Judge Dredd the Megazine, ranked part 13: strong female characters?

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Judge Dredd the Megazine, ranked part 12: Hey, read these comics!

Goodness me, we've reached the point where I'd actively recommend even a casual Judge Dredd / 2000AD fan gives these comics a go.

Tempest by Al Ewing and Jon Davis-Hunt
(12 episodes / 2 series across Megs 266-297)

What was this? A mad-cap comedy but also quite nasty and gory noirish OTT action romp about a criminal in the Undercity disguised as an undercover Judge fighting against other criminals. Or maybe he really is an undercover judge who lost his mind/memory and thinks he’s a criminal disguised as an undercover Judge? I was never quite sure…

This is a cover to advertise the story Tempest, by using the phrase 'storm warning'
It's not advertising the story 'Storm Warning' by using the phrase 'tempest'.
Art by Jon Davis-Hunt

Anyway, Tempest the character (which may or may not be his real name) is a little bit Deadpool, in the sense of constant chatter and self-awareness, but is also a little bit Batman, in the sense of being incredibly well-trained in all things, and a bit of a master-planner.

The story veers wildly from being kinda of silly (in a giant talking evil pandas kind of way) and kind of nasty (in a bodies being ripped apart from the inside with glee kind of way). The overall tone works, just about, although I struggled to marry up the antics/fun vibe with the idea that the overall plot is meant to be kind of serious, maybe?

What if a person with ninja skills was also childish?
Words by Ewing; Art by Davis-Hunt

It’s the sort of thing Ewing would go on to do better for Other Publishers, to be honest, but it’s a memorable early work from him. Davis-Hunt, meanwhile, absolutely nails the tone and the delight and makes that extreme gore feel fun. He also demonstrates a real facility with facial expressions that can bring you from laughter to fear surprisingly quickly.

Dreddworld relevance? It’s set in the Undercity below MC1, and there are Judges in it sometimes.

Writing: 7/10 The fun of it outweighs the bits that don’t quite work, which includes the central character. He is perhaps too competent to enjoy, even if he is silly enough to get away with a lot.
Art: 9/10
Impact: 5/10 I was surprised this didn’t get a third series, but it had sorted of painted itself into a ‘Creep’ corner, of all things, where you have a protagonist who is SO nasty, and SO gifted, that he’d have to come up against Dredd pretty soon, and would probably beat him, which no one wants to see.

Overall score: 21 / 30

Has it been reprinted? It has! In Hachette 69: MegaCity Underworld.

  

The Scarlet Apocrypha by Dan Abnett and various
(Volume 4 issues 12-18)

What was this? A series of one-off stories about not-quite Durham Red. It kind of functions as an epilogue to the long Abnett/Harrison run of Durham Red in the far, FAR future stories. But actually it’s not about that character or setting at all, and it’s not even really about Durham Red, mutant bounty hunter. Which is why I’m inclined to include it in the Megazine-story round-up, because it’s a different thing. It’s kind of an experiment in ‘what kind of stories could we tell with a sexy vampire lady (who may or may not be an actual vampire)?’. It ends up riffing on various classic vampire tropes, from Dracula to 70s euro-horror to manga to Fiends of the Eastern Front. Durham Red as herself is in each story, but imagined as if she was like an actress who played a signature role but in loads of different films. There’s a new artist to match each setting, Abnett doing his usual playful mix of puns and references and simple twist plots. I like this sort of thing, but feel that 7 episodes was a good amount.

What if... Durham Red was a vampire who accidentally gets cast as a Vampire
in a Jess Franco Vampire movie?
Words by Abnett, Art by Burns

What if... Durham Red was Japanese, and lived in Samurai times?
Words by Abnett; Art by Irving

I’d be well up for a ‘Teal Apocrypha’ featuring the what-if adventures of Venus Bluegenes…

Dreddworld relevance? None. (Although one has to wonder if 'What if Durham Red turned up in the City of the Damned timeline' was mooted...)

Writing: 8.5/10 Not every story is a winner, but the very experimentation of it adds to the fun. And a couple really are very good!
Art: 9/10 You’ve got John Burns, Carlos Ezquerra, Enrico Romero and Mark Harrison all delivering total excellence here. Frankly it’s a bit of a miracle that Frazer Irving, doing very good work, is not in the top tier!
Impact: 4/10 I think people generally liked this, and it’s been reprinted a couple of times – but it’s a shame this kind of experiment hasn’t been repeated.

