The Monthly Megazine Issue 47: Previewing The Big Meg For The Month

by Richard Bruton

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

Same again for the Meg, up to seven original strips with the inclusion of the two Regened strips – Pandora Perfect and Department K, plus five Meg strips, two reprints, and the usual interviews and articles. There’s new Dredd multi-parter, Hive, the continued trio of great strips in Armitage, Dreadnoughts, and Harrower Squad, and another visit to Mega-City 2099 strips taking us back to the early days of Dredd when he first appeared in 2000 AD.

So 132 pages to get through, plenty of really good stuff, and all out on the shelves already as Megazine #470 came out on 17 July in the UK. In the Americas, you’ll be getting it… well, sometime depending on the vagaries of the distribution network. Best advice, get your LCS to order it for you. As for everything else, can we just try to be nice to each other for once?

Everything looking so damn cheery in the brilliant Armitage series

JUDGE DREDD: HIVE – PART 1 – by Ian EDGINTON and Kevin West, colours by Dylan Teague, letters by Annie Parkhouse.

Hive starts off as your straightforward Dredd on the case thing, the case in this instance being an investigation into the importation of Mok Mash (Begorrah! It’s Tay-To-Tastic) from Murphyville.

Turns out they’re actually importing it to make the new Spud Guns, lethal weaponry made out of potato cellulose. That in itself is just a perfect Dredd ridiculous moment right there.

But Edginton’s only starting with this one, going from the ridiculous to an out-and-out action-fest of strange, nasty alien/mutant/horror things on the loose. And it all ends on a twist, something very weird turning up in MC-1 that really does take us somewhere very different indeed.

Art comes from US artist Kevin West, making his debut with 2000 AD, and a very fine debut it is indeed, looking every bit as though he’s been drawing Dredd for years.

ARMITAGE: BULLETS FOR AN OLD MAN – PART 4 – by Liam Johnson and Warren Pleece, letters by Jim Campbell

The case of the time gun continues, with Johnson and Pleece giving us the best Armitage for I don’t know how long. It’s leaning heavily into Armitage the old man, feeling time weighing heavy on him, willing to give it all up to solve this final case.

The five remaining future victims of the time gun have been pulled together by Treasure, despite Armitage’s vehement protests. So they’re off to a randomly created safe room to try to save their lives.

But who’s pulling the strings here? The psychopath in jail or some copycat, or are the time bullets just ones that were fired many years ago and have yet to find their mark?

Whatever it is, Armitage is back on the case, prepared to give up everything in his head to see this through. So, as he joins the others in the safe room, could this really be Armitage’s last case?

However it plays out, it’s proving to be a really great tale of age, inevitability, and the fact that no one gets to live forever.

MEGA-CITY 2099: NU-YOO – by Ken Niemand and Tom Foster, letters by Simon Bowland

A change of artist, with Foster subbing in for the usual Conor Boyle, but no change to the concept – we’re still way back in 2099, the same Mega-City we first met when Judge Dredd began back in 1977.

Again, having this as a done-in-one, occasional thing works as both a nostalgia thing and a simple, straight-up Dredd thing, with Niemand leaning into all the wonderful strangeness that Mega-City can offer. And Tom Foster brings his Bolland-esque stylings rather well to take us back nearly 50 years.

So, time to join a much younger Dredd on a typically Mega-City case of Nu-Yoo, the total personal reinvention service. Yes, every bit as daft as all those classic Dredds were, and every bit as fun.

PANDORA PERFECT: PERFECT SOUNDS – PART 2 -by Roger Langridge and Gary Welsh, colours by John Charles, letters by Simon Bowland

The first of the Regened strips in the Meg now, along with a text piece that goes some way to explaining why Regened strips are in the Meg, basically a way to publish serially first and then go for the collections to bring in younger readers. And, as we’re all agreed (right?) bringing in younger readers is always a good thing.

Anyway, Pandora Perfect is one of the Regened strips that fits perfectly in here – after all, any Roger Langridge comics have always done that cleverest of things, telling all-ages tales with wit, style, and tongue firmly placed in cheek, something to be enjoyed by all ages, young or old.

Now joined by Gary Welsh, doing grand things in the place of co-creator Brett Parson, we’re back with this wonderful thief, con-woman, and all-round not to be trusted Pandora Perfect, ‘Mary Poppins gone wrong, a con artist with a bag of tricks.’

With no fence willing to take her latest ill-begotten gains, Pandora and her Robo-pal GORT are on the trail of something they can sell, some rare IP that’s so much easier to move nowadays.

