Review by Frank Plowright
DC’s brief partnership with 2000AD saw graphic novels issued with content that didn’t appear in a British trade, in this case until 2023’s hardcover collection of Mike Carey’s 2000AD strips, that titled Thirteen.
Carey’s premise is engaging, featuring lowlife London blagger Joe who could have stepped straight from a 1990s Guy Ritchie movie. He looks out for number one, has a comment for every woman he sees, and mistakenly views himself as somehow desirable to them. He skates through life via the odd robbery and using his psychic talents to fleece casinos, who’re now on the lookout for him. It seems his luck has run out, though, when grasping a bead among the objects he’d earlier stolen amplifies his abilities to a terrifying degree.
Joe bounces off a female psychic, the digital residue of a long dead alien warrior woman who advises him, and the seemingly sadistic administrator of an organisation dedicated to honing psychic ability.
Don’t expect the subtlety and emotional depth of Lucifer here, as Carey’s rather on autopilot. Coincidences occur, the general progress of the plot is predictable, and some aspects just fall by the wayside without ever being properly explained. On the plus side, Joe’s slimy character goes a long way, the way things start small and escalate to cosmic significance is nice, and then there’s Andy Clarke’s art.
By the time he came to 13, Clarke had developed from a raw talent to an accomplished storyteller and designer via Sinister Dexter and Nikolai Dante. His digital alien warrior is perhaps a little too sexualised, but his toothy alien beasts are great, and there are a variety of different looking people involved. There is an occasional stiffness of expression due to the use of visual reference, but Clarke’s the stronger partner here overall.
Carey sets the story up for a possible continuation, but by the time it was serialised he was already working for American publishers. Both creators would accomplish better elsewhere, but 13 remains a fun SF romp, if perhaps best now experienced as Thirteen.
