The Monthly Megazine: Issue 481 — Cadet Dredd’s NYC Adventure

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.

The new format, 100-page Judge Dredd Megazine continues, another six all-new strips, plus the excellent reprint, which many of you are seeing for the first time, the heady mix of soccer and sci-fi in Rok of the Reds.

All this underneath a Nick Brokenshire cover from the latest installment of the Cadet Dredd strip, with the kid Judges finding themselves, most unexpectedly, in 90s New York City…

Inside the latest Megazine, you’ve got another done-in-ine Dredd, a one-off return to the kooky world of the Justice Department’s weird investigations team, Department K, and a return visit to the strange goings-on in Tales From the Black Museum. Plus, the latest in the stories of Cadet Dredd, Barrel & Hammer, and the excellent Atomfall wraps up rather too soon. The only reprint, Rok of The Reds, gets to its fifth and final part, although we’ll be moving straight along to the second series, Rok The God, next issue.

Megazine 481 is out on 18th June in the UK. If you’re in the Americas, take a wild guess. It’s always been a patchy distribution and the current distributor upheaval isn’t going to help things at all. But head into your local comic shop and ask them nicely to order it for you. If they can’t or won’t, find yourself another local comic shop that will. Seriously, you’ll be glad you did.

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

JUDGE DREDD: MEET THE GREYS – BY IAN EDGINTON AND CAM SMITH, COLOURS BY JIM BOSWELL, LETTERS BY ANNIE PARKHOUSE

El Paso, 1955, two all-American kids about to get their close encounter. 200 years later, the descendants of those two, bred in captivity by the alien Phelm, are trying to make a new life in Mega-City One.

Now though, the Phelm are just part of the alien-Mega-City One business deal that Edginton’s been exploring plenty in his Dredds over the last few years. And having captive humans isn’t good for business, which is why the ‘Greys’ have been released.

Unfortunately for the Greys, they’re finding out that MC-1 law never forgets. Turns out their ancestors, those couple of all-American kids, were bank robbers, and the bank wants its retroactive reimbursement, meaning all that compensation the Greys got from the Phelm has just dissappeared. Oh yes, welcome to Mega-City One indeed.

Through the trial and tribulations of an out-of-place family just trying to keep their heads above water, we get Edginaton, with classic Cam Smith art, spinning one of those utterly ridiculous Dredds, all part of the rich history of the character, these gloriously silly tales all part of what makes MC-1 such a rich story environment. Loads of fun, utterly ridiculous, but absolutely part of what makes Dredd such a great strip.

DEPARTMENT K: UNRAVELLED – BY NED HARTLEY & MIKE WALTERS, LETTERS BY SIMON BOWLAND

A one-off return now to the weirdest set of Judges in Mega-City One, Department K, the branch of Tek-Div that’s responsible for handling all the interdimensional entities that regularly trouble the City. Judge Kirby’s in charge, there’s Mechanismo Judge Estebon, intern Afua, and Judge Blackcurrant – whatever the hell he is.

Right now, they’re investigating a disappearance following a Block War, normally something the street Judges deal with, only this guy got zapped with something and quite literally vanished. Trouble is, as Dept K go in, the Block War’s not quite over and Afua’s in the firing line…

And to get her back, Blackcurrant’s going to have to follow her out of reality. And how do comic characters get out of their reality? Well…

Oh yes, a nice bit of breaking the confines of the comics page, always a treat, and one that’s done real well here. I suppose if any characters in Dreddworld can do it, Dept K can. Anyway, Blackcurrant saves the day, Afua and the rest of them zapped by the interdimensional gun return, a neatly done little tale, although one that does bring a big, big question into play about just who Blackcurrant is and what he could have been if he hadn’t met Kirby.

Dept K are in good hands, so it seems, with Hartley and Walters at the reins.

CADET DREDD: THE HAUNTING OF ISO-BLOCK 8 – PART 3 – BY PAUL STARKEY AND NICK BROKENSHIRE, LETTERS BY JIM CAMPBELL

Cadet Dredd and his new Cadet Judge buddies could seriously do with a helping hand here from Department K… as they’ve found out they’re after a team of tech bandits who’ve come from 70 years in the future to break into Iso-Block 8, all to do with a jail break, sort of – it’s all that time-twisting stuff.

But more than that, here’s where we left things at the end of last episode, with Kant, leader of the time-perps doing something with a time belt-thingy…

ART

Yep, not in MC-1 any more for sure.

In fact, Dredd, you and your three Cadet pals are back in New York City, 1990. And even though New Yorkers tend to take most things in their stride, this might be the exception to that rule.

One of them immediately falls foul of the NYC cops, meaning Dredd has to take off in pursuit, and Kant gets the better of the other two to get free for now. So, it’s a couple of races through the unfamliar city for the baby Judges.

Plenty of fun in this one, but there’s still time for a bit of an edge as well, and Brokenshire’s art works fine for both of them. And by the end of this one… well, that’s for next time. Let’s just say that what started out as a put the Cadets into a closed room ghost mystery is taking us into some very weird places with this one.

ATOMFALL – PART 4 – FINAL PART – BY JONATHAN L HOWARD AND ANTHONY WILLIAMS, COLOURS BY STEVE CANON, LETTERS BY ROB STEEN

Oh, this one started off so good, giving me the same sort of strange vibes that I had from Gary Spencer Millidge’s Strangehaven, all quirky folk horror and Quatermass meets Twin Peaks going on. [And once more, if you’ve never had the pleasure of reading Strangehaven, you really should do.

