Summer All-Ages Thrills From ‘2000 AD’ – ‘Regened’ Goes ‘Megazine’

News last week that 2000 AD have announced that all-ages Regened strips will now be featuring in the monthly Judge Dredd Megazine.

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Okay then, this one’s a little bit of a strange one. 2000 AD announced last week that their Regened strips, previously published quarterly in the normal run of the Prog as their own Regened 2000 AD comic, would now be integrated into both 2000 AD Progs and into Judge Dredd Megazine issues.

Now, if you’ve read my Weekly 2000 AD over the last few years of regular Regened Progs, you know I’m a big fan of bringing in new talent, more diversity, and younger readers to 2000 AD. After all, if all it did was publish the sort of strips the most vocal fans wanted, it would end up in a Prog full of what they loved in the late 70s and early 80s appealing to an ever-ageing and ever-dwindling audience.

Simply put, long-running comics like 2000 AD have two choices – appeal to a hardcore few who are getting older and know that you’re maybe a decade away from obsolescence and cancellation. OR, get in new readers, the sorts of readers that are devouring comics by the graphic novel load right now. I think we know which one works.

So the Regened Progs were a damn fine idea. And they’ve produced some excellent strips along the way. Strips like Lowborn High, Pandora Perfect, Mayflies, Renk, Full Tilt Boogie, Enemy Earth, Department K, and a lot more.

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Well, now it appears that those individual Regened Progs are no more and instead we’re going to be seeing Regened stories brought into 2000 AD and also the Megazine as regular features. To do this, the Megazine will be reducing the amount of reprint material to make room for new Pandora Perfect and Department K – all starting in the June issue, with Cadet Dredd headed along later in the year.

There’s also the news that we’ll be seeing a first collection of Cadet Dredd comics, Tooth & Claw, to be followed by further all-ages collections through 2024 and beyond.

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Here’s what 2000 AD have to say about the new Megazine strips in their PR…

‘June’s edition of Judge Dredd Megazine is proud to welcome back some more familiar favourites to its monthly roster of Thrills. Get ready for the return of…

‘Pandora Perfect! Lock up your loot, because criminal mastermind and nefarious swindler Pandora and robot companion Gort are back and ready to cause more chaos across the galaxy! Writer Roger Langridge is joined by artist Gary Welsh for a high-octane space adventure with the most notorious robber in the universe!

‘Department K: Interdimensional Investigators! Mega-City One Justice Department’s most chaotic team must once-again battle threats to protect the dimensional safety of the world. Having already travelled a multiverse of monsters and warded off threats from beyond the fabric of reality, join Ned Hartley and Mike Walters as Department K come face-to-face with the craziest creatures in the cosmos!

‘And later this year get ready for the return of Cadet Dredd! Paul Starkey and Nick Brokenshire invite you to join young Joseph Dredd and his clone brother Rico as they attempt to learn the ropes of the Justice System, and earn their badges as Judges!’

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Okay then. All good, yes? Megazine readers get more original strips and less reprints, all for the same cost. 2000 AD gets to keep going for the younger market.

Well, here’s where I can see just a little problem with this – The Megazine in particular is where the more mature readers tales go. Nothing ridiculously over the top adult usually, but like 2000 AD, the Megazine isn’t averse to a few swears and plenty of mayhem and blood. But it does go into some very adult themes… like this from a recent (and great) Ales Kot and Steven Austin Devlin Waugh in Megazine 465…

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So putting all ages material into the Megazine in an attempt to get younger readers interested? Wouldn’t that be just a bit problematic? Or is it simply a way of using up strips that were previously commissioned for the Regened Progs.

It’s not an insurmountable problem for sure, as most of the younger readers into comics would much prefer to be reading their comics as graphic novels and collections anyway – and that’s where this does make sense. If you have Regened all-ages strips there, 2000 AD may as well publish them either in the Prog or the Megazine, where they’ll simply be seen as another strip to enjoy. But the real pull for getting new readers of the material is in getting the kids to read the graphic novels, just the way they like them – and instead of commissioning new graphic novels, better to have strips serialised first and then collected.

Who knows, after picking up the first Cadet Dredd collection or Pandora Perfect or Department K or whatever comes next, there may be some transfer of readers, as they get older, to the already familiar world of 2000 AD itself as a weekly.

And since we mentioned the Cadet Dredd collection, here’s a sneak peek at what to expect from that…

Cadet Dredd: Tooth & Claw – published on 19 November by 2000 AD

Written by Matt Smith, Rory McConville, Michael Carroll, Arthur Wyatt, Liam Johnson, James Peaty, Paul Starkey, Ned Hartley

Art by Neil Googe, Ilias Kyriazis, Nicolò Assirelli, Luke Horsman, Davide Tinto, Jake Lynch, Duane Redhead, Ben Willsher, Joel Carpenter, Silvia Califano, Toby Willsmer, Neil Cameron, Joe Currie, Chris Weston