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

Judge Dredd the Megazine, ranked part 16: Don't delay, buy this today!

We're fully inside the Top 20! Like, these stories are getting so good, I actively encourage you to make sure you OWN them! 

18. Blunt by TC Eglington and Boo Cook
(24 episodes across 3 series from Megs 372 to 422)

What was this? The one about colonists on an alien world having to cope with a planet that wants to kill them and/or mutate them AND having to survive an attack by the evil alien Zhind. I guess per the title it’s about the adventures of Blunt, a human/uplift/mutant hybrid character who is more or less the only person on planet Getri-1 who knows how to cope with its deadly ways. Not per the title, it actually more ends up being about the adventures of Ilya, a plucky teen heroine who wants to find her Mum, then her best friend, and in general work out what the hell is going on with this crazy planet.

Book Cook must have a monopoly on all pale pink and green inks.
No one else uses them!

It's one of those stories with a LOT of ideas and characters and cool moments it really, really wants to squeeze into each of its three series. And when Book Cook is one of the creators involved, you just know those details are going to be crammed and rammed into every panel, with barely time to stop and appreciate them.

For my tastes the story never quite settles into any one mode for long enough to get emotionally invested. Book 1 could have been a sort of ‘rescue party gets picked off one-by-one on a hostile planet’, but is scuppered by having threads relating to at least 3 groups of people: the settlers at home, the rescue party, and the people they’re trying to rescue. It’s too much!

And frankly, this template of having two or three groups of characters in different places follows through the next series. I pretty much wanted to be with Blunt and Ilya the whole time (so clearly I did have SOME emotional investment). But, the core idea of the story – a planet whose ecosystem bends all newcomers to its will (with a bit of interaction from a human-made virus to try to counter this) is super interesting, and requires other characters to uncover/explain it all.

Putting the Science into a Science-Fiction comic!
Words by Eglington; Art by Cook

To be fair, Book 3 streamlines the whole thing by confining the action to a single spaceship, for once with all the characters more or less in the same place, and pulls the overall idea together. It does also add new characters in the form of meddling Mega City Judges (who are appropriately paternalistic) and a super-cool robot.

I haven’t even mentioned the psychedelic mushrooms  / magic DNA crystals that give (some) people psychic powers adds another wrinkle of both fun and confusion. The sheer wealth of alien flora and fauna and mutating humans also means we’re assaulted with new character designs every couple of pages. Again, kind of amazing but also hard work! It’s the Boo Cook experience writ large. Eglington meanwhile makes his mark through a weird combo he finds of science, competence, hope, love and nihilism. I can’t imagine this story existing in any other comic than 2000AD/ the Megazine, and isn’t that a glorious thing.

Dreddworld relevance? It’s set on a colony world; some of the characters have come from Mega City 1. It’s more of an Insurrection spin-off than a Judge Dredd spin-off, what with the Zhind and the colony world setting.(And never mind that the Zhind in this story come across quite different to the Zhind in Lawless.)

Writing: 8.5 / 10 I could have done with a bit more simplicity and coherence, but the ideas are wickedly heady, and the characters are fun, too. Book 3 is genuinely great, if still a little more breakneck in both ideas and action than my puny brain can handle.
Art: 8 / 10 No faulting any of the character design or the mad colours or extremely lush details! But sometimes the fun and frenzy sems to win out over the a-b-c panelling…
Impact: 7 / 10 Three series of this weirdness is not to be sniffed at, and of course the partnership (and deadly biology theme) carried on strong with Deathcap and no doubt other projects to come.

Overall score: 23.5 / 30

Has it been reprinted? It has! In a nifty one-volume Hachette Ultimate Collection 133.

 

17. Ordinary by Rob Williams and D’Israeli
(Megs 340-345)

What was this? A creator-owned series that ran in episodes in the Meg but was also published by Image comics as a 3-issue mini. It’s the one that imagines a world where everybody suddenly gets a superpower, except for one guy who remains… ordinary.

What if someone wrote a comic about a balding, beardy
middle-aged white man with glasses? Who would identify with THAT?

Rob Williams has long been a rare 2000AD writer who is really into super heroes, particularly the idea that they are best thought of as just insanely more powerful than anything we really experience, in ways that profoundly upset the world. The idea of giving everyone superpowers is not new, but Williams and D’Israeli do as good a job as anybody at imagining and showing weird and wonderful powers, mostly that reflect something of the personality of the person wielding them.

But really the story isn’t about that. Being mean, it’s kind of a pat ‘bad dad is pushed to try to do better’ story, and as such I respect it rather than loving it. I just don’t buy that the character we see is SUCH a loser/failure that he’d be singled out as not deserving to get any kind of power. I can squint and read the book on a much more metaphorical level, wherein the ‘hero’ feels like such a loser that it‘s as if everyone else has a special ability while he has nothing to show for himself. The plot of the story doesn’t share this reading, as there’s a whole thing about good and evil people trying to find Mr Ordinary to use him for sinister/noble purposes.

