The Monthly Megazine Issue #496: Dredd, Zombies, And Just Another Day In Mega-City One

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, another month, another Judge Dredd Megazine, 100 pages of monthly goodness. This month, there’s five new strips carrying on from last month, plus the finale to The Angry Planet reprint.

There’s a new Dredd multi-parter from Geoffrey D Wessel and Nick Roche, ‘Rojimbo’, bringing Hondo City to MC-1 once more. Plus the continuing exploits of Lillian Storm in Storm Warning: Slaughter House, more from the early days of Dredd in Mega-City 2099 in Zomball, more Rogue Trooper in the wastelands of Nu Earth, and more of the glorious Lawless, following Colonial Marshal Metta Lawson in her attempts to bring justice to Badrock.

Everything starts under that Dredd vs Zombies cover by Anthony Williams …

Judge Dredd Megazine #496 was out on Wednesday, 16th September in the UK. Which is a week and a bit ago now. Meaning I’m WAY late on this one. However, it’s also going to be available to US comic shops from 14th October. And that means, you know, if you look at it one way, I’m not actually late at all. No, really. Anyway, if you do happen to be in the Americas and fancy getting your hands on 100 pages of great British comics, have a word with your local comic shop and get them to order it in for you.

So, preamble done, time to head into the latest Meg.

Judge Dredd: Rojimbo — Part 1 — By Geoffrey D Wessel and Nick Roche, letters by Simon Bowland

Toshiro Mikami’s on a mission in Mega-City One, a mission that involves hitting up the Hondo collectable shops for a certain toy — sorry, action figure — that seems to have something inside it.

Meanwhile, Dredd’s babysitting a rookie, investigating the Hondo collectables burglary, making the break that a stealth suit, one favoured by Hondo Cit Yakuza.

So, Mikami’s mission goes south pretty much from the start, as things do when Dredd gets involved. But why is he after one certain little action figure? What’s in there that he’s after? Well, that’s one for next time.

So far, so good. All the set-up is done here, with Wessel giving us just a normal day in the life of Dredd and the Judges, tracking down the leads and following things up, leading to taking Mikami into custody. But the questions about why Mikami’s here in MC-1 are still there, and we’re left wondering what this is all about. Not in a bad way, Wessel just uses this first episode to get us asking questions, while Roche does a fine job on the art here.

Storm Warning: Slaughterhouse — Part 2 — By John Reppion and Lee Carter, letters by Rob Steen

Psi-Judge Lillian Storm, one of Brit-Cit’s grumpiest, perhaps only matched by Armitage. Of course, Armitage is just grumpy through age and experience; Storm’s got the added difficulties of being cursed with the ability to talk to the dead, meaning she’s now constantly in the company of her ghostly companions. Usually just distracting and annoying, occasionally helpful in the odd case.

Here, she’s been called to Slaughter House, a stately home, residential seat of the Slaughter family, all on sort of an unofficial favour between the Slaughter family and the powers that be in Brit-Cit.

Seems Lord Slaughter’s been murdered by his own Botler droid no less, stabbing his master with a chef’s knife. But the Botler droid, according to the Teks on site, is fine, functioning absolutely normally; nothing wrong with it at all. The only quirk in the programming is that Slaughter himself programmed the Botler to be able to harm humans on instruction from Slaughter himself. While all this is going on, Slaughter’s cryo-contract kicks in, with his head now in a temporary cryo-bubble as Judge Storm starts her investigation… and immediately runs into ghosts…

That’s from last Prog. Here, we’re getting deeper into it all, the epitome of what Storm Warning is all about, taking the quirky end of Brit-Cit’s Justice Department, already a world away from the strict, buttoned-down, nightmarish world of Mega-City 1, and then giving it an extra weird and strange spin here.

All of the previous Storm Warning tales, first written by John Reppion and Leah Moore, now Reppion solo, have had that off-kilter feel, and they’re much the better for it. This one, absolutely no exception.

Storm has, against her better judgment, and thanks to an order from on high telling her that, “There’s more to Slaughter House than I have told you,” and that “Psi-Div have been expressly forbidden from entering Slaughter House for decades,” she’s now, very unofficially, on the case, trying to figure out just what it is that the Slaughters don’t want Psi-Div to know.

