The Monthly Megazine Issue 482: Back To The Early Days Of Dredd In Mega-City 2099 & Just Who Are The Masked Men?

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.

The new format, 100-page Judge Dredd Megazine continues, this time with five strips and a chance to continue the love for John Wagner, Alan Grant, and Dan Cornwell‘s Rok of the Reds, as we head straight into the reprint of the second series – Rok The God.

All of this underneath a Mega-City 2099 cover from John McCrea and Mike Spicer…

Inside the latest Megazine, you’ve got another done-in-one Dredd, this time by Alec Worley coupled with some really manic art from Clint Langley. There’s a welcome visit to the earliest days of Dredd in another Mega-City 2099 tale, another one-off trip into the Black Museum, and more time-travelling adventures for Cadet Dredd. There’s also the finale of the Space Pirate comedy buddy tale of Barrel + Hammer. And of course, we get to luxuriate in 20+ pages of the first issue of the reprinted Rok The God.

Megazine 482 is out on 16th July 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: A TRUE TASTE – BY ALEC WORLEY AND CLINT LANGLEY, COLOURS BY QUINTON WINTER, LETTERS BY ANNIE PARKHOUSE

What starts off as a food critic’s daily struggle in the strange eateries of Mega City One transforms into Dredd in kitchen action taking down dodgy chefs.

It’s just a chaotic thing, Worley leaning in heavily to give Langley full rein on plenty of different layouts as the action careers from kitchen to restaurant. It’s good to see Langley’s art back in the Meg, even better to see more of him adopting a more free-flowing style as opposed to the more digitl stylings we saw on his ABC Warriors work. It’s got a real messy look, and I mean that in a really good way.

As for the story, well, Worley just lets loose, 10 pages of manic action, Dredd closing down a restaurant for good, but not before a massive scrap running through every page, with Langley going over the top in the best way.

MEGA CITY 2099 – BY KARL STOCK AND CONOR BOYLE, LETTERS BY SIMON BOWLAND

A return now to the irregular series taking us on a nostalgic trip back to the earlest days of Judge Dredd on the streets of Mega City One, complete with art stylings plucked staright out of 1970s Dredd.

This time it’s Karl Stock handling the story, together with a return to Mega City 2099 art for Conor Boyle, who really does get the brief down so well. This is art that pays perfect homage to all that went before, capturing the look and the feel of those earliest of Dredds.

Each story of MC2099 thus far has been a one-off thing, and this is no exception, with a mystery masked and suited man wandering the streets of MC-1’s Old New York sectors, killing street punks and Mega City Police Department patrolmen alike. Yes, it’s early Dredd, where the Justice Department wasn’t just Judges.

Just like all the other MC2099s, this one’s a simple tale, draped in a nostalgic glow, but none the worse for it at all. These are great little things harking back to simpler times where Dredd just patrolled the streets and dispensed his justice his way.

CADET DREDD: THE HAUNTING OF ISO-BLOCK 8 – PART 4 – BY PAUL STARKEY AND NICK BROKENSHIRE, LETTERS BY JIM CAMPBELL

Well, this one’s turned into something very different from how it started. Initially, just a self-contained tale of Cadet Dreedd and three other Cadets trapped in the Iso-Block they’re meant to be investigating strange sightings of ghostly goings-on, they’ve stumbled on a high-tech, time-travelling jail break. And that led them, courtesy of a future perps time machine, into New York of the 90s. And if that wasn’t enough weirdness, by the end of the last episode, that time travel device was in full effect, zapping them back to someplace rather Wild and Western…

Yes, they’re in the same place, a place where both the city of New York and Mega-City One will eventually spring forth, it’s just they’re a long, long time ago in the 18th Century. It’s a weird ride for these four confused Cadets and their time-travelling perp to be sure.

So, off on another mission/adventure, complete with Tek Cadet Judge Walker giving them the spiel about inadvertent temporal relocation and the risks of changing the future. Something they’d be wise to listen to, especially as there’s still more of those time-travelling perps to worry about.

It’s a strange one this. Like I say, it started out in a closed room mystery and suddenly it’s morphed into a time travel thing. It’s well done sure, but is it meandering a little too much, trying to go in too many directions?

