Last time was Prog 1566, next time is Prog 1567 – this time it’s the end of year blowout of Prog 2008 – and despite the numbering this comic features the first episodes of several series which will continue into Prog 1567 and beyond. An anally-retentive comics fan nightmare for two reasons: firstly, because it’s only on Planet 2000AD you have to rack Prog 2008 between Prog 1566 and Prog 1567 rather than between Progs 2007 and 2009; secondly, there’s only 433 more issues until the "normal" numbering hits Prog 2000, that means in less than nine years time we’re going to have duplicate numbers? I presume the current Tharg doesn’t care about that too much, given the usual life expectancy of 2000AD editors….but it’s a worry for such anal-ysts as myself!

Judge Dredd: The Spirit Of Christmas is a 12-page one-off by John Wagner and Colin MacNeil, a welcome return for Vienna Dredd (his niece) coupled with a standard intro strip of Dredd doing what he does best, plus a couple of pages reprinted (or redrawn) from an earlier strip setting more up for the future – maybe – of Dredd’s continuing mellowing in his old age. Absolutely perfect introduction to the character and good setup for 2008.

Robbie Morrison’s Shakara returns, with part one of a new story, The Defiant. I’ve never "got" this strip, every time I’ve dipped into in the past it just seemed like unrelenting violence and minimal dialogue – this time is a ten page recap of (I assume) all that has gone before, neatly encapsulating dozens of pages of strip, moving things forwards, and setting up an interesting future plotline. So, again, another great intro strip and setup for beyond.

The first volume of Dan Abnett’s Kingdom was superb, so that it has returned in The Promised Land, Part One makes me very happy. There are a few surviving humans on a far future Earth, who have genetically engineered dog soldiers to protect them from the invading insect-like Them. One such dog soldier, Gene The Hackman (and that sets the tone for names in this strip) is now alone and pushing in Them’s territory – in a marvellous double-age spread from artist Richard Elson we see some sort of hive (come on, it’s got to be a target for Gene later on!) – eventually encountering something even more invasive than Them…another great series opener.

Nikolai Dante: Destiny’s Child by Robbie Morrison and John Burns is a one-off strip and it’s a cracker told from the point of view of (initially) a girl with precognitive abilities, she’s used and abused until kidnapped and ultimately rescued by Dante, who manfully refuses to take advantage of her foreknowledge until the very last moment: "How am I going to die?". Answer: "Spectacularly." Yet another winner.

And then we have Stickleback: England’s Glory, Part One by Ian Edginton and D’Israeli. Regular readers will know how much I enjoy Edginton’s The Red Seas series for 2000AD….this isn’t in the same class. I’ve just spent 30 minutes thinking about this strip – 19^th C London, crime ran by Stickleback and his gang of oddballs, rogues and weird creatures – and the conclusion I came to was there’s no-one to empathise with, no one to root for. This is why Shakara never worked for me in the past, possibly, who really cares about an alien killing machine with no significant dialogue (and this might be why the new Shakara series will work, as it’s only nominally about Shakara). Every character in this strip is ugly (either externally or internally – or both) and the only thing I care about is I want them all to die hideous deaths. They don’t work as anti-heroes a la John Constantine or Dredd himself, they’re just scumbags. Not for me.

Another one-off, Sinister Dexter: Inner Waldorf Hire And Dice by Dan Abnett and Simon Davis, and it’s the best episode of this series for years, a five-page look at what Hollywood would do to Sinister Dexter – brilliantly funny, perfect ending. I actually enjoyed a Sinister Dexter story. I need a lie down.

Normally Gordon Rennie and Dom Reardon can do no wrong in my eyes with Caballistics Inc, and the one-off-but-essential story The Nativity here is no exception to that. This acts as both an epilogue to the cataclysmic events of the last storyline, and a prologue to future storylines – it wraps some things up, lays other threads out beautifully, and just plain whets your appetite for more. The sooner this comes back, the better.

The comic is rounded out by Strontium Dog: The Glum Affair, Part 1 by … well, the credit box is missing, but I presume it’s the usual Wagner-Ezquerra pairing. Despite it still rankling with me that this is a fake Johnny Alpha (the real one died years ago, yes I still reserve the right to go on about that), it’s actually a good start for this tale: Johnny is looking to clear a mutant from a murder he maybe didn’t do, but said mutant doesn’t want his help…and the evidence is fairly strong against him (so far as we’ve seen).

So, with the exception of Stickleback (which I'm maybe never going to like), it's a cracker throughout, a good introduction to all strips involved, and a recommended purchase.