Thrill-Power countdown #14: 2000ad Annual 2025

It shouldn't rate this highly. On a purely craft level, it's competent enough, but there are no modern classics lurking within.

The Lawless text story is probably the best thing inside those thick covers, because Lawless is always good, but there is also a Tales from the Black Museum, which is the definition of a filler, and the first Rogue Trooper story is reprinted with some grudawful modern colouring.

But the real thrill was in the very existence of a new annual, after all these years. Especially if you got the website edition, with a Bolland cover on a bright primary colour, with that shiny 1980s logo - still the best logo the galaxy's greatest ever had. (The only sign it wasn't done by Bolland back in the day are two background characters looking at the heroes, as if it to say look at these dweebs, a very modern touch from old Brian.)

Just to have something like that in my hands was as thrilling as a thousand future shocks, a back to the future moment that gave me the purest of joys. 

It does annoy me that it's physical dimensions are very slightly bigger than the old annuals though. If you're going to have the Splundig Vur Thrigg badge on the back, you should be able to get the size right. But a new 2000ad annual for Christmas is a true light in the winter darkness.