HOPE: FOR THE FUTURE

You can’t write noir fiction without an awareness of how it was shaped by the horrors of WWII, and this 2000 AD series from Guy Adams and Jimmy Broxton (the team previously responsible for the brilliant Goldtiger) has that right at its heart. Mallory Hope is a former New York cop who’s come to work as a private eye in Los Angeles after a personal tragedy (exemplary noir backstory there), and is hired to locate a missing child actor. But Hope has been touched by the horrors of war in a very literal way: this story is set in an alternative Earth where occult magic is real, and an encounter on the battlefield has given him access to dark forces.

The atmosphere is faultless and Broxton’s murky, hazy LA is brilliantly depicted: details such as his faux-period movie posters add to the worldbuilding. The plot is relentless in its grim descent, but Adams leavens it with plenty of humour along the way, and Hope’s use of magic – for example, to make people answer his questions and be honest – gives him an extra dimension (as well as enabling him to cut to the chase).

It’s a satisfying story, but it’s just one case and there’s much left unexplored, with the promise of future instalments to fill in the blanks. It’s well worth catching up before Hope returns to the prog. Eddie Robson