It’s an unfortunate fact that entirely too many comics have suffered server-related hiatus. The Keenspace crash of 2002 and the loss of the Modern Tales server (which actually led to the creation of Panel2panel) are just the more commonly known outages; the loss of smaller comics hosted independently often slides under the radar. These server meltdowns are especially aggravating for both cartoonists and readers alike as a server meltdown is often outside the cartoonist’s control, unlike many reasons for hiatus. The effort of rebuilding the website, moving information to a new server, and recovering lost data can bring any comic grinding to a halt. When this happens at what is likely the climactic moment of the comic, it can be especially disheartening.

Angels 2200 has just recovered from one such server-induced hiatus, with the heroines fighting against a foe that has managed to outthink them at every turn. Being the fan of science fiction that I am, I must admit to being amused at what the crew of the carrier Outcast has come up with to try and defeat their foe: flinging an asteroid at them, while using their own carrier’s radar signature to hide the asteroid until the last moment. I don’t recall many science fiction stories where they fling rocks at the foe to defeat them: Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Niven and Pournelle’s Footfall are the only two that come to mind.

Even in the midst of a climactic battle, Peter Haynes manages to introduce humorous elements into the comic, such as when Whiskey is being chased through the corridors of the Outcast by the android Lance, and uses that to distract guards by claiming Lance had gone rogue, or when Quetzalcoatl has a carrot lodge in the tail of her fighter (and thus allows for Loser to quip that she has a carrot up her ass). Various plot elements are coming together, and while this unfortunately suggests that Angels 2200 has an ending firmly in its targeting site, it also allows for a story that doesn’t start drifting between disparate storylines. Add in a 45-minute live-action Angels 2200 featurette that Haynes filmed (available through the website, and with a trailer hosted on YouTube), and there are few reasons not to start reading this fascinating science fiction comic.