Chopper: Song Of The Surfer (2000AD #654-665)

"Sorry Charlene... so sorry" - Chopper

We return to Dreddworld now with a haunting tale of death and destiny as Marlon "Chopper" Shakespeare, a once youthful and rebellious Sky Surfer, returns to compete in "Super Surf 11" which is taking place in Megacity 2.  Sky Surfing is exactly as described, surfers travel through the air on flying surfboards and Super Surf takes place around the globe each year to find the best of them.  On the run from the Justice System he escaped in Megacity One, Chopper has been living the the Australian "radback" where he had ended up after escaping Dredd at the end of Supersurf 10 and making friends with and re-racing Jug who he lost to in Supersurf 10 (he wins the rematch and gets a new love interest called Charlene too).  He stays in the radback, and when circumstances combine to encourage him to take part in the event, it turns out this Super Surf will be a little different from the others.  Bankrolled by a blind bilionaire called Stig, there will be bullets, snipers, spikes, rockets and lasers all pointing at the competitors.  Signing up will mean almost certain death, but the reward for winning is a huge amount of cash and glory.  Will Chopper embrace his destiny in taking part?  Or will he bow out like his friend and the current world champion Jug?  On writing duties is John Wagner and Colin McNeil is on art chores with a less painterly look than his later works at least at the start, it gets more painted as it goes on.  This story ran in 1989 round about the time Necropolis was being teased with the likes of The Deadman, as well as the third book of Zenith in which whole parallel worlds were being destroyed left, right and centre, giving the comic at the time quite a doom laden feel.

Out in the radback, Chopper broods on his surfboard.  A newpaper advertising Supersurf 11 has made it out to him.  His friend, an disabled aborigine called Smokie grumbles at him at the food he's caught for them, saying a city boy like him is no help.

Later while the eat, Smokie spies the newspaper and asks if he plans on going.  Chopper answers in the negative but Smokie says he should:

Smokie: "You have the wind dreaming.  You too dumb to know.  But I know.  You follow your songline.  Song bring you.  Song take you away".

Chopper reiterates he's not interested and wants to stay and look after Smokie, who says he's dying soon.  And next day Chopper indeed finds him dead.  Sadly Chopper buries him, says a few words, then leaves to join the other Oz surfers going to the Supersurf.

Chopper reunites with Charlene.

Chopper has an emotional reunion with Charlene as well as Jug and his girlfriend.  Charlene insists Chopper has a bath and treats him for the insects he's got living under his skin.  Jug tells Chopper the prize is one million creds from the new backer and Megacity Two ought to be safe for Chopper.

Washed and dressed, Chopper meets up with the rest of the Oz surfer continginent who are all very cheerful and friendly.  They tell him there's a boy from Brit-Cit who is a real contender.  Charlene notes that Chopper seems distant from the rest.  Chopper says he's just "following the songlines."

As they travel with the other surfers to Megacity Two, Chopper tells Charlene that he doesn't really understand it but Smokie says each person is descended from an ancestor which gives them their dreaming.  Smokie's was a wombat, but Chopper's is the wind. So he's a "child of the wind" says Charlene.  Chopper agrees and says he has nothing better to do so why not follow the songline?  And they snog.

Megacity 2.

Once they are at Megacity Two all the surfers take part in a flypast, then someone sets off a firework display which catches the skysurfers unawares.   It results in one dead and three seriously injured.  Afterwards Chopper darkly says he doesn't think it was an accident the fireworks went off and this has resulted in more publicity for Stig, the man behind this Supersurf.

Chopper: "It's all a circus... once it was just a race... no money, just man against man and that was enough.  Now everybody's out to screw what they can."

He's speaking to Dora, Jug's girlfriend who admits Jug's "off the boil".  He drinks and barely practices.  He's trying to pretend it isn't over.

Chopper muses that he didn't race the real Jug MacKenzie then and Dora says she guesses not.  Chopper was in the cubes during Jug's top form in Supersurf 8 and 9.  Then a Judge comes in to their room asking for Chopper.  He says Megacity One won't press for Chopper's arrest as long as Chopper doesn't try to go back to Megacity One.  "Fat chance" says Chopper.

A message from MC1

Elsewhere there is a large gun enplacement being set up. We discover that Stig's assistant has bribed the Megacity Two judges to make this Supersurf more lethal than the others and to look aside from the setting off of fireworks during the flypast which was completely intentional.  She has also paid off the injured surfers though one is proving a little more intransigent than the others.  Stig's assistant has taken responsibility to give Stig deniability and when he asks if it's time, she tells him it is.

The surfers all gather in a giant hall.  The Brit-Cit kid "Sonny Williams" is pointed out to Chopper.  He keeps to himself, Charlene thinks he looks lonely.  Then Stig gives a bizarre speech to them.  He tells them that the public want blood, that together they'll "paint a masterwork of carnage across the sky".

Stig: "And when it is over, one of you will be a hero - a true hero. Forged in the heat of battle!  Be the most famous person on this Earth!  Is that not worth making sacrifices for?"

