The Monthly Megazine #479: Dredd Wants A Word – If You’ve Done Nothing Wrong, You’ve Got Nothing To Fear

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.

More change for the Megazine now, as we get a slimmed down monthly, from 132 to 100 pages, ditching most of the text features and nearly all the reprint material – don’t worry, the excellent Rok of the Reds is still being reprinted, alongside six original strips. Hey, it’s tough out there in printed comics land, so if this is what it takes to make the Meg keep on keeping on, so be it.

All this underneath another cracking Toby Willsmer Dredd cover that looks awfully like this…

So, inside we get the single reprint this month, the aforementioned and quite superb soccer meets sci-fi of Rok of the Reds. As for the original strips, there’s a new one-off Dredd with ‘Old Man Joe’ that finds Ken Niemand and Dan Cornwell return to the strange multiverse of Dredds, we have new Cadet Dredd, a new Armitage, and a brand-new strip from David Barnett and Luke Horsman, Barrel & Hammer. Plus we get the second episode of the video game prequel to Atomfall and the penultimate part of Death Cap series two. All in all, a fine, fine lineup.

Megazine# 479 is out now in the UK and at some point in the future in the Americas. Do yourselves a favour and ask your local comic shop to order it in for you.

So, with all that over with, shall we take a little look-see inside…

JUDGE DREDD: OLD MAN JOE – BY KEN NIEMAND AND DAN CORNWELL, LETTERS BY ANNIE PARKHOUSE

Ken Niemand has a thing for playing around in the big, bad 2000 AD multiverse. He’s the go-to for the semi-regular alt-2000 AD-verse stuff, like the zombie silliness of ‘Darkest Judge’ and the Battle Action meets 2000 AD tales of recent years. He’s also done two Dredd multiverse crossovers, first in Prog 2262 with Trinity and the meeting of comic Dredd and both film Dredds. That was followed up by ‘Lawmen of the Future’ in Megazine #473, this time with comic Dredd and the Stallone Dredd getting together in another cross-time, cross-universe bit of fun.

Then there was this, at the end of ‘Lawmen of the Future’…

Oh yes, you knew Niemand would be coming back to this. And that’s just what we have here with Old Man Dredd, a fourth alt-world Dredd, a Dredd where things in his Mega-City went very differently.

Where the previous couple played it for laughs at Stallone Dredd’s expense, this one plays it straight. In this alt-Dredd’s world, things changed after mad Judge Cal, the people changed things, the Justice Department was abolished, and this Dredd went back to being a cop. No rejuves, just normal life, and now his geriatric self is here in MC-1, thanks to that weird little cross-dimensional thingie that Niemand gets to play with.

Hell, there’s even time at the end for a quite wonderful bit of sentiment. It’s a beautiful thing, putting a of reflection for Dredd, a chance to take five and ponder things. And the final iMac by Cornwell is simply perfect, capping off a fabulous little take that epitomizes the joy of Dredd, where it really can be all things. And Niemand does write the old man, both this cross-dimensional old man and the fascist we know so well. Of course, Cornwell handles it all with some style, further establishing himself as one of a small group of current, absolute top-notch Dredd artists.

DEATH CAP: FRONTIER JUSTICE – PART 7 – BY TC EGLINGTON AND BOO COOK, LETTERS BY SIMON BOWLAND

Speaking of sentiment, we’re getting to the end of this second series of Death Cap. Now, I’ve been a bit down on it for not having the singular driving thrust of the storyline that the first series did. That first series was all about ex-Texas City Judge Goya fighting off the deadly Grubb’s fungus that was slowly killing her, just long enough to exact her revenge on those who killed her family.

Now, here in series two, it’s all about the transformed and infecting all she comes into contact with seeking a cure. We’re all pretty sure it’s a forlorn hope, Grubb’s doesn’t tend to leave anyone alive, but seeing her fight against the odds is heartbreaking in its desperation.

We’ve had her running across the Cursed Earth, we’ve seen her getting worse, we’ve seen her being tracked by Tex Judge Reece, and getting a glimpse of the weird and wonderful of the Cursed Earth along the way. But, as this episode perfectly shows, above all that, we’re getting the dying dreams of Goya, reaching out for impossible cures, desperate hopes, and all of it whilst there’s a big part of her that just aches to be reunited with her lost family. There’s a bit halfway through this episode that epitomizes all that, done perfectly by both Eglington and Cook, all the heartbreak and loss that underpins everything in Death Cap coming to the fore.

