Welcome, Earthlets, to Multiver-City One, our monthly look at the “Judge Dredd Megazine!” Let’s get right to it.
Judge Dredd vs Razorjack ‘This Corrosion Part Three
Credits: Michael Carroll(script) John Higgins(art) Sally Hurst(colors) Annie Parkhouse(letters)
Michael Mazzacane: And so ‘This Corrosion’ comes to an overall satisfying ending, with a somewhat requisite black humored twist to boot. The stylistic choices that made moments in the previous strip somewhat hard to read aren’t apparent in this issue as Dredd finally takes the fight to the Razorjack.
The lack of confusion seems to be from colorist Sally Hurst choice a more complementary palette. The previous strip was a morass of browns and green-browns. As the Razorjack children swarm the ship, their bodies and setting becomes a play in largely balancing two tone pages (blue and black) with a couple of other additions. Making the children’s bodies a composition of blue and black was a good way to play up the sense of horror of their feral actions as they tear through the ship. With so much black on the page it’s like they are everywhere, and with panels jumping to multiple spaces you aren’t given a strong sense of exactly what is going wrong, except for that everything is. The color scheme also helps to make them similar but different enough from their brethren which are primarily black and red.
These two primary color schemes help give the strip a sense of cohesions as Dredd gets off the ship and faces the Queen in pages that soaked in reds and oranges. With all these colors mixing together, I wondered if having the Razorjack’s lettering represented in that black on blood red would still be readable. Surprisingly, it managed to stand out just enough without feeling plastered above the image. Reading this strip and just looking at how Hurst plays off of John Higgins blacks has been a real pleasure.
The fight against Razorjack was a nice example of good page use. Each page was essentially an action beat unto itself, that would culminate in Dredd doing something to blow apart his foe. Which would lead to the next page of Razorjack back in a new form only to be blown apart again. The rhythm goes on for two or three pages, eventually mixing in with a larger base destruct sequence interspersed afterwards. But the way those pages were designed created the feeling of a grueling battle.
It’s still slightly weird reading Dredd making something of a pithy one liner, Michael Carroll does a good job walking the line of what a Dredd joke would look like and actual humour. As the Razorjack goes on a banal villain monologue about wanting to destroy the multiverse and make everything darkness, Dredd helpfully points out that isn’t a very unique goal. What he says isn’t funny, how that line plays off prior Dredd stories and the current context is.
The Pavadir’s narration that’s run through strip ties everything together in the final pages as it twists on the name of the strip. It helps cohere what is essentially a montage finale as the Judges go back to Earth, with the potential for more stories teased. Overall this was an entertaining Dredd outing, got to see some alien worlds and excellent coloring that set it apart.
The Returners, Irmazhina, Part Five
Credits: Si Spencer (script), Nicolo Assirelli(art), Eva de la Cruz (Colours), Simon Bowland (letters)
Kent Falkenberg: It’s taken a few months to get here, but Si Spencer and Nicolo Assirelli finally deliver an installment of “The Returners” that feels complete from both a character and creepiness perspective. While Assirelli’s art has been fantastic throughout the strip, there has always been something lacking in terms of the character motivations and interactions. In “Irmazhina, Part Five” Spencer peels back the veil on these people’s pasts that really shades how they’ve acted and interacted up until this point.
In terms of structuring a story, it’s understandable why this reveal would happen now. And they way in which it happens does say a lot about the mechanics of the dark mysticism at play. In seeing the past of each of the flawed Returners, it feels like there’s finally some kind of personal connection being built towards them. It’s just unfortunate it’s taken five strips for Spencer to give out anything that would forge this bond.
Continued belowAssirelli is a master at laying out his art to emphasize specific details without things ever feeling overly cluttered. Each character’s backstory is limited to two pages, and they’re packed with the sordid facts of everyone’s lives leading up to their return from the dead. But each one is arranged so cleanly the action never gets in the way of seeing what the flashback is trying to demonstrate in terms of who they are at their core.
“Irmazhina, Part Five” finally brushes up against just how good a strip it could be. “The Returners” has steadily improved over the past two weeks. There’s so momentum building here towards the end, and there’s nothing to say that Spencer and Assirelli aren’t gearing up to really nail the landing.
Devlin Waugh: Kiss Of Death, Part Two
Credits: Rory McConville (script), Mike Dowling(art), Simon Bowland (letters)
Rowan Grover: Devlin and Mercury continue to investigate the catastrophic events of last chapter with Part Two. I was shaky with the start of this chapter starting mid-sentence but everything started to click once again by the end of the first page, and I was fully back in for the ride on the next. McConville delivers Waugh by way of Indiana Jones, having the pair explore through a secret underground passage hidden in the men’s toilets of a falafel shop (a nice comedic touch to keep things light and modern). McConville handles tension well, building up to the Fifth of Aac. The two converse on the matter of the subject whilst traversing the corridor, with dialogue interjected by Mercury’s musings on the situation at hand. It gives a sense of movement to the narrative so that we’re not bogged down by one subject being explained to us in a stationary situation. The last few pages deliver a moment fairly spoiler-y so I won’t get into it to much, but suffice to say McConville played with my expectations expertly, building me up with a ray of hope before immediately cutting me back down.