Stig's assistant takes over and confirms that there will be snipers and guns along the route.  The surfers are angry and ask about the fireworks and she says the matter has been investigated by the Judges to their satisfaction.

The form to sign up will absolve Stig Inc. from death and injury caused before and during Supersurf 11.  Jug rips it up saying he'll have no part in this.  For a moment it looks like all the other surfers will join him, then Sonny signs his, and after a long pause and to Charlene's horror, so does Chopper.

The race is on.

Later, while in bed together, Chopper reiterates his intent to take part to Charlene albeit unenthusiastically.  She accuses him of wanting to commit suicide, he says he's just "following the songlines."  She says they can't be telling him to die.  But she can't talk him out of it.

Next day Chopper is out practicing, he is having difficulty adjusting back to city surfing after being in the country so long. He has a chat with one of the other surfers who says seventeen have signed up now.  Then he finds Sonny Williams and rides his slipstream for a while looking for a weakness, but Sonny doesn't show him one.

The competitors gather and check out where the various guns are going to be.  Stig has one of his own despite being blind, "he reckons he's going to feel us out" says one.  Chopper thinks to himself that he isn't sure why he's doing this.  Maybe because Stig called them cowards, maybe because he didn't beat Jug at his best, "that need to be number one.  An unquenchable fire still gnawing away inside him". 

Chopper starts practicing.

He realises that Stig had thrown down the gauntlet and the need to push life to the edge, "that was the song of the surfer."  The competitors then line up in front of Stig and all moon him.  His assistant tells Stig, they're "just showing you the target" when he asks what's happening.

The action jumps forward to four days before the event and now twenty-nine surfers have signed up. During practice a watching woman drops her baby off one of the sky scrapers.  Chopper and Sonny both dive to rescue it and Sonny gets there first. Then it's two days before.  Another surfer has died in "Porcupine Alley" the tunnel of spikes and Stig has offered a one million cred donation to charity for every surfer killed.

Charlene tries to walk out on Chopper.

Chopper and Charlene are fighting, she's packed up and is leaving. She tells him she loves him and begs him to give up.  He says he can't.  She says nothing matters to him but the race and has she thought what it's going to be like for her watching him die.  She walks out and slams the door behind her.  There is a pause, then she opens it and comes back inside.  She hugs him and says:

Charlene: "All right Chopper... you win. I won't run out on you.  I'll be here.  I'll stay with you, and I'll love you, and I'll pray for you. And then I'll bury you."

Race day and a drunken Jug has decided he wants to compete saying he's been called a coward. Chopper gently shows him into the cupboard and locks him in it.  He then leaves to prepare and Charlene says "got a spare cupboard Dora?"

The surfers all line up ready.  Chopper has a flashback to just before the race.  He saw that Sonny Williams was actually terrified so he provoked him to rile him up and get him ready for the race.   The starter's gun goes off and away they fly.  Two surfers decide at the last moment not to compete and another two are immediately chewed up by gunfire, four down and the race has barely begun.

The surfers fly into another barrage of gunfire and a big name "Dallas Williams" is killed, her head blown apart.  Blood rains down on the spectators. Two more are taken out and Chopper picks up an injury that takes out his left arm, most likely shrapnel from Dalla's shattered head.

Badly injured right at the start.

He uses his belt to tie down his dead arm and flies through the next barrage to the first obstacle, the windmills.  The blades are razor sharp and one surfer has the engine of his board shorn off but manages to land safely, if no one else makes it he might be crowned the champion by default.

Another surfer is killed and falls knocking Sonny off his board.  But he is attached to it via a cord and is able to pull himself up and get back in the game.  Chopper flies over and kicks the sniper who had targeted Williams, knocking him out.  Chopper is now in the lead by quite some margin even with that detour.

Then it's through "Death Canyon" and another surfer is vaporised leaving only his feet behind.  There is chaos of napalm and death and another four surfers are gone. Jug, Charlene and Dora are watching on TV in utter horror.  This is "flamin' murder" says Jug.

Several surfers wipe out together.

Chopper is still in the lead, twisting his board to avoid sniper fire. In the following group Sonny Williams manouvres himself between the sniper and another surfer so that surfer gets killed and he takes third place. Chopper is starting to feel the loss of blood from his arm and Porcupine Alley is the next obstacle up.

Chopper enters the alley as the back end of the surfer group is wiped out by the napalm.  He carefully negociates the spikes, although he gets gashed by one he makes it through... only to be struck multiple times by bullets on the other side.  Charlene lets out a cry and runs out to go to the stricken Chopper.  He's down but still on his board.

Surprise! Ouch.

Then Anderson and Sonny Williams the joint second placers collide with each other at the entrance to Porcupine Alley.   Both land on spikes, run through by them. There's another collision at the entrance by the next batch of surfers, blocking access.  One of the last place surfers, Negri gets back on his board and could be the last one left in the race as he flies through.

But he's blasted to bits by the same guns that got Chopper.  One of the machine gunners has a live grenade for an earring as the race commentators admiringly comment on.   Sonny Williams has managed to pull himself off the spike he's impaled on and lying on his board flies it out of the tunnel. Before the machine guns can get him, Chopper surprises one of them and uses his gun to kill the other one but not before Sonny is mortally wounded.