Overall score: 21.5 / 30

Has it been reprinted? It has! It's all in the 'Empty Suns' collection, and in the Ultimate Collection 171: Durham Red Born Bad (one of the volumes that sold out super fast, sadly)

 

Numbercruncher by Si Spurrier and PJ Holden
(Megs 306-315)

What was this? The very Spurrier-ish story about a young man in love who finds a way to cheat death so he can reunite with his lady love, by finding loopholes linked to a sort of afterlife death-tax concept. Oh, and he’s chased by a smart and surly bruiser with a pinstripe suit and bowler hat.

The promise of menace!
Art by PJ Holden

I say ‘Spurrier-ish’ because I associate his writing with various ticks that include: complicated but ultimately followable plots; smart-alec characters who outwit each other; wordplay; a desperate desire to be ABOUT something; a desperate desire to be so much fun you ignore the ‘ABOUT’ thing; a desperate desire to throw unexpected things in the way of both the characters and the readers; being just a bit tiring to read.

Now, I suspect a lot of that sounds like (negative) criticism, and I suppose it is. But honestly, I generally like/admire Spurrier’s work, although I rarely love it. Numbercrucher is up there with the very best of his stuff (that I’ve read – not dabbled much in his recent American work).

It helps that PJ Holden on art is a master storyteller, and also the kind of artist who seems to revel in really filling in the background details, and the way this story is told – jumping around from real life to afterlife to different eras of real life, it helps a LOT to always be able to o see and understand where (and indeed who) the people are at each twist and turn.

Love a good 'bureaucracy of the Afterlife' tale.
Words by Spurrier; Art by Holden

The fact that the ‘ABOUT’ in this case is romantic love is also just refreshingly unlike most other 2000AD/Megazine stories, so it helps this one stick out.

Dreddworld relevance? None

Writing: 8/10
Art: 9/10
Impact: 5/10 As with all these creator-owned comics, it’s impossible to judge it on anything other than how much I liked it and how much other people appeared to like it. I get the impression it has its admirers but is not as well-loved as other examples in this slot.

Overall score: 22/30

Has it been reprinted? It has! By Titan Comics, who co-sponsored the whole venture.

  

Harmony by Chris Standley and a bunch of artists
(24 episodes across 6 series between Volume 2 issue 55 - Volume 3 issue 25. And a kind of elseworlds type thing with Judge Dredd that I’m ignoring)

What was this? Harmony, the series, is just very tricky to describe. The central character of Harmony stayed the same, despite going through some quite intense but somehow reasonable changes. Not an easy ntrick to pull off! Meanwhile, the specifics of the setting, and the tone of the story, and the ideas being thrown around, really change quite a lot! 

The first story is very much an outdoors-y comedy action adventure number. But it moves into the city and becomes a bit more sci-fi-ideas-y, and more of a character study. I guess part of the point was to hook people into Harmony as a character, then reveal more about her hidden past (a frankly annoying trope of most new series in Megazine volume 2…). So she’s introduced as a bounty hunter, but is also something of an outlaw, and maybe used to be a kind-of Judge type person, and ends up becoming some kind of gladiator  as well as a rebel hero among other things. A lot going on in this series!

The first story is quippy, 'splodey, action comedy.
Words by Standley; Art by Hairsine

Anyway, without getting into the details of the story, the point is it’s weird and surprising and often clever and funny. But also sometimes tough to follow. The first story in particular is one of those that keeps jumping from one place, and one characters’ point of view to another. Outside of the fact the strip is called ‘Harmony’ it’s not even clear she is the main character sometimes. Once it moves into the city, that side of things tidies up a bit, but only a bit.

Mid-period Harmony is more introspective, borderline pretentious.
Words by Standley; Art by Murray

Hairsine’s art and designs keep that first story light and fun, though. Jim Murray’s cartoonish faces do the same trick, although the actual plots during his tenure are increasingly dour, before it all goes rebel uprising and vicious with Steve Sampson. For a series resting on three at the time pretty new artists, and one very new writer it looks fab and reads not bad!

Back to her old self, but less flip.
Words by Standley; Art by Sampson

Dreddworld relevance? Pretty tenuous – it’s set in and around Uranium City, Alaska. One of the classic ‘Ooh, someone’s made a map of Dredd’s world, I’ll pick a place at random and see if I can conjure up a story.’ This one worked better than many, to be fair – and near the end Mega City 1 does come into it.

Writing: 7.5 / 10 It gets better as it goes along, in general.
Art: 8.5 / 10 Not a duff sequence, although arguably there are no stand out amazing pages as you get in plenty of Megazine thrills.
Impact: 6/10 This really could have been dropped after one series, but instead got to span two eras of the Meg, and tell a satisfying if tonally odd story. Sadly it wasn't a stepping stone for Standley, more of a crowning jewel.

