The Monthly Megazine #465: We’re All Off Nightclubbing With Devlin Waugh – Get The Leathers Ready

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.

Here we go, it’s February’s Judge Dredd Megazine, five new strips, three reprints, tributes to Ian Gibson and John Burns, an obituary for Tony Allen, and an interview with Mark Eyles. All in all, pretty damn packed full of good stuff.

We have two strips beginning this month, a new DeMarco PI from the team behind the only just completed, and damn good, A Picture Paints, by Laura Bailey and Rob Richardson, and a new episode of everyone’s favourite Vatican-sponsored vampire exorcist, Devlin Waugh. This one’s by Ales Kot once more and features the art of Steve Austin who are going to take us, and Devlin, Nightclubbing – time to get the leathers on.

(Mike Dowling with a delicious Devlin Waugh cover for the Megazine)

Continuing strips are the all-out adventure Ravenous, where Judge Dredd et al have to face down lab-engineered beasties that seemingly can’t be destroyed for long, and the Scottish wasteland adventures of ‘Harrower Squad‘ in Calhab Country. Rounding things out, we have another rather enjoyable visit to Mega-City 2099 as Ken Niemand and Conor Boyle take us right back to the beginning of the Justice Department in a nostalgic bit of fun.

As far as reprints go, we’ve more from the IDW reprint Dredd tale ‘Under Siege‘, a second part of the Titan Comics Hookjaw, and then a look at Hugo Pratt’s quite majestic artwork in The Crimson Sea.

That’s surely enough to be keeping you reading for a while? Judge Dredd: The Megazine #465 is out now. I’m late, yes, yes, I know. The damn Covid caught us in the end and it’s a week and counting of feeling like we’re drowning in mucus and days where the most we can manage is actually getting out of bed and washing. So cut me some slack?

Devlin Waugh’s off on a night out – from Nightclubbing, written by Ales Kot, art by Steven Austin

JUDGE DREDD: RAVENOUS – PART 2 – by Mike Carroll and Anthony Williams, letters by Annie Parkhouse

Sometimes you need Dredd to be complex, difficult, satirical, and epic. Sometimes you need it to be a clever done in one. And sometimes it’s good to scratch an itch for it to be just plain, old-fashioned, out-and-out action. This is very definitely, based on the two episodes thus far, the latter.

We have Dredd called in by Texas City’s Chief Judge Lewis about a rig in the Gulf of Mexico – something that’s part of the autonomous state of Diana. And this rig’s been the terribly illegal site of some very dodgy experimentations – all to produce some very nasty beasties.

It would be a simple monster of the week thing. Well, monster of the month seeing as it’s the Megazine. Except that Carroll threw in this great little twist on the final page of last episode as to just why the green nasties were so difficult to kill…

Yes, genetically engineered nightmares whose onboard cybernetics teleport them out to another dimension when they’re damaged too much – gee. And as that dimension’s one where time goes a lot faster, they have all the time in the world to heal and repair, only to appear a couple of seconds later and ready to inflict all manner of rending of tooth and claw on Dredd and his pals on Diana.

And that is really that. Like I say, nothing too deep here, nothing too difficult, no politics, no intrigue, no Dredd quietly assembles the facts and gets investigating. Nope, this is Dredd sees big green thing with teeth and claws that wants to kill and eat everyone and tries to blast it out of existence before it gets chance to regenerate. And you know what, it’s as much fun as you might expect. Think of it as a palette cleanser, the sort of storyline that Dredd used to be full of.

DEMARCO, P.I. – NO SMOKE – PART 1 – by Laura Bailey and Rob Richardson, letters by Simon Bowland

Well, just last month I was saying how disappointing it was to say farewell to the great DeMarco strip ‘A Picture Paint’s by Bailey and Richardson after just three episodes – and here we are, straight into a new series! See, sometimes you do get what you ask for!

It’s still the same vibe of course, with Bailey and Richardson writing and drawing DeMarco as living and working down amongst the grubby bits of Mega-City One, all the better to be telling these little tales of noir gumshoe stuff.

And we’re right into it all again, straight from the off, with Richardson doing some wonderful work, the pulp noir looks, the trash culture surroundings, and most especially with DeMarco herself – great hair.

This time, we’re looking at the auction business in MC-1, with Seymour Denley of Suvabees wanting to hire DeMarco to look into rival auctioneers, Lil Christies, whose owner, Kris Christie, has a nasty grudge against Suvabees, possibly even going so far as stealing one of their very valuable archival books.

All of which leads DeMarco to the auction district and into Lil Christies looking for the Rauch Book, which might be the stolen book in question. There’s word out that the Rauch book is actually a formula for a synth-opioid smoke, or maybe a first-edition poetry folio by mutie Rauch Vaughn. People aren’t quite sure.

But this isn’t the sort of high-class auction district you might have thought of…

And it’s just that sort of down-at-heel, nasty vibe that makes me love this version of DeMarco by Bailey and Richardson. It’s already got all those noir vibes going on, same as the last storyline. And by the end of this opening episode, you have the impression that Bailey’s already twisting and turning the plot around more than enough to make this one a load of fun.

All I can hope for is that we get more than three episodes to enjoy from a pairing on a character that there’s obviously a hell of a lot of love for.

MEGA-CITY 2099: INSIDE MAN – by Ken Niemand and Conor Boyle, letters by Jim Campbell

Another visit back in time to the very beginnings of both the Justice Department and 2000 AD, tracking back to, as you’d expect from the title, to 2099 – which just so happens to be the same year of Dredd when 2000 AD launched back in 1977.