By virtue of being a nothing and a nobody, he is in fact, the ultimate somebody.
Words by Williams; Art by D'Israeli

So anyway, we get a chase narrative, some fun visuals and fun superpower ideas, and a big emotional climax that will feel more or less earned depending, I guess, on what you, the reader, bring to the table. I was only mildly moved.

Dreddworld relevance? None.

Writing: 7.5/10
Art: 9/10
Impact: 7/10 I think this is widely held to be the best of the ‘creator-owned’ slot. You mileage may vary on that, of course (mine does!), but it’s inherently a quality comic.

Overall score: 23.5

Has it been reprinted? It has! But by Titan, not Rebellion.

 

16. Armitage by Dave Stone (mostly) and various artists
(12 series stretching from issue 9, through much of Volume 2, a tiny bit of Volume 3, then a few episodes from Megs 212-321, and recently resurfaced as of Meg 460. And a few appearances in specials.)

What was this? A long-running (but I think liked-not-loved) series about gruff Detective Armitage, who is kind of a cross between Inspector Morse and the Sweeney, only set in a version of Brit Cit (rarely acknowledged by other writers) in which everyone in charge is in thrall to a sinister old-boys’ network that starts with the Monarchy and has tentacles reaching everywhere. (Except for the criminal underworld, which has its own structure. And Birmingham, which got nuked at one point. And the bits in the north where Psi Judge Lilian Storm hangs out. But don’t overthink it.)

The Union Jack has so many connotations, many of them hateful...
but damn, it's a cool piece of design.
Art by Sean Phillips

Anyway, basically you get a series of stories in which Armitage, and his trusty rookie/sidekick/senior officer Treasure Steel, investigate and solve murders. While getting in trouble with the senior Judges, who are invariably covering up some wrong-doings by upper-class types. When the strip is playing in this basic arena, it’s pretty great. The procedural beats are fun, Armitage and Steel rub each other up the wrong way in reliably amusing fashion, and some of the mysteries have neat sci-fi-ish-but-not-always solutions. The most recent outing, and the first not by Dave Stone, was also very good at this, which bodes well. I still find it a bit weird how extremely hard Stone goes in on the ‘Posh Brits are all awful and indeed evil’ thing, but I suppose it’s a pretty well-tested formula in 2000AD, and maybe I’m just naïve about the actual world I live in, even after living through the Cameron/Johnson years.

Armitage does NOT get on with people in authority.
Words by Stone; Art by Phillips

That’s a minor complaint. Bigger problems appear when the series gets waylaid by tales of Armitage’s warrior past - in some weird UK Civil War - a whole Judgement-Day thing with demons, and run-ins with crimelord/wheelchair hobgoblin Efil Drago San. Luckily, the series got past most of those side-quests and back into solving murders before too long!

The whole thing is massively elevated by Sean Phillips doing a killer job on the art of the original series, delivering a setting and several characters that just feel super lived-in. A very early Charlie Adlard struggled to live up to this painted style, but improved loads when he could switch to black and white. Later on, John ‘One-Eyed Jack’ Cooper found something of a natural home with the character.

For all that it's a Sci-Fi story, Armitage kind of naturally feels at home in a sort of 
present-day-with-occasional-SF-frills setting

At this point, Armitage is THE premiere ‘last series standing’ from the original Megazine, and he’s a welcome sight. Outside of Mega City One, Brit Cit is, for obvious reasons, the most fun place for a British comic to explore, and Armitage has had the time to make it feel like a place we can just about make sense of. Intriguingly, it’s far nicer than Mega City One, with more personal freedom and Judges who are less bullying - presumably, because they're all preoccupied with shoring up the Old Boys' Network and are happy with the thousand+ year legacy of keeping oiks in their place...

Dreddworld relevance? It’s a spin-off set in the same world, and following the same timeline as Judge Dredd. The characters have met once or twice.

Writing: 7 / 10 This is very much an average of some highish highs and middling lows.
Art: 8.5 / 10 Phillips and Cooper are bringing up the average quite a bit, here.
Impact: 8 / 10 I don’t think Armitage is a character anyone outside of 2000AD circles as heard of, but in the context of the Megazine, he’s a Mount Rushmore if ever there was one. You can't discount how many times there series seemed to have disappeared, only to come back, including crossovers into the world of Dredd. I guess none of his stories are all-time great, but there's something about the character, and indeed his supporting cast, that I keep rooting for them!

Overall score: 23.5 /30

Has it been reprinted? It has! All but the most recent series are in two Mega Collection Volumes, numbers 62 and 63. There are, I think, enough very good stories that you can imagine Rebellion setting up a chunky collection that skips a few bits. Although perhaps no one would buy them :(

  

15. Scarlet Traces by Ian Edginton and D’Israeli
(Meg Volume 4 issues 16-18)

What was this? This is a technicality, really. It’s only 3 episodes long, and was originally intended to be published on a comics website that went defunct before it really even started – so the creators took it back and managed to find it a home in the Meg.

