Durham Red, the bounty hunter whose mutation gives her a vampiric lust for blood, is back and this time she’s bloodier than ever.
Beginning in Prog 1784, The ‘Nobody Wants This Job’ Job story has been drawn by Durham Red co-creator, Carlos Ezquerra, and sees Red take on her very first commission as a Search/Destroy agent - which if she’s not careful could end up being her last!
Originally created in 1987 by John Wagner, Alan Grant, and Carlos Ezquerra for the popular long-running series Strontium Dog, Red remains one of the strip’s most popular characters alongside Johnny Alpha and Wulf Sternhammer.
In a world devastated by the aftermath of an atomic war, a genetic apartheid is created where unaffected ‘norms’ discriminate against ‘muties’, whose bodies have been warped by radioactive Strontium 90 fall out. In this divided society, the only job open to mutants is as bounty hunters, the so-called Strontium Dogs, who hunt criminals across the galaxy.
Last seen in a series of far future epics written by Dan Abnett, in which she awoke from cryogenic suspension to find that she was being worshipped by a sect of mutants. Grant has now returned Durham Red to her blood-soaked roots in a story set in her first days as a mutant bounty hunter.
"The new story showcases Red's first-ever case as a bounty hunter acting out of the Doghouse," says Alan. "I had no desire to set her story thousands of years in the future, so I decided to allow that particular sleeping dog to lie. It's her first-ever job, so anybody should be able to jump on board and understand everything from the start."
"Alan’s script was perfect, as always. Remember that Alan and I have been working together on and off since the eighties... a looong time, and both of us know where the other stands," adds Carlos.
Elsewhere in the Prog, the flames are dying in the charred ruins of Mega-City One, giving Judge Dredd finally time to make a personal call in 'Day of Chaos: Eve of Destruction' by John Wagner and Edmund Bagwell. They’re calling in the big guns in 'Midnight Cowboys' by Pat Mills and James McKay, while the ETC are negotiating over an intergalactic forced marriage in 'Grey Area: One of Our Own' by Dan Abnett and Lee Carter And how many Doppelgangers can one man have? Alroy Rey is about to run out of decoys in 'Cadet Anderson Psi-Divison: Algoe' Part One by Alan Grant and Steve Yeowell.
- 2000 AD Prog 1785, priced £2.35, is on sale on UK newsstands now and will be available digitally worldwide from http://shop.2000adonline.com this Friday. Physical copies will be available in North America from 13th June
- Read an interview with Alan Grant and Carlos Ezquerra about the return of Durham Red on the 2000AD web site
No comments:
Post a Comment