So, it’s a very young, not inexperienced but nowhere near the seasoned veteran you see nowadays, Dredd and a Mega-City One trying to get used to the idea of having Judges alongside the regular cops who do most of the regular policing.

What it means for us though is we have another semi-regular Megazine strip that can pop in for a one-off strip, just like Tales of the Black Museum. Thankfully, so far these MC-2099 adventures have been a damn fine callback to the early days of Dredd, whether you happen to remember them or not, where the adventures were somewhat simpler than they might be now – just as strange of course, but lacking some of the absolute ground down desperation that MC-1 has in its spirit now.

So it’s back to basics we go, with a ghost gang seemingly getting away with some impossible heists – hell, it’s almost as though they know the ins and outs of Judge’s security. In fact, once Dredd gets on the case and runs the clues, he’s the only suspect who could possibly be feeding them the info…

Niemand and Boyle return to keep this one bouncing along nicely, Boyle doing such a fine, fine job of giving us the exact right Dredd for 2099, all small rounded helmet, an eagle on the shoulder that hadn’t quite got to the impressive over the top look it would do, and a Lawmaster that’s back to basics just like the story.

Yep, this one is a whole heap of fun and one that I hope we’ll be seeing more of over the coming year. Not too much mind, that would spoil the fun of it somewhat. It’s one of those delicious in moderation sort of things.

DEVLIN WAUGH: NIGHTCLUBBING – PART 1 – by Ales Kot and Steven Austin, colours by Matt Soffe, letters by Simon Bowland

It opens with the nastiness and debauchery of the lower Brit-Cit pleasure sector, every bit as grubby, smelly, and staining on the clothes as you’d expect. Kot and new series artist Austin spend two pages setting things up, with Kot’s lyrical turn of phrase doing a grand job as we track through the crowd, taking the point of view of the nasty this time, some lumbering hulk with a penchant for the stars and stripes in a world where America hasn’t been around for a long time now. Simpler times The American wants – simpler times by way of deadly beatings with a red, white, and blue baseball bat.

So, how does this one have anything to do with Devlin Waugh? Just how is Brit-Cit’s premier gay Vatican-sponsored exorcist playboy adventurer vampire bon viveur celebrity going to find himself involved in this?

Well, right now, he’s having a bit of an existential crisis after the events of the last couple of adventures that Kot’s taken him on, particularly that last one involving the curse in the family bloodline. Indeed, he’s just that little bit depressed right now…

Yep, it’s the last adventure that he went through that’s really done the business on his psyche. Like he says, it’s the very worst kind of comedown and he’s not even got to do the fun part beforehand. Instead, he’s sat in an apartment going over the nightmares found there in the ancient haunted cave, all that ego death and doppelgangers and psychic cannibal ancestors. Meanwhile, his only companions in all this are Kafka, another ancestor and a giant cockroach lawyer from hell who is meant to be sorting things out for Devlin, and Titivillus, a filth demon that Devlin trapped inside a dildo who’s possibly the closest Devlin’s got to a pal right now.

Yep, things are pretty weird in Devlin’s world and it’s not really a surprise he’s having a hard time of it.

So, with the news of a fourth case of Brit-Cit’s queer community getting targeted in the past week, what better time for a bit of a distraction? Or, as Titi calls it, unhealthy escapist patterns. And you’ve seen just where that leads Devlin and Titi in the art at the opening of this Meg preview – it’s all leather and denim and the boys are out on the town with a mission in mind.

There’s so much to love here, Austin’s version of Devlin is just great, as you’d expect, getting into the nastier side of the character, but it’s Kot’s writing that holds the day here – after all, how many comics do you know where you get to read this?

What kind of a city-state allows a possum with high-grade telepath implants to tend a bar?

All this and so much more is here and it’s a damn fine thing indeed.

HARROWER SQUAD: CALHAB COUNTRY – PART 2 – by David Baillie and Steve Yeowell, colours by Chris Blythe, letters by Annie Parkhouse

Ending the Megazine this month is the new strip, Harrower Squad, which appears to be something that’s going to do the same as the Dredd opener, all-out action done just right.

Here we’re over in Calhab, the Caledonian Habitation Zone, or Scotland as you’d know it. The Calhab Radlands have to be patrolled by teams of heavy weapons Judges, the Harrower Squads. But this one particular Squad has picked up on way more trouble than they could ever have imagined – where the muties of the Radlands have been gathering and getting a bit of a cult thing going on.

So, with the radstorm settling in and the muties knowing where the Squad are, they’ve just realised that all those occult markings that the Squad didn’t give much credence to are all about building up to a ritual to summon and host a demonic hate-spirit. Well, it does get a bit boring sometimes in the Highlands of Scotland and you do need to find a few things to do.

Like I said last time with the debut of this one, it’s a slice of self-contained, confined action, everything taking place in a small area with a small cast, with that whole action-adventure movie feel to it.

And again, Yeowell’s art here is just really quite gorgeously rich, the detailed backgrounds, the tight headshots making it look quite lovely.

So that’s the new strips done with, now it’s time for the reprint material…

We start off with the latest Treasury of British Comics reprint volume to get promo coverage here – the rather magnificent Hugo Pratt art for the latest War Picture Library, something already previewed here (and well worth a look because of that mighty fine Pratt artwork). Then we have the second parts of both the really enjoyable and somewhat underrated 2017 Titan Books Hookjaw series by Si Spurrier and drawn by Conor Boyle and the second part of another pretty decent Dredd outing from the IDW 2018 series Under Siege.

WAR PICTURE LIBRARY: THE CRIMSON SEA – written by Fred Baker, Donne Avenell, Alf Wallace, art by Hugo Pratt