Judge Dredd the Megazine, ranked part 21: missing bits!

So I set some weird rules about what and wouldn’t count for this celebration of the best (and worst) of the Judge Dredd Megazine.

Thanks to those rules, there are some pretty significant bests (not too many worsts) that didn’t get a mention. I’m not going to rank them as such, but let’s list off and maybe talk a little about them.

First, the stories that had runs in 2000AD first, before switching to the Meg
(and yes, it IS cheating that I included Chopper in the ranking)

Anderson, Psi Division
Had a LONG history before joining the Megazine in volume 2, then dipping back in and out of the Prog for reasons that at this point make no particular sense beyond, I guess, scheduling and maybe the length/kind of story creators want to tell?

Significant/Great Anderson Meg stories, for me, would be:

Twists and turns in Childhood's End
Words by Alan Grant; Art by Kev Walker

The Jesus Syndrome - The Judges meet the Messiah (he's a very nice boy!)
Childhood’s End - Oh no, the secret origin of humanity is blowing my mind!
Satan - the Judges meet the anit-Messiah (he's a very nasty boy!)
The Protest - Life in teh Big City is, basically, horrible - but not without some hope...
Half-Life/WMD/Lock-in/City of the Dead - The best post-Necropolis Judge Death story?

Cass gets the upper hand in City of the Dead
Words by Alan Grant; Art by Arhtur Ranson

aka most of the stories illustrated by Arthur Ranson. In the post-Alan Grant era, there have been some decent Anderson adventures, but none have quite dared to step up the levels of introspection that Grant at his best was into. On their own, those stories would be Top 5 Meg material, for me. As a whole, Anderson’s run is probably relegated to Top 10/15.

Frankly, Anderson Psi Division deserves its own ranking exercise one day…

Fiends of the Eastern Front: Stalingrad
Another 2000AD classic with a single Megazine entry. It’s very good! It’s much more in the vein of the original Finley-Day/Ezquerra WW2 series, rather than the modern Edginton/Trevallion ‘what do you mean, this is meant to be a war story, who says?’ version.

Bishop and MacNeil’s take is kind of grown up and serious, while still being very much a ‘war is hell and Oh shitting christ there are vampires now TOOOooooooooo’ affair. It’s like Top 25 Megazine material.

Art by Colin MacNeil

Low Life: War Without Bloodshed
Only the one Low Life outing in the Meg, but it’s a cracking good ‘un! I went on the Mega City Bookclub to discuss Mega City Undercover Vol 2, expecting to spend my time waxing lyrical about the genius of Creation – but in the end, it’s War Without Bloodshed that won me over. This might be a Top 10 contender.

Shhh! What do you mean, that doesn't look like Aimee Nixon...
Art by Steve Yeowell

Mean Machine
Had his first solo series in the Prog, and that’s both a laugh riot and an insanely gorgeous piece of painting from Richard Dolan. Chris Halls Carl Critchlow’s Son of Mean was not quite as good on either front, but it’s decent! A bunch of one-offs mostly by Gordon Rennie are all pretty funny, too. Overall, Top 20.

Art by Greg Staples

Some exiles from the Regened experiment…
Cadet Dredd, which had been merely OK in the pages of Regened, suddenly got its best story. Department K did not.
Pandora Perfect continues to be a delight.

 

Art by Neil Roberts

Plus, of course, Judge Dredd
Like, he’s the main character of the Megazine. He has a solo story in every issue! Often more than one! So it’d be awful if he didn’t have some of the very best stories across nearly 500 issues. I absolutely have not re-read all of these in recent years, but here are a few that stick out in my memory as contenders for notoriety or just plain ‘best of the best’-ness. (not including the excellent Gordon Rennie stories which ended up spinning out their own solo series) Most are written by John Wagner, obviously. There’s a lot here from Volume 2, which probably just shows my own teenage bias 😊
Many of these would crack the Top 20 best of the Meg

Black Widow – Hicklenton art from my nightmares!
Raptaur – a fun alien foe! Also meet Psi Judge Karyn! The story is only average!
Mechanismo 1 + 2 – fun with robots!
Hottie House Siege - Very funny!
Bagging the Bagwan – Also very funny!
Bury my Knee - Very moving!
Howler – weird and funny!
Tenth Planet (prologue to Wilderlands) – tense and exciting!
Bill Clinton – weird and funny again, twice!
No More Jimmy Deans – fun sci-fi idea!
Bad Manners / Flippers – nasty!
Citizen Sump – delightful movie pastiche and send-off for a beloved character
Six/Monstrous Mashinations/Gingerbread Man – PJ is back back BACK
Ratfink  - REALLY nasty
El Maldito – great new character
The Gyre – great new setting
Monkey Business/Ape Escape/Krong Island – great new character in a great new setting!

Art by, deep breath...
DeanOrmstonMarkWilkinsonTrevorHairsineJockChrisWeston
PyeParrCarlosEzquerraNickPercivalJakeLynch... and breathe

Charley’s War and Darkie’s Mob
Very soon from the start of the Rebellion era, the Megazine has made a home for reprints either in bulk or in short excerpts of the massive back catalogue of old IPC mags, aka the ‘Treasury of British Comics’. Significantly for me, it meant I could finally lay eyes on and read two classics from Battle, both now widely available in various collections.

Anyway, Darkie’s Mob – it’s a John Wagner story! Everyone agrees that the best thing about it is the Mike Western art! It was fascinating to see quite how closely Peter Milligan followed this template when he wrote the first Bad Company series!

Charley’s War – mooted by many to be THE best British comics series of all time. Not my take personally, but it’s really a very good comic, that manages to be all at once child-friendly, informative, moving, angry and deeply political. I definitely admire it, but honestly, the ‘child-friendly’ part remains the barrier to me really sinking into it.

But before Rebellion and the IPC catalogue to mine, there was the time they reprinted trendy American comics…
…of which the best surely continues to be Preacher, which also felt the most 2000AD-like, but for big kids. (Yeah, I stand by it, it’s better than early Sin City or Hellboy). I also have a real soft spot for the even more 2000AD-like Lazarus Churchyard.

Art by Glenn Fabry

What about various reprints of the big man himself, Judge Dredd?
Volume 3 saw a whole ton of Daily Star Dredd serials, which are fun – if not as good as the original one-off strips by Ron Smith.

More recently, we’ve had a slew of IDW Dredd. There are no great stories here, but the ones by Matt Smith are really very good, and the controversial ‘Mega City Two: City of Courts’ is delightfully weird, both in story and art, and above all in setting and tone.

And finally, spare a thought for the world of ultra-independent comics, made by creators with nothing but love for comics in their heart, and maybe access to a printer or photocopier. The Small-Press slot caused some controversy during its brief tenure. People who hand-made and hand-sold comics at conventions – probably in quantities of tens or hundreds at best? - had the chance to see their work in print, in a comics reaching thousands of readers. Great exposure! But no pay. Is that, inherently, a bad deal? Hard to say.