Which is why they’re chasing down Beech Band album, ‘Cheer Up’, and why Pandora’s meeting up with the videocaster who’s meant to know the passcode to the vault ‘Cheer Up’ is held in, Spink Bingle. We’ve already had the surprise that Spink recognises Pandora from her band days… yes, she had band days, and ended up setting out on her life of crime by taking off with a big bag of takings from their final gig.

Anyway, GORT’s making his way to the vault, and Pandora’s still trying to get the passcode, but first she’s agreed to appear on Spink’s vidcast to take about Pink Frost and her past life as Penny Dreadlock. After all, it’s not like anyone from her past, say a manager still smarting over that 10k that went missing, is watching, eh?

Like I say, truly all-ages – clever, funny, packed full of gags on every level, just wonderful storytelling whatever age you may be.

DEPARTMENT K: MECHA-CITY ONE – PART 2 – by Ned Hartley and Mike Walters, letters by Jim Campbell

The other Regened strip in here – although this one’s already had a longer run in the Prog – Department K is part of Dreddworld anyway, so fits in just fine to it’s new home here.

New writer Hartley and new artist Walters are busy making this three-parter work really well. Last issue we had the set-up, loaded with great gags, as Mechanismo Judge Estabon and the rest of this Tek-Div crew tasked with dealing with all the weird interdimensional incursions MC-1 has to deal with headed to alt-dimension Mecha-City One to get Estabon a new arm.

This issue, things get more serious. After experiencing a world where all the humans died out and the Mechs took over, Estabon’s stayed on and is settling in nicely.

But it’s not long before the rest of his old colleagues turn up and uncover something rotten in Mecha-City One, something that puts the idea that all the humans died in some accident in focus.

It’s a lot of fun and it fits in just perfectly. Again, you don’t have to have swears and gore to make something good, and sometimes all-ages just means damn fine comics to be enjoyed by all.

HARROWER SQUAD: URBAN ROTATION – PART 3 – by David Baillie and Conor Boyle, colours by Chris Blythe, letters by Annie Parkhouse

Sudden change of artists here, as Steve Yeowell is replaced by Conor Boyle, who’s doing a fine job of it.

Harrower Squad’s really been a surprise. It started off as a really contained thing, the Cal-Hab heavy weapons squads going out into the radlands to make them civilized, but it’s transformed into something political and complex, turning the previously silly Cal-Hab into something else.

We start with Brontide’s nightmare, the demon spirit of Forvus that’s inside her reminding her that what she experienced out in the radlands is wanting something.

But then it’s straight into things, a massive find of something very valuable in Cal-Hab, the mob involvement, a traitor on her team – all of which of course ties into her investigations that point to Chief Judge Haggan as being far from clean…

Yep, a thriller with plenty of action that’s turned into something much more, that’s why Harrower Squad’s doing everything so right.

The last series was just four parts – hopefully this one’s not going to end quite so quickly as it’s really turned into something really great.

DREADNOUGHTS: NOTHING TO FEAR – PART 3 – by Mike Carroll and John Higgins. Colours by Sally-Jane Hurst, letters by Simon Bowland

More from the world of the very early days of the Justice Department, as the world falls into fascism, as democracy is cast aside, and the Judges take over.

But we’re not quite there yet. In Dreadnaughts, we’re in the time the changeover was happening, the Judges too small in number to take over quite yet, and finding conventional law enforcement and the people not quite ready to give up the old ways quite yet.

Previously, we’ve followed Judge Glover and her life as as Judge. Now we’re with Judge Beckett in a shorter Dreadnoughts tale, but no less impactful.

Beckett’s ridden into small town trouble, a nowhere town ruled by a rich family and a sheriff’s department who run the town their way. And the Sheriff wants to keep it that way, which is why Beckett’s tied to a chair at the start of this one and they’re all trying to work out the best way to get rid of him.

Cue action and plenty of it, Higgins’ art just so damn good at all this, choreographing it all perfectly as we watch Beckett rip through the Sheriff’s forces like a force of nature, brutal, swift, deadly. It’s just such a well done set piece, the artist absolutely nailing it all the way through.

Okay, that’s the originals sorted, now for the reprints…

Or rather, one reprint and one preview of a new Monster Fun book – the rather damn fine Steel Commando strip by Ned Hartley and Dan Boultwood, a damn fine thing, full of gags, brilliantly updated yet with all the classic elements still there, and some absolutely wonderful art from Boultwood.

STEEL COMMANDO: NO TIME TO LOSE – by Ned Hartley and Dan Boultwood