Judge Dredd the Megazine, ranked: part 3 Why? Just why?

Sometimes you can sort of see why a story was commissioned, but after the fact it’s a bit of an ‘oh well, that one didn’t work out like we’d hoped’ sort of thing…

 

Deathwatch by Paul Cornell and Adrian Salmon
(Vol 3 issues 8-13)

What was this? This one’s a comedy, not a horror, despite the name. It’s the one with a Brit-Cit Judge gone back in time (by mistake) to Shakespearean England. The first episode sets this one up as a sitcom, and why not? They’re tough to do in comics form but that shouldn’t stop people from trying. The comedy is necessarily broad; possibly it doesn’t quite work because you’ve got a lead character who is not just a Judge, he’s also a Psi Judge, and also a bit of a preening gloryhound. 

He might have cut an interesting figure in contemporary Brit-Cit alongside the gruff likes of Armitage, or no-nonsense Treasure Steel – but by the time he’s landed in Tudor Times he’s barely a Judge any more. Would it have made more sense to try ‘what would it be like to throw a super-inflexible future police-person into a lawless city of fops, dandies and ne’erdowells’? Perhaps? Anyway, aside from the central character, we get a whole team of characters assembled around him, following the Blackadder/Upstart Crow/Ben Elton tradition. Sometimes the clichés work, and on the whole that's true here, but even trying ot be generous, the whole thing ends up falling a bit flat, and hanging around a plot that isn't as fun as the setting. Overall, it’s not terrible, but I don’t lament its loss.

Shakespeare quotes Shakespeare! Comics hero quotes Batman!
These two jokes give you the EXACT flavour of the whole thing.
Words by Cornell; Art by Salmon

Dreddworld relevance? Pretty minimal. I mean, the lead character is a Judge but that’s about it.

Writing: 5.5/10 Cornell knows how to tell a story, and how to tell jokes. Just wish this specific story was more intriguing, and the jokes funnier. (He would go on to score much higher on both fronts later!)
Art: 6/10 Salmon is colouring himself here, and overall its miles and miles his most intelligible work – but perhaps because of that it lacks some of the eerie charm his black and white work had. Poor bastard, he can’t win with the critics! He does at least pull off some solid character designs, and seems to have a natural feel for the Blackadder II Elizabethan setting.
Impact: 2/10 I guess it’s a shame that nothing quite this outrageously odd was tried again?

Overall score: 13.5/30

Has it been reprinted? Yes, in Hachette Vol 58 The World At Law

  

Pandora by Jim Alexander and John Hicklenton
(Vol 2 issues 77-81 and the Mega Special ‘94)

What was this? Your guess is as good as mine. I mean, on the surface it’s about an undercover Judge in MC1 having vaguely drug-induced and vaguely psychic encounters with crime. But it much more seems to be about John Hicklenton pouring twisted flesh into tight leather outfits and gurning as their stare intomirrors, and occasionally slicing people’s faces off. It’s the most beautifully ugly comic to look at, and perhaps the single most difficult story to read, either week to week or all in one go. 

If British kids in the 70s wanted dinosaurs fighting cowboys,
teens in the 90s wanted leather fetish and self-harm, please and thank you.
Words by Alexander; Art by Hicklenton

The story didn’t help itself by having Pandora be not just Wally Squad, but super-ultra-trying-too-hard Wally Squad, whom no other Judge could know about, and who was all about getting inside ordinary citizens’ heads. And who encounters an antagonist who is in fact ALSO a super-duper undercover Wally Squad Judge, only an evil one. Honestly, this one really is best enjoyed for the visuals (which of course you get a bit more out of if/when you can follow the story).

For me personally, it's the epitome of 'The Judge Dredd Megazine is full of stories that I can't understand and make me feel a bit queasy. Maybe those two things will recede when I read them again as a grown-up. That's a firm 'No' on both counts!

