2000 AD Profiles: Brigand Doom

Brigand Doom

Creators: Alan McKenzie + Dave D'Antiquis | Appearances to date: 36

'Thirty-four souls cast adrift. Thirty-four citizens freed from their municipal bonds. Life in this crushing machine called the city is ugly enough. Who’s to say that death is any less so? But this is not the time for the question. There is only the job.'

Brigand Doom prowls a Noir-ish city, a supposed "crime free society" that forces restrictions on liberty in order to maintain exclusivity. It's a situation that can and does get abused by its rich and privileged members, while many of its working class remain blind to what governs them.

Doom's goal is to make the people who abuse their role and/or misuse their power see the error of their ways, often with the kind of permanence that makes future errors an impossibility.

The hero/antihero/villain moves under cover of darkness, dressed like a highwayman of old. He takes from the rich like they did, but his methods are more long-term, with rewards that are more far-reaching than simple monetary gain. His hold-ups produce truth and expose lies. His approach is at times savage, and his philosophy warped, but his results get noticed.

To many he's an "urban terrorist", a disruptive activist that must be hunted down. But when Investigator Nine analyses his activities, she finds the "sinner's" methods oddly intriguing.

Defined by his actions, certainly, as a written character so often is, but Brigand Doom is defined also by the lack of information granted to the reader. We learn very little about him over time, but the lack of detail doesn't translate into a lack of depth, at least, not in the early stories. I feel the reverse is true: the vagueness gives him an air of mystery that's more beneficial than not.

The creators of the work seem to have been heavily inspired by Alan Moore's V for Vendetta (1988), both in terms of pacing and in how the city gets used as a character itself.

The artwork in the early stories is fantastic. Dave D'Antiquis' creates a realism in stark black and white, with no grey values. It's stylised and has a lot more depth than one might imagine such a technique could have.

The dramatic contrast complements the veiled world, wherein night-time shadows can seem starkly angular, as if even two-dimensional aspects have a sharp and dangerous edge to them.

Alas, the strip didn't get the level of reader appreciation that was needed to warrant continued survival within the much sought-after pages of 2000 AD, and as the world grew the stories seemed to lose focus. Those two things no doubt contributed to its eventual retirement, which, at time of writing, is how it remains.

As far as I know, over the years Brigand Doom has appeared in twenty-eight Progs of 2000 AD weekly, four 2000 AD Sci-Fi Specials, two 2000 AD Winter Specials, and two 2000 AD Yearbooks. His most recent appearance was in 2005.