By coincidence, this tranche of comics basically all revolve around female characters, an area in which the Megazine is perhaps notably better than its counterpart, 2000AD. Discuss, I guess?
The Dark Judges (in space) by John Wagner, Dave Hine
and Nick Percival
(4 series that have run in more issues than not of Megs 386 - 458. Why am I counting it in this ranking? Well, frankly at this point the Dark Judges are SO ubiquitous it makes sense to think of their various exploits as separate series. And this particular one, despite being the sequel to a 2000AD story, VERY much feels like its own thing. Other Death-related stories may o may not show higher up in the ranking.)
What was this? This is the continued story of what happened to the Dark Judges, last seen at the end of Dark Justice (the Greg Staples painted spacebound epic) being blown out of an airlock and left to drift in the void of space... forever.
Really not many months later, what happens is they get picked up by an unsuspecting spaceship on its way to bring supplies to a struggling colony world. Death ensues. Notably, the Three (and soon enough Four, and then more...) Dark Judges are NOT the main characters, not really. Our point of view shifts across the four (so far) stories, but sits with colonists of a tough planet, and then also with a Mega City Judge who is the relative of one of those colonists who comes to join them.
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| Percival gives the Four Dark Judges a hell of a makeover! |
I guess you could say that if Dark Justice was like the ‘Aliens’ version of a Judge Death story (set in space, and is a bit more of an action story with some horror moments, rather than a horror story), then Dominion (the first of this cycle), is like the 'Alien 3' version. It very much wants to be a gritty, atmospheric horror story, but never quite manages to pull together a satisfying plot.
As ever with Judge Death and Co, there’s always some psychic
stuff going on, usually to draw out a human helper who – in this case
unwittingly – finds and rescues the fiends. Gradually, they pick off a handful
of people, before rushing headlong into mass killing. In the first story, that
means a whole town; as things continued it meant a whole planet (although not a
hugely populated one), before heading back into space to find new worlds (and
music fans) to murderise.
Now, Wagner’s Dominion ran in 2017, about a year after
Kek-W’s ‘Fall of Deadworld’ cycle had begun in 2000AD. I have to assume Wagner
knew the vague idea of that story, even if he wasn’t reading it. I rather
wonder if he thought it might be fun – and just really nasty – to have a go at
telling a story about the Dark Judges more or less succeeding in their mission.
Which he could never do in Mega City 1, but absolutely could do in the freedom
of outer space and no-name colony worlds.
Certainly he knew that with Nick Percival on art duties, it
would all LOOK super scary and apocalyptic, no complaints there. But honestly,
it’s the lesser of the two ‘Dark Judges’ stories running. Wagner’s tale ends up
focussing on a resourceful but basically doomed lady who narrowly avoids
getting offed a few times. It’s amazingly nihilistic.
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| EVERYBODY DIES (well almost) Words by Wagner; Art by Percival |
Writer David Hine takes over with part 2, the Torture Garden, moving the series into a new direction that swaps out nihilism for an attempt to find purpose and inner beauty in that whole ‘killing EVERYONE’ thing, I think? Anyway, if ‘Dominion’ is Alien 3, ‘Torture Garden’ is Hellraiser 2; its direct follow-up Deliverance is perhaps even more messed up, while the most recent series, 'Death Planet', sadly, ends up being House of the Dead. The Uwe Boll one.)
With Percival matching any challenge Hine raises, they conjure up all manner of weird creatures, some part of the Death cult, others part of something else entirely, and it weird and scary and pretentious and pretty great, and I don’t always know what’s going on but in a fun way. I won't try to explain their stories, but I would encourage anyone with a taste for weird horror to give them a go!
At no point, in any of the stories, do any of them quite
manage to stop Judge Death from being silly/funny as well as scary. Not least
in the plot machinations required to get Judge Fear back onto the team, who was
very much captured in Dark Justice. But, you know, part of the appeal the Dark
Judges IS that they can be both super scary and really quite funny at the same
time.
For my tastes, the first two Hine-scripted series are more
weird and as such ‘better’ than the bleak but quite straightforward Wagner
tale. Percival steps up his game to match. The most recent outing was a big
step down. The idea of a Death Metal band literally worshipping Judge Death is
a fun one. Many of the sequences and character moments are either/or scary/funny. But rather than conjuring up total massacre chaos at a crowded
concert (as done before in Judgement on Gotham), the team sort of ends up
having a few mopey people wandering around a spaceship/concert hall. The ideas
are almost there, and the ongoing subplot with the Judge mixed up in it all are
decent. But the actual action is rather lacking. I think the series is coming
back for more, though – presumably building up to a return to MC1 and a
face-off against Dredd himself one more time – so we’ll see!
Dreddworld relevance? It’s the continued adventures
of one of Dredd’s main foes. So far, the big man himself (and indeed Judge
Anderson) have not been involved.
