So I set some weird rules about what and wouldn’t count for this celebration of the best (and worst) of the Judge Dredd Megazine.
Thanks to those rules, there are some pretty significant
bests (not too many worsts) that didn’t get a mention. I’m not going to rank
them as such, but let’s list off and maybe talk a little about them.
First, the stories that had runs in 2000AD first, before
switching to the Meg
(and yes, it IS cheating that I included Chopper in the ranking)
Anderson, Psi Division
Had a LONG history before joining the Megazine in volume 2, then dipping back
in and out of the Prog for reasons that at this point make no particular sense
beyond, I guess, scheduling and maybe the length/kind of story creators want to
tell?
Significant/Great Anderson Meg stories, for me, would be:
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| Twists and turns in Childhood's End Words by Alan Grant; Art by Kev Walker |
The Jesus Syndrome - The Judges meet the Messiah (he's a very nice boy!)
Childhood’s End - Oh no, the secret origin of humanity is blowing my mind!
Satan - the Judges meet the anit-Messiah (he's a very nasty boy!)
The Protest - Life in teh Big City is, basically, horrible - but not without some hope...
Half-Life/WMD/Lock-in/City of the Dead - The best post-Necropolis Judge Death story?
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| Cass gets the upper hand in City of the Dead Words by Alan Grant; Art by Arhtur Ranson |
aka most of the stories illustrated by Arthur Ranson. In the post-Alan Grant era, there have been some decent Anderson adventures, but none have quite dared to step up the levels of introspection that Grant at his best was into. On their own, those stories would be Top 5 Meg material, for me. As a whole, Anderson’s run is probably relegated to Top 10/15.
Frankly, Anderson Psi Division deserves its own ranking
exercise one day…
Fiends of the Eastern Front: Stalingrad
Another 2000AD classic with a single Megazine entry. It’s very good! It’s much
more in the vein of the original Finley-Day/Ezquerra WW2 series, rather than
the modern Edginton/Trevallion ‘what do you mean, this is meant to be a war
story, who says?’ version.
Bishop and MacNeil’s take is kind of grown up and serious,
while still being very much a ‘war is hell and Oh shitting christ there are
vampires now TOOOooooooooo’ affair. It’s like Top 25 Megazine material.
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| Art by Colin MacNeil |
Low Life: War Without Bloodshed
Only the one Low Life outing in the Meg, but it’s a cracking good ‘un! I
went on the Mega City Bookclub to discuss Mega City Undercover Vol 2, expecting
to spend my time waxing lyrical about the genius of Creation – but in
the end, it’s War Without Bloodshed that won me over. This might be a
Top 10 contender.
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| Shhh! What do you mean, that doesn't look like Aimee Nixon... Art by Steve Yeowell |
Mean Machine
Had his first solo series in the Prog, and that’s both a laugh riot and an
insanely gorgeous piece of painting from Richard Dolan. Chris Halls Carl
Critchlow’s Son of Mean was not quite as good on either front, but it’s
decent! A bunch of one-offs mostly by Gordon Rennie are all pretty funny, too.
Overall, Top 20.
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| Art by Greg Staples |
Some exiles from the Regened experiment…
Cadet Dredd, which had been merely OK in the pages of Regened, suddenly
got its best story. Department K did not.
Pandora Perfect continues to be a delight.
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| Art by Neil Roberts |
Plus, of course, Judge Dredd
Like, he’s the main character of the Megazine. He has a solo story in every
issue! Often more than one! So it’d be awful if he didn’t have some of the very
best stories across nearly 500 issues. I absolutely have not re-read all of
these in recent years, but here are a few that stick out in my memory as
contenders for notoriety or just plain ‘best of the best’-ness. (not including
the excellent Gordon Rennie stories which ended up spinning out their own solo
series) Most are written by John Wagner, obviously. There’s a lot here from
Volume 2, which probably just shows my own teenage bias 😊
Many of these would crack the Top 20 best of the Meg
Black Widow – Hicklenton art from my nightmares!