Of the stories that ran, one stands out for me: Mr Amperduke by Bob Byrne. 

I cannot stress enough, this is a 'silent' comic.

Partly because it was my favourite offering, but also because I was surely not alone in that assessment, as Bob Byrne went on not only to have his own series that ran in 2000AD, it might actually be the only series to run with the creator’s name in the very title, Bob Byrne’s Twisted Tales! Somewhere, one hopes, a young Pat Mills and Kev O‘Neill are pumping their fists in the air. Even if they may also struggle with these dialogue-free comics because, despite generally excellent art and storytelling, sometimes it IS hard to be sure what is going on, and what the intended read is of what is going on...

Bizarrely, there’s one other independent comic that’s getting a bigger airing in the Megazine – Rok of the Reds. It is, so far, every bit as good as you’d expect from Wagner/Grant/Cornwell.

Judge Dredd the Megazine, ranked part 20: best of the best

So yeah, these are the best three non-Dredd, Megazine-originating stories in the Megazine. They’re also inarguably the best three of any stories in the Megazine, too!

 

3. DreadNoughts by Michael Carroll and John Higgins
(3 series so far, Megs 424-429; 455-461; 468-471)

What was this? A punning attempt to do Dredd: Year Zero? But seriously, it’s the actual origin story of how Judge Dredd’s world came to be, after the aborted attempt in Armageddon, and sidestepping the nuclear war part of the story as told in the Cursed Earth/Origins and other Judge Dredd stories.

It rains a lot in DreadNoughts land. Something to do with the sense of impending doom.
Art by John Higgins

What’s happening here is an attempt to imagine what it might be like if the ‘Judicial’ branch of a country’s power structure started to take over, setting up a super-elite kind of police force that could pretty much write its own rules. It’s properly scary! And, like the best Judge Dredd stories, it works to make you want to be on the side of the Judges, who come across as honourable/noble people, but also not ever want to be on their side, because they are ruthless and horrible.

It's all set in America not too far into the future. Crime is shown as running rampant, basically as if the headlines many news outlets peddle are accurate (in fact, crime rates have more or less steadily been going down). Organised crime in particular is shown as being incredibly well organised, well-armed, and well-connected to lawyers, governors and what have you.

So far, Carroll has pointedly decided to focus on life in the smaller towns of the US, he’s not delved into any big cities as yet. It’s an ideal setting to really hammer home the contrast between the ‘let me be free to live how I want’ attitude of old in the USA, versus ‘law and order is VITAL’ as the new way of things.

But what if, in this future hellscape, it DOES have to be this way?
Words by Carroll; Art by Higgins

Honestly, where Judge Dredd is so far in the future, and so full of fun future-crime / fashion / weirdness, it’s often easy to ignore the root of the system as fully authoritarian. In Dreadnoughts, there’s nowhere for the reader to hide. The Judges here get some pretty explicit pushback from the citizens and police officers they meet, who like to point out how horrible their tactics and attitudes are.

And yet. The Judges themselves are our point-of-view characters in these stories. And, like Dredd, they are clearly noble people who will put duty and the cause before any personal benefit. Exciting dramatic conflict alert! But also confusion when you root for them, only to sometimes get a different perspective and wonder if you should be rooting for them. But then the bad guys are SO wicked that you want to see them defeated. But are the tactics used OK?

Whose side are you on?
Words by Carroll; Art by Higgins

And yeah, John Higgins on art, with SJ Hurst on colours. This team plays in a lot of different tones, from way-out sci-fi to broad comedy to, in this case, dour ultra-violence. Higgins' long history with depicting the horror (but also sometimes fun) of violence is well-known. His preference for mood-appropriate rather than 'realistic' colours is also well-known, and frankly I MUCH prefer the Higgins approach. Comics can do so much more than depict the real world, so go crazy, I say!

Groovy

Love this series.

Dreddworld relevance? Well, it’s a distant origin story so of course there’s potential for this to be ‘hey, I’m just telling a story here, it doesn’t have to be canon’. But, so far, it all feels pretty canon. Worth noting there have been a couple of Carroll-scripted Judge Dredd stories in 2000AD that hark back to this Dreadnoughts era.

Writing: 9.5/10
Art: 10/10
Impact: 8/10

Overall score: 27.5 / 30

Has it been reprinted? It has! Two collections so far, and I’d imagine new collections as each series gets published. It’s popular!

 

2. America by John Wagner and Colin MacNeil
(Megs 1-7; Book II aka Fading of the Light Vol 3 20-25; Book III aka Cadet Megs 250-252; Book IV aka Terror Rising Megs 365-367; Book V aka The Victims of Bennet Beeny Megs 424-426. What do you mean, these don’t form a coherent series and are all Judge Dredd stories really??)

What was this? Ah, America. Perhaps the single most famous Judge Dredd story, that on some technicalities is not, in fact, a Judge Dredd story. I mean, Dredd is in it, it’s very much about what he represents, and as the sequels unfold it does indeed delve into his character. But, you know, it’s really the story of America Jara and Bennet Beeny and then America Beeny.

America is so much about the mood...
Art by Colin MacNeil

It’s a truly great piece of comics! There’s also a reason why it’s often suggested to readers as THE Judge Dredd story to give casual comics fans to read. And a reason why it regularly tops lists relating to anything and everything Judge Dredd. That first story is just a prefect realisation of ‘Judge Dredd comics, but for grown ups’ that seemed like it was an easy route for comics to take in the early 90s, but turned out, in fact, to be very difficult to pull off.

Indeed, Wagner and MacNeil have both not-quite pulled it off again themselves over the years. For my tastes, the plot developments of America II and III (and beyond) have all been spectacular and dramatic and just feel so right for the ongoing narrative of Judge Dredd. No faults there. I love spending time with Bennet Beeny and America Beeny. I love the ongoing tension of certain groups in Mega City One really hoping to bring Democracy back, with or without violence. (Usually with).

Yep, Mega City One is NOT part of the country America...
Words by Wagner; Art by MacNeil

But none of the sequels have quite captures the magic of that first book, and of course MacNeil’s style has gone through various evolutions. America is among the best of his first painted era; Fading of the Light suffers loads from him being mismatched with an early digital colourist. Subsequent stories have seen the transition to the more classic ink work and more reliable if unspectacular colouring.

Dreddworld relevance? Errr – if you want to explore the core concept of what Judge Dredd is about, both as a strip and as a character, it doesn’t get any more relevant. Which is ironic, as you can easily read Book I as a sort of mediation on the concept of Dredd that was maybe never meant to impact on the character/continuity quite as much as it has done.

Writing: 9/10
Art: 9/10
Impact: 10/10
We all know, I think, that if we were JUST looking at the original America, this would be 11/10 across the board. But that level of writing and art was not sustainable.