Overall score: 22 / 30

Has it been reprinted? It has! The first story was bagged with Meg 288. And the whole thing is in Mega Collection 22: Independent Operators.

 

 Hondo City Justice by Robbie Morrison and various artists
(3 short series running in 9 issues from Megs 300-334, but I’m including some earlier Inaba stories from Volume 3 as well)

Hyper-Japanese Hyper-Sci-Fi
Art by Neil Roberts

What was this? A spin-off of Morrison’s long-running Shimura series. I’m including the two Inspector Inaba-themed stories here, who is basically the lead character in Hondo-City Justice anyway. So it boils down to a high-tech action adventure stories featuring women with various talents/powers/abilities fighting crime in future (but still super sexist) Hondo City.

Inaba started out as the main point-of-view character in Shimura, but fairly quickly got sidelined and basically became Hershey to Shimura’s Dredd. As in, hyper competent, rises fast up the ranks, readers (including me) just really like her despite being unable to point to any significant bit of character design or personality that justifies it…

Us Megazine readers value Quitely mostly for his action beats, you understand.
Context by Morrison; SFX one has to assume by Quitely

In the three stories running as Hondo-City Justice, things do switch up a gear as Inaba gathers together a bunch of female characters (some of them met in earlier Shimura tales) who have psi powers / mad ninja skillz and they all get into fights with villains / corrupt Judges and so on, and it has a very deliberate teen-Manga feel (especially the Neil Googe drawn story), and it becomes fun and breezy where Shimura was often dour. It’s good clean fun, without being exceptional.

More sick action beats!
Words by Morrison; Art by Googe

More to say about Shimura in due course, but it’s worth noting that this strip very much continues the idea of ‘what Japan in the future might be like, as imagined by a non-Japanese person who is mostly interested in the action movie stuff’…

Dreddworld relevance? Hondo City is a long-established part of the world by this point, perhaps second only to Brit-Cit?

Writing: 7.5 / 10 It’s fun and clever! But perhaps not super memorable (certainly by Morrison’s standards).
Art: 8.5 / 10 The art is uniformly excellent; you’ve got a bit of Quitely, some rare solo Dylan Teague, Mike Collins with Cliff Robinson – but for my taste Googe is best in show.
Impact: 6 / 10 Kind of sad this didn’t keep going for longer. People liked it well enough, I have to believe? Certainly this world is one of the more enduring parts of Megazine lore. I think it’s mostly that Morrison had at the time finished off both Shakara and Nikolai Dante, and was moving out of the grind of weekly/monthly comics?

Overall score: 22 / 30

Has it been reprinted? It has, although it's a bit of a mixed bag. There's a collection literally called Hondo-City Justice, which includes the last two Hondo City Justice tales, sandwiched by a couple of late-period Shimura stories. Then there's Hondo City Law, which includes the first Inaba solo story and the first official Hondo City Justice, as well as more late-period Shimura. Over in Hachette's Mega Collection, Vol 60 Hondo City Justice includes early Shimura and then the first Inaba and all of the series titled Hondo City Justice. For some reason, the second Inaba solo story is reprinted only in Rebellion's old Shimura collection - its not in any Hachette volume. Not that you really NEED to read these stories in a specific order, mind.

  

Judge Dredd the Megazine, ranked part 11: worthy experiments

Nothing truly great in this bunch, but at lot of stories you won't find anywhere else...

Black Siddha by Pat Mills and Simon Davis
(21 episodes / 3 series between Megs 202 and 252)

What was this? A rare fairly straight-up superhero story. Written by Pat ‘I HATE superheroes’ Mills, which gives it a certain flavour. Specifically, that our human hero Rohan is both even more reluctant than most traditional superheroes, but then also even more seduced by the power of Black Siddha than the same trad heroes.

Importantly, this is all set in the UK (in the suburbs of a non-specific town/city), and pretty much all the characters are Hindus, one assumes the 20something leads are 2^nd-generation immigrants, which informs much of the story, setting and characterisations.

Now, here in the 2020s it pretty much just isn’t done to let two White British creators tell a story about people from a different community. And to an extent, the story probably does suffer a bit from not having that perspective on the top level. On the other hand, Pat Mills likely does more research than just about anyone else in comics before he commits to writing something, and of course Simon Davis works a lot with models, so clearly there is a lot of first-person perspective and advice going on behind the scenes. (Although it is a bit jarring when some of those models are Bollywood stars.)

All of which leaves you with something rather unique – a mainstream British comic about British Hindus. And it’s not a biography or a slice-of-life story or a ‘racism is BAD you guys’ meaningful story. It’s superheroes. Which means, callow youth torn between fighting bad guys, saving the day, finding love, negotiating family life and all that jazz. Coupled with a whole bunch of ‘learning some cool/weird stuff about Hindu mythology’. If you want British-Indian Spider-Man, this is the comic for you.