And frankly, it’s just a great moment, where Eglington and Cook lean hard into the strange biology they’ve been exploring all the way through Death Cap, reminding us that this story is as much a biological one, a fungicidal one, as it is a personal one. It’s a great episode that reminds me of how, sometimes, reviewing things month by month means that you miss out on the bigger, better tale that’s being told.

Next month, it’s the finale, and there’s still that hope against hope that Goya gets her ending that she deserves, a final moment of happiness. Because we’ve come so far with her, and the idea of that hope, in the face of all she’s suffered, is a great thing.

CADET DREDD: THE HAUNTING OF ISO-BLOCK 8 – PART 1 – BY PAUL STARKEY AND NICK BROKENSHIRE, LETTERS BY JIM CAMPBELL

A new outing for Cadet Dredd now; Judge Dredd before he got to wear the full eagle, the clone boy before he became the legend of the law.

Now, when you see Cadet Dredd, you think of younger folks, younger readers. And there’s a possibility that this one may have been pitched, originally, as a Regened strip, the all-ages 2000 AD experiment that took over an issue of the Prog every few months. Commissioned tales have to find a place after all. But when they’re good, as this one undoubtedly is, it matters not. After all, there’s a history of some great works being distinctly all ages.

Anyway, here it’s young Dredd and three other Cadets – the Tek Cadet, the Med Cadet, and the Psi Cadet being given one of those jobs that the Justice Department can’t justify sending the real Judges in for – in this case, it’s the reported haunting of the brand-new, state of the art ISO-Block 8. Ghosts? Really? Well, that’s at least the way the four Cadets see this, a simple investigation, some obvious reason behind the mysterious happenings over the course of the construction. And then things start getting… well, spooky.

Like I say, it’s a lovely little piece, constructed to isolate the Cadets and make it all a self-contained thing, just as was the equally enjoyable Cadet Rico by Liam Johnson and Rob Richardson that only just finished in the Meg. Shutting them off is that classic thing of establishing threat and making the limited cast dependent on just their own abilities. It also gives Starkey the space to explore the individual characters of the four very disparate Cadets.

Yep, a solid start, a simple tale, but elevated by Starkey telling it well and Brokenshire’s art serving the story real well, story beats hit with style and skill.

ATOMFALL – PART 2 – BY JONATHAN L HOWARD AND ANTHONY WILLIAMS, COLOURS BY STEVE CANON, LETTERS BY ROB STEEN

The first episode of this video game prequel, where gamers get to play in a retro alt-history environment spinning out of the 1957 Windscale nuclear disaster, the worst England ever had, really got me excited. Like I said last month, the combination of retro sci-fi, folk horror, and plain good old-fashioned brilliantly put together writing and art that make this just the best thing.

That was last month and episode 1. We got introduced to journalist Jenny Coggins, following up on a lead from a mystery whistleblower that there’s trouble at Windscale, leasing her to the neighbouring village of Wyndham. And that brilliant first episode ended with this…

Oh yes. That doesn’t bode too well, does it? Especially since we know that Atomfall the video game deals with survival in a quarantine zone after the nuclear disaster. Lots of folk horror stuff, strange cults, shadowy government agencies, the works.

The villagers gather to look at the mushroom cloud, Jenny taken aback by the sheer enormity of what this means. So they stand there for a while. And then, well, after a while with nothing more happening, the inevitable happens… back to the pub.

Well, now the disaster’s happened, we get to be there in the quarantine zone with Jenny, getting more and more of that delicious sense of paranoia and strangeness in post-war, atomic age Britain that makes this so damn good.

Because yes, no surprise, all that made me sit up and really love this one in that first episode is here in the second. As the village gets locked down and quarantined, the anxiety creeps slowly in, that perfect sense of weirdness that perfumed the first episode really in show here, where the isolation and fear of the unknown, the uncertainty and the not knowing just feed into the strange little Englishness of this one. Yes, I’m loving this one. It’s full of great moments, great characters, full of bizarre characters, not to mention the little bit of foreshadowing as Jenny finds her fears over the phone box might have been well-founded after all.