TALES FROM THE BLACK MUSEUM: BLIND JUSTICE – BY JAMES PEATY AND WARREN PLEECE, LETTERS BY ANNIE PARKHOUSE

Another visit to the Black Museum now, where Mega-City One keeps all of the antefacts and relics of crimes gone by, including plenty of the strange, macabre, and outright bizarre. All curated by undead guide Henry Dubble. It’s another hook to hang single tales off, the Megazine’s version of the 2000 AD Future Shock.

This time round we have the always bloody lovely artwork of Warren Pleece showing us the tale of one Judge and his inevitable downfall. It all comes to a head after this Judge, injured in a case, gets a new, experimental set of eyes. And those eyes start giving him visions of another life. His obsessive investigation is done in tandem with flashbacks to his days as a Cadet and the illicit tryst with a fellow Cadet, one that leads him to discover, way too late, a family he never knew…

Oh yes, ‘let’s get real for a moment,. This is Mega-City One.’ More than that, this is a Tale from the Black Museum, and there’s no happy endings here. Certainly not for this Judge.

Peaty tells a neat and dark little tale of visions and families, both totally incompatible with the Justice Department, not to mention a twisty little saga of corruption and revenge. And, like I say, it’s always good seeing Warren Pleece, especially here in glorious black and white.

BARREL + HAMMER: #4 HAMMER TIME – PART 4 – FINAL PART – BY DAVID BARNETT AND LUKE HORSMAN, LETTERS BY SIMON BOWLAND

To end the originals for this month, we have the ending of what’s been a slight but fun thing, a space pirate quest done as a full-on silly comedy.

As the worst space pirates in the universe continue making their unexpectedly successful way to winning the treasure hunt where the prize is the answer to all their money worries – a spot on the Space Pirates’ Guild.

Deep in an asteroid field, a space worm on their tail, there’s a spacewalk to be done, and Barrel needs to step up to rescue his friend…

It’s an ending of sorts, but one where things are obviously left wide open for another series. After all, there’s the small matter of Hammer’s newly discovered past to talk about, with him seeing him as Space Police in a vision, something Barrel seems rather keen not to talk about…

So, the adventures of Andark Constant D’Barrel and Hammer 467B32A end, and they’ve been fun, although never quite living up to the comedy we saw in the first episode. I’d like to have seen that higher in the mix. But as it is, we’ve had plenty of great Luke Horsman artwork from this one, and that’s always a plus.

Now, to end, it’s straight off into more from Rok of the Reds, Wagner, Grant, and Cornwell’s great comic series where soccer and big, big sci-fi stuff come together. In the past six months, we’ve had the reprints of their previously published six episodes of Rok of the Reds, and now we’re straight into the second series, Rok The God.

Seriously, if you never had the opportunity of reading Rok, this is the second chance – don’t miss out this time. It’s a really great series, just that classic invention of Wagner and Grant, plus the earliest work of Cornwell, who’s since gone on to do really good things in the pages of 2000 AD.

A quick recap – Rok of the Arkady had taken off from his homeland, on the run from the powers that be there. Landing on Earth, the first person he comes into contact with is bad boy footballer Kyle Dixon. Taking Dixon’s place thanks to his Arkady tech, Rok figures he’ll hide out on Earth for a while, only to find himself falling in love with the beautiful game, transforming the fortunes of the Radford Reds in the process.

That first series was just the sort of ridiculousness one right that Wagner and Grant have always been able to do, mixing comedy and action but imbuing it all with a wonderful bit of heart.

Now, in Rok The God, we get even more of the same – and that’s definitely a great thing. It’s a new season for the Reds, complete with new trouble from Arkady, as Rok gets the news that his mother is dying and wants to see Rok one last time. But things are not what they seem, and Rok’s going to get an offer for both the throne of Arkady and a shot at Godhood that he might not be allowed to turn down.

And if that’s trouble away, there’s trouble at home as well to come for Rok and the Reds, as future issues will see the club struggling financially, gain an unscrupulous new owner looking to sell Dixon/Rok to Real Madrid, plus the comedic relief of the shrunken real Kyle Dixon and the corrupt referee Nigel Bull escaping Rok’s ship.

It’s every bit as great as the first series, a little lighter on the soccer and more focused on the action on Arkady perhaps, but all of it handled so wonderfully smoothly by all concerned.