Dreddworld relevance? Maybe? It’s got judges in it, and explores the need to wear tight leather perhaps more than any Judge Dredd comic ever tries. Rather than following the usual rule of ‘Mega Citizens are a bunch of idiots’ it aims for ‘Mega Citizens are living a life of psychic horror whether they know it or not’. Which is actually an interesting angle on what life in the future might be like. Points for that!

Writing: 4/10 This comic definitely had some writing behind it, and deserves to exist, but I don’t think I can judge it fairly beyond noting that I don’t hate it, and it isn’t trying to be funny (and failing). I think it IS trying to be mentally disturbing, and succeeding?
Art: 7.5/10 John Hicklenton is sorely missed as a bringer of the weird and horrible. Arguably this is some of his most unrestrained work, which seemingly had very little in the way of writer or editor managing to get him to, you know, tell the story, and that's potentially a good thing for the purity of vision. But I do like Hicklenton better when I know what's going on.
Impact: 2/10 Partly because people DO remember this one, and partly because it ‘won’ that contest to see which new story from the Judge Dredd Mega Special ’94 would get a chance at being a whole series.

Overall score: 13.5/30

Has it been reprinted? Nope. 

 

Sleeze N Ryder by Garth Ennis and Nick Percival
(Vol 2 issues 19-26)

What was this? Like, an ‘Easy Rider’ pastiche set in the Cursed Earth. It is the colour of snot, and features much visual humour based on mucus. Also there are lots of Arnold Schwarzenegger jokes. I’d say the humour lands, for me, about 30-40% of the time, which is actually decent for a Megazine comedy strip. The art, which is very early in Nick Percival’s career, is also very much to my taste – although you can tell he’s learning on the page.

There’s not much to say about this series, except that it’s a rare example of a Garth Ennis story for 2000AD that, outside of the Cursed earth setting, is basically an all-new idea with all-new characters, something he’d be rather careful not to do as a rule! He’s canny that way.

Nick Percival, nowadays known very much for moody horror stories, is actually a good fit for this, bringing just a touch of horror edge to the zany tone that helps it go down more smoothly. He doesn’t save this from being a bad story, though.

Dreddworld relevance? It’s set in the Cursed Earth and I guess references some ideas from the Cursed Earth epic (mutants and dead presidents and robots).

Writing: 5.5/10 Adding .5 for the Arnie jokes that I enjoyed 😊
Art: 6/10 The colour scheme really is a wonder to behold, and it’s quite unlike anything before or since, so points for that.
Impact: 2/10 It’s another story that has sort of become a whipping boy for ‘bad comics from Volume 2 of the Megazine’, but actually I think I’m not the only one to have a soft spot for it.

Overall score 13.5/10

Has it been reprinted? Yes, and more than once. It exists as a digital trade offering. And it’s in Hachette collection 68 Cursed Earth Carnage. I have a vague memory that it got a collection soon after it originally ran, but can find no hard evidence...

 

Pan-African Judges by Paul Cornell and Siku
(Vol 2 issues; Vol 3 issues 8-13)

What was this? A worthy attempt to explore a very different part of Judge Dredd’s world. But, you know, right off the bat it decided to tackle ‘Africa’ as if it is somehow a self-contained entity. I have some idea that there IS, and long has been, a political movement to create some sort of African Congress that might work somewhere between the EU and the USA in terms of membership and organisation. And in a post-apocalyptic future, why not imagine this has happened? On the other hand, why not be much bolder, and imagine that, for instance, the whole continent of Africa was the one place in the world that was NOT devastated by nuclear apocalypse, and is now the worlds wealthiest continent? (I am genuinely curious if any global superpower has their nukes pointed at any African country. Maybe Israel targets Egypt - maybe.)