Oh yes, there are stories to be told by the ghosts Storm’s already seen in Slaughter House, and you imagine it’s all very much off the books. So Storm gets to work, interrogating the ghosts, and she finally gets something she can look into …

Oh, and then there’s the mysterious tape found by Tek-Div, an old tape recorder (ask your parents) where the now-deceased Lord Slaughter has recorded himself giving his Botler permission to kill him. All very convenient, too damn convenient for Storm.

So we’re into a classic bit of murder mystery, Brit-Cit style, with Reppion giving us the whole closed-room thing, stately home style, with every ghost having their own murder to solve. A formulaic thing, of course, but given enough style and twist to make it intriguing.

And then there’s Lee Carter’s artwork here, the best he’s done yet, very digital still, as that’s how he works, but with a real organic feel to them, detailed, stylish, full of emotion and depth, really worth your time to take a look.

Mega-City 2099 — Zomball — By Ken Niemand and Conor Boyle, letters by Annie Parkhouse

Carrying on with last month’s Mega-City 2099 tale, set right back in the very earliest days of Judge Dredd, with things just as they were back in the early days – 1977 in the real world, 2099 in Mega-City One.

Dredd’s on the case, a murder he’s promised to solve, a little time travel-ish stuff going on, the tease of a secret in Dredd’s past, and shadowy figures shutting down the time travel stuff on the orders of the Chief Judge.

And now we’re back for the second part of this multi-parter filled with nostalgia, a new case, but the same bigger-picture stuff happening, with the Chief Judge concerned about Dredd’s uncovering of his history, as seen at the end of the last episode…

The case is all about Zomball, where enhanced lab-grown gene freaks and dead zombie MC-1 Cits battle it out for the public’s entertainment. Cue Dredd on the scene, thinking to himself — yes, thought bubbles are back, all part of the retro feel of the strip, as Dredd in those early days did use thought bubbles — “A sick spectacle but maybe a necessary one. One hundred million population crammed together like cockroaches. They need an outlet for their anger, their aggression. If this gives them that, then so be it.”

Oh yes, Niemand’s thoroughly enjoying getting back into that somewhat overblown fascist boy scout that Dredd was back then.

Anyway, the Zomball players go out of control, meaning Dredd’s stepping in …

And wouldn’t you know it, the subsequent investigation takes Dredd into the world of gene-science that created the Zomball freaks, the same gene-science that created him. Fighty, fighty, all ending with Dredd thinking to himself once more that he’ll find those responsible and bring them to justice. Which of course leads to another final page of the Chief Judge, shrouded in shadow, lamenting that Dredd knowing part of the truth about his origins is “Regrettable. Very regrettable.”

Oh, you can practically hear Niemand cackling when he wrote the Chief Judge’s dialogue. He understands the brief here: give us a nostalgic look at Dredd as he was back in 1977/2099, complete with all the heavily written, drama-laden dialogue. Similarly, Boyle is giving us something rather special, art that mimics the feel of early Dredd, but does so with a lustre of the now, retro-sci-fi with a polished, modern touch, all very impressive, and a whole lot of fun.

Rogue Trooper: An Iteration Of Allies — Part 4 –By Andi Ewington and Sinu Senan, colours by Jim Boswell, letters by Simon Bowland

Andi Ewington writes a good Rogue Trooper, one that, yet again, drops us back into Rogue’s war taking place whilst he was tracking down the Traitor General, betrayer of his comrades, and the story driver for all the very best Rogue Trooper stories. Frankly, the whole character arc of Rogue was so well defined, so perfectly done by creators Gerry Finley-Day and Dave Gibbons (and many great artists after Gibbons) that anything after the end of the Traitor General storyline is almost moot, unnecessary.

But the idea of Rogue and the location of Nu Earth is still fertile ground for storytelling. The desolate, toxic wasteland of Nu Earth, site of the never-ending war between the Norts and the Southers, where the Genetic Infantrymen, a Souther creation, were meant to be the soldiers to tip the balance, only for the Traitor General’s actions to leave just Rogue alone, the last of his kind, seeking revenge; it’s still got so many tales in it.

