The Ballad of Halo Jones

In the hoop, a sprawling relocation hub where the unemployed loiter until they can find work, Halo lives day to day with her friends hoping for change. The problem is, in this distant future, there is much poverty and little work. The hoop takes lives, drives people insane and corrupts minds with a perception of home, safety and belonging.

Halo watches her friends succumb to the Hoops corruption, either through death or bad decision making and decides to take her destiny into her own hands. Making her way to New York she gets herself a job on a luxury space liner and from then on, we are on a wild adventure as Jones begins to write her own legend.

This satirical, unique and dense space adventure showcases Moore's ability to insert serious themes beneath rollicking, edge of your seat, suspenseful action. Ian Gibson's blends vast landscapes shots, sprawling with activity with emotive chiaroscuro close ups bringing the complex dystopian universe to life.

I'd also like to note that though 2000AD have often included strong female characters in their almost gender-less future societies, Halo Jones stands out. Halo isn't blessed with super powers, special training or mutant abilities. Other than a sense of adventure and strong will, she is an ordinary girl starting out like so many downtrodden in the slums. She wants something more for herself, and through risk, famine and war, takes it. I'll leave you with her own famous words, "Anybody could have done it."