The cover to the Dark Horse collection of the original series
Art by D'Israeli

What it actually is, is a sequel to HG Wells’ War of the Worlds, and it’s great! My memory of first reading it is that the War of the Worlds connection was a bit of a surprise revealed at the end of the first or maybe even second episode? We’ve been following detective characters in a Victorian/Edwardian London setting, investigating some weird and horrible murders that lead to the discovery that someone has been harnessing power from some trapped – but living -Martians. These are the last survivors of the invasion force from Wells’ novel. I confess I've never read the actual novel, so maybe it was more obvious if you were familiar? Anyway, it came to me as a surprise in 2002, and a fun one!

The art was super detailed, the characters and setting well-fleshed out, and at the time it was kind of a revelation. Looking back on it, it’s kind of a proto-version of the sorts of things Edginton and D’Israeli would go to do with even more sophistication in later collaborations, but I remember this first series very fondly.

The green, neon horrors of seeing too much...
Words by Edginton; Art by D'Israeli

Some years later, the creative team produced a version of War of the Worlds, and a second sequel story set some decades later, both originally published by Dark Horse. Skip another few years ahead, and it then got (and continues to get) long-form series in 2000AD. By now it probably makes more sense to think of the strip as a 2000AD one that had a short outing in the Meg. But, you know, it was in the Meg first, so I’m including it in this ranking!

Weirdly, if it had JUST been that one little 3-parter, I might be inclined to rate it more highly. As part of a bigger series, it’s still excellent, but doesn’t really stick out as the best part of the whole thing, more of a neat if quirky prologue. It’s still, I think, best enjoyed as a short story that turns out to be a sequel to War of the Worlds, rather than reading it AS a direct sequel (which is how its collected nowadays). And it doesn't help that, 20 years on, these sorts of follow-ups to classic works of literature are more commonplace. Scarlet Traces was one of the earlier and better efforts of this genre!

Dreddworld relevance? None.

Writing: 9/10
Art: 9.5/10
Impact: 5/10 The fact it took so long to get a sequel proper I think diminishes the impact of this specific 3-parter, not helped by the way it is now squished into a much bigger series.

Overall score: 23.5/30

Has it been reprinted? It has! I recommend getting Rebellion's Scarlet Traces volume 1 (and then getting Volumes 2 and 3 and demanding more!)

 

14. Lenny Zero by Andy Diggle and Jock
(Vol 3 issue 68; Vol 4 issues 1-2 and 14-15; not counting the longer serial Zero’s 7 from 2000AD)

What was this? The short, snappy, stylish undercover Judge with an attitude series, that, perhaps more than the actual character and story being told, is noteworthy for just feeling like a kick in the balls and a breath of fresh air for the Meg at a time both things were sorely needed.

That Jock knows how to design a page layout.

Partly that’s the glory of Jock’s artwork, with it’s super thin lines and awesome page and panel layouts. And partly it’s just that it was the first new series in ages, after the Meg had been running on reprint fumes and occasional bursts of Armitage, Shimura and Devlin Waugh (aka the few really successful early Meg-originating characters).

Honestly, the three actual Lenny Zero stories we get, and have preserved now in reprint posterity, come across as pretty needy (but excitingly hungry) work from two young comics hopefuls who really like Tarantino. Which, you know, probably describes most Megazine readers circa the late 90s, myself included.

Tarantino is just the most obvious touchpoint, it’s not a superQT homage or anything. But it does do that thing where it really wants you to think the main character – a wire-y, impulsive guy in his mid-late 20s - is both the coolest cat around, and a bit of a loser, but also secretly cleverer than everyone, but also a dickhead (but maybe Diggle/Jock don’t see that he’s a dickhead?).

I dunno. There are plots about double-crossing people, including some judges, and of course because Lenny Z is undercover, he’s allowed to (and does) get into scrapes with women. And there are some future crime/policing gadgets, too, because this IS a Judge Dredd comic.

Ah yes, the Wally Squad Judge who is interested in romantic love. Has its place, I guess.
Words by Diggle; Art by Jock

I basically loved it at the time, then very quickly soured on it, but by that time both creators had moved on, and so it remains as a bright blip in the Meg’s history, and never mind if it’s actually good comics. (It is, but is also smug about it. It’s also maybe only the third-best series about undercover Judges – the premise that just won’t die.)

Dreddworld relevance? It’s about an undercover Judge in Mega City 1! Dredd appears at one point!

Writing: 7/10 Like, it’s well-crafted stuff, but I kind of don’t like it. Diggle would get better at writing likeably unlikeable characters in e.g. The Losers.
Art: 8/10 You can almost see Jock’s lines being scratchy and shaky and getting snappier and zingier with each new episode of this series, very much working out his kinks before hitting comics superstar status. It’s actually endearing to read– you almost feel you could be this good, in a way I cannot ever imagine being as good as Jock is now.
Impact: 9/10 I cannot overstate how exciting it was at the time, and how much that was made clear on letters pages. Lenny Zero has not had a distinguished career, but Diggle and Jock sure have, as indeed has the Megazine itself, starting with the spectacular Volume 4 relaunch. As far as series based around Wally Squad Judges go... well, other creators would do it better, in both Meg and Prog.