That IS a pretty natty helmet.
Words by Mills; Art by Davis

Of course, like about 80% of Spider-Man comics, it’s only ‘good’ rather than ‘spectacular’.

Dreddworld relevance? None at all.

Writing: 8/10 Mills knows how to juggle characters and plot and mythology and stuff. It’s fun, occasionally funny, and generally interesting. But I would say that overall, he hasn’t conjured a story and cast of characters who are SO compelling you’re aching to read each episode.
Art: 7/10 Like a lot of 2000AD/Megazine painted artists, the effect is often most impressive when showing people alongside weird fantasy business. An awful lot of this story is set in and around suburban streets and newsagents’.  There’s also quite a lot of gurning and stiff poses, which matches the talking heads of it all. Still, it’s inherently very good art!
Impact: 5/10 It ran for three series, which isn’t nothing. And it’s decent.

Overall score: 20/30

Has it been reprinted? It has! In the floppies attached to Megs 339 and 346 and 359, and also in Hachette's 2000AD Ultimate Collection volume 151. That's titled Sláine: DragonTamer, so you'd be forgiven if you missed it...

 

Kenny Who? by John Wagner and Cam Kennedy
(Vol 1 issues 1-3; Megs 228-229)

What was this? This probably shouldn’t count, but as it appeared in the very first issue of the Meg I’m giving it special treatment. Anyway, this was the further adventures of Kenny Who? The Cal-Hab stand-in for Cam Kennedy, and his misadventures in Mega City 1. The character originated in a much-loved 1985 Judge Dredd story, that was massively prescient of AI-generative tech. The artist is good, his work is fed into a computer; the computer reproduces his work to order, and so the artist a) is no longer needed and b) does not get paid for any of the work produced that follows his style. Welcome to the 2020s!

COULD THIS BE A META-JOKE?
Words by Wagner; Art by Kennedy

Kenny Who is displeased with this turn of events. For two more stories! He has run-ins with Judge Dredd, jokes are made about his surname (which includes the ?), and in general it is clear that Dredd is sympathetic to the man who is more of an unlucky nuisance than anything worth his time and effort. Cam Kennedy is of course not just Scottish, but a resident or Orkney, so like super-mega-Scottish. He and (also Scottish-ish) writer John Wagner have lots of fun exaggerating this exaggeration. To some extent the two Megazine stories seem to be more about them having fun than them adding any new ideas to that instant-classic original. And why not. But they are not as good as that first tale.

Judge Dredd is taller than you. A lot taller.
Words by Wagner; Art by Kennedy

Dreddworld relevance? It’s so Dredd-world relevant, these are arguably Judge Dredd stories. But, that first sequel did run under the Kenny Who? banner, so I’m dropping it in on a technicality. Sorry to folks who love Kennedy’s art that it’s not higher up the ranking!

Writing: 7.5/10 (the original is a 10/10, mind)
Art: 8/10 The first sequel is better than the second, for whatever that’s worth, when it felt like Kennedy had more to prove. His designs for the Who? family are just wonderful.
Impact: 5/10 These are very fondly remembered by the readers. One suspects even Judge Dredd would remember Kenny Who?

Overall score: 20.5/30

Has it been reprinted? It has! The whole thing is in the Art of Kenny Who? collection, along with a bunch of other Cam Kennedy Dredds (mostly his more recent, colour efforts). In case you are wondering, the original Kenny Who? tale is in Case Files 10, and his 3rd (and so far final) story is in Case Files 41. But the second story is not in any Case Files. (because it's a Kenny Who? story, not a Judge Dredd one...)

 

Realm of the Damned by Alec Worley and Pye Parr
(Megs 369-376)

What was this? Like, a Death Metal album brought to life. That’s more or less the explicit set up. Perhaps more famously, it’s the comic with the EXTREME swearing, nudity and violence. (Although of course the violence but doesn’t stick out as much in the context of the Megazine). It caused quite a stir when it ran, this comic! Prety much entirely because of the swearing, although the bit where a newly-reborn demon quite visibly pisses blood onto a minion was a contributing factor.

So anyway, for my taste the extremity is most of the point. I mean, if the idea is to imagine the emotion at the heart of Death  Black Metal (two subgenres I know almost nothing about, so apologies if speaking out of turn), then the comic has to try to hit those beats. I have to suspect that one bit of pleasure people get from listening to the music is the transgressive stuff, which is a lot about Satanism but I think also describing acts of bloody violence. Swearing, of course, is not new to rock music. So maximum thrill points to the creators here for managing to hit those levels of offence – if they hadn’t annoyed at least some readers, I guess the project would’ve counted as a failure?