Writing: 7 / 10 The plotting and dialogue are decent
without being amazing
Art: 8 / 10
Impact: 7 / 10 The story keeps on going, with new series finding new
directions well enough. Preusmably at some point it’ll build up to Death being
back in MC 1, too.
Overall score: 22 / 10
Has it been reprinted? It has! Dominion has its own collection. Dominion and The Torture Garden are in Hachette's Ultimate Collection 95 Dominion; Deliverance and Death Planet are in Hachette's Ultimate Collection 171 The Dark Judges: Deliverance (Weirdly, Vol. 3 bundles up Dark Justice with the first parts of Fall of Deadworld). No one can quite seem to agree on a banner name for this series...
The Returners by Si Spencer and Niccolo Assirelli
(Four series across Megs 394-438)
What was this? A really quite weird series about four
characters who all die in the opening episode, but are immediately ‘returned’
by mysterious supernatural means, and are forced to work together to combat
supernatural shenanigans. Of course they are all very different personality
types who mostly hate each other. All of them will learn and grow, to an
extent. One of them will turn out to be the real villain all along (who may or
may not have been manipulated by things beyond their control).
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| The Returners: a bad Judge (in both senses); a pot-bellied nerd; an angry gangster; a gender-fluid sex worker. Words by Spencer; Art by Assirelli |
The series reminds me of the film Cube, in which a collection of characters wake up together in a strange place and must figure out what is going on before they all die. The actual plot is not even slightly similar, but it has a similar vibe? Anyway, we pretty much find out what’s going on at the end of series 1, before embarking on further adventures that feel like they could be just ‘an adventure’ before it all comes together in the fourth and final series.
It mostly revolves around 'solving' supernatural mysteries involving dark meso-american gods/mythical beings/ghosts, usually within the walls of haunted buildings. And also involves finding out more about each person's backs-try, and the reasons why they are so angry/paranoid/hate each other so very much. All fours series are sort of their own thing, but also there's a through-line of what they have to do to either stay alive forever, or get to enjoy death properly, and why.
Look, I only re-read this a few weeks ago and I can’t really
remember WHAT was going on by the end, which doesn’t speak well, but I know I enjoyed
it both on first run and on a re-read. The over-arching double-crossing /
sacrifice / demon-loving plot is not really the big draw here. It’s the
character design (visually and in dialogue), the bizarre situations the people
find themselves in, the moments of extreme violence, and just the sheer vitriol
the foursome have for each other. It’s fun to read! And it sure isn’t like any
other comics. Bit odd to have an Englishman and an Italianman telling a story
about future Colombia/Mexico/Argentina/non-specific Latin America, but it
doesn’t get in the way of anything.
Dreddworld relevance? It is definitely set in Dredd’s
world, starting out in Ciudad Barranquilla (a city that has been visited a few
times in Dredd continuity but not with much consistency of what it’s like,
except ‘corrupt’), and taking a stop in Brit-Cit. But apart from the fact that
one of the main characters is a CB Judge, it may as well just be its own story
in its own world.
Writing: 7.5 / 10 I do always wish Spencer had made
his stories just a little easier to follow.
Art: 8.5/10 It’s solid storytelling and character and weird location work
all the way through from Assirelli
Impact: 6 / 10 Four series of sheer weirdness is nothing to be sniffed at.
Famously, the very last episode was scripted by editor Matt Smith. You can’t
tell, except perhaps that it ties things off neatly? I suspect this was always
going to be the last outing for the undead foursome, but Spencer died rather
suddenly leaving only the brifest outline for Smith to turn into an ending. Which he does very neatly!
Overall score: 22 / 30
Has it been reprinted? It has! In a lovely
self-contained Hachette package.
Lilly Mackenzie by Simon Fraser
(Megs 298-305)
What was this? It’s a space-set sci-fi story that’s
kinda hard to describe in a single sentence, and is all the better for that!
Before getting into more details, it’s worth saying that this was very much
Simon Fraser’s baby, a project he wrote and drew himself and originally
published I think page-by-page on his website, and using a deliberately
big/slow approach to storytelling. So most pages only have a few panels, and
the action is given lots of room to breathe. As printed in long chunks in the
Megazine, I honestly didn’t think it felt slow compared to typical stories, but
it was maybe refreshingly nice to read! The tone, if anything, is one that
combines bits of European comics, Japanese comics, and of course 2000AD. It’s
great.
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| Shiny! Art by Simon Fraser |
Anyway, the story. It’s about Lilly Mackenzie, a woman with a past (some of which is revealed by the end), and her sidekick buddy, who take on menial jobs on a giant spaceship, basically in order to carry out a sort-of heist on a prison planet, where Lilly believes she will find her long-lost brother.
The plot is probably the least of it. I mean, it’s central
and is quite good, but is not groundbreaking. The commitment to hard(ish)
science in terms of the heist is lovely. Really, it’s the setting, the art, and
the characters that work best. I would say by the end certain clichés – e.g.
the hypercompetence of the two leads - have overtaken the grounded-feeling of
the early chapters, but this is a minor complaint.