Chopper takes out two gunners.

Chopper apologises to his body, the other surfers left have decided to opt out of the race.  They fly down to where Chopper is, who guiltily says he thought he did Sonny a favour getting him psyched for the race.  Then Chopper gets back on his board.  He's the only one left now and he plans to go to the finish.  "You crazy nong! Noooo!" shouts Charlenne.

The toll the race has taken is incredible.  The commentator reports thirty-one dead, three alive but seriously injured and four withdrawn.  The commentator declares Chopper the "greatest Sky Surfer who has ever lived!".  But there is one obstacle left.  He falls from the board, but painfully climbs back on and lies on it for a while.

Chopper exacts explosive revenge.

He thinks back to Smokie and him telling him about following his songline.  He stands back up and slowly flies towards Stig and his gun.  Stig doesn't open fire.  Chopper tells Stig he made a promise to some of the guys and reaches into his suit and brings out the live grenade he took from the machine gunner he surprised.  He tosses at Stig and it kills both him and his assistant.

Then Chopper turns and heads for the finish line.  He feels numb now, and running through is head are the words of Charlene calling him selfish and he realises he was dumb now.  He collapses to his knees as the finish line comes into view.

Narration: "Darkness closes in again.  Enfolding him.  The windsong rises and falls in his ears... calling him back to the ancestors."
 
He slumps forwards saying he's coming Smokie and just inches from the finish line his board comes to a halt.  Charlene stands underneath it and can only look up in despair as blood trickles down his arm and lands on her tear streaked face.  The camera pans out.  The race and the story is at an end.

.......

Powerful stuff.  And it's such a fitting end for Chopper that it was understandable when he returned in a story in the Megazine people protested.  Especially as said story was written by Garth Ennis who admitted later it wasn't a great story and really Chopper's story should have ended here.  After that he featured in a couple more stories but in Judge Dredd Megazine #302's "Twenty Years to Midnight", set in 2132, Chopper makes a background appearance on a talkshow. The teenagers in this story are unaware of who he is, and view the show as being for adults; the POV character believes Chopper looks tired and lost, looking at footage of "when he used to matter".  Which is in someways even sadder than having him die at the end of this story where he could have at least gone out as the Greatest Sky Surfer on the Planet fulfulling a destiny following the songlines of his life to the bitter end.  Despite the horrific nature of the race it is actually exciting to follow and the build up is suitably thrilling as well.  Also giving Chopper a girlfriend who decides to support him the whole way rather than have her walk out and leave in a somewhat cliched way was a great idea and of course leaves us with her showing the full emotional cost of the race on the final page.  Great writing, great art, this is collected in the Chopper: Surf's Up trade paperback along with several other of his best stories.

The V.C.s Book 1: Back In Action (2000AD #1301-1306, #2003)

"You're hit. You're dead" - Steve Smith

Long ago in ages past (the 1980's) trade paperbacks weren't really a thing, so 2000AD exploited its back catalogue by providing a monthly collection of a random serial for about fifty pence.  In this way I caught up with on-going series such as Slaine and Nemesis The Warlock as well as being introduced to serials that were over and done with such as The Ballad of Halo Jones and the V.C.s.  The V.C.s (short for "Vacuum Cleaners" due to their reputation for clean kills with little debris) was very early story dating back to the 1979-80, a future war saga that introduced us to a motley collection of human soldiers hailing from various Earth colonies, throw together to fight the insect-like aliens the "Geeks".  The viewpoint character was an Earth native called Steve Smith, who had to fight their prejudice against Earth based humans (his nickname was "Earth Worm"), and the cost of the war was very high as by the end only Steve and Jupe the sergeant and ship's captain, a certified badass who wasn't really slowed down by being rendered blind survived from the original crew.  Now a major, Steve led an an attack on the Geek homeworld that ended the war and the original strip, and I covered the original series during my last UK comics month.  But many years later in 2002, 2000AD scribe Dan Abnett decided it was time to give the concept another go round and thanks to my very good friend Lucy who gave me the trade paperback collecting the first three new Books of the V.C.s ("Back In Action") I can write about the sequel storylines as well.  I'm covering Book 1 first, plus the related one-shot "Escher's Well".  The further books will be covered in further UK comics months.

Throughout this story, Steve is haunted by the ghosts of four of the original V.C.s, Hen-sho, Ringer, Dwarf Star and Loon.  Only Steve can hear what they say and they only appear if he hasn't taken his medication.  Through this plot device current readers are able to get some idea what the original storyline was about and how the current situation compares.

An aged Steve Smith.

It's fifty years since the end of the Human-Geek war.  Now an old man, Smith is working as a maintenance person.  He tells his ghosts that the war, "screwed me up and I'm screwed up still."  But he hasn't taken his pills so he can "shoot the breeze with you guys".  He tells them he could get a job in the military but:

Steve: "Because times change.  For one thing, the modern corps is a place for hot-shot college graduates with Masters in Gravitics and Astro-Physics.  They don't have a place for grunts like you and me.  We're a dying breed".