Are you not entertained offended?
Words by Worley; Art by Parr

Of course I haven’t talked about the actual story – and after the first couple of episodes, that really is the focus. Honestly it’s fine if not amazing. Again, this might be part of the point? I doubt Black Metal exists to try to tell new stories, more to tell the very old ones in a certain way. So here we have a world in which, basically, monsters (vampires, werewolves, mummies etc) have taken over, and humans exist mostly as cattle. That part of the set-up is a bit obscure if I’m honest. Not quite sure such a world would allow for teenagers forming a metal band.

Anyway, said teens manage to re-animate the long-dead corpse of uber-demon Balaur, who immediately ants to kill and maim humans wantonly, and generally take charge over all thee other monsters. Who respond by hiring the last surviving van Helsing (literally) to fight back. There’s a mix of minor political intrigue and major blood-letting. None of it quite living up to the frankly astonishing visual ideas in episodes 1 and 2, which focus on that amazing jaw-bone cage thingy.

That is a seriously cool horror artefact.
Art by Pye Parr

Van Helsing, who ends up being our hero, has to make some pretty intense personal sacrifices, and meets some fun characters, but it’s all building up to an inevitable confrontation. Again, it’s baked into the nature of the story, so not a criticism! But honestly, my excitement waned as it went on, and I confess I have not bought any of the sequels stories (which didn’t run in the Megazine).

Dreddworld relevance? None.

Writing: 7.5 / 10 There’s strong commitment to the whole scene, and plenty of fun nasty ideas.
Art: 9 / 10 Pye Parr is ON FIRE in this series, possibly the first long-form thing he’d done since quitting as Tharg’s Design-Droid-in-Chief? So many gnarly character designs, so many glorious gore scenes, and the man can draw some epic werewolves. (Scary to think that he’d only get better in future. Check out Petrol Head!)
Impact: 4 / 10 Look, I think overall people didn’t love this one, but it sure got the letters page jumping for a few months.

Overall score: 20.5 / 30

Has it been reprinted? It has! In a fine hardback collection from Werewolf Press. There were two sequels, and you can buy thewhole thing in a shockingly cheap collection. There’s also a ‘motion comic’animation of just the first story, I think? Haven’t seen it!

 

Young Middenface by Alan Grant and various artists
(23 episodes spread across Volume 4.11 – Meg 243)

What was this? The adventures of preteen / teen Middenface McNulty during the time when anti-mutant sentiments got worse and worse, building up to the early stages of the war as seen originally in Portrait of a Mutant. It’s kind of facile to compare this to a sort of action-adventure version of 1930s Germany, with Mutants as a stand-in for Jews (and other persecuted groups), but I’m doing it anyway. (If I knew more about Scottish history (or, really, anything about it at all) there might be more of a parallel to the highland clearances or general English colonial evils.)

And there IS room for some poignancy here, too.

The obvious difference is that the Mutants understand that their heading into a fight vs extermination really very quickly, which means the story soon ends up moving into a phase of guerillas hiding out and getting into skirmishes from afar. As well as the usual in-fighting within the mutant strongholds.

There are some fun new mutants around; I especially enjoy the mutant who is super-duper handsome, rightly recognised as a rare mutation! The actual plotlines and storytelling and such is all decent, if never quite matching the heights of the best eras of Strontium Dog. Middenface as a 2000AD version of a Beano character is very much my thing, but of course it’s not quite like that as there’s a narrative to contend with as well, sadly we don’t get many one-page gag strips about Middenface being cheeky to the norms and getting slippered at the end.

As this cover implies, the series is also a proto-Regened version of a 
2000AD story featuring kids, like an angry, more violent Beano.
Art by Mark Harrison

The whole thing builds up to the point of war, and can’t really go further without eating into ‘Portrait of a Mutant’. There is an ending to the story of the new characters we meet in the series. I’m slightly sad that the art duties went from Patrick Goddard (doing good work, but still early days for him so not quite at Savage / Rogue trooper heights) to John Ridgway, finally getting to draw a good Scotland-set kids adventure comic, and Shaun Thomas, who is not a bad artist but is so much more into vibes than coherence that I kind of lost interest by the end. Ho hum.

Dreddworld relevance? I’m gonna say none, and never mind that technically Middenface has crossed over into Mega City 1 at least once.

Writing: 7.5/10
Art: 7/10 (an average)
Impact: 6/10 This feels like an experiment that worked, and was allowed to run its natural course. And people liked it, didn’t they? I did!