Raptaur – a fun alien foe! Also meet Psi Judge Karyn! The story is only
average!
Mechanismo 1 + 2 – fun with robots!
Hottie House Siege - Very funny!
Bagging the Bagwan – Also very funny!
Bury my Knee - Very moving!
Howler – weird and funny!
Tenth Planet (prologue to Wilderlands) – tense and exciting!
Bill Clinton – weird and funny again, twice!
No More Jimmy Deans – fun sci-fi idea!
Bad Manners / Flippers – nasty!
Citizen Sump – delightful movie pastiche and send-off for a beloved character
Six/Monstrous Mashinations/Gingerbread Man – PJ is back back BACK
Ratfink - REALLY nasty
El Maldito – great new character
The Gyre – great new setting
Monkey Business/Ape Escape/Krong Island – great new character in a great new setting!
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| Art by, deep breath... DeanOrmstonMarkWilkinsonTrevorHairsineJockChrisWeston PyeParrCarlosEzquerraNickPercivalJakeLynch... and breathe |
Charley’s War and Darkie’s Mob
Very soon from the start of the Rebellion era, the Megazine has made a home for
reprints either in bulk or in short excerpts of the massive back catalogue of old
IPC mags, aka the ‘Treasury of British Comics’. Significantly for me, it meant
I could finally lay eyes on and read two classics from Battle, both now
widely available in various collections.
Anyway, Darkie’s Mob – it’s a John Wagner story! Everyone agrees that the best thing about it is the Mike Western art! It was fascinating to see quite how closely Peter Milligan followed this template when he wrote the first Bad Company series!
Charley’s War – mooted by many to be THE best British comics series of
all time. Not my take personally, but it’s really a very good comic, that
manages to be all at once child-friendly, informative, moving, angry and deeply
political. I definitely admire it, but honestly, the ‘child-friendly’ part
remains the barrier to me really sinking into it.
But before Rebellion and the IPC catalogue to mine, there
was the time they reprinted trendy American comics…
…of which the best surely continues to be Preacher, which also felt the
most 2000AD-like, but for big kids. (Yeah, I stand by it, it’s better than
early Sin City or Hellboy). I also have a real soft spot for the even more
2000AD-like Lazarus Churchyard.
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| Art by Glenn Fabry |
What about various reprints of the big man himself, Judge
Dredd?
Volume 3 saw a whole ton of Daily Star Dredd serials, which are fun – if
not as good as the original one-off strips by Ron Smith.
More recently, we’ve had a slew of IDW Dredd. There are no great stories
here, but the ones by Matt Smith are really very good, and the controversial
‘Mega City Two: City of Courts’ is delightfully weird, both in story and art,
and above all in setting and tone.
And finally, spare a thought for the world of
ultra-independent comics, made by creators with nothing but love for comics in
their heart, and maybe access to a printer or photocopier. The Small-Press slot
caused some controversy during its brief tenure. People who hand-made and
hand-sold comics at conventions – probably in quantities of tens or hundreds at
best? - had the chance to see their work in print, in a comics reaching
thousands of readers. Great exposure! But no pay. Is that, inherently, a bad deal?
Hard to say.
Of the stories that ran, one stands out for me: Mr Amperduke by Bob Byrne.
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| I cannot stress enough, this is a 'silent' comic. |
Partly because it was my favourite offering, but also because I was surely not alone in that assessment, as Bob Byrne went on not only to have his own series that ran in 2000AD, it might actually be the only series to run with the creator’s name in the very title, Bob Byrne’s Twisted Tales! Somewhere, one hopes, a young Pat Mills and Kev O‘Neill are pumping their fists in the air. Even if they may also struggle with these dialogue-free comics because, despite generally excellent art and storytelling, sometimes it IS hard to be sure what is going on, and what the intended read is of what is going on...
Bizarrely, there’s one other independent comic that’s
getting a bigger airing in the Megazine – Rok of the Reds. It is, so
far, every bit as good as you’d expect from Wagner/Grant/Cornwell.
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