then.

Next stop Moab.

Two days later they all start learning to walk in the gravity suits.  It has one weakness, the valve on the front.  It opens and the suit will collapse and crush the person inside flat as a pancake.   Tommorrow they are being moved to Moab, Luiz Cannibal appears and asks Halo why she cut her hair, she says she wanted to look ugly.  He asks why, "you're the one with implanted tusks.  You tell me!" He roars with laughter then says he'll tell her one day, but for now, see you on Moab.

Halo: "I don't know why I said it and can't understand why he didn't fry me.  Maybe he file a complaint later, but I don't care.  I mean how's going to punish me?  Send me to Moab?"

They land on Moab and meet some of the friendly Moabites, "they are sort of pear shaped.  As if their body fat has settled" notes Halo.

Arrival on Moab.

In the barracks, the nervy Mona is having people want to stick close to her as they think she is naturally lucky.  Then someone says there are men there  and rush off to see them leaving Mana and Halo behind. As they follow the others Halo muses that Moab is the key planet in the war, if it falls so does the whole Tarantula nebula.   They can then exploit mineral wealth and get the galactic economy back on track.

The men turn out to be "slabs", special labour auxiliary bio-engineered.   She doesn't care for them nor the cheese they have to eat. She is offered fried eggs but refuses, grossed by them.   Suddenly the eggs hatch and the gravity shields start failing. They all rush for the mess hall exit, bumping  into Mona who had just limped there. A woman inside realises she can't make it and the room gets sealed off and the gravity seal ruptured completely. Moan is declared lucky again for missing it all and Halo helps her back to barracks.

Next we find them on patrol, the tunnel a shield so they don't need the heavy suits.  They are looking for the "Free Moabite Army".  They split up, Mona going one way with the one whose declared her a lucky mascot.  Halo goes with Life Sentence, she's ready for a fight, wondering what sort of ears they have.  Patrol comes to an ignominous halt when one of them shoots Mona in the foot and the all have to return to base.

Two weeks on Moab and they are in the heavy gravity suits, training in the relative safety of a tunnel.  Halo says she feels funny, "everything seems weird and slow and unreal."  Sarge says it's the "time dilation effect" and they'll get used to it.  She then tells them, "and as for this place being weird... just you you wait till you've been in the Crush".

Week Three and they are on reconnaissance outside in the gravity suits. Mona tells them about the Moab religion,  if you're good you float up into the sky, if you're  bad you sink down to a terrible place underground as they inspect a hole in the ground.

Week Four and they are attending orientation.  They are told that there more than two dozen heavy gravity zones on Moab and the nearest one is the worst, "we call it the crush".   It crushes time as well.  In the crush, time fractures completely which is why the native Moab terrorists have chosen to make their stand there.   She tells them if they cann't imagine in, next week they're going in for real.

War in the Crush.

Week Five, external combat.  Halo is keen to get some fighting done and they walk out of the door and into fire.

Halo: "In through the shield doors, stumbling over each other, we enter the crush.   All screaming to ourselves I our sound proof helmets. Ahead violent lights crackling, flashing: enemy beam weapons that can liquify rock. I advance towards them...there's no running away.  Not in a G-suit".

Things distort and slow around them, the fire the are under is relentless, taking several of them out.  They see some frozen figures and walk to them as they are in a different time scale.  As they walk towards them they begin to move. One woman's suit is breached and she is turned into a smear of blood they stand in. They work their way to the artillery position but it's dead.  "Should be pumping out two thousand pulses a second" says the sarge they joined up with.  They have to notify the cyberneticists back at base.

They manage to get back to base, piling in through the doors.  Halo is then informed she's now a coporal.  She got promoted a week after she went into the Crush. They have a new sergeant replacing Myrmidon who fell ten days ago.  All in all they were in the Crush for two months, "but don't get any big ideas. You only get paid for five minutes" says the new sarge.

Halo spends more time fighting in the crush and is saddened to realise she missed her thirtieth birthday, by two weeks. "I'm thirty but I don't remember it happening" she ruminates.

Halo: "I've been fighting in the crush for two days now. I've been fighting in the crush for six months... I'm not crazy... but I'm working on it".

One day out in the crush, Mona falls over.  Halo and private Exxon roll her back down to the doorway and Exxon is hit and is crushed into a wet smear as Mona and Halo make it back inside.  Mona is celebrated as the first person to fall over in the crush and not die. She been sick in her suit.

Later they are shown some "hologanda" from Earth to raise morale.  The main item is the marriage of Lux Roth Chop aged twenty-three.  Halo remembers dancing with him when he was eleven, "was that really me who did that?  Yes. Yes that was me... this isn't"
Day five and she turns thirty-two and they are told Earth is winning.  Day ten and she's promoted to sergeant and turns thirty-three.  Leuitenant Wo tells them victory is only days away.  "Do the their days or ours?" she thinks.  Her team raise a globe on a stick and suddenly the shooting at them stops.   Then they walk back to the base, completely free of enemy fire.