Overall score: 28/ 30

Has it been reprinted? Oh boy, has it ever...Why not treat yourself to the most recent Essential collection, which gives some of the build-up of the Dredd vs Democrats storylines - but only includes the first America. Or maybe you'd prefer the Lost and Found collection, which includes a running commentary on his own script from John Wagner, again just on the first (and best) story). The regular Judge Dredd: America collection has stories 1, 2 and 3. Mega Collection Vol 1: America goes all the way up to America 4, and has some other related Terror/Democracy/Beeny stories. America 5 shows up in Guatemala, as part of the more recent wave of Judge Dredd collections covering all things John Wagner.

*notoriously, you won't find America (the first story) reprinted in Judge Dredd complete Case Files 15, where it sits chronologically. I don't know if Tharg or anyone has given an official reason why not, but one suspects it mostly hinges on two things: a) the story is called, and is about America - not Judge Dredd; b) anyone who is buying a comic called 'Judge Dredd the Complete Case Files 15' probably already has this story in at least two versions and would rather not sacrifice 62 pages to yet an other reprint. America II also doesn't show up in CF26. Cadet DOES show up in CF43, and one assumes all future 'America' sequels will do...

 

So, to absolutely nobody’s surprise, this leaves the number one all-time best Megazine series, it’s so damn good you guys, it’s…

 1. Lawless by Dan Abnett and Phil Winslade
(11 series so far, starting in Meg 350, and then in as many issues as not ever since, basically.)

What was this? It’s “What if a Judge was Marshall of a small Wild West town not in the Cursed Earth, but on a colony world?” And it’s bloody marvellous!

Clothes matter in this world!
Art by Phil Winslade

Honestly, the thing that struck me right out of the gate was Phil Winslade’s ridiculously gorgeous art. I have no idea how he manages to bang out page after page on an insane schedule, always pencilling/inking in every single wrinkle in every fold of leather and other fabrics. And then there’s the sheer number of new characters he creates in every new series, including hundreds of background extras across all manner of crowd scenes. And then there’s the setting, which veers from Western-style small-town streets and saloons to run-down but high-tech Judge offices to corporate buildings to mountainous wilderness to alien spaceships.

The textures! The storytelling! The titillation!
Words by Abnett; Art by Winslade

This might be THE most realised, lived-in future world place in all of UK comics, barring perhaps Mega City One itself.

Of course, this wouldn’t be so compelling if we didn’t love (and in some cases, love to hate) the characters. For me, it’s hard to get past Metta Lawson (aka the one who got away at the end of Insurrection) and Nerys Pettifer, the best comics double-act since Johnny and Wulf, but it’s not as if Abnett and Winslade were slouching when they dashed off Hetch, Kill-a-man-Jaroo, Rondo Hatton and the rest. More than I can remember to name, but am always pleased to see on the page.

Lawson and Pettifer forever!
Words by Abnett; Art by Winslade

So yeah, setting and character are what make Lawless a constant joy. But in truth, the plots are pretty effing great as well. There are times when I like the set-up so much I wish the characters would get a bit of a breather to just enjoy whatever status quo there is. But of course, the best creator know to give us readers what we NEED, not what we WANT, and that means constant drama, constant change, and, within the scope of ‘Western space colony with aliens in the background’, Abnett sure likes to ring in the changes.

Back in Book 4 (or maybe 5?) it felt like the series had reached a natural end, and we got this very moving year-in-the-future epilogue. And then, somehow entirely naturally, Abnett found a reset button to hit and he’s never looked back. It’s a damn sight less clumsy that the first Sinister/Dexter alternate dimension/mindwipe reset button (although the more recent ‘it’s now an AI/virtual world’ reset button was actually damned clever).

Anyway, for my money something like 8 out of the 10 Lawless books have been 10/10 perfect affairs, with maybe a couple slipping down into the 9 range. That’s an insane average. That’s beyond-Strontium Dog levels of consistent greatness.

And I haven’t even mentioned that somehow, in every book, we get little glimpses into the age-old Judge Dredd battle of what matters more: law and order or personal freedom? Being incorruptible, or trying to do the most good for the best people? Fitting in to a society, or trying to impose your own ways upon it?

Don't mess with Metta Lawson
Words by Abnett; Art by Winslade

Dreddworld relevance? Its set on a very distant colony world, in a time that is deliberately unclear (could be Dredd’s past, present or even future, I guess), but it definitely involves Mega City Judges / SJS people.

Writing: 9.5/10
Art: 10/10
Impact: 9/10 Sure, it’s still a relatively new series, but second only to Dredd himself this is THE marquee series for the Megazine, and one dearly hopes it is not going away any time soon (or, if it must, perhaps at least some characters will get to spin-off into some new venture..?)

Overall score: 28.5/ 30

Has it been reprinted? It has! The trades can’t come fast enough, collecting two or three books at a time! Vol 1; Vol 2; Vol 3; Vol 4; Vol 5. For hardback fans who don’t mind mismatching spines, the first 4 stories are in the Mega Collection Vol 90; the next 3 are in Ultimate Collection 170. (to continue, you'll need Vol 4 and beyond from the regular trades)

 

Right, that’s it then!
Well, barring a few bits of tidying up…

Judge Dredd the Megazine, ranked part 19: other comics would kill for these stories

We're into the upper echelons of the Meg here, and in fact some of the very best British comics, including at least two genuine UK comics icons.

6. Devlin Waugh by John Smith, Ales Kot and various artists
(First appeared in Volume 2 issue 1-9, with sporadic appearances in the rest of Volumes 2 and 3, before becoming a mainstay from Megs 201-256, and again from Megs 388 to the present day; not counting his epic adventure in 2000AD in the late 90s)

What was this? Ah yes, besides the Taxidermist, this is the OTHER contender for ‘best story in all of volume 2’.* Specifically, in this case, the first Devlin Waugh tale, Swimming in Blood. You know, the one about the Vatican envoy who is sent on ‘special’ (read: weird/occult) missions to tackle unchristian and typically demonic problems.

That is a (love) gun in his hand and he is also pleased to see you.
art by Sean Phillips

Or, despite that basic idea never quite going away, this is really known as the series about the super-gay, super-erudite, super-buff demon-buster with the Schwarzenegger physique, the neatly coiffed hair, Noel Coward nose, Poirot moustache, and Terry-Thomas tooth-gap.

Honestly, despite 23 years and close to (more than?) 20 adventures, it’s very much Devlin the character who looms large in the mind, more than any of the specific shenanigans he has got up to. And you know, he has got up to some really very weird and cool and fun stuff. I’m probably speaking out of turn here, but back in 1992 it seemed to me, age 14, that gay characters turning up in comics more and more often was part of the wave of comics being more grown-up. And, in hindsight, perhaps the likes of Mark Millar, Peter Milligan and Grant Morrison were doing it because it was cool. But for sure John Smith was doing it because he damn well wanted to get some representation. And I recognise now that he did it best by some margin, even thought at the time I found Devlin to be too camp – which very much shows off the homophobic world and context I was living in (despite my belief that I was in fact a supper chill non-homophobe. You live and learn and feel bad).