Steve is summoned into the ship he's cleaning and told he has a visitor.  He is alarmed to find it is a Geek and freaks out a bit.  The Geek apologises for upsetting him.  He is just a historian composing a work on the Human-Geek war. 

Because next month is "Peace Day" celebrating fifty years of peace between human and Geek, he believes the time is right.  He wants Steve's input because he played such an integral part in the end of the war.

Geek: "I want to reflect the human history.  Like many of my generation I am ashamed of the brutal behaviour of our fore-fathers."

He says in the past fifty years the Geeks have not rearmed, nor have the stirred dissent, the war "is a shame we will bear for a long time."  He asks Steve is he is going to Peace Day.  Steve says probably not, though he has been invited.  The Geek says he'll see his old comrades again, Steve says he sees them plenty.

Keege the friendly Geek.

Later that night he wakes from a dream of battle with all the ghosts watching him.  They want him to attend Peace Day, Steve flatly says "No!"  We then cut to him at Peace Day, he is assigned a Captain Johnroe from the Galatic Combat Corps for the day.  Smith takes a look at the powerful looking ships in the sky above and asks what they are like to fly, Johnroe says they only get to fly them in simulations, there hasn't been a "hot war" for years.

He takes Steve to an old Star Ship of the kind Steve flew during the first war.  There are only fifty left in service and will all be taking part in the Peace Day fly-bys.  Onboard, Smith meets Jupe, now with eyes again, "cheap graft jobs".  Jupe asks when they get to fly. But Johnroe says the Air and Space museum has insisted that only their staff operate the antiques.  "We're all antiques" comments Jupe to Steve.

Jupe and Smith feeling like relics of a bygone age.

Jupe and Steve chat as they look out of the window.  Jupe says this might be the day "The Polity" invite humankind to join.  Steve says he never knows what to make of them since they made contact thirty years ago.

Steve: "This enlightened confederation of alien cultures.  With ten thousand years of peace and harmory beind them and technology that makes us look like cavemen.  Where were they during the Geek war?  They could have stepped in.  Stopped it.  Saved lives."

Jupe says humans are an infant species and needed to prove "we were worthy of contact not rescue."  Then the Geek flotilla arrives, Jupe comments how relieved he is that they aren't allowed weapons.

Spaceship!

Steve however notes the ships are starting to pair up, looks "like an assault formati-"  he is interupted by a huge explosion.  Smith initially thinks he is hallucinating because he didn't take his pills that day.  But he looks out of the window and sees the Geek ships tearing the human ones apart and realises they are at war again.

He returns to Jupe, who calmly says they are losing badly.  The Geek Blink ships are way beyond their capabilities and even the ships from the original war have some kind of bleeding edge shielding, "Smith, we're losing so frickin' bad it's not even heroic" comments Jupe.

The ship they are in makes Landfall on the moon.  The Captain tells them to keep calm, Jupe says the veterans came through a war, they do calm pretty well.  The Captain, behaving like an arsehole, invites them to "come and observe how we do combat these days.  If your hearts can take it."  Meanwhile Steve is given an idea by Hen-Sho's ghost and sneaks off.

The Captain shows the Geeks infantry on the moon coming for them via an advanced scanner.  He lists off all the modern technology their own soldiers are equipped with, but when they and the Geeks clash, the Geeks easily wipe them out much to the Captain's horror.  Smith then appears in an old V.C. suit.  The Captain demands to know what he's playing at and Jupe snaps.

Jupe: "No idea Captain.  But he's the only man I can see not dying or talking out of his ass".

Steve leads a group of similarly suited up soldiers out on to the moons surface.  Jupe asks if he has a plan, "We put out the mat, and start cleaning" says Steve.

Time to get cleaning.

Some soldiers are pinned down, reporting that their body shields don't offer protection and the Geeks are shrugging off their plasma rounds.  Some Geeks bear down on them and Smith's squad blast them to pieces.  Steve says the Geeks weren't expecting anyone to be using "antique killware".

He examines one of the Geek's body and finds a shield bonded to the thorax that he takes for reverse engineering.  They start to leave and one of the rescued soldiers says they might still be able to save some of the injured.  "No time.  No point.. One rule, you're hit, you're dead" says Steve.  When the soldier protests, Steve says it's a rule that works.

More Geek swarms appear, but Jupe has a "Blitz Cannon" and mows them down.  This clears the main assault swarm but another is approaching in a canyon nearby.  Using a jump pack, Smith peforms a "D.L.", Detonate and Liquidate with some "Hades Grenades".  With them dealt with, they return to the ship.

On the way one of the rescued soldiers bemoans that with all their state of the art defences and weaponry they were "crucified" while the veterans using antique killware and armour saved the day.  He does admit it was pretty "amazing" though.

Then we are shown a Starship Troopers style propaganda film for the humans.  It informs us they are fighting back.  They are unlocking the secrets of the Geek tech while going back to basics with "old style ships and old style weapons.. all back in style this season!"  Many are volunteering to fight and people like Steve Smith will be leading them, "who better to lead the new generation of troops over the top?"  It ends with two new recruits saying "Earth can take it!"