And the war is over.

They go inside and find the place deserted apart from a woman running a cleaner over the floor. They are told the war is over, it happened weeks ago when Earth's economy collapsed.  The Ceteceans stepped in and negociated a ceasefire with the Tarantulan colonists.  Life Sentence grabs the cleaner in a rage saying "YOU GIVE US BACK OUR WAR!"

Halo is tasked with finding the other platoons out on Moab's surface, but when she finds them they won't believe the war is over.  Halo thinks:

Halo: "They won't listen.  They could be at home with their men, their children. But they've somehow got stuck in a war that doesn't exist anymore.  Some of them will be out their for years.  How do we clean up that kind of mess?  How do we clean up the mess in people's heads, in people's lives, all that loss and pain?"

A Cetecean comes to inspect them. Halo shows them the Moabites living on little food and amongst the ruined icons of their faith.  The Ceteceans feel strongly and says, "what have we done?  What have we done to them?  What have we done to ourselves?"  Halo wants to rush up and cry or apologise, "but I couldn't meet her eyes".  The Cetecean moves on leaving Halo thinking how if you could give a "conscience a shape it would look like a dolphin".

Later she discovers Life Sentence having slit her wrists.  She says war was like a mother to her, and now her mother is dead, "what's the point of me?"  And she dies smiling in Halo's arm.

Halo: "'What's the point of me?' I really hope that's isn't the thought I take with me into eternity."

She reflects that she's cold and lonely and all her friends are now gone. Luiz Cannibal appears and notes she writing and that only one person in a thousand still writes. He then bluntly asks if she has a lover and as they listen to the sirens she finds he's taken her hand.

He sends for her to come to breakfast in one of the more desolate areas of Moab.   As she thinks about the shattered fragments of her life she eats the most delicious meal of her life.  He tries to make small talk, but Halo cuts straight to the point, that he's attracted to her.  She says she is attracted to him as well, because he scares her and he has nice hands:

Halo: "I know you're going to be bad news.   And I want to be with you anyway.  You think that means I've got an unhealthy attitude?"

He says he thinks it means they understand each other.  Then he takes her to the western hangers and shows her a beautiful spaceship.  It is capable of visiting the far systems, they could go anywhere in it.  With the war finished he wants to leave soon and take her with him.

Luiz Cannibal's ship.

He says the Ceteceans are making things difficult for those who managed the war, "we face hearings.  Investigations".  Halo joins him as he faces one now, afterwards his career "may mean little".  He performs magnificently at the hearing.  He is particularly asked about how come  why in warzone five was the planet Charzon razed by atomic fire. He says there was an accident with a nuclear waste dump.  Halo notes that question had "drawn blood".

That night they sleep together and after they have sex she sleeps and dreams again of being entangled in spider webs, "in my dreams the passageways are filled with cobwebs and corpses".  She knows what there is to worry about and what she has to lose, but when she wakes up she can only remember the terror.

Luiz and Halo get intimate.

She keeps dreaming of spiders as times comes closer for her and Luiz to leave. The trials are war crime ones, Halo wonders why they won't believe him, he responds "because they are blinkered, self righteous fools.  No matter.  At least you believe me. At least I have you".
That afternoon they keep pressing Luiz about the devastated warzone.  Aparently before it was burned there were reports of cholera and bubonic plague.  They accuse Luiz of infecting the planet and killing it that way befor covering it up with nuclear firestorm. "You're talking about ratwar" frowns Luiz.  The inquisitor says yes they are.

Halo thinks about ratwar,  millions of diseased rats controlled by one man flowiing across a world carrying disease, plague, madness and death.  Luiz says do they have proof he had a Rat King?  They don't, but Halo remembers helping the Rat King on the Clara Pandy in the previous volume.   Luiz stalks away from the hearing saying he's offended they'd accuse him without proof while Halo realises she saved the Rat King, it was all her fault, "Oh Luiz.  Luiz you lied."

Halo: "You killed  a planet and you dragged me into it.  Even before I met you.  That's the worst thing: I thought I was innocent then."

He climbs into a heavy suit saying to Halo he has some valuables to collect.  She kisses him and unseen by him as she does so she sabotages the seal of the suit.  He walks away, smug, "within minutes he'll be a puddle of jelly.  He doesn't know it yet but he's dead."  She contemplates her future, her past dead to her.  She goes to the western hanger and tells the guard she has permission to take the ship on a test drive.

Halo: "It's night and there are so many stars up there. Gradually the cruiser gathers speed... the nose lifts as I prepare to tear free of Moab's gravity. It feels like a web, straining against me, growing taut, finally snapping strand by strand... and then I'm out... just out".

Finally a way to the far distant stars.

