Future Shock! The Story Of 2000AD

There’s no doubt at all that 2000AD changed comics forever, not just in the UK but around the world. Without it there’d be no ‘Watchmen’, no ‘Batman: Year One’, none of those groundbreaking graphic novels that paved the way for the ‘dark’ superheroes and gritty storylines that now rule both on the page and the screen. And if you feel like you’re ever likely to forget that fact, don’t worry: this documentary exploring the mag’s history will remind you, again and again and again.

Consisting almost exclusively of talking heads – most of them white, male heads – with the occasional bit of half-hearted animation in between, the film is most interesting when discussing 2000AD’s roots in British comic tradition, sci-fi geekery and the emerging punk scene. But it never digs as deeply as you want it to – we’re told that characters like Judge Dredd and Halo Jones were groundbreaking, but precisely why remains hazy – and far too little of the art itself is ever shown. The final fifteen minutes are just a slog, as the interviewees line up one by one to sing the mag’s praises. There are only so many times you can be told how unbelievably great something is without starting to hate it a little bit.