It's now six weeks after Peace Day, and Smith is meeting his new crew; Ronsalle, Kali, Lin Fu and Ryx.  There sixth crewmember will be with them by the end of the week.  They go out on a exercise patrol and it doesn't go so well.

Steve's rookie crew.

Ronsalle is "hit", Ryx who is supposed to be providing cover fire forgets to take the safety off his cannon and it jams and Lin Fu charges into a fight before checking she has adequate back-up.  Afterwards Steve chews them out and says he is going to Ops and when he gets back he wants Troopers not screw-ups.  As he leaves he says to his ghosts:

Steve: "I know, I know.  Well maybe I was that bad when I started out.  That's not the point. I had you guys to whip me into shape.  You're all gone now.  It's just me out-numbered by those dumbass rookies.  How much worse could it get?"

It does get worse.  His sixth crewmember is a Geek, the same one who wanted to interview him and who specially requested assignment to Steve's crew.  His name is Keege and he says the "current cycle of violence has been initiated by extreme racist factions".  Thousands of Geeks are opposed to them and want to join the fight against them.  Steve angrily responds:

Steve: "Suck it in Keege!  You talk all fine and high-minded.  But there is one detail you can't change.  You'll always be a frickin' Geek!"

However he is forced to take Keege anyway and now complete, his ship and crew go out on their first patrol.

Keege the V.C??!

They encounter four Geek ships and engage them in combat.  They take out three but the last one comes at them from the port side.  Keege is manning the port gun and Steve orders him to fire, but Keege seems to freeze up and doesn't responds.  Fortunately the Geek ship goes wide and the others shoot it down.  Keege explains afterwards, "I didn't freeze up, sir.  I... I... just didn't see it."

Steve is dubious as how he could miss a ship unloading everything at them.  Steve says he thinks Keege just couldn't bring himself to fire on his own people and suspends him from duty, saying they'll drop him off at the nearest supply depot.  Later that night Keege sneaks into the communications room, but Steve is waiting and points a gun at him demanding to know what he is up to.

Keege proving his innocence.

The rest of the crew assemble and want Steve to "vape" Keege there and then.  Steve asks Keege for an explanation.  Keege says he wanted to prove that he didn't freeze up during the battle.  He recalled hearing a low radio noise which his species use to incubate their young.  He thinks the Geek aggressors have developed that technology most likely as a command/control communications net and it temporarily overwhelmed Keege's brain.

The rest of the crew are dubious, but Steve goes to think in private.  He says to his ghosts he thinks that "I'm afraid I'm being blinded by my prejudices".  Then he is called to the Bridge.  Lin Fu and Ronsalle did a sweep for the sound and found it coming from a wreckage field nearby, a "Solar Death Bar" says Steve.  They suit up and go in for a closer look, and find millions of eggs, "The Geeks are hiving in here!" cries Steve in alarm.

Uh-oh.

Steve calls back to Kali on the ship that she needs to launch a "Nova missile" to wipe the nest out.  They start to fly back to the ship when they are attacked by Geek "drone-guards". They battle their way through with guns and grenades.  Kali is trying to get the ship through the debris field to get close enough to launch the missile.  Ronsalle is hit and the others have to leave him behind.

Kali says she doesn't know how she'll manage to work the missile deck as well, and Keege says he can do it, just cut him free.  Kali refuses at first, but Keege says to "flood the cabin with white noise" to block out the infrasound transmissions. Keege takes the missile deck and when the missile locks on he fires it saying "this is for Ronsalle you frickers". The missile wipes out the spawning hive and the others, minus Ronsalle get back to the ship safely.

Things that make you go boom.

Later they arrive on Mars and Steve tells them to enjoy some R and R before they ship out in seventy-two hours.  Keege asks if he should report back for duty too?  Steve says he'll think about it.  Left alone with his ghosts, he admits his crew did OK.  Ronsalle joins the other ghosts and Steve says, "you guys look after him Okay?  I'll clean up here."

That brings Book One to a close, but there is a one-shot called "Escher's Well" which follows on from it before Book Two starts.

Steve wakes from a dream of an old battle with his old comrades, the dream had turned into a nightmare in which he sees Jupe killed.  Having woken with a start, he calls Jupe up and they meet for a drink at a bar called Escher's Well which uses gravity to work like the Escher picture of all the stairs at right angles.

Escher's Well.

He asks Jupe to promise he has someone the can trust watching his back.  Jupe reassures him he'll be careful and they move on to discussing other things such as what side the Geek homeworld is going to come down on, and will The Polity get involved? Steve doesn't think The Polity will do "squat" to help them, then a trooper called Diderot comes up behind him and introduces himself as Ronsalle's replacement.

Before Steve can say anything to him Keege comes into the bar and the other patrons react poorly to his prescence and Keege is attacked.  Steve punches out the man who attacked Keege which inflames the others but the rest of the V.C.s come to the rescue and soon a full fledged chaotic bar brawl ensues which Diderot joins in with and which the V.C.s win.

Nothing bonds a crew like a good old bar brawl.

