20+ stories into the ranking, and we're still dealing with comics that are, at best, forgettable. We're on the cusp of a change! But I can't honestly recommend anyone rushes to buy...
Wardog by Dan Abnett and Patrick Goddard
(Volume 4 issues 1-10)
What was this? An action-adventure video-game tie-in
to a video game that was never actually made. It has a premise that struggles
to make any sense in a story, although you can see how it’d work in a game. The
hero – along with many similar unfortunates – has a bomb in his head linked to
a countdown clock. If he fails to complete a mission before the timer runs out,
he ‘splodes. The missions tend to involve assassination. The bit that doesn’t
make sense is that the people setting these missions generally want the person
to succeed. Sure, the countdown gives a heck of a motivation – but it doesn’t
make it any easier to actually track people down and kill them and stuff.
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| Look, I will grant that there's a strong visual appeal of a dude with a weird countdown stuck into his forehead. Words by Abnett, Art by Goddard |
Anyway, Abnett is the kind of writer who seems to love working within restrictions, and does a decent job. Goddard, in one of his first ever jobs (I think?), is a great fit for action-adventure with grimacing tough-guy heroes. But apart from the bomb-in-head-timer thing, there’s nothing memorable about any of it.
Dreddworld relevance? Zilch
Writing: 6/10 I’m marking it up for making an actually coherent narrative out of the original video game conceit
Art: 6/10 Goddard (both with and without Dylan Teague) would do a lot
better in time.
Impact: 3/10 Not because of the strip itself, but because it heralded
Goddard’s later career, arguably helped Abnett hone his own pulp skills, and
perhaps above all it reminded editorial to STOP trying to make video-game
comics happen… (for a couple of decades, at least)
Overall score: 15/30
Has it been reprinted? It has! It got its own hardback collection, because of course. Although these days Rebellion are giving it away for free, as a digital trade.
Judge Hershey by various writers and artists
(Volume 2 18 episodes between issues 9 and 40; Vol 3 7 episodes between issues
9 and 28)
(Not counting the 2 episodes from Specials/Annuals that predate the Megazine,
and also not counting the decades-later 2000AD series Hershey.)
What was this? Basically it’s a short window of
stories from when Hershey was a senior Judge, but before she became Chief Judge.
Across 4 different writers (5 if you count Alan Grant, who wrote two solo
Hershey stories for a Special and Annual pre-Megazine), it becomes abundantly
clear that no one came up with a convincing way to tell stories about a
standalone Judge who was not Dredd, not undercover, and was not a Psi. Possibly
making things worse, the all-male teams of writers and artists who tried often zoomed
in on Hershey’s experience as a woman, which is a tough challenge to pull off
in the world of boy’s adventure comics, and in a setting where Judges are
rather treated as genderless. ‘Being a woman’ seems to be taken to mean ‘more
prone to philosophizing and/or crying’. Oh, and ‘more at risk from assault’.
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| 'Hershey' might also have been the first time someone brings up Keesh, a Mega-City street drug that got a certain amount of play in the 90s. |
I’m making it all sound far worse than it was. They’re actually kind of interesting, these standalone Hershey stories, precisely because people are trying to find ways to tell a Judge story that is pointedly NOT one that could’ve been a Dredd story. in my view, the only real success was in the art. In particular Kevin Cullen, and then Marc Wigmore, utilise styles that are not at all like anything that had gone before in Judge Dredd, and add to an otherworldy feeling for the strip. For Cullen (and writer Igor Goldkind) that means being kinda pretentious and arty; for Wigmore (and writer/co-writer Paul Neal) that means being pretentious and emotional. Dave Stone, Peter Cornwall and Robbie Morrison, playing it more classic action-comedy, arguably produced better comics, but less memorable ones.