Anyway, this comic feels like a well-meaning attempt to acknowledge that Africa is very big and holds together many different cultures. Not a well-thought-through attempt, but well-meaning. The series ends up being the adventures of: the Lion King in human form (seriously, he hails from Simba City, although of course this comic predates that film), alongside a Black woman from Brit-Cit, sort of exploring her ancestral past, an African-born white racist, a non-specific desert-y Muslim, and some bad guys who like to hunt animals. Can anyone see how this is maybe not the most future-forward story to be telling? (and yet still markedly less racist than any Judge Dredd stories being told in the 90s).

Words and Pictures by Siku 'n Siku

Beyond that, the story is fine, the art is super experimental and weird and occasionally good. And then book 2 rolled along a while later, which is where things get totally weird and actually rather better in terms of character / place study – it’s about the interaction of Gods (I think mostly from Nigerian mythology, and presumably even more specific than that word implies). On the down side, it’s more or less incomprehensible as far as plot and action goes.

Dreddworld relevance? In theory, we learn about future Africa. In practice, the plot demands that most of the time is spent out in the wilderness, and we learn very little except that Africa is BIG and its people are disparate.

Writing: 5/10? I dunno, two very different novice writers on each book, both committing different sins but at least never being boring.
Art: 5.5/10 Another impossible rating, there are real high highs and low lows. I like Siku, but this is early work from him, and young Siku really ought to have acknowledged that sometimes readers like to be able to follow the story... Also, the bits where he ‘pulls a Bisley’ – by which I mean, doesn’t bother properly finishing drawings of certain panels – are often quite poor. Still, the character designs are pretty cool, and every now and then he pulls out something remarkable. When it comes together on the odd page and panel, he draws the most breathtaking human bodies.
Impact: 3/10 I rather suspect this has become a classic example of ‘here’s what NOT to do’ when your brief is ‘tell a story about a random part of Dredd’s world’. So in that sense it is remembered. Although Dredd (and Devlin Waugh) do visit Africa in the near future, neither acknowledges any of the goings-on of this series. And I don’t think any Dreddworld story has been anywhere near Africa since? I guess There was that one Psi Judge from Morocco who went to the Moon?

Overall score: 13.5/10

Has it been reprinted? Yes, in Hachette 58 The World At Law

 

Bob the Galactic Bum: the Piker by John Wagner/Alan Grant and Carlos Ezquerra
(Megs 266-273)

What was this? Like, a totally weird experiment where they took an existing DC comics mini-series and reprinted it in 2000AD, but a) in black and white, and b) with Carlos Ezquerra drawing over the faces of three characters so they were no longer owned under DC’s copyright.

Original DC comics version, feat. Lobo
(words by Wagner and Grant; Art by Ezquerra)

Megazine version, with a new-look Lobo
Words still by Wagner and Grant; Art still by Ezquerra)

On the one hand, you can’t argue with a (relatively obscure) comic seeing print in the Megazine, given that it was written and drawn by the creators of Judge Dredd. On the other hand, it’s one of the less funny comedy strips by said creative team. One suspects the biggest joke is in the very way they’ve re-rendered the character of Lobo? Honestly, it barely qualifies as a ‘new’ magazine story, but I feel obliged to list it, and to note that I did not like it very much. If you want Ezquerra-drawn regime-change hijinks (which is ultimately the plot of this tale), I recommend The Stainless Steel Rat for President.

Dreddworld relevance? None

Writing 6.5/10 it’s still Wagner/Grant, so plenty of jokes do land, even if the overall story feels like something out of later/lesser Ace Trucking Co or, at a push, Strontium Dog.
Art: 6.5/10 it’s still Ezquerra, even if the rush job on the re-drawings shows rather.
Impact: 1/10 Please don’t try this sort of thing again. I mean, do we want Ennis/Dillon Punisher in the Meg, but with Frank Castle re-drawn as Bill Savage? Do we?

Overall score: 14/30

Has it been reprinted? Not as such, although I guess the same story had been pre-printed in 1995. Not that the original version ever got collected, as far as I know? I'm not a big Lobo guy.