And that brings Halo Jones's story to a premature end.  The planned nine book series truncated to three after Moore ended his relationship with 2000AD over not being granted the rights to his creation.  Apparently he still is interested in finishing the story if he and Ian Gibson are given the rights.  That's not going to happen so we end on the somewhat melancholy yet hopeful note as Halo breaks free from everything holding her back and bringing her down and striking out on her own.  Unlike the first two books which I read back in the eighties when I was a teenager, I didn't read this volume until round about my fortieth birthday.  Her situation in this book struck several chords with me. After I escaped a stifling small town upbringing and moved to the city, mental health issues meant I drifted from temp job to temp job until things got so bad I couldn't work anymore.  I wound up turning thirty at the very pits of my life which took several years to drag myself out of, and part of that was learning to let go of the parts of the past that were holding me back. I didn't drink but did engage in self destructive behaviour.  Which makes Halo one of the comic book characters I identify with and relate to the most.  The whole story here is fantastic, the war taking place in periods of very slow time is a brilliant idea and I hadn't realised how much this story (and other 2000AD strips) influenced the writers of the Virgin Doctor Who New Adventures. Also kudos for subtly including a lesbian character with Toy's confession of love for Halo. Ian Gibson's art is fantastic as ever, handling all the different characters beautifully as well as giving us striking renderings of things like the heavy G-suits and the imposing Luiz Cannibal.  It truly is a pity that we didn't get Halo's full story, and I am not sure I'd want it now as the Moore of now is not the Moore of the nineteen eighties.  Maybe better to imagine closure to her story than have it spelt out.

The Ballad Of Halo Jones: Book 2 (2000AD #405-415)

"I heard what you said. I'm not coming back to The Hoop" - Halo Jones

Time to kick off another UK comic's month with a classic, the most well regarded of  Alan Moore's British work - The Ballad of Halo Jones, drawn by the talented Ian Gibson. It's interesting that it wasn't a hit right out the gate, the first volume wasn't actually very popular with the readership of 2000AD coming dead last in a reader poll the year it ran.  But Tharg recognises when quality needs time to bed in and so we got volume two and three before Alan had his usual falling out with editorial and left the planned nine volume series a tantalising six volumes short.  Today we're checking out volume two, and the thing that is most noticable from the start is the often impenetrable future slang has been ditched and everyone now speaks normal British English.  Our hero is Halo Jones, a young woman who lived on Earth in a place called The Hoop where the unemployed and unemployable were shunted off to exist out of sight and out of mind.  It was a dangerous place where even a simple trip to the shops could result in death if not planned out in advance.  Halo yearned to escape and when a job opportunity came up waitressing on a luxury space cruiser called "The Clara Pandy" she took it.  She bid her best friend Rodice farewell and Rodice promised to follow her and meet her on the planet Charlmange in a years time.  Halo took Toby, their highly intelligent robot guard dog with her, as Toby's owner - another woman she and Rodice lived with - had been brutally murdered so he had nothing left to stay for on The Hoop either.  This story then tells the tale of one year aboard The Clara Pandy from the perspective of one of the lowly workers.  Now read on.

It begins with a prologue designed to fill readers in on the events of book one.  It is a class being taught about legends from the past and the teacher moves on to one very dear to his heart, "Halo Jones" which he has just published a program on the subject that one of his pupils cynically says he wants them to buy.

He says that over the centuries a lot of "nonsense and distortion" has grown up around her. That she was a war criminal, that she met "Lux Roth Chop, Luiz Cannibal and Sally Guaja".  Some people even think she was a man called "Hal Jones".

Halo Jones is now studied in classes.

To tell them about the real Halo Jones he tells them about The Hoop.  We also find out the Different Drummers (who one of her friends joined in book one) were wiped out in a massacre a few years after she left. One pupil says she heard Halo left Earth after a failed relationship with her boyfriend "Rodrice". 

The tutor laughs and says no, it was "Rodice" and she was Halo's female best friend.  Although after she left Earth she arranged to meet her on the planet Charlmange after getting work on the Lux Roth Chop owned luxury space liner The Clara Pandy after the death of another friend.

Tutor: "I've spent years researching this woman - and do you know what I've found out?  It's this... she wasn't anything special.  She wasn't that brave.  That clever.  Or that strong.  She was just someone who felt cramped by the confines of her life.  She was someone who just had to get out."

And she did get out, to places that don't even exist anymore and she said of herself afterwards, "Anybody could have done it."  The class breaks up and the pupil that showed an interest in Halo comes to talk to the tutor.  She says he talks about her very movingly, and he admits he has fallen in love with her despite her dying "fourteen hundred years ago."

A new life for Halo.

Then we begin proper, with Halo writing a missive to Rodice telling her all abouther new life.  She shares a cabin with a tough, seven foot tall woman called "Toy".  Halo says "she's the toughest woman I've ever met.  You'd hate her."  She also mentions a stowaway that she isn't sure what gender they are, and has trouble bringing them to mind.