ANYWAY, Devlin Waugh. He fought some vampires in an underwater prison, which may have had a life changing effect on him 😊
He fought MORE vampires in the open ocean.
He teamed up with Dredd in Africa.
He went to Hell, several times, and fought demons that were really into sex.
He got mixed up with the legacy of his wayward brother, not to mention some bargains made by his wayward younger self.
He trapped a demon in a dildo and explored adventures in the world of more open sexuality, as allowed by 21^st century attitudes under a VERY sex positive new writer, Aleš Kot.

Not all of these adventures are ‘best comics of all time’ stuff. But many of them really are excellent. Likewise not all the artists to tackle Devlin are all-time legend. But a few of them kind of are…

Sean Phillips set the tone with his fully-painted work. That first adventure is a classic example of ‘first long-from work by a young artist’, in that it has several mind-blowingly good pages and panels, and then more than few rather rushed ones. But you can’t argue with his character design, and indeed the fashions.

The Megazine in a single image. Extreme violence, tasteful nudity
Words by Smith; Art by Phillips

Colin MacNeil was in full-colour-painted mode for his stint on Waugh, and it’s both lovely and obscene. He really went to town on the demon fornication scenes! In more recent years, Michael Dowling stands out to me as just a perfect fit, but he’s had stiff competition from the likes of PJ Holden and Steve ‘don’t call me stone-cold’ Austin. Somewhere in there we had some Peter Doherty and, more bizarrely, Michael ‘Alias’ Gaydos.

Devlin - not a fan of Judges.
Words by Smith; Art by MacNeil

Such perfect poses!
Words by Kot; Art by Dowling

There’s a small elephant in Devlin’s room, and that’s the matter of the dreaded text story. Perhaps because John Smith liked writing prose, or more likely because it was cheaper and easier, there have been quite a few of them dotting specials and Yearbooks and such from the early 90s. The consensus is, these are perhaps the BEST text stories – but they’re still walls of prose in a comic anthology and this is morally wrong. Nice Sean Phillips art on some of them, mind.

Dreddworld relevance? Interesting one, this. Not only is it set in Dredd’s world, the two do actually meet in a notoriously nude one-off story, and then again in a mini-epic, and one more time with Devlin as a bit of surprise player.

That said, basically every solo adventure Devlin has, both in tone and setting, seems to have no bearing whatever on Judge Dredd continuity, and may as well exist in a totally different context if you ask me. Going all the way back to the curiously Judge-free underwater prison of Aquatraz. It might actually be fun if had a few more run-ins with Judges – from Mega City One or any other city, to be honest. Hell, when was the last time Devlin visited the Vatican?

Writing: 8.5 / 10 This is something of an average, with John Smith’s work the best, but Kot really has worked some minor miracles of sexy weirdness.
Art: 8.5 / 10 Again, an average of some folks who are basically 10/10, and others maybe closer to 7, but it’s a very high average!
Impact: 10 / 10 I think Devlin Waugh might just be the ONLY character to come from the Megazine who could legitimately claim to have some kind of cultural footprint beyond the confines of 2000AD/Judge Dredd fandom. Or if he doesn’t quite have that, he certainly could?

Overall score: 27/30

Has it been reprinted? It has! And one assumes, will continue to be collected as new series are printed. 2027 will be Devlin’s 25^th Anniversary, one hopes Rebellion are already making plans to mark the occasion. Anyway, for now one can certainly enjoy his adventures in not one, not two, not three but four collections, and I imagine more to come as new adventures are published. Not to mention the Judge Dredd Mega Collection Vols 14 and 15, for the John Smith years, and the Ultimate Collection Vol 125 fro the start of the Aleš Kot run.

*Anderson: Childhood’s End and Judge Dredd: Bury my Knee at Wounded Heart can fight over the bronze medal

  

5. Insurrection by Dan Abnett and Colin MacNeil
(3 series, spanning Megs 279-284, 305-310, 334-342)

What was this? Dredd meets Warhammer 50K! Except I’ve never read/played any Warhammer 50K so I have no idea if that’s true! So instead, let’s say it’s the one about Deep Space Judges who decide that The Mega City Way is too evil for words, and team up with Deep Space colonists, robots and ape-derived Uplifts to… insurrect? What’s the verb here? Never mind, you get it. Nice Space Judges with no hope versus evil Space Judges with all the firepower and resources.

Grimmer and Grittier even than Maelstrom :)
Art by Colin MacNeil

I think this might’ve been the turning point when Dan Abnett went from ‘reliable comics journeyman’ to ‘reliable purveyor of extremely awesome comics’. He’s barely put a foot wrong since, launching series after series that combines a winning idea with delightful characters, captivating plots, and just the right kind of dialogue to match.

Insurrection I think kind of gets forgotten, perhaps because it ‘only’ ran for three series and told a satisfying tale that was wrapped up, rather than running on and on. But my gosh, for the issues that it ran it was THE best thing in the Meg, propulsive and compulsive, and you really wanted the good guys to win, despite not having a clue how they would manage to pull their fat out of the fire. And, you know, a couple of times they DO find clever ways out… and sometimes they don’t.

As with too few Dreddworld tales, this one goes to town on quite how horrible the Judges actually are. They have an implacable way of viewing the world and reacting to things they don’t like – such as insurrection – with extreme hardness. Judge Dredd himself often comes up against this and every now and then he takes on the role of ‘good guy’ by allowing himself to be flexible in the face of the unbending system.

Dredd’s not in space, though, so we get Karel Luther instead, who starts the series off as the one who has learned to bend, and takes others along with him through the force of personality, and I like to think, the weight of being morally correct. Love that stuff!

I also love the time and space given over to the age-old Sci-Fi questions of ‘what counts as human’, which in this case means talking apes and religious robots. Slaves / ex-slaves who draw our sympathy and become part of the band of plucky insurrectionists.

Action action ACTION!
Words by Abnett; Art by MacNeil

If you haven’t read this story before, I strongly urge you to do so! There’s really only one knock against it, and its that Colin MacNeil’s art for the first 2 books and a bit of the third is literally the best he’s ever produced. Black and white and textured to heck, character designs to die for, giant space bricks moving slowly into position, menace and fear and raw emotions. The knock is that his health / time wouldn’t allow for the final book to carry on in this style, which he completed in his ‘merely’ excellent ink-work.

I suppose there is ONE other mild, knock on the series, and it’s that Mega City One itself never really enters the picture. Of curse this is all set in deep space – and, possibly, in the past as far as Judge Dredd continuity goes (details wisely not discussed). But you have to wonder, what would Dredd himself, or Hershey, or various other pretty senior figures, have made of it all? Luther is not some bleeding heart, he has some sensible points of view about WHY he chooses to insurrect. And although Justice, in this case, is both blind and fanatical, it isn’t, typically stupid? Ah well, it’s a great story, don’t let it get in the way.