Overall score: 24/30

Has it been reprinted? It has! The three Meg stories are all in the Lenny Zero collection (along with some other bits) and also in Mega City Undercover Vol 1. (If you want to read Zero's 7, a years-later longer story from 2000AD - which is plenty fun if not quite as stylish! - it's in Mega City Undercvoer Vol. 3)

Judge Dredd the Megazine, ranked part 15: extreme competence

This is what happens when you get top-tier creators doing their job well, even if they're not perhaps quite as inspired as on their very best works.

22. The Bendatti Vendetta by Robbie Morrison and John M. Burns
(Vol 4 issues 13-18; Megs 209-211 and 234-236)

What was this? I don’t know if the phrase “Eurothriller” is a) real and b) has specific connotations, but it surely describes this series above anything else. It’s the one about people who want revenge, but instead of hunting down their own targets, they join a secret society who assigns them different targets, making the whole thing less personal but I guess more efficient? When I type that out it sounds a bit mad but honestly, when you read it it’s compelling and holds surprising levels of emotional resonance.

Violence that is both brutal and just a bit classy
Art by John Burns

I guess the key is that most of the people who are the targets of the revenge are mobsters or otherwise ‘important’ people who would be difficult for any one person to track down and kill, so having a wider organisation to back you helps with all that.

Anyway, the whole thing is super stylish, involves a fair bit of foreign travel, and is all beautifully painted by John Burns in a way that reminds me of European comics. You know, a bit adult, a bit sinister, and perhaps chiefly the sort of comics art you can imagine casual or even non-comics fans finding attractive and easy to read.

Lots of strong work being done by facial expressions in this series.
Words by Morrison; Art by Burns

Page by page, I don’t exactly fall in love with the characters, and on a personal level I tend to find revenge stories un-engaging. But, certainly based on the evidence of top-tier comics and movies, they can make for really excellent fiction. I think the world and her sister all agree that revenge is never going to satisfy anyone, and only involves sadness and death. So, within that, is where the better storytellers get to explore fatalism, the impossibility of changing your mind, or getting over your grief, or what have you. I’m not sure Morrison and Burns are quite at the very very top tier of revenge fiction, but the basic idea of this story is super interesting, and the panache with which they tackle it is excellent. Very much worth a read.

Dreddworld relevance? None.

Writing: 8/10
Art:10/10
Impact: 5/10 Three well-liked series and a reprint collection is not to be sniffed at, but this still feels like quite an outlier in Megazine history, rather than a trend-setter.

Overall score: 24/30

Has it been reprinted? It has! In one nifty collection.

 

21. Strange & Darke by John Smith and Colin MacNeil
(Just the one series to date, Megs 319-323)

What was this? A Brit-Cit spin-off from Delvin Waugh, featuring Det. Insp. Jericho Strange (the one with the head that’s actually a Sheep skull (or is it a horse or goat maybe?), and his new partner, Becky Darke, who investigate weird goings on. In the case of this one story, those weird goings on involve satanists in future Wales enacting a black orgy to summon a demon.

It came relatively soon after Devlin Waugh’s adventures in Hell, in the stories Vile Bodies and All Hell which featured perhaps the most sexually graphic/horrible art yet printed in the Megazine, which is saying something. This new series dials that UP to show a satanic priest getting black demon spunk on his face. Yet somehow it’s kind of demure? I dunno.

Anyway, this series was a hoot. For a John Smith comic, it was very straightforward to read and follow, the characters have distinct personalities but no great pretensions, and the story plays out neatly and tidily and generally one wanted more. Sadly, it was the last thing Smith completed for the Meg, and for various reasons, he’s not been back since. Went out on a real high!

Remember to read Strange's dialogue in a Welsh accent!
Words by Smith; Art by MacNeil

Dreddworld relevance? I mean, Devlin Waugh continuity feels VERY different to Dredd continuity, even though they absolutely co-exist. But yes, this is a Dreddworld strip.

Writing: 9/10 I guess not quite peak Smith in terms of weird horror, but it totally is peak Smith in terms of basic scripting prowess.
Art: 9/10 Full-on cartoony pen-and-ink MacNeil is not my absolute favourite of his styles, but this is the peak of that style, and he’s drawing some weird and amusing things to boot.
Impact: 5/10 Pretty sure everyone wanted more, but sadly it was not to be.

Overall score: 23/30

Has it been reprinted? It has! In a collection alongside the first series of Storm Warning, and in Hachette 17 Weird Science

 

20. Surfer by John Wagner and Colin MacNeil
(2 series across Megs 439-454)

What was this? A spiritual return to Chopper, but not actually featuring the man himself. Instead, Wagner constructs a crime-based tale centred around the son of one of Chopper’s old friends/rivals on the skysurfing circuit. It’s a pretty classic Wagner tale of a person you really like just not having the best time of it, ground down by poverty, the madness of Mega City 1, and the way small-time crooks just keep preventing someone from taking an honest job.

With lots of skysurfing.