Yep, set in post-war Britain, drenched in the sort of paranoia of the nuclear age, Atomfall is the prequel to the video game of the same name, all of it set in an alt-Britain where the Windscale disaster of 1957 meant a hell of a lot more than radioactive fallout. No, here, as journalist Jenny Coggins is uncovering, the plant exploded, there’s strange blue zombie-like creatures wandering the woods, and the military have declared Windscale and the village of Wyndham part of a quarantine zone. Here’s where we left things at the end of last episode…

And across the first three episodes of this one, we’ve had a really cracking thing, maybe a little too wordy and expositiony at times, but that was all covered over by mostly being Jenny’s thoughts, but the tone of it was just perfect.

And now we get part 4, and things sort of run into trouble a little. Not enough to spoil things, but certainly enough to leave me thinking there’s a hell of a missed opportunity here. Because before we really had chance to explore all the mysteries of Atomfall, it’s over and done with, leading into the video game. Now, I understand that this was always only ever going to be a prequel series, but such was my enjoyment of those early episodes that I rather lost sight of that. So, when things here all seem a bit rushed, it felt unnatural from what had come before. And then it all just… well, stopped. So many mysteries and questions remain, so much potential that remains – surely I can’t be alone in thinking there’s got to be room for a second series of Atomfall, one that follows up on events here, one that doesn’t have to be second to the video game but can evolve into its own thing. Because, as it is, I’m left feeling a little hmmm over this, kicking myself that I fell for it being more than a lead-in to something I’ll never play – like I say, I just wish there was more to what is, after four episodes, merely a tantalising glimpse into a world.

TALES FROM THE BLACK MUSEUM – BY JAMES PEATY & SEDAT OEZGEN, LETTERS BY ANNIE PARKHOUSE

The Black Museum, the Justice Department’s collection of all the relics of old crimes, including all the strange and bizarre crimes through the history of Mega-City One, where undead guide Henry Dubble is here to show us all around.

Think of Tales From The Black Museum as the Megazine’s slightly longer version of Future Shocks, one-off tales with a twist, with old undead Henry guiding us along the way…

Right now, he’s spinning us a yarn of a MC-1 collector, Ernest Levine, living at home with mom and dad, who are, shall we say, somewhat unwilling to fork out the 30 thousand Ernest needs for entry to the latest auction of MC-1 weird stuff. And with the bank of mom and dad well and truly closed, Ernest has to work out just how far he’s prepared to go to raise those funds and get hold of ma and pa’s cash.

Well, after shipping ma and pa off to the organ-leggers, it’s off to the auction, where the piece Ernest’s after – the very paving slab where Dredd executed Kraken during Necropolis – is up for auction. Yes, collectors are a very strange breed indeed, aren’t they?

It’s a suitably dark little tale of obsessions and going too far in the pursuit of what you desire, Peaty’s script very much one of hitting all the right notes as he moves from A to B to C, where C is the fate Ernest was always headed towards. Oezgen’s art, all stark black and white, suits the tale nicely.

BARREL + HAMMER: #3 AVANTI RISIN’ – PART 3 – BY DAVID BARNETT AND LUKE HORSMAN, LETTERS BY SIMON BOWLAND

The originals end this month with more screwball comedy of a space pirate sort in Barrel and Hammer, the two leads, Andark Constant D’Barrel and Hammer 467B32A, are, respectively, the worst pirate in Sector 12 and his ‘pimped-up service droid.’

They’re all-in on a treasure hunt where the prize is the open slot in the lucrative entry to the Space Pirates’ Guild, meaning it’s time for space comedy and hi-jinks, full of plenty of increasingly daft creations from Barnett and Horsman, whose art continues to be a highlight of this one, bright and colourful, packing the page with fun moments and inventive layouts.

It’s off to the black hole of Gogmagog right now, Barrel and Hammer first on the scene, closely followed by others trying for the same prize, none of them all that nice and all of them intending that B&H definitely won’t be coming out of this one alive.

On they head to the Avanti Risin’, lost a hundred cycles ago, skippered by Captain Flameheart, the site of the next coordinates on the treasure hunt.

It just doesn’t let up one bit does Barrel and Hammer, keeping the action and the comedy high in the mix as it should. It’s simple stuff, a quest tale with that comedic twist, but it’s well-done simple stuff.

And finally, the finale of the only reprint now in the Meg, but it’s a damn fine reprint indeed, giving many of you your first look at the saga of Rok of the Reds by John Wagner, Alan Grant, and Dan Cornwell. Like I’ve said so many times before, is just a love story to both soccer and sci-fi.

We’re at the conclusion here, where alien Rok, who landed on Earth, took over the body of the Radford Red’s bad boy star striker Kyle Dixon and proceeded to fall in love with the beautiful game, currently finds himself under attack from his fellow Arkady.

So, in the midst of the Reds FA Cup semi-final match, Rok ascends to the astral plane to take up the challenge, and the power cuts out at Wembley as Kyle Dixon’s body hits the ground. Can Rok defeat the Arkady threat masterminded by his mother? And perhaps more importantly to him right now, can he do it before play restarts at the FA Cup semi-final? And more than that, when they do make it through, as you know they will, what about the final?

Epic sci-fi, thrills and spills on the soccer pitch – Rok of the Reds really does have the lot. And now you’ve read the very first Rok tale, the great news is that the follow-up, Rok the God, starts next month right here in the Megazine. You know you’ll want to be here for that.

ROK OF THE REDS: CHAPTER 6 – FINAL PART – BY JOHN WAGNER AND ALAN GRANT, ART BY DAN CORNWELL, COLOURS BY ABIGAIL BULMER, LETTERS BY JIM CAMPBELL