Dreddworld relevance? Well, it’s all technically within the world of Dredd, but there’s a sense that it’s meant to be set in the past compared to Dredd continuity, when Mega City One had all the money in the world to invest in a gigantic space colony programme.

Writing: 10/10 Just when you think it can’t get any better, it does.
Art: 9/10 Sadly, the same was not true of the art, with poor Colin MacNeil not able to sustain the insane high-level of detail to finish up Book III.
Impact: 8/10 This remains far and away the best (only good?) ‘space judges’ story, and earned it’s three series, but it’s biggest impact was a spin-off series that has yet to be discussed. Kind of a shame that none of the key players survived to  work their charms on any future stories 😊

Overall score: 27.5/ 30

Has it been reprinted? It has! In two separate collections, or in one handy Ultimate Collection Volume, 54.

 

4. Young Death by John Wagner and Peter Doherty
(Megs 1-12 - and it's just this one story, I'm considering it as separate to both 'Wilderness days' and dominion + its follow-ups*)

What was this? The one where Judge Death, in hiding after Necropolis, tells his origin story to a journalist. Turns out his origin is both nastier and funnier than you might’ve guessed from e.g. Judge Death Lives, which was the first time we visited his home planet of Deadworld.

This scene does not actually take place in the story.
Art by Duncan Fegredo

The bits in Mega City one are dark and creepy and, with the combo of blindish/deafish landlady Mrs Gunderson and venal journalist Brian Skuter, pretty funny. The more substantial bits set on Deadworld are equally creepy and funny, but perhaps weirdly much brighter – mostly in daylight, with the feel of a 1970s British TV series. Which I think is by design – what heralds the idea of world about to die than the Uk just before the Winter of Discontent?

Anyway, young Death is a dentist’s son called Sidney, who has a snub-nose, a sadist father, and a combination of personality traits that add up to create the sort of person who would, methodically and by virtue of really believing in his own righteousness, bring about the complete annihilation of a planet. And, maybe, make a handful of friends along the way.

Yes, some of the jokes are on the nose and direct, and this can dimmish the power of Judge Death as a figure of fear. But, you know, the funniest bits really are the ones that straddle the lines of bad taste, from evil dentists to murdered pets to bullies getting more than they bargained for.

Marvel at how the picture of the human is creepier than the rotting monster!
Words by Wagner; Art by Doherty

Did Death NEED an origin story? Not in the slightest. Is it, in the end, superbly weird and deliciously funny? Heck yes it is.

Dreddworld relevance? Well, it’s the continued adventures of a major Dredd adversary, as well as his origins, and in fact the ‘present-day’ events of this story DO tie-in directly with Judge Dredd continuity – Death will next be seen in Judgement on Gotham, continuity fans.

Writing: 9.5/10 People can and have argued that John Wagner should never have leaned into the comedy with Judge Death. But they’re wrong. This story especially is both funny and nasty and spooky and weird, and that’s a wonderful stew if you ask me.
Art: 9/10 Peter Doherty leaps out of the gate and onto the page with astonishing skill. Sure, you can see him getting better over the 12 episodes, but for me that’s part of the charm. Frankly, his ability to just draw nasty-looking people emoting nastiness is too brilliant to downplay. And his realisation of a just-on-the-verge of rotting Deadworld, as a 1970s northern town, is hilariously apt.
Impact: 9/10 Now let’s be honest, Judge Death was already a BIG deal before this story ran. And yes, if this story has one big impact it’s that of pushing Death more and more into the realm of comedy rather than horror, which many will never quite forgive. BUT it’s also a very rare example of a spin-off series about a villain that a) is good and b) has spawned further series that are also, often very good.

You can’t ignore how this set the template first for the Anderson ‘Half Life’ cycle, AND for the Fall of Deadworld cycle.

Oh, and let’s not forget this was Peter Doherty’s first major comic, who has gone on to have quite the legacy as a major Judge Dredd artist. If not in quantity, the quality of the stories he’s drawn is ridiculously high. Go on, check out this list!

Oh, and I barely mentioned Mrs Gunderson, the sensational character find of 1990 – she’s gone on to have quite the career as a Judge Dredd supporting character, which nobody saw coming.

Overall score: 27.5 / 30

Has it been reprinted? It has! It's also in the Mega Collection Vol 7, alongside the two Frazer Irving-drawn Judge Death solo stories (the first of which is just about as good as Young Death; the second of which is very silly and only about half as good)

                                                                                                                                                                                     *Yeah, sure, Wilderness Days is very much an in-continuity Judge Death tale, but it's also a direct sequel to a 2000AD-originating Judge Death solo story. These are my rules to bend!

Judge Dredd the Megazine, ranked part 18: art glorious art

Look, the words are good too, but my gosh these are gorgeous comics to behold.

9. Angelic by Gordon Rennie and Lee Carter
(Just 12 episodes across 3 series so far, Megs 356-359, 377-380, 434-437 – but there may be more to come? Please?)*

What was this? The one where we get to witness the coming together of the Angel Gang – but a very different Angel Gang to the one first introduced in the Judge Child saga. It’s more elseworlds, in other words! But SO GOOD.

Old man with a gun... and a child... and a monster
Art by Cliff Robinson & Dylan Teague

For an origin story, it actually leaves quite a lot of mystery around its principal characters. We pretty much meet ‘Pa Angel’ (whose name is certainly neither ‘Pa’ nor ‘Angel’, you understand) out of the blue, with no back story. There’s a strong suggestion that he has some connection to Texas City, and a criminal / prisoner back story. But he’s also tough as nails and generally handy in a fight, managing to outsmart and outfight TC Judges (both corrupt and perhaps straight ones), and just maybe there’s some link to Justice Dept in his own past? (Or maybe I’m mixing that up with our old friend Preacher Cain).

Anyway, he soon ends up taking charge of a very young infant, and it’s this very straightforward (but for 2000AD/the Meg deeply unusual) thing that makes him a sympathetic ‘hero’, even as he goes around killing and murdering. The image of Pa Angel with a rigged-up child-carrier on his back is an all-timer. It looks cool, it makes HIM look cool, it brings with it an air of mystery, and yes, I suppose it calls to mind Lone Wolf & Cub, that famous comic about a fightin’ man who goes around with a baby (not his own) dealing death.

LOOK AT IT! So much storytelling in one image, that background,
those faces, the poses, all of it.
Words by Rennie; Art by Carter

Now, I’ve not read much Lone Wolf, but I’m willing to bet is has a very different feel to this. Yes, there’s a similarity, but the differences are pretty stark, and they surely start with the art. Man it’s great. Carter has a real facility with giving his characters a craggy, hangdog look, but also a glint in their eyes. He makes ‘Pa’ a noble figure, but also one with hate in his heart. As the story moves on, his redesigns for Fink and especially Mean are just super gnarly, but with that hint of sympathy that the story wants you to feel. And yes, it’s in full colour, set in a movie-esque Western background, and in that regard could not be more (physically) different to black and white feudal Japanese countryside. And most of all, to my eyes, the story and art combine to get readers to look inside the hearts of these strange, violent people. Unlike the Angel gang of old, they’re not thieves and bullies and torturers – they’re just people who have seen and lived enough horribleness that they are willing to do violent things to preserve whatever independence and I guess love they can cling on to.