They make themselves scarce before the authories can get there.  Steve gives Diderot the thumbs up and when Keege tries to thank him, Steve says that the "V.C.s look after their own".  He and Jupe say their farewells for now and Jupe says that "there ain't no Big Kill Shot waiting for me."  But as he departs Smith thinks of the original V.C.s and says to himself that he wishes he could believe him...

This is a worthy sequel to the original.  I think my positive writes up of Saga, Halo Jones and Prophet show I've a bit of a weakness for grand space opera and the V.C.s was and is enjoyable sci-fi hokum.  It was a very clever idea to have the obselete equipment and tactics from fifty years ago be the only thing to work against a more advanced army, which meant the return of those awesomely cool armoured space suits (that HAD to be a big influence on the look of the Space Marines of Warhammer 40K) and the harsh philosophy of battlefield survival.  We also get a Geek in the role Steve Smith played in the original V.C.s, a distrusted outsider who proves himself loyal and worthy in battle. Finally having Steve talking to his old ghosts helps fill in the backstory of the original series (which is frustratingly out of print right now as a modern TPB) and help us see how much things have both changed and stayed the same.  Dan Abnett's writing is great and it's obvious he has a real love for the original series as he writes in this collection's introduction.  Henry Flint's artwork has a nice "chunky" feel to it, which again reminds me a bit of the Warhammer 40,000 universe I have so much affection for. There are two more Books in this trade so I'll be covering them in future UK comic's months, if you like tales of future war then keep an eye out, this stuff should be right up your street.

Hewligan's Haircut (2000AD #700-708)

"You don't just think the world's playing hard to get?" - Hewligan

The late 1980's and early 1990's.  For UK comics it was the best of times and the worst of times.  The best because there was a large number of UK comics in print, such as CRISIS, Revolver, The Judge Dredd Megazine and blazing a trail before all of these was Deadline,  which blended youth culture commentary with comic strips such as proto-Riot Grrl Tank Girl by Peter Milligan and Jamie Hewlett.  It was also the worst of times as the US comic industry was hoovering up artistic and writerly talent as quickly as UK comics could bring people to their attention.  By around 1991-2 the best of the best was gone from the UK industry and we were left with the likes of the appalling Toxic comic which pretty much summed up the state of the industry at the time, and soon only 2000AD and the relaunched Megazine were still going (and are with us to this day).  But before that happened 2000AD, in the spirit of the times, was more willing to take risks on oddball concepts and art and so in 1990 we got Peter Milligan and Jamie Hewlett's Hewligan's Haircut.  A fantastical mish-mash of cubism, pop art and collage alongside Hewlett's very recognisable art style, which tells the tale of a young man's reality warping haircut and his quest to restore sanity to the world...

We start with Hewligan "languishing in the Five Seasons Mental Hospital".  Nurse Hatter gives him some plastic scissors so he can trim his nails and look smart for his meeting with "Doctor Proctor" who is going to assess him for possible release.  The comic at this point is in black and white.

Nurse Hatter: "Remember, it doesn't matter if you're sane or insane.  The important thing is to act sane. To pretend you're sane".

After she has gone, Hewligan says to himself that he doesn't pretend hard enough, he bets other people keep quiet about the "big ugly faces" they see.

Hewligan sans Haircut.

Nurse Hatter scolds him for talking to himself, then tells him to do something about his mop of long hair.  He snips it with the plastic scissors and ends up with a giant pompadour with a hole in it that looks exactly the same from whichever angle you view it from.  Deciding it's not the sanest of hairstyles he slicks it down saying it should "tranquilise the maniac" and goes to meet Doctor Proctor.

He shakes Doctor Proctor's hand and his hairdo springs back up, he thinks to himself "pretend your hair doesn't exist Hewligan.  Pretend you're sane."  Doctor Proctor confirms that Hewligan hears voices and sees big stony faces, all the while his ears are wandering across his face.  Hewligan desperately pretends their is nothing wrong and when asked if he still hears voices and sees the faces he lies and says "no, I don't".

Hewligan steps out into a mad world

"Then I've cured you!" says Doctor Proctor and pronounces Hewligan free to leave the hospital.  Nurse Hatter is sad to see him go.  Hewligan hopes once he's amongst normal people all the weirdness he feels will go away.  But as he opens the door to freedom he is met by a full colour scene of madness:

Hewligan: "Oh dear, I thought.  Perhaps I wasn't pretending to be sane hard enough.  Or maybe the world of normal people had changed a little since I had been inside the mental hospital."

He wanders through the surreal landscape thinking that this was the most confusing day of his life but "how could I pass judgement on the world when my own hair seemed to defy gravity?"  He approachs a policeman, who produces a rabbit from his helmet and asks Hewligan to pick a card.

He walks off and thinks that he's never been mad like this before, just the voice and stone heads, "quite ordinary madness".  He sees a chicken crossing the road and follows it, as the road tells him to watch where he is stepping.

The world is out to get him.

He dines at an Indian restaurant where the food literally disagrees with him, then goes to the Underground where things seem perfectly normal, but for some reason it's raining just on Hewligan.  Shop doors move when he tries to open them and the Born Again Christian tells him to "drop dead."