Her hostess job is "slappy" although she wasn't sure about the sexy leotard she had to wear at first.  Halo tells Toy that if a woman back on The Hoop showed even her ankles, "well, we just didn't do it."  Toy reassures her she looks fine and off they go, Halo ignoring the stowaway's question about The Hoop.

Halo tells Rodice that the passengers they serve are "loud and rich" and one of them - a woman called  "Cezanne Goleiter" - has a very familiar voice.  She also tells Rodice she has a crush on the ship's cyberneticist "Mix Minegold".  "He doesn't say much, but he's probably incredibly deep" she says of him.

Kit the steersdolphin

The other best thing is the "steersman", a dolphin or "Cetacean" who goes by the name of "Kititirik Tikrikitit".  Halo speaks his language so she gets to hang out and keep him company and call him "Kit".  Toby is also doing fine and doesn't seem to be unhappy over his mistress Brinna's death.

Halo says Toby needs his memory spools replacing every six months and his replacement time is coming up:

Halo: "It must be nice mustn't it, to be able to take your old memories and throw them away, and start again with a nice clean spool".

She then tells Rodice there is a secret passenger that she just leaves food outside the door of.  She finishes her message asking Rodice if she has a job yet and if she'll beat her to Charlemange.

Mix comes up behind her saying he didn't know she used the "observation blister" so late.  Halo says she was just composing a letter and wanted to finish it while looking at the stars.  She tells him she was particularly looking at one bright star that looked lonely but beautiful at the same time.  Mix smiles and says it's not a star, "that's our solid wastes disposal trailer."

Hijack!

The next chapter begins with a man jamming a gun to Halo's head as she goes to visit Kit.  They are soldiers in the "Tarantulan Emancipation Army" and will kill Halo and Kit if the captain doesn't broadcast their demands to the whole ship.  The leader then says to the people of Earth that "under the command of the hated torturer, Luiz Cannibal, your planet wages undeclared war on the free colony worlds of the Tarantula Nebula".

The owner of the ship, Lux Roth Chop supports this war effort.  They have demands they want meeting or Halo and Kit will end up dead.  Toby, elsewhere on the ship, pricks up his ears at this.  As they give out their demands, Toby races to where Halo is being held.  He rips through the wall and tears the hijackers to bits.

Toby is one bad mofo.

Security arrive and ask what happened. "I happened" says Toby.  Mix comes in and says it was a terrible thing.  Thinking he's talking to her, Halo says she thought she'd be killed.  But he walks past her and fusses over a damaged computer instead.

The next chapter has Halo recovering back in her cabin and she notices the androgynous person who lives there as well.  Halo asks them who they are and they say with great surprise, "you... you really want to know who I am?"  Halo and Toy say yeah.

Introducing Glyph.

The androgynous being is called Glyph.  Glyph thinks they started out as a girl, or maybe a boy. Glyph can't be sure.  Glyph ended up not happy as either and with a serious case of body dysmorphia had forty-seven "body remoulds" which finally left them as they are now, completely devoid of gender identifying characteristics and also, "my personality had been completely erased.  That's why I'm so boring".

Glyph: "People stopped listening to what I was saying and didn't seem to notice I was there. Everybody forgot about me.  I wasn't a boy, I wasn't a girl.  I was just a cypher.  Some sort of glyph".
Glyph couldn't get a job, and couldn't get served in restaurants. One day Glyph's landlady moved a new family into her apartment.  Despite Glyph's complaints, no one noticed they were there.  "I was as if I'd somehow slipped beneath the threshold of human awareness".

Glyph had no home, no friends, no money but didn't starve because they could just steal food.  They also enjoyed sitting down to a meal with others, pretending to be part of the family. They slipped aboard The Clara Pandy and has been living there on the fringes ever since.

Glyph asks if Halo and Toy could maybe say hello to her every now and then or listen to her jokes.  But Glyph is talking to empty air.  Halo and Toy have their backs to her and are discussing holo-soaps. Toy says she likes them because "she's naturally interested in people" while Glyph turns away and sits sadly in the background.

Poor Glyph.

Four months out, and Halo complains she hasn't seen any "natural wonders of space yet".  Halo goes and delivers food to the secret passenger in the Presidential Suite.  The two guards check her ID and tell her to go lay it down and not look at the food as well.  Curiosity gets the better of her and she sneaks a peek at the food and it's plain gruel.

Then she hears a squeaking noise coming from inside the cabin and ventures in to investigate.  She gets a big shock when she sees the inhabitnats are several rats linked by their tales and able to communicate via computer screen.  One of them is dying and Halo is to find a replacement.

Rat King: "We am Rat King.  Five joined as one. One of us is dying. Must replace, or knot will fall apart, one mind break into five stupid minds.  No more Rat King".

