The Monthly Megazine Issue #493: Rogue’s Back In Action

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.

Here we go, five brand-new strips and a Treasury of British Comics classic reprint. That includes the second part of ‘The Black Tower‘, the Megazine half of the current Mega Epic Judge Dredd that’s happening across the 2000 AD weekly and the Meg monthly. Additionally, we have the final part of Fargo & McBane, which also ties into the big Dredd tale happening right now. Then there’s more from the video game tie-in that is way punching above what you’d expect in Atomfall, more from the retro sci-fi alt-Dreddworld tale of Megatropolis, and the start of a new Rogue Trooper tale with An Iteration of Allies.

Extra to the five original strips, we have a Treasury of British Comics classic with The Angry Planet, plus pieces on Judgement on Gotham and Mask, as well as an interview with new 2000 AD writer Paul Starkey.

All that kicks off under a Rogue cover from Lee Carter …

Judge Dredd Megazine #493 was out on 17th June in the UK. Yeah, it’s a bit late, but hey, life, eh? It’s also available to readers in the Americas on 15th July. Except we’d highly recommend you head down to your local comic shop and ask them to order it in specially for you.

Okay then, preamble done. Let’s dive into this latest Megazine ….

Judge Dredd: The Black Tower — Part 2 — By Ken Niemand and Nick Percival, letters by Simon Bowland

Surely know by now that this is but one half of the latest big, big, big Judge Dredd mega-epic. You’ve got ‘The Oubliette’ happening over in the Prog, where Dredd is somewhere strange, somewhere far, far away from Mega-City One. Meanwhile, here, we have MC-1 in the aftermath of Dredd’s disappearance. Almost no one here remembers Dredd, and it’s Judge Rico who’s the ultimate lawman in the city. Although, as we’ve seen, Rico’s got troubling half-memories, fragments of a different MC-1…

So, yes, it’s Ken Niemand‘s show, and he’s giving us the epitome of all that is great about a Dredd mega-epic. They’ve been part of Dredd lore pretty much from the start, something not done every year, making them particularly special when they happen. And particularly wonderful when they’re done in the way Niemand’s doing this one.

In ‘The Black Tower’, he’s ably abetted by Nick Percival, who’s been collaborating with Niemand over the past few years on a series of strips designed to bring a dash of horror back to Dredd. All of those strips have laid the groundwork for this epic, as well as other Niemand-written Dredds. So it’s right that Percival should have a big hand in making this one work so well. His art is just the perfect fit for these horror Dredds, a gloriously grotesque style, his painted look giving us all the horrors.

So, last episode, the Black Tower materialised in the City, causing devastation and chaos. Psi-Div was practically wiped out due to the psychic backlash, and Rico was off to lead an attack on the Tower.

Now, we get a glimpse of the nightmares on the streets, strange new things attacking and devouring, citizens driven mad by the psychic wave, and all of it shown so beautifully by Percival …

As for Rico’s attack on the Black Tower … well, it’s not going too well, not too well at all. And the disaster unfolds across the City.

Meanwhile, Judge Inviata and Iron Teeth, seen across Niemand and Percival’s Dredd horrors, are looking on at what has been wrought on the city. They know the truth, know that Rico’s reputation as greatest lawman in MC-1 is a stolen one, know of Dredd, know he’s missing, all part of the plot they’re part of. Iron Teeth is off to track down those who may have memories of Dredd, and Inviata; she’s busy cosying up to Rico, convincing him to stage a second wave of futile attacks on the Black Tower. Seeing as he’s a ‘Favoured Son,’ something that we’ve been hearing plenty of in Fargo & McBane, Niemand’s series taking us back down the Fargo/Dredd-clone timeline to 70s New York, she gets him into the Black Tower, which is probably not a good thing.

Oh, and meanwhile, Judge Giant gets a message through from Joe Fargo … see what I mean about Niemand pulling in all the characters he’s introduced over the last few years. Joe Fargo, being the Judge Dredd from another MC-1, across the multiverse, was dumped in this MC-1 and meant to be living a quiet life. No, I guess not. Anyway, that’s for the next time, and in the pages of the Prog.

Yes, it’s a big Dredd epic, and it’s playing out really well.

Atomfall: The Wicked Isle — Part 3 — Final Part — By Jonathan L. Howard and Anthony Williams, letters by Rob Steen

Continuing the rather damn good prequel series to the Atomfall video game. Which might be fabulous, I just have no idea. I’m no gamer. I mean, I was a Spectrum kid, a NES teen, and then a devotee of Doom and Quake on PC — at least until I started to get motion sickness from the games that followed. Since then, gaming and I just haven’t intersected at all.