It’s just really bloody great. It reminds me in many ways of my first experience of Gary Spencer Millidge’s brilliant Strangehaven. That was also full of the sort of Twin Peaks meets Quatermass meets the X-Files meets The Prisoner sort of thing. Completely different story of course, but similarities in tone, style, mood, and how it just fills this reader with excitement for something done this well. And all this from a video game prequel – isn’t the comics world a wonderful place?

ARMITAGE : MURDER. SETTING: AUTOMATED, EXPRESS – PART 1 – BY LIAM JOHNSON AND WARREN PLEECE, LETTERS BY ANNIE PARKHOUSE

We recently finished ‘Bullets For An Old Man’, also by Liam Johnson and Warren Pleece, and it was a damn fine thing starring Brit Cit’s grumpiest detective Judge. Now we get the difficultly titled ‘Murder. Setting: Automated, Express.’ Same creative team, same great character work and same great artwork.

Brit Cit’s Detective Judge division is all hands to the pump after Armitage saw off the Robo-Detective Judges last time. Armitage’s ex-partner, Treasure, is now his boss, and he’s got a young partner, Cahill. Obviously, Armitage isn’t happy about this. Nor is he happy about coming out of retirement and back on the job. But then again, he’s never bloody happy, it’s part of his personality and what makes him such a great character.

So, the latest cold case Armitage has landed is an old murder that happened in the factory that latterly made the Mechanismo units based on the MC-1 model. Treasure’s already regretting saying yes to him, knowing the Justice Department are pissed after Armitage killed the Mechanismo UK project.

So, a thirty-year old cold case, tensions over the robots, and a factory full of them to investigate. Oh, this is just what Armitage needs. And off we go on another bit of damn good cop procedural, something Armitage, through the very capable hands of Johnson and Pleece do oh so well.

BARREL + HAMMER: #1 BOOTY CALL – PART 1 – BY DAVID BARNETT AND LUKE HORSMAN, LETTERS BY SIMON BOWLAND

And to end the originals this time round, something new and fun for you – a comedic thing about space pirates.

Page 1, death of a space pirate, dying the third way that’s acceptable to space pirates, ‘doing something really, really stupid.’ So you already know the sort of thing you’re getting here, something good and fun, plenty of verbal gags and loads of pirate action, all of it with Luke Horsman’s vibrant and kinetic artwork that we last saw, and I really enjoyed, in Enemy Earth.

So, meet Andark Constant D’Barrel and Hammer 467B32A, the former ‘the worst pirate in Sector 12’, the latter ‘a pimped-up service droid.’ Together, they’re singularly failing to plunder, loot, or any of the other piratey things space pirates are meant to do, mostly because the Space Pirates’ Guild have the whole pirating thing wrapped up, meaning small independent pirates like Barrel and Hammer don’t get a look in.

But thanks to the untimely and stoopid death of Fruitloop McGonty on page 1, there’s a slot open in the Space Pirates’ Guild, guaranteed to the winner of a grand scavenger hunt spanning across space. And Barrel and Hammer are out there with their eyes on the prize.

Yep, it’s fast and it’s silly fun, plenty of laughs, plenty of action. Horsman’s art just bursting off the page. There’s always been this sniffy attitude amongst some 2000 AD readers, hell, amongst some comic readers, about comedy. I’ve never known why, as comedy is just the hardest thing to write. So, it’s always been a particular bugbear that funny comics somehow get sniffed at. So any time we get the funny in 2000 AD like this is good for me.

Okay, that’s the originals sorted, now for the reprints… or rather, reprint, singular. It’s part of the slimmed-down Megazine, less pages, but less reprints. Thankfully, the one reprint is the excellent Rok of the Reds, with John Wagner, Alan Grant and Dan Cornwell giving us brilliant sports meets sci-fi.

Rok is deeply embedded in his new life as a striker for the Radford Reds, after taking on the form of their bad boy striker, Kyle Dixon. And he’s found a love of the game, one that’s transformed the Reds fortunes this season. But then again threat he’s been running from is gaining ground as the planet Arkady finally figured out where he’s been hiding.

Seriously great comics, a perfect fit for the Megazine. Essential reading.

ROK OF THE REDS: CHAPTER 4 – BY JOHN WAGNER AND ALAN GRANT, ART BY DAN CORNWELL, COLOURS BY ABIGAIL BULMER, LETTERS BY JIM CAMPBELL