They end with a threat.  Halo is to find a healthy, strong rat to join them within the next hour.  If she fails, she will die too.

The Rat King.

Halo goes grovelling round for a rat but keeps missing them.  Glyph comes up and says Halo can tell her whats bothering because people forget Glyph so soon after, so Halo tells her about the Rat King and her need for another rat.  Glyph says "rats don't notice me either" and grabs one for Halo.  Glyph offers to do other little jobs for Halo if she wants them too, but Halo is gone and without saying thank you either.

The Rat King undoes it's tail knot enough to free the dead one.  The new rat joins the collective quite agreeably.  They ask her to dispose of the body and not tell anyone about this on pain of death.  How will they know, she asks them. "Trust we" it responds. Halo puts it in the disposal and back in her cabin, laments to Toy that she "has to trust a bunch of rats".

Toy: "You've been a woman for eighteen years and you only just realised that?"

Eight months out and there is to be a party that night.  Tentatively Halo tries to ask Mix out, but he misreads her and says she won't be staying home alone tonight, she can listen Toby's old audio memory spools of her friends back on The Hoop.

Toy enters the cabin saying she has a date, Halo says she is staying home with Toby.  But he's out on patrol.  "Stood up by a dog!" laments Halo. She intends to stay in and watch the tapes which will probably make her blub.

The truth about Toby revealed.

We cut to Toby, who is hailed by Mix.  Mix asks Toby if Halo managed to get his memory tapes to play alright.  When Toby realises what he's done he goes rushing to Halo's cabin. She, meanwhile, has reached a critical momement.  When Toby split from he and Rodice on their shopping trip he went back to his owner Brinna and brutally killed her. Brinna had left him to Halo in her will.  He appears at the distraught Halo's doorway and says "I did it all for love!".

We cut to the party which provides some interesting backstory amongst the gossip.  Earth is trying to respossess the Tarantula colonies because Earth's natural resources are exhausted and the only thing it has of value is water which the Cetaceans won't let it sell.  To avoid offending them, the Earth is trying to get the colonies back instead.  Cetecean's are the only  species who can navigate through hyperspace, "offend them and shipping collapses".  It is said that Earth is making use of "ratwar" which was outlawed centuries ago...

Back with Toby and Halo, Toby tells her Brinna was "in the way of you and me".  He says they can go to Kapek's world and he can get a humanoid body and be like a regular boyfriend.  Halo stammers it's a good idea, but Toby can read her heart rate, she's frightened of him and will betray him as soon as she can.  So he'll have to kill her.  Halo grabs one of the broken mechanical arms Toy likes to wrestle with, whacks him with it and runs.

Toy takes Toby on.

Bored of all the political talk Toy returns to her cabin to find Halo gone, she is being chased by Toby.  Halo runs into a room full of machinery, Toby says that was a smart move because it's dark and noisy.  Wait; it wasn't smart because he has infrared vision.  He bursts through a wall and knocks her down.

He tells her that if he lets her live she'll tell everyone what he did to Brinna and he'll be reprogrammed. He's about to murder her when she fires a laser into his face point blank.  She gets away, and Toy who has been looking for her arrives on the scene. Glyph follows her.

Toy grabs Toby and wrestles him into a small room.  They lock him in and turn the heat up full.  They think he's dead, but he bursts out half melting and runs towards the exhausted and terrified women. 

Glyph sees all this and resolutely says "no", Glyph then tips over a barrel of explosive fuel and it hits Toby and he blows up, but Glyph is caught in the blast and when Halo asks Toy if they are alive, Toy says the words that are like a punch in the gut everytime I read this:

Toy: "No...nobody died today."

Twelve months out and the final party is being thrown.  Halo is swimming with Kit in his tank when Toy comes in and asks her if she's going?  Halo isn't sure, but Toy says she'll take her to get some decent clothes to attend in.

A sacrifice unnoticed.

It's a Lux Roth Chop party so it'll be extra swanky, Toy tells her to ask Mix out and they return to their cabin.  They both wonder about feeling something is missing from the place, like "some piece of furniture or something we both never noticed, and now it's gone".  But it can't of been that important, can it?

The party is in full swing and Toy tells a shy Halo to ask Mix for the final dance, she starts stumblingly asking him when Cezanne Goleiter pushes in and asks him first.  Halo finally recognises her voice, she is the woman they based The Hoop's "Swifty Frisko" news broadcasting character around.

Dolled up for the last party.

Sad that Swifty Frisko stole her man, she goes and sighs in a corner.  It is then the black teenage boy who's been depicted hovering around in the background all throughout the voyage, asks her for a dance.  She agrees and says not to worry if anyone laughs at them.  "They won't laugh" he says.  They dance and the floor empties as they whirl round the floor.  Afterwards everyone applauds, she tells him he's a nice kid and asks his name, "Lux Roth Chop, goodnight" he tells her and walks away leaving her in shock.