However, in terms of comic tie-ins to video games, the first series of Atomfall was just that rarest of things, a damn fine thing all of it’s own, reminding me of the brilliance of Gary Spencer-Millidge‘s Strangehave, all the folk horror and the mystery, the strangeness, the retro setting of the fifties tieing into the Quatermass sort of thing of the fifites, where the prevailing sense of hope for the glorious science-based future gave us some quite disturbing fictions.

So, Atomfall, written by the video games’ chief writer, takes place before the events of the video game, where we’re on the ground as the Windscale nuclear plant has blown up, and the government has locked things down, the military coming in and taking control, dealing with any contravention of the lockdown with deadly force.

In the midst of all this, we have journalist Jenny Coggins, sent into it all prior to the Windscale disaster, investigating the mystery tip-off that things were not right there. Now, after finding out just how not right things were, she’s as trapped as the other residents of Wyndham Village, living in the shadow of the nearby Windscale.

Now, surprisingly, disappointingly, we’re three and out here for this second series of Atomfall, over before we really got into things. Hell, there’s so much potential of what’s been happening here, with Jenny throwing her lot in with those villagers who’ve made the island off the mainland their new home, watching them get more and more savage, fighting off the attacks from the strange things from the sea. It’s all turning very Lovecraftian, all getting really interesting … and then, final page here, it’s all finished. Just Jenny walking away, picking up the phone in the phonebox that should get calls, and asking, ‘What now?’

I mean, there’s always the possibility of another series. I bloody well hope there is, as this three-parter feels like an opportunity missed, a potentially great series cut off just as it was really getting good.

Fargo & McBane: Favoured Sons — Part 4 — Final Part –By Ken Niemand and PJ Holden, Colours by Quinton Winter, Letters by Annie Parkhouse

Well, just as with Atomfall, this latest Fargo & McBane is over and done with part 4 before it really had a chance to fly. A damn shame, as the series by Niemand, now joined by Holden on art, doing his usual brilliant things, chronicling the tales of One-Eyed Jack, the toughest of the NY cops, and Fargo, ancestor of Dredd, part of the direct line of genetics that led to MC-1’s Justice Department.

It’s all tied into the Dredd mega-epic of ‘The Oubliette’ and ‘The Black Tower’, with talk of Favoured Sons, historical moments back as far as 1650, tracing the events happening now in MC-1 back to the 17th Century and to ’70s New York. As Fargo & McBane have become involved in this latest weird thing, they’ve uncovered a secret society tied into the heart and history of the city, one which holds way too many secrets, all wrapped up in the founding of the city that will eventually become the Mega-City.

Yet it all feels just that little rushed and, worse, a story that could have been great, all done too quickly in service to the bigger tale happening in Dredd right now. I mean, it’s fun seeing how Niemand has been developing so many strands of the tales over the last few years to finally draw them together in the Dredd epic going on now, but it feels like Fargo & McBane have rather been thrown under the bus of the bigger tale here.

Yes, Fargo & McBane is a great idea indeed; it’s just that this latest series feels too much like it’s merely serving as a prequel to what’s happening in Dredd.

Thing is, there’s far more to be explored in Fargo & McBane, and I really hope that Niemand and Holden return for more of their weird adventures in the future. It’s too good an idea to merely be a prequel to a Dredd tale.

Rogue Trooper: An Iteration Of Allies — By Andi Ewington and Sinu Senan, colours by Jim Boswell, letters by Simon Bowland

You do know there’s a Rogue Trooper movie coming out, don’t you? Hence why we’re getting all these Rogue tales in both the Prog and the Meg now. And, from what I’ve seen and heard, the movie does look pretty damn good.

As I’ve said before, Rogue Trooper is a thing constrained by its own perfection, as in the original series, a tale of a genetically enhance super soldier on a revenge mission to track down the Traitor General who’s responsible for the deaths of all but one of the enhanced GIs, was just a perfectly done thing, something that just perfectly self-contained that it was done, perfectly, in the story arc that began with the creation of the GIs and ended as Rogue finally saw the end of the Traitor General.