Let’s be clear, these are not ‘nice’ people. Pa, though, has this insane sense of right and wrong, and of doing right by people – especially those he empathises with. He will do anything in pursuit of what he feels is correct, which ends up being ‘looking out for people’. It’s never made entirely clear WHY he latches onto the babies and loners and weirdoes he comes across, except that he can se something of his own past in them, I think? Like, they’ve all been abandoned, or mistreated, or pushed around, and he is NOT having that.

And yes, there are hints of an alternative Owen Krysler in the background, I can’t wait for the story to unfold as he comes on the scene…

 

Dreddworld relevance? Well, there’s nothing to say this couldn’t be the same world as Judge Dredd, and I suppose it’s possible that ‘our’ Dredd could one day encounter this incarnation of the Angel Gang, either in the present or as some sort of alternate/flashback situation. But let’s go ahead and just say ‘none – it’s a reimagining of a fun part of Dredd lore’.

Writing: 9.5/10 It’s that man Gordon Rennie again! For me, this is his single best sustained series. Sure, he’s working with characters that existed before, but what he does with them is SO different, and SO MUCH its own thing, that I’m giving it this high praise.
Art: 10/10 Carter is getting even higher praise here – it is both my sort of thing, and flawlessly executed.
Impact: 6/10 It has only had three series so far (fingers crossed for more!), but for my tastes it has definitively proved that one CAN do this sort of alterni-Dredd type stuff and come up with a winner

Overall score: 25.5 / 30

Has it been reprinted? It has not. I guess it’s still too recent, and with not quite enough episodes, to merit a collection. WOULD BUY. Technically, the first series is in The Judge Dredd Ultimate Collection Vol 27: Fallen Angels, but it sits oddly alongside a selection of comedy tales featuring Mean Machine, and the ‘original style’ Angel Gang.* Hold out for a proper Angelic trade, I say!

*OK, look, confession time. I DID originally include the Angel Gang / Fink series by Si Spurrier and Steve Roberts in my ranking, but somehow I misplaced the write-up and by the time I noticed I was way too high up the list to slot it in. Those two stories are real fun! It’s among my favourite Steve Roberts artwork! But that version of the Angel gang is in the Top 20-30 range, not Top 10.

Anyway, speaking of Si Spurrier…

  

8. The Simping Detective by Si Spurrier and Frazer Irving
(8 stories covering most issues between Megs 220-257 (and not counting the one series in 2000AD)

What was this? The one about a Wally Squad Judge who’s dressed as a clown, or more specifically, a simp. Perhaps even more notable than that, the art, dialogue, plotting and generally atmosphere is designed to evoke film noir trappings*, even as it typically leans into the weirder Sci-Fi concepts of Judge Dredd’s world. You know, like aliens.

It's black and white, AND in colour, both at the same time. Neat trick.
Art by Frazer Irving

Look, there’s no getting around the fact that the instant you open a page of Simping Detective, it is IN YOUR FACE. The art is super arresting, a fully painted, mostly black-and-white cacophony of imagery, with rounded faces and limbs but also horizontal lines here there and everywhere, like the whole thing is ‘filmed’ through Venetian blinds.

And the words, my GOD the words, they too are a cacophony of Chandlerisms and wordplay and drawing attention to themselves and just general ‘look at ME’ neediness. Except, you know, actually good? Spurrier is an acquired, shouty taste, but hen it matches the material it really is a delight, although personally I handle it better in small, episodic doses rather than consumed in one big collection-sized gulp.

Irving, it seems, was inspired to try matching Spurrier on the attention-grabbing front, but somehow he’s classier?

None of this really tells you anything about the plots of these stories, and perhaps that’s no bad thing. It’s classic Wally Squad stuff – getting in trouble with gangsters, corrupt Judges and straight Judges who may or may not know who Jack Point is. This stuff I can take or leave.

The plotting IS actively good, I think, when it follows the template of ‘Point gets into a scrape, how the heck will he get out of it, OH, look, it’s a combination of careful planning, luck, and help from friends/pet aliens/love interests.’ Spurrier puts the work in to contrive absurd situations and unexpected solutions, and this is a skill I admire in a writer. (Very much the sort of thing John Wagner does better than most anybody else, a great model to follow!)

The set, the joke, the punchline - comics style.
Words by Spurrier; Art by Irving

So yeah, you’ve got plotty plots, wordy dialogue, and beautiful cartooning. It’s a lot of flavours mixed together that I can imagine putting people off – and honestly it did start to wear thin – but in its best form, it’s absolutely, deliriously glorious.

Dreddworld relevance? It’s set in Mega City One, our hero is a Judge, and Dredd himself plus various supporting characters, all show up.

Writing: 8/10
Art: 10/10
Impact: 8/10 This story went from a one-off idea to an instant series to a 2000AD spin-off to, frankly, something that was so well done and so well received, the creators kind of had to stop doing it to do other, more lucrative interesting things.

Overall score: 26 / 30

Has it been reprinted? It has! And it's also in The Mega Collection Vol 21: The Simping Detective, along with the earliest solo incarnation of DeMarco, PI.

*Fun fact! This story began life as an entry into a ‘series’ labelled Mega City Noir, which included one other forgotten one-off story, but also, much later, Megatropolis.

 

7. Cursed Earth Koburn by Gordon Rennie (mostly) and Carlos Ezquerra
(6 stories that ran occasionally between Megs 221 and 396, not counting the original Judge Dredd two-parter)

What was this? Technically a spin-off from a Judge Dredd two-parter, but one of those where you just KNEW the character had legs and didn’t need Dredd around to carry off his own adventures. Anyway, it’s the one that takes a classic Carlos Ezquerra character type – someone who looks a bit like James Coburn, is absurdly laconic and cool with it, a bit of a rebel, but also hyper competent. I guess Major Eazy from Battle is the most direct ancestor, but I never read that so there may well be other character types who informed Koburn?

He's doesn't actually look like James Coburn, 
but he doesn't NOT look like him, ya know?
Art by Carlos Ezquerra

Minus that comics-world backstory, what this actually is is the adventures of a Mega City Judge who has chosen (I think?) to be posted in the Cursed Earth – the part of it where there are towns of people living in relative safety compared to the really ‘Cursed’ bits. He is a good solid Judge who also hates the whole ‘Judges must live like monks’ attitude that rules in the big city. So it’s amusing that HE ends up being the Judge who has to take on duties looking after city Judges who have screwed up in some fashion or other, as if he’s an ideal role model to put them straight,

Comedy right there.

Of course, he actually IS a great role model, by being good at his job despite all the lackadaisical attitude and vanity over his clothing and vehicle choice and so on.

Advanced level comedy. That Rennie, he is an excellent comics craftsman.