Dancing with Lux Roth Chop.

Finally Halo has reached Charlmange.  It's an ice planet so she has disembarked in a full, cold weather suit. Toy points out a mysterious box being pushed out of the Presidential Suite, this is where lots of folk change and it is heading for the Tarantula systems.  Toy comments how they never found out what was in the suite and Halo says "uh.. no.. we didn't."

Halo leaves Toy to go to the "Solid Air Club".  Whether she stays on the Clara Pandy depends on what happens with Rodice.  The bar is empty when she gets there and she orders a couple of drinks.  Then a video message comes through from Rodice, Halo says she won the bet and when will Rodice be getting there so she can pay for the drinks?  But Rodice hits her with the stunning news, she's still on The Hoop.

Rodice: "It was difficult finding another ship at the space yards and well.. I didn't like the idea of just going out there into, y'know, all that space.  Anyway I'm more comfortable on the Hoop."

She says she has lots to tell Halo when she gets back, but Halo looks angry and says she's not coming back.  Rodice stammers that she just thought Halo wanted a break, "where will you go?" she asks. "Out" says Halo and disconnects the call.  Sadly she puts her head on her hands and asks the pianist what his name is after he plays a mounrful little tune.  When he tells her she says, "play it again, Yortlebluzzgubly".

So important it needed saying twice.

And on that melancholy note we finish Book Two of Halo Jones.  Immensely good stuff as befits Prime Moore.  I've always been struck by the deep unsentimental nature of this story.  The plight of Glyph for instance, there is no last minute shock of recognition, no mourning over their loss, as far as Toy and Halo are concerned a freak accident saved them from Toby and Glyph goes to their grave unremembered.  Glyph might also be one of comic's first trans and genderfluid characters and while I'll admit the portrayal isn't flattering, they do give their life up to save Halo and provide the biggest upset to the reader who unlike the characters has got to know and grow fond of them. Thanks to Moore's deft writing, I've never forgotten Glyph. Toby is revealed as a brutal killer who'd murder even the woman he killed for to save his skin and Rodice is shown to be a coward who'd rather stay in the hellhole of The Hoop than take Halo's bravery as a guide and leave.  Luckily Halo has a new best friend in Toy, a strong woman in all senses who wasn't afraid to jump in and fight a raging robot to save her, but isn't a stereotypical butch either, showing a liking for flowing dresses and general elegance too.  Halo also has Kit the Cetecean to hang out with and give her much needed peace from the stressful side of human beings (and feels similar to how Moore would develop the Abby and Swamp Thing relationship as well).  After twelve months on The Clara Pandy and with no Rodice waiting, what will become of Halo Jones next?  You'll have to wait until my next UK comic month (or buy the collected edition of all three books) to find out.

The Ballad Of Halo Jones: Book 1 (2000AD #376-385)

"Where did she go? Out. What did she do? Everything" - series tagline

Lets talk about Halo Jones.  Like a lot of early 2000AD I got into this via the monthly "Best of 2000AD" comics, which was a great way for younger readers like I was in 1986 to catch up with the cream of 2000AD's back catalogue before trade paperbacks became a thing. Initially the story of an eighteen year old teenager and her attempts to explore far beyond the restricted circumstances she grew up in, at the time it was originally serialised it rated dead last in reader response surveys, at least for Book 1 which was attributed mostly for the sheer amount of weird slang in it that is notably gone in the following Books. But it was popular with Tharg, and notable for being their first female led strip, so it got two more Books that gained a far better reception before Moore got into a ownership dispute with then publishers Fleetway (of course he did), leaving a planned nine book series chronicling Halo Jone's entire life only one third finished.  Unlike his other 2000AD work, this appears to be the one series he wrote for the comic that has attained some measure of popularity and respect in the US as well as the UK, so I am not labelling it an Obscurity.  It also seems to be the only series he wrote for 2000AD that Moore feels fondly towards as well and it definitely ranks highly with me as well, helped along by Ian Gibson's magnificently cartoony artwork. Lets crack on with Books 1 this month, and because this is all I have left of Moore's UK stuff, I shall be covering Books 2 and 3 during UK comic months to come.

We start with a pan across "The Hoop", the place where the unemployed and unemployable of Halo Jone's world are sent to live.  We light upon the teenage Halo's face, a mixture of boredom and a faraway look in her eyes.  She shares a living space with her best friend Rodice, an older woman called Brinna and Brinna's intelligent robot dog Toby.

Halo Jones, dreaming of better things.

Brinna says she wants to go and see a luxury liner called the "Clara Pandy" which has come there to be decommissioned.  Halo wants to come too despite Rodice's dire warnings of the "Different Drummers".  But when Toby says he'll be going Rodice changes her mind.

They walk and chat, Rodice says it's a lot of fuss for a bit of flying scrap.  Halo responds that it's not scrap, it's been everywhere.  Brinna says she met the human Clara Pandy when she was a little girl.