And An Iteration of Allies is one of those tales. Rogue’s found Fortress Itter, where Norts and Southers are working together, going beyond that endless war, but now threatened by a Nort battalion’s attack. Inside the Fortress, old battle lines are drawn, the uneasy truce of this idealised place tested by this new threat. And meanwhile, the runner, the one tasked with bringing the cavalry, comes under a hell of a lot of fire. The thing is, Rogue knows that, even if he makes it to the Souther reinforcements, that’s still going to spell the end of this little experiment in cooperation between Norts and Southers.

It’s a straightforward Rogue tale in so many ways — drop Rogue into somewhere, give him an enemy to fight, let him get on with it. But Ewington’s added a little interest with this Norts and Southers coming together in a difficult new society idea. It’s enough to give An Iteration of Allies that little something above your run-of-the-mill Rogue tale, where we’re asked to imagine what could happen if the people decided the outcome of the war and not those in command. But of course, understanding the brief, Ewington and Senan still build in enough moments of Rogue being Rogue to tick the required boxes as well.

The Angry Planet — Part 4 — Final Part — By Alan Hebdon and Massimo Belardinelli

The reprint in the Megazine, back to the 1970s, 1979 specifically, when The Angry Planet ran in Tornado, reprinted here from the archives of the Treasury of British Comics, with Alan Hebdon and Massimo Belardinelli giving us a story about rebellious Martian colonists taking a stand against the evil corporations intent on doing whatever the hell they want. 40+ years later, and the themes are still valid.

There’s a real joy in reading these ’70s strips, stories from another time, where storytelling was simpler, faster, tied to the weekly schedule, not the idea of any collection. Thus, each episode stands alone: four pages of beginning, middle, and end with some form of cliffhanger, leading into the new four pages to be read next week. It’s a different world, a different reading experience, and plenty of lovely Belardinelli art to enjoy.

Lawless: Planchett’s Patent Prophylactics — By Dan Abnett and Phil Winslade, letters by Simon Bowland

So, Abnett and Winslade are definitely going down the route of one full tale each issue now, all of them containing little story threads building and building. And that’s just fine and dandy, as — and I’m sure I may have mentioned this before — Lawless is the best thing to come out of the Megazine in oh so many years, this glorious frontier cowboys sci-fi saga allowing Abnett to do just whatever he damn well likes, and Winslade to fill every single page with those utterly insane amounts of detailing. You know, the sort of art that has other artists sweating just considering the amount of work that he pours into this.

Of course, as ever, do yourselves a huge favour and go pick up the entire saga through the collections. You’ll thank me for it.

However, as with all 2000 AD, not knowing the past doesn’t stop you from immediately getting Lawless. Honestly, all you need to know is it’s a Dreddworld wild west tale, with Marshal Metta Lawson as the sheriff of this lawless town. And that’s especially true this time round, with these collections of perfect little vignettes.

So, Planchett’s Patent Prophylactics. Where we see Deputy Pettifer in pursuit of yet another naughty resident of Badrock, and ending up taking a little trip in a rather strange shop that shouldn’t be there.

Knowing Abnett, the whole mystery of this one, seemingly a weird diversion, albeit an utterly delightful and ridiculous one, will turn out to be hugely important to whatever longer tale he’s spinning this time. Or maybe not. Such is his way. And frankly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Winslade’s swirling panels and pages add perfectly to the whole trippy nature of it all, as Pettifer finds herself well and truly down the rabbit hole here. And just what is the deal with the whole Lift and Liftability novel that’s got everyone in Badrock engrossed, and just how has Professor Planto Planchett got hold of the sequel, Mute and Mutability? A sequel that might never be published. Oh, the many mysteries of Lawless indeed.

The Professor spins a web of strangeness around Pettifer, the shop holding many secrets, and something definitely more deadly, and it takes all of Pettifer’s considerable, and much underrated, strength to get the hell out of there, only to find, when the tale is done, that all is absolutely not as it seems.

Yep, one and done, a bizarre little one-off, twisty, weird, a bad trip for Pettifer, and a fine tale of Lawless for us. But then again, has any tale of Lawless been anything but?