How to establish character, setting and tone in four quick panels.
Words by Rennie; Art by Ezquerra

So yeah, you’ve got this cool guy in the desert helping solve crimes and beat baddies and generally be cool while doing it. I suppose you could argue that, apart from Koburn generally existing to poke holes at the absurd idea that the Judges can only be ‘good’ if they are super rigid, the series is not exactly about anything. But then, why should it be? The mutants and ghosts and bad guys that populate the Cursed Earth inherently give each story a taste of showing what this crazy future hell on Earth might actually be like. Lots of ghosts...

That's Rico, that is.
Words by McConville; Art by Ezquerra

And yes, it’s all drawn by Carlos ‘King’ Ezquerra, so the unfolding of each plot is just an invisible masterclass in scene and character set-ups and clear action beats and grand excitement. Shockingly, this was super popular, and it’s a shame we couldn’t get more of it. But, you know, Carlos had other stuff to do as well, and then of course he wasn’t available to work ever again, and we all cried. Some of us still are.

Dreddworld relevance? It's set in the Cursed Earth, starring Judges, including a Dredd, and everyone’s favourite killer fungus, to boot.

Writing: 9/10 (No slight on my part to Rory McConville, who wrote the final story. To my mind, he’s also an excellent comics craftsman who knows how to identify and follow the basic template of a story).
Art: 10/10
Impact: 7/10 Despite only having 21 episodes in total, this character clearly has legs, and Koburn has shown up from time to time in various Dredd-related crossovers. Might another artist take over on a solo series? I rather doubt there’s quite enough appetite, but you never know.

Overall score: 26 / 30

Has it been reprinted? It has - nearly. All but one of the Rennie-scripted tales is in the Judge Dredd: Carlos Ezquerra collection. All but the final McConville-scripted tale in the Mega Collection Vol 67: Cursed Earth Koburn. Justice for Rory!

 

 

Judge Dredd the Megazine, ranked part 17: how are these not all in the Top 10?

 Some truly great comics here, and we've still got more goodness to come...

13. XTNCT by Paul Cornell and D’Israeli
(Megs 209-214)

What was this? That slightly bonkers but always delightful series about once extinct creatures – chiefly dinosaurs - from Earth’s past making a go of it in a future Earth. This is, for my tastes, the most ‘2000AD’ish story that, in fact, ran in the Megazine. It has no connection to Judge Dredd, and is not especially more ‘grown up’ than any given 2000AD story. I mean, it IS perhaps notable for having a very sex-heavy (and sex-positive) sequence towards the end. And for skirting the edge of actual swearing. But both are done in a way that feels exactly like something a 12 year old would find clever and funny and not cringeworthy.

Dinosaurs with guns, and lots of skulls. Heck of an advert for a comic!
Art by D'Israeli

What you have is fab Sci-Fi tale with a charming collection of characters, where we’re kind of working out with them what is going on and why, and then watching them find the resolve to do something about it. Humans, naturally, turn out to be the villains. The story is excellent.

Equally, and perhaps more memorably, excellent are the characters. You’ve got a crying Triceratops, a sage-like tree being, and of course an angry velociraptor who speaks only in consonants, who is the perpetrator of the (almost) obscene swearing. It’s no small feat, to write dialogue with all the vowels removed, but still have the words be intelligible.

Fightin' and flirtin' on one page. Gives a good flavour
Words by Cornell; Art by D'Israeli

On to the art! D’Israeli is an artist with a very particular style. If he has one weakness, for me, it’s the way he draws people. They’re great in some settings, but for some weird reason he doesn’t quite suit ‘contemporary’ Earth, to name one example. Anyway, THAT’S not a problem in this story, which is both human-lite and set in the far future. Honestly, I'm not minded to go much into the details of this relatively short story, because either you already know, or you don;t and you'll be much better off going in cold.

Dreddworld relevance? None.

Writing: 9/10 Not to say there is any particular room for improvement, but it IS the case that although I highly rate this story, it has not quite permeated my brain in the way of some other Meg and Tooth all-time classics.
Art: 10/10
Impact: 5/10 Another thing very tough to quantify, but aside from being very good and generally well-liked, it’s not as if there has been a rash of similar stories in the Meg (could there be?). And writer Paul Cornell has barely done much for Tharg since, neither. D'Israeli has become something of a 2000AD institution (with occasional Megazine appearances) - but by this point, he was already well on his way to the British comics equivalent of superstardom. Which is to say, he is criminally underappreciated by the world at large.

Overall score: 24/30

Has it been reprinted? It has, several times! There’s a hardback, it’s part of a VERY motley collection of short-ish Sci-FiThrillers, and is the title strip in Hachette’s Ultimate Collection vol 188, alongside Ant Wars and the most recent Hookjaw.

  

12.  Al’s Baby by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra
(2 series Vol 1 issues 4-15; Vol 2 issues 16-24 – and not including the third and final series that ran in 2000AD)

What was this? The one about the gangster hitman who carries his own baby so his wife doesn’t have to. You’ll be shocked to learn this is played for laughs 😊. Frankly, this is all just a bit of fun – a very, very well-made bit of fun. You’ve got Wagner and Ezquerra doing their best (which is a high bar) to poke fun at the idea of traditional hardmen coping with the realities of that most female of activities, pregnancy (and then child-rearing). Now, of COURSE we know – and indeed Wagner knew then – that these are not exclusively female activities. Which is why he deliberately zeroes in on a stereotype of an Italian-American gangster, a culture on which it is not hard to project sexist values.

So good it needed two taglines to explain what it is!
Art by Carlos Ezquerra

So with that out of the way, we move on to slapstick comedy (British style). You’ve got family dynamics, aged crooks, foppish enemy crooks, helpful colleagues, and lots of poo jokes. Honestly, the comedy gets a bit broad for my tastes, especially as we hit Book II and little kid antics (Think: Ivy the even more Terrible, with guns). But, it’s well done, and the first book remains a comedy classic.

I can't stress enough how much the plot and character beats rest on very broad stereotypes. But equally, they feel like the kind of stereotypes one is very much allowed to send up (See also: the Sopranos, i guess, although I have not actually watched it...). And of course, Wagner and Ezquerra do it well and make it funny. Mercifully, the one stereotype they do NOT lean on is the 'all men are inherently terrible at parenting' classic, and in fact the character interplay of Al and his buddy and his wife is delightfully set in stone They don;t especially grow and change and learn new things, they just get on with being who they already are, with added complications of the situations they end up in.

And yes, there's lots of room for the glorious John Wagner plotting. There are people trying to kill each other and outwit each other and get revenge and it's always clear, clever and surprising at exactly the times it needs to be. A master at work in service of a bit of fluff, perhaps? But still masterful.

Al Bestardi: refreshingly unchanged by parenthood...
Words by Wagner; Art by Ezquerra

Dreddworld relevance? Basically none – the first episode has a framing story set in MC1 in which some student are hearing a history lesson about male pregnancy, but the whole thing functions as a stand-alone sci-fi(ish) tale.