Overall score: 20.5 / 30

Has it been reprinted? It has! In the 2000AD Ultimate Collection 117: Middenface McNulty

 

Death Cap by TC Eglington and Boo Cook
(2 series (so far) across Megs 439-475 and counting)

What was this? The one set out in the Cursed Earth, following the (mostly sad and disgusting) exploits of ex-Texas City Judge Goya, and her run in with a new semi-sentient version of Grubb’s Disease -the mushroom menace that turns people into walking mushroom farms. It’s seriously weird!

Very hard not to think of this as a spiritual sequel to Blunt. It’s by the same creators, and is also about the horror (but in a fun, gloopy way) of the interaction between the natural world and the humans who blunder into it. Where Blunt is pink and green and wet, Death Cap is yellow and brown and dry.

Time for the hero to dig up her old gun...
Scenario by Eglington; Art by Cook

It's also a sad and angry tale of revenge. Our hero, ex-Texas City Judge Goya, sees her family done in by the evil mushroom-infected mutant bad guys, and proceeds to chase them across the Cursed Earth, all while tackling her own experiences with the same mushroom disease. The Western-flavoured revenge stuff is fine, not really doing much new; the evil fungus mutant - who looks oddly like D.R. with his Hollywood beret/monocle - is a bit one-note, but the occasional side-bars into the idea of mushroom/human/habitat symbiosis is genuinely interesting. Series 2 is pursuing this angle more, and has my attention, but it's too early to say how it'll end up.

I can't emphasise enough the gross body horror of this series, which takes Ezquerra's
original Grubb's disease look and says "Nah mate, too easy on the eye."
Art by Cook

Dreddworld relevance? It’s set in the Cursed Earth, starring Judges (albeit from Texas City not MC1) and everyone’s favourite killer fungus, to boot.

Writing: 7.5/10
Art: 8/10
Impact: 5/10 A second series is running right now, and we may get a trilogy out of it, or at least continued Bio-horror fun from Eglington and Cook.

Overall score: 20.5/30

Has it been reprinted? It has not – and with both the floppy and Hachette collections basically done, this is the sort of mid-tier (but actually pretty decent) story that may slip through the collections netting. ☹

Judge Dredd the Megazine, ranked part 10: just short of glory

 we're about half way through the ranking here, with some appropriately average stories. Some are in fact quite good, but lose points because they are kind of out on their own in terms of 'impact'.

DeMarco, PI by various
(Vol 3 Issues 70-71; Vol 4 issues 3-8; and then a selection of episodes from Megs 343-370; 410-present)

What was this? In short, the adventures of ex-Judge-turned Private Investigator Galen deMarco. But in long, she’s suffered quite a few incarnations. At first she was a supporting character in Judge Dredd. A rather popular one that Wagner used for a couple of years spanning the Pit to Doomsday. In that epic, (which starts off her journey as a PI, not a Judge) she was basically the main character in the Megazine episodes. Very soon she got a solo series proper by Robbie Morrison, who gave her a companion intelligent gorilla with a bowler hat. Somehow, this ludicrous but charming detail is STILL the one memorable things about DeMarco’s solo stories.

Main cover image by Kev Walker

Since then she’s run through a series of fortunes and misfortunes either giving her millions of creds, or taking them all away. None of this was very interesting. She is always on the side of the angels, or at least the Judges. In general she comes across as grumpy, but less mean than most Judges, who she respects but think are too dehumanized, or something? It’s never enough to build an actual story out of, not when she has crimes to investigate that have to find obscure ways to not be things you’d go to the Judges about directly.

Si Spurrier brought her back into people’s minds as Jack point’s girlfriend in the Simping Detective. Lucky Jack – but I’m not sure I really bought it as something the DeMarco of Wagner’s series would do.

Quite a bit later, Michael Carroll had a turn. He is one of the 21^st century’s best Judge Dredd writers, with lots of fun and clever stories to tell about that man and his friends. He could not crack the DeMarco code. He sent her to Mega City 2, which in his version is being rebuilt by the Sovs for some reason that never quite amounted to anything interesting. DeMarco rooted out some bad eggs but didn’t have a very nice time.

DeMarco being sassy and laid back. Koburn lite?
Words by Carroll; Art by Yeowell

Jump ahead a few years, and a new set of writers are having a crack. It’s a narrow brief – conjure up crime-based stories set in Mega City 1 that would require a person to hire a private investigator – and NOT involve the Judges – of a sort that said PI would agree are not things to immediately report to Justice Dept. Tricky! Anyway, the first such adventure, by Laura Bailey, had a clever plot that fit this bill. It also gave DeMarco a facial scar, which has now become her defining characteristic. You know, beyond a vague sort of built-in pro-authority but anti-authoritarian streak (or should that be the other way around?).

Neat touch with the sci-fi insta-stitches gadget there.
Words by Bailey; Art by Paul Williams

In general I think Bailey has done the most of anyone to deliver a series that feels like neon-soaked sci-fi noir, but is still not quite hitting ‘this is really good comics’. Maybe it all comes back to the inherent problem that although DeMarco is cool and has a fun chip on her shoulder, she doesn’t really have a driving force to motivate her story? And frankly, the concept of a P.I. in a police state is a weird one – her stories, no matter how clever the plots, always come back to corrupt Judges / organised crime, my least favourite subgenre of Dredd.

Dreddworld relevance? She’s a direct spin-off character from Judge Dredd

Writing: 7/10 as an average. But honestly, the range is minimal, like 6.5-7.5 for all of them. Perfectly decent comics.
Art: 7.5/10 For me, best in show are Laurence Campbell’s original Gorilla-focussed take, and the most recent efforts by John Richardson.
Impact: 5/10 I mean, they keep trying, maybe in time something will stick!

Overall score 19.5/30

Has it been reprinted? All the bits up to and including the Simping Detective stuff, in the Hachette Volume of that name. Also the original Morrison stuff is in the floppy with Megs 343 and 344. But the Carroll and bailey-scripted stuff is too recent, I guess.

 

Diamond Dogs by James Peaty and Warren Pleece
(Three series split across Megs 404-445)

What was this? I could be cruel and say it was a mid-tier guy Ritchie movie set in Brit-Cit. But actually it’s better than that. But it IS about future-East-End gangsters in a twisty betrayal-heavy plot, and it 100% is meant to evoke to feelings of British gangster movies, only with some sci-fi leanings and a more diverse cast. The actual story follows Nia Jones, daughter of a mid-level gang-related guy but mostly she’s a good person, except she’s trapped into being a spy/informant by a not-so-good undercover Judge. So she splits her time from spying, informing, and plotting all manner of tricks to save her friends and herself and maybe make the East End a slightly better place? Not much of the latter going on though.

Nia Jones is the Max Normal of Brit-Cit
Words by Peaty; Art by Pleece

The series suffers a bit from Jones being both hyper-competent with her plans but also kind of hyper-unlucky, otherwise the story wouldn’t go anywhere. But, crucially, I do CARE that her plans succeed, and am sad when they get interrupted. The setting has occasional sci-fi ideas and some fun retro-future flavours that are reminiscent of the old Dredd ‘Mega-Rackets’ story that focussed on American gangster tropes, and that’s a good thing. The first series is really quite good, and for all that the overall thing is leaning on Brit gangster clichés, it’s done with love and care, not just a parody. Books II and III, which followed pretty quickly, do tidy up some loose-ish ends but feel a bit more formulaic. They also introduce long-absent Brit Cit Detective Armitage, about whom more later in the ranking.

Dreddworld relevance? It’s set in Brit-Cit, and has Judges in it.

Writing: 7 / 10 Peaty knows what he's doing, but somehow seems reluctant to stray too far beyond the 'rules' of the subgenres he's working in.
Art: 7.5 / 10 Pleece does an excellent job with some deliberately retro character/set design ideas, and helps keep the tone light, even as the core emotions are quite heavy.
Impact: 5 / 10 Three series isn’t bad! And I think it maybe helped pave the way for a return of Armitage after a long absence. The Brit-Cit setting continues to have legs.

Overall score: 19.5 / 30

Has it been reprinted? It has not – too recent, really.

  

Judge Dredd: the Lost Cases by Alan Grant and various artists
(Megs 292-297 and 333)

What was this? A series of one-off Dredd stories set in very specific time periods in Dredd’s past, e.g. the Apocalypse War, or the Oz epic. With artists designed to match the pre-eminent Dredd styles of the time. Kind of not much else to say, except that they were pretty uniformly quite good. I suppose it means something that Alan Grant was able to tap into the mix of funny/mean that he channelled so well when co-writing the original stories these are homaging. Which is something he almost never managed to do when writing ‘new’ Dredds in the same era, the satire always felt too heavy-handed or just plain not funny enough.

Dredd saves the day - but is a dick about it. The essence of the early years!
Words by Grant; Art by Anthony Williams

Dreddworld relevance? Total – these all feature Judge Dredd, and are a total hoot for continuity nerds. Not because they affect continuity in any way, but because it’s fun being reminded of stories / eras you remember, usually fondly.

