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!
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| Storm neither touches nor likes to be touched. Naturally, both things end up happening in most tales. Words by Moore/Reppion; Art by Foster |
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| 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.
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).
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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
(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…
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| Swear-words and graphic violence: this is the exact flavour of Dredd (movie edition). Words by Matt Smith; Art by Henry Flint |
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| 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.
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| 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!
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| 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!
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