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Kingdom #2
Kingdom: Call of the Wild
Earth, the far-future. With the planet now overrun by gigantic alien insects, Mankind is all but extinct. Genetically engineered dog-soldier, Gene the Hackman, now protects one of the last remaining human beings a young girl named Leezee Sower and the two of them have travelled to the land of Auxtralia, straight into the territory of a new pack...
144 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
August 15, 2020
Gene the Hackman is back, tougher and tough, in a graphic story collection from writer Dan Abnett and artist Richard Elson. Originally featured in 2000AD progs 1650-1661 and 1715-1725 this volume contains two adventures, ‘Call of the Wild’ and ‘His Master’s Voice’. Both titles are a nice example of that sly humour that is one of the best features of the source comic.
The story follows on from ‘Kingdom: Promised Land’ but can be read independently. Gene the Hackman is an Aux, short for Auxiliary Combatant Resource. These are genetically engineered dog soldiers grown by humans to fight against Them. Them are giant insects whose provenance is not given. The name obviously harks back to the giant ants in the classic 1950’s monster movie.
Gene used to patrol Anarchticy (Antarctica) with his pack. Having pretty much lost the war against Them, humans had decided to hide, leaving the dog soldiers to fight it out. His pack gone, Gene crossed the land bridge to Auxtralia and en route rescued a human girl named Leezee Sower. ’Call of the Wild’ begins with them entering Sydney where they hitch up with the Wild, a band of Aux led by a very smart puppy called Rex Horizon who has a human in a spacesuit for a pet. Them seem to be drawn by something Leezee Sower carries and are attacking in force. Rex figures the easiest solution is to get rid of Leezee but Gene has other ideas. To say more would be to spoil the fun but it’s a well-crafted story with gorgeous art.
In ‘His Master’s Voice’ there are useful flashback sequences which tell us more about the history of the conflict with Them and the origins of the dog soldiers. The cast includes lesser mongrel Aux characters such as J.S. Bark, Deborah Cur and Clawed Raines. There is a rationale for the names, namely that the man in charge of the Aux project was a big fan of old Hollywood movies. He probably named Them as well.
‘Call of the Wild’ is obviously a reference to the famous doggy novel by Jack London. ‘His Master’s Voice’ is a reference to a record label from a bygone age which featured a dog with its ear cocked to an old fashioned horn speaker on a record deck. The humour in 2000AD strips is always welcome but the violence is sometimes a bit extreme. Oddly, it doesn’t matter here because Gene usually hacks at horrible giant insects so it’s kind of unreal.
One downside of the anthology format of British comics is that if you don’t like many of the strips you are unlikely to fork out several pounds for the comic, whereas if you buy an issue of Thor or Spider-Man you just get what you wanted, namely Thor or Spider-Man. With these bumper collections, you just have to buy the strip you like. Unfortunately, to find out which ones you will like you have to buy the comic which means you will already have them, though not so tidily together.
At £14.99, printed on good quality paper with 130 pages of gorgeous artwork and a few extra illustrations thrown in this is good value. Or gooder and good, as Gene the Hackman might say.
The story follows on from ‘Kingdom: Promised Land’ but can be read independently. Gene the Hackman is an Aux, short for Auxiliary Combatant Resource. These are genetically engineered dog soldiers grown by humans to fight against Them. Them are giant insects whose provenance is not given. The name obviously harks back to the giant ants in the classic 1950’s monster movie.
Gene used to patrol Anarchticy (Antarctica) with his pack. Having pretty much lost the war against Them, humans had decided to hide, leaving the dog soldiers to fight it out. His pack gone, Gene crossed the land bridge to Auxtralia and en route rescued a human girl named Leezee Sower. ’Call of the Wild’ begins with them entering Sydney where they hitch up with the Wild, a band of Aux led by a very smart puppy called Rex Horizon who has a human in a spacesuit for a pet. Them seem to be drawn by something Leezee Sower carries and are attacking in force. Rex figures the easiest solution is to get rid of Leezee but Gene has other ideas. To say more would be to spoil the fun but it’s a well-crafted story with gorgeous art.
In ‘His Master’s Voice’ there are useful flashback sequences which tell us more about the history of the conflict with Them and the origins of the dog soldiers. The cast includes lesser mongrel Aux characters such as J.S. Bark, Deborah Cur and Clawed Raines. There is a rationale for the names, namely that the man in charge of the Aux project was a big fan of old Hollywood movies. He probably named Them as well.
‘Call of the Wild’ is obviously a reference to the famous doggy novel by Jack London. ‘His Master’s Voice’ is a reference to a record label from a bygone age which featured a dog with its ear cocked to an old fashioned horn speaker on a record deck. The humour in 2000AD strips is always welcome but the violence is sometimes a bit extreme. Oddly, it doesn’t matter here because Gene usually hacks at horrible giant insects so it’s kind of unreal.
One downside of the anthology format of British comics is that if you don’t like many of the strips you are unlikely to fork out several pounds for the comic, whereas if you buy an issue of Thor or Spider-Man you just get what you wanted, namely Thor or Spider-Man. With these bumper collections, you just have to buy the strip you like. Unfortunately, to find out which ones you will like you have to buy the comic which means you will already have them, though not so tidily together.
At £14.99, printed on good quality paper with 130 pages of gorgeous artwork and a few extra illustrations thrown in this is good value. Or gooder and good, as Gene the Hackman might say.
March 3, 2018
Have you ever wished that there was a graphic novel set in a post apocalyptic world where dog/human hybrids protect the last remaining humans from huge flesh eating plant flying aliens? Well you are in luck....
A well told story with lots of action - made more believable by the quirky dialogue.
A well told story with lots of action - made more believable by the quirky dialogue.
May 22, 2018
I mean okay, it's no 'We3'. But post apocalyptic world with giant insects held off by genetically engineered dogs? It's the sort of stuff 2000AD delivers at it's best. And this mostly worked quite well.
August 9, 2018
Very good comic, fun to read with great art. I wasn’t expecting much, and I was really surprised by the quality of this material.
July 30, 2021
Kingdom is just so good. Beautifully written, good story, great art.
July 8, 2014
This was enjoyable. A not-terribly-serious post apocalyptic setting where the dogs had evolved and had a wonderful race memory oral history kind of mythology about the past. There was a lot of action but it was also quite interesting storytelling. I borrowed this from the library and will see if they have the other one. Not something I'd buy but one I'd like to read more of.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews