The Monthly Megazine Issue #458: The Dark Judges Saga Comes To A Deadly Conclusion

by Richard Bruton

Welcome once more to The Monthly Megazine – doing just what it says, taking you through the latest goings-on in the sister monthly to 2000 AD.

**(Unmistakably Nick Percival on the cover – no one does beautiful grotesque like him!)**

Eight strips in all, five original, three reprints – 130+ pages of great 2000 AD action.

Inside this one, five brand-new strips – including the conclusion to David Hine and Nick Percival’s Dark Judges saga with the end of Death Metal Planet. There’s more android action in Spector, more of life on the other side of the law in Lawless, and more from the dawn of the Judges in Dreadnoughts.

But it all kicks off with a rather spectacular done-in-one Judge Dredd: Ratings War by Ian Edginton and Stewart K Moore – always so good to have Moore on art anywhere!

As for the reprints, we have part 4 of IDW’s Anderson, Psi-Div tale and part 3 of the Garth Ennis written Johnny Red. And the classic reprint this time comes with Clash of the Guards, originally published in Battle in the early ’80s.

Megazine #458 comes out on Wednesday 19th July. It’s a bit damn good. Loads of comics, loads of features. And we’re definitely in a bit of a purple patch in the Meg right now.

So, shall we?

JUDGE DREDD: RATINGS WAR – Ian Edginton and Stewart K Moore, letters by Annie Parkhouse

Well, this one is a truly spectacular artistic Dredd episode, SK Moore just going nuts on the effects and the colours for a one-off written by Edginton.

It’s all about The Burn and Lauren Order, serial killer all across the vid screens of Mega-City One. So far the body count’s up to 16, media stars, politicians. She’s after publicity and there’s no bigger publicity than getting Dredd on the kill list.

But that’s Dredd’s plan, give her the chance, draw her out into the open.

And that’s where we begin, a done-in-one Dredd that’s all about the artwork – and bloody hell, what artwork it is. If you’ve been smart, you’ll have already seen the sorts of brilliance that you can find in the art for Project MK Ultra, but if you’ve not had that pleasure yet, this will be an absolute eye-opener. You’ve seen his fabulous covers and occasional Dredd work – but this really does take it up so many levels into absolutely insane levels of eye-poppingness.

Although having said it’s all about the art, let’s not take anything away from Edginton’s story, which is a great little exploration of madness in MC-1.

But all in all, this is one you’ll find yourself dwelling over the art for – stunning stuff from 2000 AD.

SPECTOR: INCORRUPTIBLE – PART 4 – John Wagner and Dan Cornwell, colours by Dylan Teague, letters by Jim Campbell. Spector created by Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra

The storyline here is so lovely and simple, classic Wagner writing, a little more verbose and rangey than his Dredds perhaps, more the feel of his Strontium Dog work of late maybe.

He’s supported in all this now by Dan Cornwell, taking over from the late, oh so great, Carlos Ezquerra. And Cornwell’s art here is really top notch. Of course it is, he’s a really talented artist, one of the new breed of Dredd artists. But of course he’s playing in the shadow of a legend here so it’s always going to feel a little flat.

So, the incorruptible robot detective, now Inspector Spector, is uncovering all manner of corruption here, making a hell of a lot of enemies as he does so. The car bomb didn’t work so it looks like they’re going to resort to more personal methods…

It’s a by-the-book sort of storyline, Wagner being Wagner and all that. But that throwaway line there, Wagner being Wagner – well, that’s pretty much still a guarantee of quality, by the book or not.

So, if you’re after some great Wagner writing, a simple thing of a corruption-battling android cop, then Spector works in a pure and simple fashion.

DARK JUDGES: DEATH METAL PLANET – PART 10 – FINAL PART – by David Hine and Nick Percival, letters by Annie Parkhouse

And here we are, the end of the Dark Judge’s saga, the end of Roscoe’s transformation from meek and mild security guard to a Light Judge with the power to obliterate Death and the rest.

It’s been a saga of four tales, ‘Dominion’, ‘The Torture Garden’, ‘Deliverance’, and ‘Death Metal Planet’. John Wagner wrote the first, David Hine’s written the rest, and Nick Percival’s been onboard for the lot, six years worth of Dark Judges artwork that’s got this fabulous grotesque beauty about it.

And this episode, well, let’s let Roscoe tell you how it is…

But of course, this one is still 20+ years into the future of Dreddworld. I think you’d have to be a foolish reader to bet against the Dark Judges coming back. How? When? Well, that’s with someone else now.

Hopefully, when someone else does bring them back, the Wagner/Hine/Percival saga won’t be ignored as it’s been where we’ve seen the Dark Judges and Judge Death revitalised, drawn away from the comedic sideshow that they’d become. We’ve had terrifying moments a-plenty across the four storylines, made all the more nightmarish with Percival’s incredible artwork.

LAWLESS: MOST WANTED – PART 3 – Dan Abnett and Phil Winslade, letters by Simon Bowland

So, ‘Most Wanted’ is really getting going now, with ex-Marshall Metta Lawson on the wrong side of the law in Badrock. Although, as the show at the salloon points out, there ain’t that much law in Barock anymore and what it is appears to be in the pockets of others or control by power-grabbing SJS officers.

Something SJS Judge McClure isn’t too keen on at all…

But there’s a load of things up in the air here, as you’d expect from Dan Abnett’s writing on Lawless. We have young Archie (possessed by crazy ex-Psi Judge Hetch) still manipulating things, we have Nerys doing her own bit of dangerous investigating, SJS Judge Drury doing his own thing in secret, and of course there’s McClure doing whatever the hell she’s doing to Badrock with impunity now she’s got the free-town project under her purview.

And of course, you still have Lawson doing whatever the hell she’s doing working for the Mob. They still don’t trust her and I don’t trust Abnett not to be pulling a fast one here.

But what I do trust Abnett to do is tell yet another magnificently good Lawless tale here. As always. And, as always, he’s hand in glove with Phil Winslade, whose artwork is the sort fo thing that makes other fine artists break out into a sweat with the amount of work there is in every panel on every page. It is, as usual, superb.

DREADNOUGHTS: THE MARCH OF PROGRESS – PART 4 – Michael Carroll and John Higgins, colours by Sally Hurst, letters by Simon Bowland

And straight into another superb strip, as Carroll and Higgins go deep into Mega-City history, right back to the dawn of the Judges, when America was still coming to terms with these new breed of law enforcement.

We’re with Judge Veranda Glover in Boulder, Colorado. After the crime blitz, the Judges and Boulder have got cartel trouble. Big trouble. But it’s not the sort of trouble that explodes, it’s the sort of trouble that simmers away, getting worse and worse, until we’ll see everything suddenly go south in a big way – which may well be next episode the way things are going right here…

But it’s the build up of all this that’s the real draw to Dreadnoughts, the way Carroll’s spinning it all out, not to mention the bigger picture of the slow degradation of democracy that we’re viewing right here on the ground, right in front of our eyes.

Make no mistake about it, the brilliance of Dreadnoughts is that it plays out slow. And right now there’s a sense we’re about to explode. It is written so carefully, such measured words from Carroll, and the art from Higgins is absolutely top notch stuff, perfect to get every nuance, every moment over to the reader.