They pass a group of Different Drummers, teens with shaved heads and vacant expressions.  Who have an implant in their brains that pipes a constant beat into it.  "Bunch of mindless glombies" says Rodice of them.  They reach the Clara Pandy and Halo gasps that "she's beautiful".

The Clara Pandy.

Someone in the crowd voices his displeasure that she's going to be broken up, then an argument starts between some humans and an alien.  It escalates into a fight and so the women decide to leave.  A creepy man propositions Rodice, but Toby tells him to get lost.  "I could have crumped that schmoo without any inbut from you Fido" says Rodice.  They get away before the "jackwagons" arrive but Halo isn't happy:

Halo: "I'm sick of this place.  Every time something nice happens, a fight starts"

She goes on to say she's going to get out of there one day.  Rodice says even if she does escape she'll get dragged back and broken into pieces, "just ask the Clara Pandy".

Later Rodice and Halo are attending a concert in a club their friend Ludy is playing her "Dota" at. She "was blue-hot" exclaims Halo.  Ludy packs up and Halo says her music should allow her to get off the Hoop one day.  Ludy wonders how she'll survive until then.

Halo: "Me and Rodice and Brinna'll take care of you.  You're out pet celebrity!".

Rodice joins them and the three of them leave the club.  Unfortunately the streets they need to go down are dark and they are surrounded by a group of Different Drummers. 

The Different Drummers.

But the leader points at Ludy and tells her, "played chief Dota tonight.  We appreciate.  You all right by the Drummers." And they nod their way off.  Ludy collapses in some distress.

When she recovers, Halo tells her that her music saved them from "getting crumped" and that she should learn a lesson from this.  Ludy says she has, "in lots of ways".  On arrival back to their living quarters, the make a terrible discovery.  They have no food left.  "But that means..." says Halo, "A shopping trip!" finishes Rodice.

Halo and Rodice start planning their trip like a military operation.  With a strict timetable to hit each area they are going to go through to reach the mall.  Halo asks jokingly if Ludy want to go in her place, then sees Ludy has her Dota and is off to rehearsals.  Halo enocurages her so she can one day "quit this dump".  Ludy leaves, not looking very enthused.

Rodice and Halo plan their shoping trip.

With shopping  schedule in hand, protective gear on and Toby along for protection, Rodice and Halo set out for the shops.  They make it to the main Hoop concourse on time, but over the tannoy the news announcer "Swifty Frisco" says "Algae Baron Lux Roth Chop" has bought the Clara Pandy and the ship won't be demolished.  Rodice realises this will be a problem for them, Toby says "we got trouble, girly. Hoop riot!"

We then jump forwards to Rodice reviving an unconcious Halo.  She got "crumped" by a "Proximan" tail and she and Toby dragged her up a side artery away from the riot.

Halo: "That riot... what would they have done if Lux Roth Chop hadn't saved the Clara Pandy".

Rodice says they'd have rioted of course, now back to shopping and her sechdule is all to hell now.

They can't use the main Hoopway due to the riot so they use an "updraft" to float up to the "overstrat".  They take a shortcut through the "Exit Gardens" which is an illegal one, but Rodice says:

Rodice: "If anybody asks we tell 'em that we were going to kill ourselves but we saw the funny side at the last moment."

Taking a shortcut.

After some more shortcuts they find themselves where the Hoop has to seperate to allow waves to go past (the Hoop is moored in the ocean).  Rodice's heel gets stuck in a grate and by the time she gets free, separation has happened and they are on the wrong side.

They discuss what to do next and Halo has an idea, "we can go outside!".  There is a "magentrax" they can ride the other way round the Hoop and get to the mall that way.  But Rodice holds up a couple of items Halo identifies as "Zenades" and Halo wants to know why?

Rodice: "... the first person to take me outside is gonna find out why!"

We're given a quick description of Zenades, a 50th century invention it renders it's victims, "incapable of anything but meditation, intuition and complete non-agression".  Rodice drops them but they appear to be duds, except the last one, which works, but affects Rodice instead of Halo.

Rodice is not keen on going outside.

Toby tells Halo to get Rodice outside before the effects wear off.  He's going to make his own way as sea-salt doesn't agree with him.  Halo and Rodice climb through a hatch to the surface of the Hoop and jump in the Magnetrax.  A blissed out Rodice asks why they don't come outside more often.  "Because you're terrifed of wide open spaces" says Halo.

They ride round the Hoop until the reach the Mall indicator, just as Rodice returns to normal and starts having hysterics about being outside.  Halo gets her down through the hatch and back into the Hoop where they are immediately confronted by a gang of snappily dressed men and women.

Hipsters in the future.