Writing: 7.5/10 Honestly, these are among the better solo Dredd stories Alan Grant ever wrote. They have the humour and imagination of the early Wagner/Grant days, but also the ‘Dredd is an absolute bastard’ feel that seems to be Grant’s main touchpoint.
Art: 7/10 The nostalgia goggles are definitely all in place, but I don’t think anyone managed to deliver any visceral panels or moments to rival the eras being evoked. There’s something about nostalgia grabs that are always just a shade paler than the originals.
Impact: 5/10 There were too few of these stories to really count as impactful, so I’m guessing readers didn’t demand more. But they surely paved the way for Mega City 2099, a much more recent but similar strand of Dredd nostalgia. And they’re fun!

Overall score: 19.5 / 30

Has it been reprinted? It has! It’s all bundled together in the mini-trade that came with Megazine 399.

 

HAVN by Si Spencer and Henry Flint/Jake Lynch
(Megs 382-287)

What was this? A slightly scandy-noir flavoured mystery thriller about the people living within HAVN. Which is an enclosed community in the Iceland of Dredd’s world. For unknown reasons the story was set up by Jake Lynch and then finished off by Henry Flint, but they’re both excellent so no bother on that front.

Anyway, it’s a tricky beast, this one. Only 6 episodes long, and it’s DENSE with ideas and characters and themes. This ought to be a good thing, and certainly it doesn’t outstay it’s welcome, but honestly it could’ve had a few more episodes to allow us to understand what HAVN itself is. Which is, as we’re told, a sort of paradise city in a giant dome, where there’s no crime and everyone is happy and nice to each other.

A crime-free city! Imagine that! No questions to ask here...
Words by Spencer; Art by Lynch

Which is the set-up for a general twist one can see coming a mile off (something is rotten in the state of Iceland), but there are in fact one or two other twists that are more surprising.

I think what this story is really about is the dangers of people getting hooked on a VR world/lifestyle – although this theme is kind of buried.
And the story is ALSO about the indigenous/mutant population called Alfar, who are theoretically excluded from HAVN but keep findings ways in.
And it’s also about how there might be an alternative way to run a police state without it being horrible like Mega City 1 (although it might secretly be more horrible).

Anyway, lots of themes, lots of plots, I haven’t even mentioned the characters, and it’s all squished together. But it’s never boring.

All is not as it seems.
Words by Spencer; Art by Flint

Dreddworld relevance? Technically it is set within Dredd’s world, and one of the main characters is an ex-Mega City Judge, and the theme touches upon anti-mutant prejudice, but it’s all in a deliberately obscure part with no bearing on anything else.

Writing: 7/10 There’s an interesting story here, and Spencer does an admirable job telling it in a small space, but maybe not quite enough of a job making me care.
Art: 8.5/10 This is about the point where Lynch moved up from budding new art droid to really very excellent art droid. Flint, meanwhile, can do this sort of thing in his sleep. It’s maybe a bit unfortunate that the story and setting require everything to be either pale blue or mud brown, but it’s never not nice to look at.
Impact: 4/10 No sequels or anything, but it surely grabbed people’s attention, and got Spencer back into the Megazine fold.

Overall score 19.5 / 30

Has it been reprinted? It has! Meg 423 is your friend. One of the quicker turnarounds from original run to collection.

 

Riley’s Rebels by Honor Vincent and Stewart K Moore
(Megs 480-?)

What was this? One of those stories originally commissioned for 2000AD Regened, now just running as an all-new strip in the Megazine. Frankly, if one didn’t know anything about Regened, it’d be totally irrelevant. Yes, the two leads of this story are kids, but why shouldn’t they be? 

So what this really is, is a story set in a rather novel part of the Cursed Earth, where desert gives way to Everglades-type jungle. There are some kids who seem to be part of a colony-type place where really elderly people are in charge, and survive thanks to over-powered cyber-suits. They use the kids as slave labour, especially to scavenge supplies to keep the suits going. The titular 'rebels' - a girl and her kid brother - mange to escape...

We have been to the swampy jungles of Alabama long ago in the pages of Judge Dredd.
Cannibal Blimps, anyone?
Words by Vincent; Art by Moore

What's the story going to actually be about? Who knows? But I like it a lot so far, the setting, the characters, and the deliciously weird, vibrant art of SK Moore.

Dreddworld relevance? It’s set in the Cursed Earth.

Writing: 8/10
Art: 9/10
Impact: 3/10 Absurdly early to say, but the fact that I actively like it compels me to give it a boost. If it goes on to get more series, this will move significantly higher up the ranking, for me.

Overall score: 20/30

Has it been reprinted? It has not – it hasn’t even finished its first run!