Skysurfing in Mega City 1 is inherently cool!
Art by Tom Foster

As a change, the surfing bit of the story isn’t based around a contest, but a movie of a contest, and then rapidly a heist/crime situation. The excuses to show radical skysurfing moves are plentiful, and it’s always great that Wagner pushes himself to do something different with the basic set up. But there’s no escaping the fact that one misses the comedy inherent to a future sports story with Wagner commentators, and that the emotional ups and downs never quite live up to Chopper’s original escape / competition stories. The framing device of Zayn Perks trying to rescue his Dad from an evil Block-based gangster services the narrative, but doesn't add anything Wagner has not tackled before - and better - in the pages of Judge Dredd.

It's not easy, making a made-up technologically impossible sport look difficult
Words by Wagner; Art by MacNeil

Dreddworld relevance? It’s set in Mega City 1, and the Judges are a constant threat.

Writing: 8/10
Art: 8/10 MacNeil is both on excellent from and also maybe a bit uninspired? Or maybe I’m just spoiled by his consistency?
Impact: 7/10 I mean, it got an immediate sequel and a collection. It remains to be seen if Zayn Perks lingers in readers’ minds, but I think the story itself will be one people remember.

Overall score: 23/30

Has it been reprinted? It has!

 

19. Shimura by Robbie Morrison and a bunch of artists
(14 stories of various lengths, spread across Vol 2 issues 37-77, Vol 3 issues 14-35, and finally bowing out in Megs 224-243. Oh, and the 1996 Mega Special. The series span off into Inaba/Hondo City Justice, which hit the ranking a while back)

What was this? The long-running saga of Shimura, Hondo-City Judge and very-soon-turned outcast. We start off with our hero training up a rookie Judge, Inaba, who is pointedly the first female Judge in Hondo City. Shimura himself is presented as one of the few (only?) non-corrupt Judges. So the series quite quickly becomes about Inaba fighting prejudice (and corruption) on the inside, with help from Shimura fighting corruption from the outside. This ‘corruption’ is mostly about Yakuza/organized crime / ancient family ties, with a bit of techno-futurist computer stuff thrown in. And yes, if that sounds like a double cliché of how the West perceived Japan in the 1990s, you’d be right. And yet…

…I think it’s a reasonable proposition to say that Shimura is THE best ‘what’s it like in a non-Mega City 1 Judge system’ comic that the Meg has yet produced. It’s perhaps not the highest bar, but there IS a bar. And the reason Morrison and co clear it is because they create a compelling set of characters, and, over a natural progression of timer and stories, build up their own world of stories to tell that are almost never stories you’d imagine reading in the pages of Judge Dredd (except for the couple where Dredd himself shows up).

Art by Frank Quitely

The art does a lot of the heavy lifting. Frank Quitely made a HUGE splash with his work on the opening, scene-setting series. Then we get the likes of Colin MacNeil turning it all noirish. Then a combo of Duke Mighten, Simon Fraser and Robert McCallum all being stylish and turning up the colour and violence in exciting ways.

Another part of Shimura’s success may be that, alongside Armitage, it was one of the few Dreddworld stories that had SOME backing in canon Judge Dredd comics. Morrison doesn’t refer to any pre-existing Judges (I don’t think?), but is leaning a bit on some ideas, and certainly costumes/customs, as presented in ‘Our Man in Hondo’. Now, THAT story is remembered as being one of the ‘why are we still doing racist voiceovers in 1989?’ classics of John Wagner. But I think also remembered as being a pretty good story with excellent art, and the kind of Japanese stereotyping we get is not so very racist? Maybe?

Morrison is definitely being much more culturally sensitive, although one does wonder how much time he had actually spent in Japan, vs how much time he had spent reading a handful of Manga and maybe a few books, and no doubt watching yakuza movies.

Ah, it's about honour, then...
Words by Morrison; Art by Mighten

ANYWAY, you can (kind of) ignore a lot of that. Yes, the tropes that lean on ‘Japan is super sexist’ and ‘Japan is secretly run by gangsters’ (and other bits from Frank Miller comics) are pretty heavy handed, especially at first, but really quite quickly the stories push past this and more into weird sci-fi future crime / future crime-fighting stuff that is what Judge Dredd is kind of all about, and Morrison & Co manage to make Shimura all about, only in a really quite different environment.

Shimura himself, and indeed Inaba, get to be cool and competent, increasingly so as the series goes on – but also, in the Morrison style, quite flawed and very much aware of their emotions, which is upending of some clichés at least.

Dreddworld relevance? It's set in Dredd's time and world. A couple of series at the very end even feature the big man himself, as well as the return of a recurring Dredd villain or two.

Writing: 7/10 It’s not as good as Nikolai Dante or Shakara, but this averages out as good solid comics.
Art: 9/10 Not every artist who tackled Shimura was a winner, but it has a really high hit rate.
Impact: 7/10 It’s no small achievement that this series kept going through 3 different iterations of the Meg, AND got its own spin-off, and had a couple of crossovers with Dredd himself.

Overall score: 23/30

Has it been reprinted? It has! There are three Rebellion collections. The first, covering early Shimura, might be out of print. Hondo City Law and Hondo City Justice reprint some of the early stuff, but mostly cover the later series, along with spin-offs Inaba and Hondo-City Justice, and then there’s a brace of Hachette Mega Collections, 60 and 61.