Later he chances upon a bank robbery, "my day was nothing if not eventful".   The robber runs past him and drops the gun by Hewligan who picks it up. Everyone starts accusing him of being the thief.  He drops it and runs, being chased by twelce policemen on one bicycle.  He runs into a blind alley and the wall speaks to him saying "psst.. in here.. quick!"

He walks through the wall and is confronted by a blonde woman riding a rocking horse who tells him to climb aboard.  The horse is called Dada and isn't much use for evading the singing policemen chasing Hewligan so they pick it up and flee.  After baffling another wall with an ontological paradox they slip through and into the woman's hideaway.

She says you need hideaways when you're a lawbreaker.  Hewligan asks what laws she breaks and she responds, "why the laws of nature of course!  They're the best laws of all to break!"  She floats and when she holds things she never quite touches them as the is slightly out of sync with the world.  Like Hewligan "I'm just plain out of tune".

Scarlet O'Gasmeter.

She introduces herself as Scarlet, Hewligan says it's a "heavenly name.  What an island of radiant bliss in this ugly sea of madness."  He asks for her full name and she says "it's Scarlet O'Gasmeter".  She then tells him about the world and how some people aren't tuned into the right frequency for it.

Things can go out of tune as well, like socks.  Always disappearing into other dimensions. Same as umbrellas and doorkeys. 

Scarlet: "UFOs are really alien footwear that've have slipped out of tune with their world and tuned into ours. At this very moment an alien astronomer is getting all excited at a Woolworth's cotton sock oscillating above his planet."

Hewligan then sleeps for a while and when he wakes up Scarlet says his pursuers seem to want him.  And there are masses of soldiers after him, he doesn't understand why, he's a "nobody!".  He says it's mad, she says of course it's mad, the whole world is mad, where's he been?  He says in a madhouse, she responds "figures."

Hewligan: "It was a mad mad mad mad world.  And getting madder. Don't just take my word for it, ask anyone. Ask that giant polka-dot hamster that keeps following you around.  He'll tell you."

He and Scarlet escape on a flying pig who used to be a cricketter called Mike Gatting.  Not to be confused by the other cricketter called Mike Gatting.   It was a karma exchange, cricketter Mike used to be a pig in a previous life.

The world steps up its assault on Hewligan.

They float down to earth and Scarlet says she know some "imaginary alleyways" they can lose their pursuers in. But there are child soldiers waiting, so the run off to get disguises from a fancy dress shop.  They get the costumes of their "exact doubles" so they end up looking the same.

Then things turn cubist, a wavelength from one of the "art dimensions".  The army are still chasing them because "cubism is an intellectualised and conceptual realism.  Rather than an optical and instinctive realism".  As Hewligan says "I thought as much" it wears off...

...only to change to an attack from the Warhol dimension.   As we get a full page of the same repeated images and a discussion on the power of boredom, it wears off "probably looking for some suckers who take it seriously".  They are left in a white space, so Scarlet draws a door and they go through and Scarlet asks if he has ever had a girlfriend as they make it back to the mad world, "not unless I had one without knowing" says Hewligan.

A tedious dimension invades.

They arrive of the stage of a smash hit musical about a sex gladiator called Andrew Lloyd Webber.  Hewligan asks just how more untuned the world can get and a rocket comes up through the stage.   This literally brings down the house and as Hewligan and Scarlet escape she says he has to face facts that the world hates him for some reason.

But she likes him and they share a kiss. Then they go back on the run as the world starts picking up broadcasts from enigmatic sixties TV shows.  In this case "The Prisoner".  They try to escape, but a huge beach ball chases them down the beach, they leap on it and get sucked inside.

Time stops for a kiss.

As they bounce around inside, Hewligan confesses he is still bothered by the Big Faces that appeared to him in his dreams in the mental hospital. Scarlet says she's met a few untuned people who have dreamt of "big and stony faces with large foreheads". He says those were exactly what he dreams of and voices too.  Scarlet says becuase he is untuned he picks up wavelengths from other frequences.  "You're not a madperson Haircut" she tells him.

They get out of the balloon and find themselves in Stevenage.  The airforce is still chasing them. Scarlet says if they find what's making the world out of tune they can find out why it hates Hewligan.  They walks into a travel agent and Hewligan sees a advert on the wall, it shows a huge stone head.  It's for Easter Island.  "There they are!" he says excitedly.

Hewligan spots the Giant Heads.

"I think I'm having a mystical experience" he goes on to say. "Can't you just be happy instead?" retorts Scarlet.  They book a holiday to go and see the heads. When Hewligan wonders how they'll get there, Scarlet reminds him the world is somewhat messy right now and they hail a bus which is going the whole way.

It travels across the ocean, and Hewligan asks if this is an irrational persecution complex or guilt trip?  "No, I really think it's your fault. Somehow or other your to blame for all this" says Scarlet.   The navy and airforce are catching up and the skeleton driving won't speed up, so Scarlet takes over driving.

