Review by Frank Plowright

It’s been an awful long time since the previous Sinister Dexter collection, but Bulletopia doesn’t pick up from the turn of the millennium material presented in Money Shots, instead jumping forward to strips from the early 2020s. Sinister and Dexter have been through a lot in between, not least seeming death, but the primary difference between new and old is Sinister’s tidier hair. New readers can easily pick up their gunshark trade, and while there are references to the past, indeed much is built around it, Dan Abnett supplies all necessary information as a rogue AI takes total control of Downlode. A complication from the start is Sinister and Dexter having to work with Sinister’s former wife, except she’s a very dangerous woman whose memory of their marriage has been erased.

Until Abnett drops a stunning surprise, the soul of the strip seems to have been buried too deeply. The success of Sinister Dexter in the past rested on Abnett constructing short, sharp plots around interesting problems or ideas, with implications and uses of technology a speciality. The creativity is here, just embedded in plots involving a lot of conversation as Sinister and Dexter put things together.

First artist Steve Yeowell is mystifyingly under-rated, an exemplary storyteller whose people have personality (sample art left), and he sells the conversation and action in his compact manner. Tazio Bettin might look more dynamic, but bear in mind he’s given action scenes from the start.

Around a quarter of the way through Bulletopia Abnett makes a major change to the status quo by separating Sinister and Dexter. They’re deposited in very different circumstances, and almost all of what follows is Dexter and new allies attempting to leave Downlode and make for Mangapore, where the best chance of dealing with the AI lies. Abnett returns multiple characters from the past, as escape is far from easy. It has the episodic nature of early Judge Dredd epics, where individual inventive short stories are steps along the way toward an ultimate goal. There is greater progress, though, with ‘Hosanna’, a chapter set during a supply-gathering mission a highlight.

This isn’t the Sinister Dexter you know, and any reader wedded to the past could well not be happy with Bulletopia. Accept that, though, and there’s considerable variety to the locations and threats Abnett provides, from mutant horrors in deserted places to the delicate negotiations required to end a gang war. Having decided a Sinister Dexter epic is in order, Abnett doesn’t finish it here, although there’s a definite stopping point.

2000AD readers know Dexter next features in Azimuth, and a collection of that is planned for later in 2026.