The gang ridicule Halo and Rodice's clothes.  Rodice calls them "Checkout Hags" and threatens them with a "Sputstick" which releases a spray that will make the victim throw up.  But an air con unit close by blows the spray back in Rodice's face and she begins to vomit.  This causes the gang to lose interest in them and they leave.

Haloe and Rodice go shopping, while browsing some stuff for the others, Halo notices a Dota which looks just like Ludy's, right down to the scratches... Then Toby arrives and tells them to hurry if they want to make it home in time.

They go to catch a "ring roadster" but the next one isn't going to be along for six hours.  So they bed down for the night alongside a fellow commuter, an alien called "Snivelling" and spend the night sleeping at the "Skid Stop".

Missed the last bus home.

Later they are aboard the ring roadster, Rodice and Toby are sleeping, but Halo is awake and writing her diary.  She mostly notes the activity of The Hoop in the early hours and that she thought she heard mention that "Ice Ten", Ludy's band had been signed by Chop Leisure and how she hopes that is true.

They arrive at their destination and start to walk back to their quarters.  Toby suddenly tells them, "Excuse me.  I gotta job to do.  And listen, I'm sorry..." and he walks off.  Laughing and joking Halo and Rodice arrive back home, the place its trashed and then Halo and Rodice look on in horror as Rodice whispers, "Toby.  Toby must have smelled the blood."

Returning home to a terrible discovery.

Brinna is dead. The "rumblejacks" sent to deal with taking the body starts to piss Rodice off with their repetative questions, Halo says to her:

Halo: "These rumblejacks are persistent offenders remember? They've been leucotomised - you can see the scars on their heads - They can't react.  There's no point getting angry with them!"

Rodice regards the mess and says "but I just need to get angry with somebody".  The man in charge says Brinna had a "Ripper" (Toby) right?  He's possibly smelled the blood and gone after the killers.  When Rodice gets mad at him, he calmly replies he is a volunteer, and that he knew Brinna a long time ago, "she was a special woman" he says and leaves.

Ludy, now a Different Drummer.

Halo and Rodice wonder how they'll break the news to Ludy.  But when Ludy appears she is now a Different Drummer.  She says she quit Ice Ten and joined the Drummers because she was sick of feeling scared all the time.  When Halo scolds her, Ludy yells:

Ludy: "Maybe I don't want to get killed...just to make you proud of me.  I'm sick of living up to your escape fantasies Halo.  I don't wanna listen to you any more."

Rodice tells her Ice Ten got signed, but Ludy has zoned out, listening to the beat in her head.  Halo strides out of their quarters and when Rodice chases after her saying their problems will still be their when they get back, Halo says:

Halo: "Who said anything about coming back?"

Halo has had enough.

Halo and Rodice go to the employment desk and get passage off the Hoop to go and find work in Manhattan where the Hoop is moored just off from.  The place looks grim, but Halo is determined:

Halo: "Brinna's dead.  Ludy's turned into a gloombie.  The Hoop got 'em.  You think I'm going to sit around and wait for it to get me?  I'm not going back."

Then Halo detects someone is following them, they run and trip over, but their stalker is revealed to be Toby.

He says he smelled the blood and tracked it's spoor.  He dealt with Brinna's killers, "all four of 'em.  I don't wanna talk about it."  He tells them Brinna left him to the both of them in her will.  They carry on job hunting until they arrive at the dock where the Clara Pandy is moored and Halo says, "I think I'm in love"

Toby catches up with them.

They go and ask about jobs aboard and a man working on mending the hull says there is hostess jobs going for nine thousand creds a year, but only one and the person must be able to speak Cetecean.

Halo does indeed speak it, saying to Rodice she was a member of the "Ritit Rikti" fanclub and learned it then.  Rodice says she can have the job and Toby as well.  She promises she'll work passage on the next liner out and they'll meet in Charlmange in a years time, "last one buys the drinks".  They bid a teary farewell and the Book ends with Rodice watching the Clara Pandy leave.

Halo takes her leave of Rodice and The Hoop.

This is a fantastic work from a writer who was churning out amazing stuff on a weekly and monthly basis.  A Bechdel Test passing masterpiece that introduces us to a pair of strong female characters and through the events they go through inspire Halo to become the main protagonist of the Books that follow.  The future world is beautifully painted in via the language and Ian Gibsons fantastic designs, he is probably my favourite of all the regular 2000AD artists. I think it's a bit of a shame the slang was dropped in the further books, because the wordplay on show here is masterful and I have always been partial to a bit of wordplay.  But I can see how it might alienate the more general, younger reader.   It's fun and tragic to compare the eighteen year old Halo making military like plans to just do some shopping with the thirty year old Halo of Book 3 who joins the real military.  The Hoop, a ghetto for the people society considers no hopers, is portrayed as a realistically unpleasant place, and the death of Brinna and the giving up of Ludy makes Halo realise she wants to trade security for freedom and we'll be joining her during her time on the Clara Pandy during my next UK comics month.