The bus ends up getting sunk, so they swim the rest of the way. They reach Easter Island but all the giant heads are fast asleep.  Then it starts raining missiles, but they turn into mushrooms as they hit the ground.  Then one of the stone heads wakes up and tells them to step in its mouth. And then:

Hewligan: "...I saw it. Glowing softly in the centre of his forehead.  Unmistakeable.  Unforgetable.  Born of a pair of plastic N.H.S scissors. My haircut. Hewligan's Haircut!"

Scarlet voices what we're all thinking... how does the shape of the most absurb haircut ever also be a symbol on an Easter Island statue?

The Haircut is the Key.

A strange while hole appears in the air and Scarlet says the world is starting to disappear.  The picture starts to fade so Hewligan drags her into the statue's mouth despite her reluctance and they snog while falling deep inside.

They find themselves in a place solely populated by giant stone heads.  They are between dimensions now  "You are in the blue limbo of the zonal frequency modulations" says the head that brought them there.  Their job is to keep worlds they are assigned to in tune and Hewligan's haircut is to blame for what happened:

Giant Stone Head: "You see your haircut is the shutdown signal to turn off the zonal freqency modulators.   If the shape of that symbol appears in a dimension all frequency modulators in that dimension go to sleep."

All that madness caused by one haircut. Hewligan is to return via the head and undo the damage, but Scarlet won't be coming with him.

She says all her life she has been out of tune, "all my life I've felt I don't belong".  She's going to use the giant heads to travel to different dimensions so one day she'll find a world she'll feel at home in.  Hewligan says he'll come with her, but the stone head says "absolutely not".  He has to come back and undo the damage his haircut did.

The Giant head explains all.

If he doesn't that world will become so undone it'll be little more than a "rumour".  Scarlet says their world doesn't deserve that and hugs a tearful Hewligan.  He cuts his hair and climbs back into the stone heads mouth.  He waves goodbye to Scarlet and thinks "I had no idea where on Earth I was going to arrive.  Right then, I didn't care."

As he falls through the world of colour and tries not to think of Scarlet, he decides to become a monk as he's "had it with women.  I'd had it with life".  He comes out of the head and the world is back to normal and in black and white again.  It's in the middle if Trafalgar Square that they land.  Hewligan tells the stone head he'll stand out there.

Giant Stone Head: "Frequency modulators are never out of place. Reality is always slightly altered to accomodate us.   Ask anyone and they'll tell you there was always a giant head in Trafalgar Square. Now you better go and stop speaking to me.  People will think you're mad."

So Hewligan mooches off, he's hungry, thirsty, wet, miserable and penniless.  Then suddenly he sees a man with "my haircut!  Hewligan's haircut!"  He runs over to tell the man how dangerous it is and gets told to get lost.

So he starts ripping the man's hair out until the police drag him off.  And he ends up in a straitjacket, in a mental hospital in a padded cell.  He tells the doctors the full story of why he ripped the man's hair out expecting to be believed and let go, but he gets booted back into the cell.

Back in the loony bin again.

Angrily he tells himself he shouldn't have come back and starts plotting to grow his hair and create the haircut again, he'll turn the world into a rumour and go looking for Scarlet.  Then suddenly the wall bulges with colour and a giant face appears with Scarlet standing in it.  She decided she wanted a travelling companion and so came back for Hewligan.

Hewligan: "Scarlet, is this really happening? I mean is this just my madness?  Is the world still out of tune?

Scarlet:  Stop worrying Hewligan.  What does it matter?"

But after all Scarlet returns for him.

And it ends with a kiss.  If I could be serious for a moment, despite the humour, this strip gets a lot right about some types of mental illness.  Speaking as someone who has struggled with some quite serious "breaks" in reality in the past (and who is basically a medicated psychotic) that feeling of being "out of tune" with the world is a perfect description of how it feels to wake up one day and find everything feels wrong about the world and only you are unaffected by it.  Perhaps my worst one was believing everyone in the world had been replaced by sentient robots and only I knew what had happened. Fortunately I was able to ride that out and back to sanity again without hurting anyone or myself but it was a terrifying experience which involved amazing amounts of paranoia as if the whole world is really out to get you.  Which is why I relate to this strip quite heavily.  The ending is also interesting, did he really get rescued by Scarlet?  Or did he finally escape into permanent fantasy via his mind like the end of the Terry Gilliam film Brazil?  Even the choice of putting the "sane" parts in black and white are meaningful.  When you are taking various types of meds for mental illness (especially antipsychotics) you can feel like the world is flat and colourless in comparison to the vividness of a hallucination or other altered state of conciousness.  It's all clever stuff, definitely one of the more sympathetic treatments of severe mental illness I have ever seen (and let's face it, the likes of me are usually being roughed up by Batman rather than riding a bus to Easter Island when it comes to comics sadly).  And the story is good fun, and actually holds together well for what initially feels like a set of random circumstances. The art is wonderful, and if you're reading this and thinking the art looks like The Gorillaz, well Jamie Hewlett is the artist behind both.  Hewligan's Haircut is one of those wonderful oddities 2000AD throws up from time to time.  It's also avaliable as a trade paperback so if you're at all interested it's well worth checking 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.