The art here is as crisp and shiny is ever thanks to Mike Dowling. I love his subtle expression work, with Waugh looking strong and confident whilst talking to the holographic nun, with all the complex dialogue going straight over Mercury’s head simply with Dowling’s fantastic eyebrow angling on Mercury’s face. Dowling also handles composition and panel contrasting well in the latter half of the chapter. When the narrative takes us down to the point of seeing the Fifth of Aac, we first see a small corner panel zoomed out on Waugh and Mercury, showing them as small figures, followed by a big half page panel of the monstrous creature looming above them. It’s great at showing stature and inspiring mystery and dread in the reader with simple panel sizing. The use of the classic nine-panel structure on the last page is cleverly used to fade to black as well, conveying scattered moments of consciousness before an all-encompassing black sequenced through the separate panels.
McConville and Dowling continue to invigorate “Devlin Waugh” with modernity and classical adventure elements. This is one of the more exciting books in the monthly magazine that hides surprises around every page to keep readers guessing and constantly coming back.
Chopper: Wandering Soul, Part 4 – I’ll Never Lie Down and Die for You
Credits: David Baillie (script), Len O’Grady & Brendan McCarthy (art), Ellie De Ville (letters)
Greg Lincoln: This chapter of ‘Wandering Soul’ does what comics do best: it provides a massive cosmic level spectacle that a special effects blockbuster could not meet. Though Chopper gets a heroic moment this chapter, the overall situation is so much more dire all around when the dust settle. Many of the players get a moment in this chapter. Marlon has his moment to shine and avoids being a problematic white savior (for now). Kaiya, “new” Cleverman of the Wally, has his moment too. Spotlighted throughout this chapter are Judges of the Australia Mega City. They heavily debate and try their hardest to avoid resorting to the literal nuclear option that Dredd advises last month. Sadly, it came down to that in the end as the nano storm freed from the influence of the Dreamtime becomes something worse then it was before. We’ll have to wait and see how this resolves itself as Karadji Wally seems to be heading to try and tackle the Mega sized Judges that arrive in the nightmarish final scene in the strip.
Continued belowThe ending image is one that will stick with you. It gives this story the weight of the cosmic entities that menace the earth in both DC and Marvel stories every so often. The art work O’Grady and McCarthy delivered this time around was more cohesive, you can’t quite tell that this story was being told be two artists quite so much. Thankfully the psychedelic neon colors meshed better this time too, setting atmosphere again rather then distracting from the story overall. McCarthy and a O’Grady also reward you for paying attention the the panels as they provide Easter eggs of interesting detail along with the flowing story. All around a better reading experience from the action down to the integrated sound effects from the pen of Ellie De Ville. I am left wondering if Karadji Wally might ultimately still have to sacrifice himself to save all those around him.
Strange Brigade, Part 1
Credits: Gordon Rennie (script), Tiernen Trevallion (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Tom Shapira: A video game adaptation! which I believe to be the first in the history of the Megazine (though I could be wrong) – despite the Publisher, Rebellion, being first and foremost a video game developer. Anyway, if you didn’t know you wouldn’t notice so I wouldn’t be too worried about the publisher shoving unwanted content down our throats – this certainly reads like a pitch that could’ve started in 2000Ad either way.
We are deep in ‘colonial adventure’ territory, with a bunch of his majesty’s finest in the early 19th century going down dark catacombs to fight monsters, though at least here they are putting stuff back rather than taking it away. It’s the kind of premise that is probably out of style today (and with a good reason) so the creators try to smooth it by playing the whole thing as an over the top horror-comedy with the caption boxes written as if to be read by Brian Blessed. I think the problem is that they can’t play it over the top enough – the story still wants us to take the danger seriously enough, so instead of an actual comedy what we have is a straightforward story with some light dashes of humor.
It’s readable enough. Mostly thanks to some fine action storytelling from Tiernen Trevallion, he had done similar work for 2000AD before, who certainly seems to enjoy himself with the caricaturist designs of the main characters and the various classic monsters. It’s a very packed strip, even with the longer page count, and he gets to try his hand at various scenes and backgrounds – and succeeds in them all. Annie Parkhouse, lettering powerhouse that she is, brings her usual strong work – she knows when to play is straight and when to push it to the max.
If you come in expecting something exceptionally clever, or subversive, you are probably going to be a bit disappointed. If you are willing to take this strip in its own terms it’s a fun ride (so far).