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| Big on both storytelling logic and inter-personal emotions. Words and Art by Fraser |
The spaceship setting of the first half is deeply reminiscent of Halo Jones book 2, although a clear difference is that, unlike Halo, Lilly is meant to be strikingly beautiful (she is), and this of course means she has different experiences, and indeed is just a very different person. The prison-planet half of the story takes things in an entirely different (and slightly less intriguing) direction. Anyway, it’s a decent story, immaculately well-told. Plus is has startling moments of nudity and violence, which one might expect from the man behind Nioklai Dante, unleashed. I don't really want to get into plot details, I'd rather you just read it (or re-read it).
The killer of it all is that further stories were hinted at,
but sadly not to be.
Dreddworld relevance? None
Writing: 8/10
Art: 9.5/10
Impact: 6/10 I think people liked this quite a bit, but maybe didn’t love
it?
Overall score: 23.5 / 30
Has it been reprinted? It has not. I don’t even know if the website it was originally serialised on is still accessible. It’s another sad tale of a top tier comics creator making their own work, putting themselves out there – with a product that’s genuinely very good - and just not being able to make a go of it ☹ Lots of people want good comics, and there’s money being made, but the broader economic model just isn’t working quite right.
Fargo & McBane by Ken Niemand and Anna Readman
(Megs 473-478?)
What was this? An all-new series that is a spin-off
from a Dredd tale in which he joined forces with two characters from a
(possible) past in Dredd’s World. A literal ancestor in Eartha Fargo, and a
spiritual ancestor in One-Eyed Jack McBane, the Dirty Harry-esque New York cop
character that Wagner was writing shortly before he cooked up Judge Dredd.
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| This image TOTALLY nails the tone of the story within. Art by Cliff Robinson and Dylan Teague |
Anyway, the original story was kind of time-travel fun. I guess this new one – only 4 episodes old, mind you! – is more like a pastiche/mash-up of gritty 70s cop thriller with Blaxploitation, adding a comedic bent. The art is especially gnarly in a way that really suits the series. So far, the dialogue has been fun and I guess the plot is keeping me interested?
I suppose the big question is: would this whole story work if we didn’t know/care that the two leads have some sort of relationship to Judge Dredd. I think yes? But also I think Niemand is going to have to keep finding ways to make sure that what the characters do/say/get involved in will have some direct link to Judge Dredd and/or Mega City 1, or it might start to feel a little tired. Anyway, as things stand I’m here for it! And I admit this high rating is coloured by the original One-Eyed Jacks just being really fun, which technically I shouldn't count.
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| Ah yeah, the old ultraviolence that we've grown to love from the Megazine :) Words by Neimand; Art by Readman |
Dreddworld relevance? I guess it ties into the idea of Dredd’s world because it exists on the same timeline?
Writing: 8.5/10
Art: 9/10
Impact: 5 / 10 Too soon to know if it’ll become a recurring story, but the
original tale was voted ‘best of the year’ last year and I have high hopes…
Overall score: 22.5 / 30
Has it been reprinted? Well, it hasn’t even finished being ‘printed’ for the first time, but a reprint collection HAS just been announced that is set to cover both One-Eyed Jacks AND this follow-up, too.
Tales from the Black Museum by everybody
(First episode in Meg 244, and going strong still!)
What was this? The Megazine equivalent of Tharg’s
Future Shocks. These are distinguishable by having a narrator who opens and
closes (almost) all the tales, that being the rotting corpse of Henry Dubble,
Curator of Mega City One’s Black Museum, which collects artefacts linked to
weird crimes. Stories of hapless/greedy/troubled citizen follow, with the
occasional non-Dredd Judge getting involved. Horror is baked in, but the
endings are usually more black humour than the cold chill of the best Tharg’s
Terror Tales.
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| Dunno why, but having a narrator really helps these stories come to life! Words by David Baillie; Art by Jake Lynch |
I’ll be honest, while in my memory these are all actively good if rarely super-great, I have not gone back to re-read them all, so I could be over-selling these. On the other hand, the whole point of these stories is to give readers a one-and-done story (which a monthly magazine sorely needs), and to show off the ideas and skills of writers and artists who are earning their way towards full series, or just hungry for pages! And I kind of like it when the art in particular is not amazing (although it’s great when it IS amazing!), as long as the style or tone feels new. It's my belief that this is the single strongest 'one-off' strand across either 2000AD or the Megazine with, I think, no actually BAD episodes.
Dreddworld relevance?
Writing: 7.5 / 10 (on the whole, the writing slightly
outdoes the art on these stories. Dunno why)
Art: 7 / 10
Impact: 8/10 Look, I can’t claim that any one episode is an all-time
classic on the level of an Alan Moore Time Twister, but they sure have been a
solid testing ground for new writers and artists.
Overall score: 22.5/30
Has it been reprinted? It has! Well, a lot of it is in the Mega Collection 78: Tales from the Black Museum – newer Tales are being produced all the time so I doubt there’ll ever be a
complete collection.
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