Writing: 8.5/10 There’s just a hint of diminishing returns to bring this down (even more one you get into book 3, but I won't)
Art: 9/10 It’s top level cartooning from Ezquerra, but for me not quite in the same league as his Dredd and Stront work. This may be nothing more than a reflection of how much I love those stories, while only liking this one.
Impact: 7/10 For a creator-owned series, this sure had legs, and the sales-power to cross over into 2000AD (even if that third and final story is not nearly as good as the first two)

Overall score: 24.5/30

Has it been reprinted? It has! Look no further than the Complete collection. (Well, unless you want it in hardback as in the Ultimate Collection vol. 161.

 

11. Spector by John Wagner, Carlos Ezquerra and Dan Cornwell
(Megs 455-462)

What was this? The story about a robot cop who has to tackle the forces of corruption who very much fear that having an “incorruptible” do-gooder at their heels would seriously mess up their lifestyles. It’s a John Wagner comic, with character designs and a couple of episodes by Carlos Ezquerra, and continued with frankly astonishing brilliance by Dan Cornwell, so it’s a REAL treat to read. It’s a page-turner, a tightly-plotted beast of a comic that you just want to keep reading to see what happens next, and to watch heroes win and villains lose.

Wait, is this one of those stories where the City IS the character?
In fact, no. It's just a neat bit of design
Art by Dan Cornwell

It's right classical, is what it is, and indeed if there is any knock against it, it’s that the whole thing DOES fell a little old fashioned. So, obviously you’ve got an ultra-sophisticated robot character running on some sort of many-generation-on version of ChatGPT. And there are hovercars and future drugs. But otherwise, the styling and setting kind of feels like 1970s USA.

Nothing inherently wrong with that – but the plot very much revolves around a cartel of corrupt cops and politicians (not so much actual crooks, weirdly), who seem to be living in a pre-social media, pre-PR landscape where their efforts are channelled around believing they can keep all their activities quiet through blackmail, murder and dealing with that new pesky robot.

Perhaps I am being naïve to think this just isn’t how that sort of corruption works any more?

In any event, Spector is just a delight to watch as he outwits his foes (kind of easily, but relying on some tricks perhaps we readers might not have anticipated). He’s even more of a delight to read, as Wagner plays delicious dialogue tricks with what a GPT-type robot might make of human language, with all its idioms and metaphors and such. All this makes me forgive the rather weak crime story at the heart of it.

Tiny hints of Sci-Fi; large helpings of machines trying to figure out humanity.
Words by Wagner; Art by Cornwell

Mostly what this story makes me think of is John Wagner’s long relationship with robot characters. Obviously there’s RoboHunter, in which the many and varied robots are played for laughs, basically satirical exaggerations of the worst examples of any given human stereotype. Then there’s the world of Dredd, where robots are simply NEVER to be trusted (except perhaps as doctors? Robo-surgeons DO sometimes rampage, but are never scrapped…). The robot Judges have gone from ridiculous failures (Mechanismo mark 1) to scary monsters with seemingly little independence (Mark II) to hyper-competent and indeed more humanistic Judges, to, most recently, over-stepping their bounds as protectorts of humans (we’re tipping back towards Verdus here).

Spector, by contrast, is not only witty, he’s also noble and, so far, able to use both common sense as well as being genuinely incorrubtible. I have no idea if Wagner will gift us a second series, but I have to imagine that if he does, he will immediately find a way to corrupt our loveable robot hero…

Dreddworld relevance? None, it’s very much a parallel version of the late 21^st century, where Judges did NOT take over, and in fact the world remains relatively peaceful but with uber-corrupt officials mostly in charge.

Writing: 8.5/10
Art: 9.5/10 Ezquerra’s last work, sat alongside by far Cornwell’s best work. I can’t stress enough just how wonderful the comics storytelling on display here is.
Impact: 6/10 No confirmation yet on if there will be a sequel, but it’s sure not for want of reader demand. Frankly, it was something of a miracle that we got this first series, but please let’s have more?

Overall score: 25/30

Has it been reprinted? It has! Or rather, it will have been pretty soon…

 

10. The Taxidermist by John Wagner and Ian Gibson
(Volume 2 issues 37-46)

What was this? Notionally a sequel to an older Dredd story, but basically its own thing, in which a retired professional-artistic-Taxidermist is persuaded to have one last run at the Olympic stuffing title. Oh, and there are international political shenanigans going on. (Specifically in an East Asian setting, which does push this Wagner/Gibson joint across the ‘sometimes it feels a bit racist’ barrier.)

But ALSO what this was, was a superbly funny sci-fi comic about what the future Olympics might be like. Mostly that’s Taxidermy, which includes various sub-disciplines, but there’s also, memorably, Olympic-level sex, and Olympic-level staring.

Comics loves a close-up.
Words by Wagner; Art by Gibson

It’s just a superb concoction all around. It’s anchored in character, specifically of Jacob Sardini, who is exploring with his old age but also his continued desire to be a champ. Also while wrestling with what the right thing to do actually is – a theme very much following on from his first story. This is all played absolutely seriously. And precisely because it is, it fits perfectly alongside the outrageousness and ridiculousness of competitive artistic taxidermy, including such presentations as ‘Explosion in a bus Q’ and ‘Birth of Hitler’.

In my head, it’s the most ‘European’ comic 2000AD/The Meg has yet produced. Partly on the strength of Ian Gibson’s beautifully painted but always cartoony art, and also because of the mix of serious tone with silly story that Wagner conjures. (And definitely because this kind of ‘light’ comic story is what I personally associate with French/Belgian/German comics, because I like the funny ones more than the thrillers and such.)

Yes, this story does indeed touch upon the theme of ageing.
Words by Wagner; Art by Gibson

Talking of the mix of serious/silly, perhaps the most delightful theme of all is how old man Sardini reacts against the 'art' of the younger generation. Given that we're talking about both competitive stuffing and tasteful taxidermy, it's just an absurd argument to investigate. And yet, Wagner finds a convincing way.

Dreddworld relevance? It stars a fondly-remembered character from Dredd’s world, and feels very much like the sort of thing that is going on in the world around Judge Dredd.

Writing: 9/10 You can’t completely escape the outsider perspective on the 'inscrutable' far East at play here…
Art: 9.5/10 It might well be Gibson’s finest hour, and that’s saying a lot.
Impact: 7/10 Apart from being the best story in the whole of volume 2 (with maybe one challenger), this is notable for birthing Olympic-level staring contests, which came up again a couple more times, as well as other future Olympic funnies. I guess it’s a shame we haven’t had more. We only got one more Taxidermist tale (back in 2000AD, and not on the same level).

Overall score: 25.5/30

Has it been reprinted? It has! Bookended by the two Judge Dredd stories that introduce and then bid farewell to Jacob Sardini. And also in the Judge Dredd Collection Vol. 72: the Art of Taxidermy