The Monthly Megazine #463: Next Thing You Know, Dredd Will Be Wearing A Santa Suit

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…

Yes, as Noddy Holder would say… It’sssssssss Christmasssssss. And that means time for the Christmas Megazine. Festive feasts inside include a double helping of Lawless to mark the end of the current, and rather excellent ‘Most Wanted’ storyline. There’s a special Christmas Dredd bringing Dollman back as a lovely appetiser, and then continuing episodes of DeMarco PI and Spector provide the main dishes. As for dessert, well there’s the finale of the Johnny Red reprint, a special IDW reprint from John McCrea, Judge Dredd: Deviations that imagines what might have happened had Dredd stayed werewolf after the events of the classic ‘Cry of the Werewolf’, and a look at the classic Trigan Empire.

(Last Meg of the year means a Christmas cracker of a cover from Mike Perkins)

Megazine #463 comes out on 13th December. Perfect Christmas reading for all and a fine end to a rather excellent year for the Megazine.

JUDGE DREDD: DOLLMAN’S YULETIDE BLOOD MANSION MASSACRE – by Ken Niemand and Paul Marshall, colours by Quinton Winter, letters by Annie Parkhouse

Returning to last year’s ‘Dollman’ story, we have Dredd dealing once more with L’il Tommy Kinder and his troublesome plots. Yep, this psychotic l’il perp is out of the cubes and on the rampage. It’s Christmas and there’s a mini Santa’s got murder in mind…

A very simple little tale for Christmas, all neatly done by both Niemand and Marshall. A Dredd has perp in mind, Dredd goes in and takes said perp down. That’s it, just plain old-fashioned Dredd done well.

SPECTOR: INCORRUPTIBLE – PART 9 – John Wagner and Dan Cornwell, colours by Dylan Teague, letters by Jim Campbell. Spector created by Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra

Okay then, if you’re Spector, the robo-cop who was brought into the police department to clear out the corruption and ended up losing every ally around you and getting the boot by the ranks of corrupt cops you were there to clear out, there’s two ways to go. Either give up or take it up a level. And Spector’s not the sort to give up.

And that’s why we find ourselves here with Spector announcing his run to be the city’s new DA. After all, the corrupt cops killed the last one, so why the hell not?

Standing on a one policy – clean up the city, he’s the ultimate incorruptible candidate. and he’s getting people behind him…

Of course, nobody in Spector’s camp expects this move to go without a response from the bad guys, which is why Spector and his loyal little team are attempting to gather to them all the honest cops on the force – after all, there’s got to be a few, right?

But the bad guys are taking a slightly different route and it looks like Spector’s creators are next in line for an assassination attempt…

Can Spector pull off a victory? How will he make sure the Mayor and his buddies in corruption won’t get the election cancelled? Well, that’s a plan you’re going to see unfold here in the latest bit of fun from Wagner and Cornwell.

DEMARCO, P.I. – A PICTURE PAINTS – PART 2 – by Laura Bailey and Rob Richardson, letters by Simon Bowland

So DeMarco’s back and she’s on the case of stock disappearing from the Torridge company – crates of ammunition that the boss really doesn’t want the Judges finding out about. He wants photo proof and Galen’s finding that particularly hard to get right now.

The vid-recordings are fritzing out from the factory, something none of DeMarco’s team can figure out. DeMarco’s convinced one woman is responsible for the ammo thefts but she’s impossible to get on camera and Galen’s wondering if she’s the one manipulating the electronics. Or could it be something completely different? No spoilers, but yes, completely different and way too close for comfort for Galen, who really can’t manage to keep herself out of trouble for very long at all.

It’s turning into a really tight, really atmospheric thing, a pure noir tale that just happens to be set in Mega-City One. What’s particularly striking about this one is how Rob Richardson’s art’s come into its own here. His previous Megazine series, taking over the art on Devlin Waugh from Mike Dowling was good for sure but this is another level of good. Bailey’s story allows Richardson to go deep on the classic PI noir vibes and it’s there in both art and Richardson’s own colouring, pages washed in noir stylings, DeMarco down in the dirty streets way below the gleaming Mega-City Blocks, it all makes it a treat to see.

And see you will, as Bailey lets Richardson control the first couple of pages below with a wordless intro of DeMarco tailing that Torridge worker, making her way through the streets…

LAWLESS: MOST WANTED – PART 8 – FINAL PART – Dan Abnett and Phil Winslade, letters by Simon Bowland

It’s all kicking off in ‘Most Wanted’, with Marshal Metta Lawson right back in the fight, her recent vigilante activities now shown to be part of an undercover operation against the Fugly gang, including poor Rondo, doing his best to fight against the obedience programming hardwired into his cybernetic body.

So, it’s time for the gunfight at the Villa Lacertain. It lasts seven minutes and twenty-six seconds. But it’s seven minutes and twenty-six seconds of incredible Lawless action, all brought to unbelievably detailed life by the art of Phil Winslade. Seriously, unbelievable stuff here from Winslade…

And all that’s without even mentioning SJS Judge McClure, who surely can’t get out of this one in one piece?

What an ending, what a finale, just a perfect way to cap it all off – another quite wonderful series of Lawless. And the very best news… it ends with the words – ‘Lawless returns in 2024.’ Oh yes.

So that’s the four new strips done with, including that superb final double-sized Lawless to end on. Now it’s time for the reprint material…

The best of the reprints comes with one of those strange little IDW things, Judge Dredd: Deviations written and drawn by John McCrea, with colours by Mike Spicer. It takes on the fascinating what-if Dredd had stayed lycanthrope at the end of the classic ‘Cry of the Werewolf‘. And it’s a damn fine Dredd from McCrea, full of great art but also a good story, of a MC-1 where there was no cure for the werewolf curse and Dredd was locked down in the iso cubes by Judges not knowing just what to do with him. Of course, there’s a thing happening with a bad guy, the iso block gets destroyed and Were-Dredd gets out… much to the surprise of the bad guy…

Well, you’d probably wet yerself as well faced with that, don’t you think?

Alongside that bit of great Dredd, we have a preview of the Oliver Frey art on the classic Trigan Empire, with volume 5 of the series just released by the Treasury of British Comics. After that, we have the eighth and final part of Garth Ennis and Keith Burns‘ Johnny Red, bringing us plenty of action in the air.

THE TRIGAN EMPIRE: JANNO’S ‘OUT OF TIME’ MIND – by Mike Butterworth and Oliver Frey.