Judge Dredd the Megazine, ranked part 14: into the Top 25!

 The mighty Megazine has been home to some quite astonishing talent - and when they're on form, they've birthed some astonishingly good stories. Hooray for good comics! Now that we've reached that stage, I'm adding in rank numbers, so you can see how close we're getting to the end.

27. Storm Warning by John Reppion, Leah Moore and, chiefly, Tom Foster
(Four series so far, Megs 361-366, 400-403, 404-408, 449-454 and one special)

What was this? The adventures of Brit-Cit based Psi Judge Lillian Storm, who a) looks like a 1990s lesbian*, which is as far as I know a totally novel look for any 2000AD/Megazine character, and b) has the ability to see and talk to dead people, which again appears to be novel, as far as Psi-Judge power sets go.

Being as she’s a Judge the first thing doesn’t come up in-story. But the second thing has managed to be the driving force of a story engine that pulls off the fantastic trick of allowing Storm to have episodic adventures that are just plain weird and fun and NOT like and old Judge Anderson/Karyn/Janus type story. Lots of bonus points for that!

For my tastes, Moore and Reppion (first together but more recently Reppion solo) have found a knack for delivering fun ghost/crime stories set in various UK locations. They’ve also been given excellent partners in comics with Tom ‘why yes, I do like Bolland’ Foster and Clint ‘look, I don’t JUST do photo-referenced comics’ Langley. Not forgetting Jimmy 'good at drawing' Broxton, whose work clearly suits ghosts in a modern setting.

There’s the ghosts, of course, which both render in very different styles. But there’s also Storm herself, who is a spiky personality to say the least, especially because she can’t really handle being touched lest it trigger her powers. Both artists have an excellent way of showing off her mix of aloofness/self-sufficiency vs plain old fear.

We’ve not had quite enough stories yet to really discern an over-arching theme, but to be honest to joy of it is in the fact that we’re getting story after story of clever, spooky ghost adventures, typically each in its own different moody, British setting. This is what we like!

Storm neither touches nor likes to be touched. Naturally, both things end up happening in most tales.
Words by Moore/Reppion; Art by Foster

Sometimes, Storm ends up in (or near) to Hell...
Words by Reppion; Art by Langley

Dreddworld relevance? It’s all set in Brit-Cit / the wider post-disasters-of-various kinds-UK. So far, to my knowledge, it has not contradicted anything thrown up by either Armitage or Strange & Darke or even Calhab Justice. It also does manage to keep up the Armitage tradition of ‘the UK’s defining feature is that the upper classes stay in power and keep hold of it by any means necessary, including running Justice Dept like an old boys club’.

Writing: 8.5/10
Art: 8/10 Broxton is on top form; Langley meanwhile is not quite at his very best, but seeing this looser style is a treat. Foster, meanwhile, is both amazing at drawing and so obsessively trying to be ‘correct’ that many a panel layout looks seriously weird. This is part of the fun, but it’s not necessarily ‘great’. He’s the latest in a long line of artists who is developing his style and skills as he goes - his more recent series is better than his first. Who knows, one day he may even develop a certain pace…
Impact: 6/10 Like, it’s getting plenty of return outings and already had one collection (I’m hoping we get another one soon of all the stories, not just the first). But it’s still new, and hasn’t exactly changed anyone’s world.

Overall score: 22.5/30

Has it been reprinted? The first story is collected alongside Strange & Darke, in Brit-Cit noir. I hold out hope for a collection of the whole set of stories in time to come. 

 *By which I mean, Alison Bechdel / kd lang

26. Missionary Man by Gordon Rennie and a bunch of artists
(Really quite a lot of series spanning Vol 2 issue 29 all the way to Volume 4 iussue 13 (not to mention a spell in 2000AD). It was a real mainstay of Volumes 2, 3 and 4!)

What was this? The one about the Preacher (or at least, a man in a dog-collar spouting Biblical-adjacent rhetoric) wandering around the Cursed Earth and delivering holy death upon the unrighteous, and helping out the righteous (who he basically never meets til near the end).

One of those characters who gets a cover for his very first appearance!
Happens less often than you might think.
Art by Frank Quitely

This was my introduction to Gordon Rennie and Frank Quitely, one a future comics superstar, the other someone who’d become a mainstay of 2000AD, delivering reliably good but never properly celebrated comics. Frankly, you could tell Quitely was on the fast track pretty much immediately, and indeed he only stuck around for the first couple of stories, including one long-ish form tale about a magically powerful monster that ended up feeling like a Millar-esque – my big strong guy is gonna defeat your big strong guy just because my plot demands it, and he’s a badass.

Luckily, from almost exactly that point on the character became more interesting, and the stories started going somewhere. We gradually find out more about who Preacher Cain is (we can already guess why he’s not called Abel). He gets a bit more of a directed mission beyond just wandering around the (slightly) more populated bits of the Cursed Earth shooting heathens/sinners. We get to have some fun in actual built-up populated areas of the Cursed Earth – specifically, the Mississippi river and future New Orleans - in a way I don’t think shown since the Las Vegas bit of the original ‘Cursed Earth’ saga, and this is already doing a lot of work to make Cain’s world feel like a real place.