I mean, that’s not to say there isn’t mileage in the concept, as there’s plenty of stories to be told of the world of Nu Earth and the conflict between the Norts and the Southers as they fight the never-ending war. That’s something that’s so full of potential, the classic idea of war stories transposed to a sci-fi, futuristic setting. It’s just that Rogue’s tale is but one small, perfectly formed, part of that bigger picture.

Hence why some of the Rogue Trooper stories that followed the end of the series — and it is an end, the story cycle done when the Traitor General met his end — were less than satisfying. Recently, though, particularly with Garth Ennis and Patrick Goddard‘s additions to the mythos, we’ve been getting a new set of tales, ones pigeon-holed into the classic era of Rogue, taking place during his search for the Traitor General, and those do work.

Which brings us to this latest, as Ewington and Senan give us another tale of Rogue in classic mode. This time, it’s down on Nu Earth, as Rogue comes up against a Nort battalion. It’s a simple tale, Rogue versus the Norts, and that’s exactly the sort of Rogue tale that works. After all, not every Rogue tale needs to be ‘important’, not every Rogue tale needs to add to the mythos of the character, and this Rogue feels like one of those where it’s just a simple tale of Rogue and the war on Nu Earth. Nothing more, nothing less. And that’s absolutely fine.

So, we get Rogue outgunned, doing what he does best …

Following all that, he takes refuge in a long-forgotten Souther base, Fortress Itter, thought lost to the Norts many years back. But, as Rogue goes deeper into the lost base, things get interesting, as he finds out that not all the conflicts on Nu Earth are strictly Nort versus Souther. In war, it’s not always black and white, and what’s happening in Itter is all about the grey area in between.

So, yes, Ewington and Senan give us a good bit of Rogue being Rogue, just another well-done war story for us to enjoy. Like I say, the big Rogue tales have been done, but there’s still space for something like this, a damn enjoyable war tale done well.

The Angry Planet — By Alan Hebdon and Massimo Belardinelli

With Rok The World taking a hiatus for a while, it’s back to reprints to fill the gap. The Angry Planet featured in all 22 issues of the 2000 AD adjacent title, Tornado, published in 1979.

The Angry Planet is old-school 2000 AD, blessed with Massimo Belardinelli‘s artwork, immediately elevating it to something special.

It’s all about rebellious Martian colonists and the corporation, Mars Incorporated, looking to get them out of the way in order to strip-mine the planet. Having discovered oxygen under the surface of the planet, this is a new planet, and the new Martians are desperate to live there, despite what the corporation wants.

It’s all a bit of a fast-paced romp, bringing in issues of environmentalism and corporate control that still rings true today. But against all that, it’s still an old-fashioned thing of the goodies, those colonists, against the baddies, the evil corporation, Mars Inc.

Megatropolis Book II — Part 9 — By Kenneth Niemand and Chris Weston, Colours by Antonietta Saulino, Letters by Rob Steen

As is usual with Megatropolis, a word about the artwork. All of us, Chris Weston included, would have loved to have seen Dave Taylor‘s art here. Sadly, thanks to prostate cancer, that was not to be. And Weston has stepped into the breach valiantly, giving us some great, great art for this wonderfully different look at an alt-Dreddworld, a gloriously sci-fi futurist noir thing where Niemand gives us all the familiar names in very unfamiliar roles. But yes, we all wish Dave were with us today to give us his art on this one. So, a quick health message — if you’re a bloke over a certain age, go get yourself checked out. Embarrassment is not an excuse. Go to your doc and get the quick and easy test.

Okay, health message done, time to have a look at what Niemand and Weston are giving us here.

Megatropolis has always been this great, great thing, Niemand and Taylor crafting this wonderful alt-history of Mega-City One. Now that it’s Niemand and Weston, it’s still a great series.

There’s a hell of a lot of characters to keep in your head here, familiar names galore, yet all with new roles, new positions.

For example, Cass Anderson is now Madame Cassandra, con artist fortune-teller (or perhaps something more?) back in town as election day looms, with bad Bob Booth against challenger McGruder, with the fate of the city in play. And she’s trying to get in touch with Rico, one of the few good cops in the city.

As for Rico, he’s off looking for Orlok, the assassin in town to stop the election. And he’s walking into a trap…

While all that’s going on, Hershey, now a journalist, is with Fargo, the architect of the city, unaware they’re both being targeted by a copy of the psychopath Philip Maybry, the man who Detective Jara, another of the rare clean cops of the city.

So many tangled threads in here, all being slowly pulled together by Niemand and now Weston, in a series that really does give us this fun new look at Dredd and MC-1.