Dreddworld relevance? Pretty obvious
Writing: 5.5/10
Art: 5.5/10
Impact: 4 OK, so nothing that happens to Hershey herself in these stories
ever gets referenced again (presumably any lingering trauma from e.g. ‘that
time all those kids got kidnapped by a phantom and it’s because Judges are
EVIL’ is rather overshadowed by the whole ‘Being Chief Judge twice and things
going wrong all the time’ thing). But the creative teams got a bit of a boost
and went on to do more and better work. It’s some of the first Robbie Morrison,
for example!
Overall score: 15/30
Has it been reprinted? Not really. The first Goldkind/Cullen story (not the good one with the harlequin!) turned up in a Dreddworld-themed issue of the Extreme Edition. The team-up tale with Armitage’s pal Treasure Steel turned up in an Armitage-themed floppy in Meg 289 (but not in either Armitage-themed Hachettes).
The rest have not. It’d be a tonally bonkers collection, but I dare someone to
try a Judge Hershey: Case Files…
Harrower Squad by David Baillie and Steve Yeowell
(Issues 450)
What was this? Putting it crudely, it’s a mash-up
between Calhab Justice and Holocaust 12. Why you would want to mash those two
mostly-forgotten strips together I cannot say.
I’m being unfair, it is better than that sounds,
although not by all that much. It’s about a ‘Harrower Squad’, which is
basically a heavily armed team of cops who have to police the ultra-dangerous
places. And of course they are all misfits with various dispensations to allow
for their moodiness and propensity to violence.
Once again, we have a strip with quite a large cast of
characters thrown into stories that run at break-neck pace, so it’s a lot to
keep track of who they all are, what they are like, and what the hell is going
on with the plots. Which, of course, involve betrayal and corruption, because
it seems that outside of Judge Dredd, (and even then plenty often) no one is
willing to tell a story about future police that doesn’t revolve around
corruption. I get it, the actual police, in the UK as well as elsewhere, have
long been home to corrupt bullies. But, you know, sometimes I want a future cop
story that is just about good cops catching bad guys who are committing weird future crimes. Is that too much to ask?
Anyway, this strip has a pleasing sense of fun, and works
well to bring on high-octane action and danger in an 80s movie kind of way,
which is welcome. But it's also Steve Yeowell kind of on auto-pilot, and rather too many scenes of 'normal' humans wearing bulky armour and bantering with each other. I kinda want a bit more weird, please…
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| Yeowell had the chance to remind us of one of his old strips... he went with Maniac 5... |
Dreddworld relevance? It’s Justice dept, Scotland edition.
Writing: 6/10 Perfectly fine.
Art: 7/10 Also perfectly fine. Yeowell knows what he’s doing, but he’s not
bringing any extra magic, to my mind.
Impact: 2/10 Bit too early to say, but it’s had a couple of series and may
yet have more?
Overall score: 15/30
Has it been reprinted? It has not! It’s only just
been in the Meg.
Juliet November by Alan Grant and Graham Manley
(Megs 202-204)
What was this? The (one) adventure of Juliet November, a Justice Dept auxiliary-type person who is a pyrokine. As in, she can make
things catch on fire. But, in keeping with most Psi Judges, doesn’t really have
full control over this power. She had been introduced in a Judge Dredd story
earlier, and seemed like an interesting enough character to maybe get her own
series. Turns out, the idea of a non-Judge having adventures in MC1 is hard to
pull off. Especially when her whole deal is to start fires, which is going to
attract the attention of Judges, which is going to make her life difficult.
Honestly, it IS an interesting set up, and Alan Grant has fun with the
character and the sorts of situations she might get into, played for laughs.
But you can see why this didn’t stretch to a longer series, or anything other than the
occasional appearance in future.
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| OK, so this page maybe doesn't show it, but this IS a comedy story, mostly! Words by Grant, Art by Manley |
Dreddworld relevance? She’s a citizen of Mega City 1
Writing: 7/10 This is Alan Grant doing the funny kind of
comedy, as opposed to the unfunny kind he seemed to tap for his later-period
Judge Dredd work in 2000AD. But it’s not his best by a long shot.