There's something instantly iconic about his gnarled, snarling face and ridiculous pistols.
Context by Rennie; Art by Quitely

Compared to its contemporary stories, the likes of Calhab Justice, Harmony and even Shimura, it is all blessedly straightforward to follow, and doesn’t disappear down a well of too many ideas with not enough time to develop them.

Quite probably because of these specific virtues, Preacher Cain was one of only a handful of Megazine-originating thrills to make the jump over to 2000AD during the Volume 3 ‘75% reprint’ years. Technically those stories don’t count for this ranking, but actually, for my tastes the bits that came just before and just after this - all in the Megazine - are the best of Missionary Man. Yes, even the quite weird bit where they end up in future Meso-America with some nutters playing dress-up Aztec/Maya cannibals. It doesn’t hurt that this final sequence was drawn by John Ridgway. Or that, by this point, Cain was no longer a spittle-spewing goggle-eyed murder machine, but more given to musing the nature of existence and faith in a clearly rather godless world.

Anyway, Missionary Man is really quite a weird collection of stories, but is anchored by this dude who has a fantastic mix of charisma and presence, and has the decency to get into flights of hyper violence or horror on a regular basis, without it all being about psychic mind-games. And yes, it’s a real treat of art, with a host of different players including the aforementioned Frank Quitely delivering gloriously cartoonish comics, and some delicious ‘growing up on the page’ early, hungry work from Simon Davis, who is not quite painting yet, but getting close to that, and who really relishes drawing individual follicles of stubble.

Can't stress enough how much the early days of Missionary man was him blowing into town
and just blowing people away...
Context by Rennie; Art by Davis

I am still sad we never saw more than one episode from Garry Marshall, whose one episode ‘Legend of the Unholy Drinker’ is one of my all-time favourite single-issue stories from the Meg.

Dreddworld relevance? It’s set in The Cursed Earth and in theory does nothing to contradict any Dredd.

Writing: 7.5/10 Look, Gordon Rennie was ALSO doing quite a lot of ‘growing up in public' as a writer, but he sticks out from his contemporaries by knowing how to keep it brief, and not falling down any convoluted plotting holes. This is not his best work, but it’s a fun place to get to know his foibles, be they taciturn anti-heroes, witches and ghosts, or of course Christianity and faith in general.
Art: 8/10 This is a tough one to parcel out across several players and certain amounts of growth, but it’s NEVER boring to look at, or hard to see what’s going on.
Impact: 7/10 Can’t overstate how many returning stories this one got, or its status as one that made the jump to 2000AD.

Overall score 22.5/30

Has it been reprinted? It has! But not very conveniently! There’s a nice collection of the first chunk of stories, and the whole thing (just about) is spread across three Hachette Mega Collection volumes, but not (quite) in exact sequence, making for a weird reading experience.

 

25. Mega City 2099 by Ken Niemand, Arthur Wyatt and various artists
(5 episodes so far, in Megs 459, 462, 465, 469, 470)

What was this? It’s like Dredd: the Lost Cases, but even more specific. It’s all about recapturing the story ideas, tone and above all look of 1977-era Judge Dredd. You’ve got Jake Lynch doing an early McMahon impression (itself an Ezquerra impression), Tom Foster doing early Bolland, and Conor Boyle kind of doing everything and everyone. It’s impeccable. Of the five stories run so far, each is easily the equal of the best of Case File 1-era Dredd.

The helmet alone really captures the essence of 1977-era Dredd.
Art by Alex Ronald

Except of course there’s just a little bit of nodding and winking going on. It's notable that in those very early days, the creators hadn't quite figured out what Dredd's world was like, and how the Judge system worked. There were police officers, for a start. So this retro-batch of stories kind of straddles a need to show and maybe explain these weird things, but perhaps also poke fun at them? Equally, the style of storytelling - complete with circular panels and thought balloons a-plenty, is both loving homage and, just maybe, snide looking-down-on.

Some rather clever comics playing here with the idea of what a bit of text can mean
in different contexts. Plus of course, the whole question of 'Is Dredd a goodie or baddie'.
Words by Neimand; Art by Boyle

Hard to say if the snideness is built-in to the stories, or if that’s just something I as a reader can’t help but bring with me? And honestly, given the nature of the strip, I suspect it’s for the best if it IS a bit knowing. Anyway, in sum it WORKS, and I'm keen for more!

Dreddworld relevance? It’s a nostalgia-heavy Dredd, and as such probably non-canon (and more than a bit indulgent), but it’s very much the Dredd of Case Files 1.

Writing: 9/10
Art: 9/10 It’s pastiche, yes, but it’s SO well done. I have not been tracking the efforts of any letterers so far on this ranking, but by gosh if you want to heap praise for attention to detail it’s the letterer here* who wins the prize.
Impact: 5/10 Look, it’s going down well with the readers – me included – but one is wary of latching on to this kind of thing too much. I suspect it’s best in small doeses and short bursts, rather than trying to develop an epic, or, worse, a whole alt-timeline. Ultimate/Earth One Dredd anyone? No thanks!

Overall score: 23/30

Has it been reprinted? Not yet, but a few more outings and it’ll have earned a reprint. Or at least, I’d buy one! I suppose it might all end up in a Judge Dredd Restricted Files Volume 5, if/when that series picks up enough material for a new volume?

* Jim Campbell and Simon Bowland have been sharing duties

 

 24. Movie Dredd mostly by Arthur Wyatt but a bunch of other people too
(1 prequel episode and 5 series across Megs 328-396)

What was this? Stories set in the world of Dredd, the Alex Garland/Peter Travis/Karl Urban version. It starts with a direct lead-in to the movie, telling the story of Ma-Ma, and then moves into stories set in the same world and following the adventures of Dredd, with occasional appearances from Anderson and other movie characters. Ending with a sequence about the Dark Judges, which may or may not have been part of the concept for a sequel movie, had that ever been funded ☹

It’s all rather good! Intense street-level action comics with sci-fi ideas that are definitively not quite like the stories you get in Judge Dredd comics. I think the main distinguishing feature is that the city itself just feels grungier and scarier, and it’s VERY clear that there are just aren’t enough Judges to protect people from rampant crime. (Whereas the main strip, to my eyes, has always felt like Judges were so prominent and powerful that it’s weird how much crime keeps happening).

That said, gritty future cop action is a specific mode, and there’s no room to deviate from it. So you get 6 really good stories but it feels a bit like there’s no room to go anywhere else, because if you try playing with the mood you’re not ‘movie Dredd’ any more, you’re just off-brand Judge Dredd, and no one wants that…

Swear-words and graphic violence: this is the exact flavour of Dredd (movie edition).
Words by Matt Smith; Art by Henry Flint

And more visceral violence!
Words by Arthur Wyatt; Art by Paul Davidson

On that note, the Dark Judges story at the end is really very admirable at re-imagining Death and Co in a way that is not at all the same as the originals, and finds a way to feel vaguely plausible in the more grounded world. Henry Flint delivers some memorably terrifying image, too! But I think it ended at the right time.

Dreddworld relevance? I guess none? It’s like an Elseworlds version of Dredd.

Writing: 8/10
Art: 9/10 Really excellent work from everyone – Flint, Lynch, Willsher, Davidson
Impact: 6/10 I mean, this could’ve just been a one-off, or maybe a two-off, but it was all strong enough that it made sense to keep doing more stories, before ending on maybe not the BEST of the stories, but definitely a weird and fun way to stop before dimension-hopping nonsense takes over.

Overall score: 23/30

Has it been reprinted? It has! It's split across three Rebellion collections, and all bundled into one in Ultimate Collection 179: Dredd + Anderson.

 

23. Megatropolis by Ken Niemand and Dave Taylor
(1 series (so far..?) in Megs 424-431)

What was this? An alternative version of Judge Dredd, in which the City and various major characters are re-imagined as people in a sort of retro-future version of Prohibition-era America. Like, ‘what if Judge Dredd was like the movie Metropolis, but American not German’. Dave Taylor, who is like the comics-art version of the 1989 Batman movie, was absolutely born to render this world. I cannot overstate how gorgeous it is to look at, and how well he captures the essence of various Dredd characters, but tweaked to suit the period.

You know when they say 'the city IS a character'? 
Never more true than when said city is drawn by Dave Taylor

Now, as each episode unfolded, it was hard not to play ‘spot the reference’ a bit more than to actually read the story, and sometimes that feels a bit tired. Especially when, for the most part, the characters we get are variations on the early years of Dredd. But, in case you haven’t, I urge you to give this a re-read and just let the story be what it is. Sure, it is treading in organised crime + corrupt rulers-type cliches, and yes, it is inevitably relying on you to ‘know’ what a character is like by association with their canonical Judge Dredd counterpart. But these are both tools that Neimand and Taylor have at their disposal, so how could they not use them?

There IS a story being told here - it's not just 'what if Dredd's world was a bit different'. It's to do with one version of a how a Justice Dept type situation might come to be, it's to do with the architects of a retro-future city, there's a super-robot, there are corruptible vs incorruptible people, it's fun and propulsive!

Rico and Cassandra talk tactics
Words by Niemand; Art by Taylor

Honestly, the main thing holding this story back from the Top 10 all-time Megazine stories, for me, is that it’s unfinished! Book 2 may or may not appear in the next year or so, and it feels like it could run for many more books to come, if there’s enough will?

Dreddworld relevance? None.

Writing: 9/10
Art: 10/10
Impact: 4/10 I do think there’s some reader resistance to the whole ‘elseworlds’ mould of storytelling. Even when it’s done well it can feel lazy, so I suspect this series is unlikely to unleash a slew of copycats. But I wouldn't mind 2 or 3 more books of what we've got, please!

Overall score: 23/30

Has it been reprinted? It has!