Art: 6.5/10 Graham Manley didn’t get much play, but his art is cartoony and
fun and exactly suits this kind of story. Although, it’s a bit mean to set up
any artist to follow on from Arthur Ranson, who had drawn the original Judge
Dredd story.
Impact: 2/10 November has appeared in one or two Anderson stories after
this, I think?
Overall score: 15.5/30
Has it been reprinted? It has!
Holocaust 12 by Chris Standley & John Smith, with
Clint Langley and Jim Murray
(Volume 3 issues 20-23; 29-33)
What was this? A mad action-fest about a team of so-called
Holocaust Judges. (Given the name in a time when that word somehow mostly meant
‘scary death by fire’ rather than ‘horrific historical genocide of Jews and
others’.) Anyway, these are the Justice Dept individuals they send in for the
super-dangerous jobs, who are expected to die with perhaps ever mission. This
series focusses partly on the missions themselves, but moreso on the
personalities of people who’d have to live like this, and the allowances even
ultra-rigid Justice Dept makes for them. It’s definitely exaggerated for
laughs, in the art style as much as the dialogue and stories. Charming, but
inconsequential.
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| Big muscles and bigger spliffs! Must be the 90s. Words by Smith/Standley; Art by Murray |
Dreddworld relevance? It’s set in Mega City 1.
Writing: 6.5/10 It’s a comedy strip that has the
decency to be more funny than not! But it’s not like super hilarious.
Art: 6/10 The art works for the series, but much as I enjoy Murray’s
mugging and Langley’s grotesqueries, it’s far from the best work either artist
delivered.
Impact: 3/10 The characters, and indeed the whole ‘Holocaust Squad’ idea
rather disappeared. Standley, too, wrote very little after this. On the other
hand, I guess you could argue it was a stepping stone for Langley, who soon
went on to revitalize Sláine…
Overall score: 15.5/30
Has it been reprinted? It has! In Mega Collection 55: The Heavy Mob.
Middenface by Alan Grant and John McCrea
(Issues 15-20, but squeezing in 7 episodes; Vol 3 issue 76)
(And not to be confused with Young Middenface, a separate series that
will be discussed later)
What was this? These two stories are about the adult
Middenface – and his Granny - in theory continuing his adventures post ‘Final
Solution’, but in practice just being a bit of a lark and with no bearing on
anything wider Strontium Dog related – which is why I’m including them in the
rundown here. The first long-ish story is a time-travel lark involving both
dinosaurs and, crucially, a stint in Mega City 1, where Middenface mixes
it up with some classic evil mutants and a host of Judges. I can’t stress
enough how much this is playing for comic larks, and not exploring the idea of
mutants being outlawed.
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| McCrea makes this story feel like something he was doodling in the back of the class during a Politics lesson or something. |
The second one is a quick one-off more focussed on the Granny part than the Middenface adventures part. There is probably, across both series, some reference to Middenface's granny being like a dark-future version of someone from the Broons or some other Scottish reference I am totally oblivious to. She looks a bit like the granny figure from Giles cartoons? Was he Scottish?
Dreddworld relevance? Middenface in Mega-City 1! What
more do you need?
Writing: 5.5/10 Alan Grant in broad comedy more,
without the influence of Wagner, is a bit hit and miss. But there are plenty of
hits!
Art: 7/10 This is VERY scratchy breathless cartooning from McCrea, but a) I
like that sort of thing and b) it was refreshingly opposite to all the painted
stuff that was in vogue at the time. But it’s a far cry from McCrea’s best
work.
Impact: 3/10 Somehow, the idea of Middenface as a recurring Megazine
character seems to work, although it would find its ideal form later on.
Overall score: 15.5/30
Has it been reprinted? It has! Not in the Mega Collection, but in Vol 117 of Hachette's 2000AD Ultiamte Collection: Middenface McNulty.
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