Welcome, Earthlets, to Multiver-City One, our monthly look at the “Judge Dredd Megazine!” Let’s get right to it.
Judge Dredd: Planted, part 1
Credits: Rory McConville (script), Dan Cornwell (art), Jim Boswell (colors), Annie Parkhouse (letters).
Tom Shapira: Who is this Dan Cornwell and how come I haven’t noticed him before? Turns out he was doing work in the various British fanzines, like “Futurequake” and “Dogbreath,” and also drew an independent series with John Wagner himself (now that’s a pedigree); I believe this is his first Judge Dredd strip proper, and judging form this he has a bright future ahead of him of drawing many more: he hits just the right balance of comedy and action the story calls for, he has the right set of skills to really sell the joke of someone losing his head to a sentient tree creature; but I am, of course, getting ahead of myself….
This new serial is written by 2000AD’s rising star Rory McConville certainly tries to do a lot in this new serial – not only we have new breed of Groot-like monsters rampaging through the city, we also get a dash of corporate intrigue, some attempts at social media satire (with various vid-stars cheering at each other’s demise in the race for clicks) and hint of something a bit Alan Moore-ish with a lovelorn scientist.
Needless to say it’s a lot to take in such a short page count, even the larger page count of the Megazine is limited compared to American-style comic-books, and we will only know if everything here connects properly when this story is settled. But when it comes to the Megazine and the progs I’ll always prefer to have too much than too little. And even the destination is not necessarily the greatest this one can prove to be a fun ride.
Lawless: Ashes to Ashes, Part 6
Credits: Dan Abnett (script), Phil Winslade (art), Ellie de Ville(letters)
Kent Falkenberg: An old woman travels to the end of a desolate road. And when she can hardly move anymore, she crawls on hands and knees towards it. This woman, is it Metta Lawson? Is it really someone else? Is there any between the two seems to be the question Dan Abnett and Phil Winslade hope to answer in the stark ‘Ashes to Ashes, Part 6.’
The close of last week’s strip saw Metta Lawson holding a vigil with the many ghosts of her past. This week, on the other hand, gives her the opportunity to offer up a last confession to the Nerys, the one specter she’s held closest to her calloused heart. Framed as a fevered hallucination as the immense physical toll of crossing the Radlands beats down on her, the conversation allows Abnett to fill in the blank pages in Lawson’s history. It’s a clever device that lets us contrast the woman she was with the one we knew through the bulk of the series with the aged version we see now. It helps to put her motivation through the series and her relationship with Pettifer in perspective.
But as strongly written as ‘Ashes to Ashes, Part 6,’ is Winslade’s art that once again leaves an indelible arc. While he’s more than earned his bonafides at cramming as much detail onto the page as possible, it’s the restraint and minimalism this week that leaves a lasting impression. As Lawson goes hoofs her last tortured paces through the deep wastes, Winslade’s panels are often composed of just her against a stark white background. The barest edges of rock outcroppings are shown, but they few and far between. It’s shockingly effective at not just implying the blinding glare of a blistering sun, but it captures both the desolation of the radlands and just how alone she’s become at the end of her days.
Abnett and Winslade’s epic feels like it’s coming to an end. But these two masterful creators show they’ve still got some narrative and artistic tricks up their sleeve to keep their tale as vibrant as ever.
Storm Warning: Green and Pleasant Land Part 2
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Leah Moore and John Reppion (script), Tom Foster (art), Eva De La Cruz (colors), Simon Bowland (letters)
Greg Lincoln:Leah Moore and John Reppion storytelling take a bit of a miss step in this part but gets its footing back right away. They open this chapter with a reminder of just how rigidly socially stratified Brit-Cit still is in the future and the tensions between the classes still are. Social inequity actually causes a great deal of problems or at least tensions. In their plotting they stick to pretty well trod police procedural story beats and remind us that, for the most part, the authorities are really just grasping at straws till an actual clue turns up. For this story it just happened that one of the protesters collared from the opening has information that Psi-Judge Lillian Storm could draw out and use to move the story forward. Lillian’s preternatural skills in a round about way get her the information leading her to more of the less fortunate members of Brit-Cit society, one that it turns out might just have been connected to a past Judge of some sort.
The art by Foster and De La Cruz goes from middling to eerie in this chapter. In the opening scenes the attention and detail they included was fine, it did the job but you can see as the strip progresses where their time was spent. The interrogation scene, where they showed the world from Storm’s POV was rich with interesting use of color and texture making its absence in the earlier scene evident. Even in the final scene in the more pedestrian living conditions they seemed to be more interested in taking effort to make it look lived in and more detailed then the opening scene. Their art quality seemed to improve across the strip. It’s not a bad thing but it was an evident thing.
Blunt II, Part Six
Credits: T.C. Eglington(script), Boo Cook (art), Simon Bowland (letters)
Rowan Grover: “Blunt II”’s story and lore come to a climax in part six. Here, Eglington reveals all about the nature of mutations on Getri-1. We’re told a tale of invasion and colonization, where the natives of this planet are viral and beyond everyday comprehension, and have mutated the Earth colonizers to their advantage. It’s dark, tense storytelling, especially as we see the original human colonizer, Osman, start to be taken over by the mutations and promote their ideals. We learn a little more about our titular character Blunt, who turns out to be pseudo-related to Osman, the person who injected Blunt with the means to mutate. It’s interesting but feels a little cheap as we’ve little to nothing of Osman in the comic before besides for flashbacks, making it hard for us to hate him. Ilya gets a chance to be powerful, however, as she taps into the latent psychic potential of the fungus to fight back Osman, in some great development for her character.
Cook’s art works great in this particular issue, as there is a distinct visual difference between mutated and non-mutated beings. In this vein, I love that there almost seems to be a familial resemblance between Osman and Blunt, both with elongated jaws and top-heavy postures, as it adds more to their connection and rivalry than most of what the narrative does. Cook gets to go wild from about a third of the way through the issue with paneling and page structure like he’s done so spectacularly before. We see Ilya’s psychic powers create a blue-tinged flashback bubble, with kinetic, shaky panel framing to give it an ethereal quality. Page after page, this becomes increasingly manic, with one set up, in particular, featuring panels spiraling outwards from a central image in a pentagonal shape. It’s exciting and reads like a dream, and paired with Cook’s generally quite raw and sketchy style, it’s fast past and fun.
“Blunt II” continues to be interesting, revealing more of the world’s setting without letting up on the series’ signature pace. Some character connections are lacking, but the characters themselves are interesting, and the visual structure is masterfully executed.
The Torture Garden Part Six
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Credits David Hine (scrip) Nick Percival (art) Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Michael Mazzacane: “The Torture Garden” continues and it’s starting to fall back into tedium. In the previous entry I praised the willingness of the strip to just go and do bombastic things, like resurrecting Judge Fear, and having a bit of dark fun. Nick Percival’s art even shined in a few of those spots. This latest entry doesn’t keep things moving as we get some back story on Sabatini, that fails to really build any sympathy of the devil. Mostly, the problem with the sixth entry into “The Torture Garden” is Hine’s script forgoing forward movement for jumping about and showing us everyone else catching up and realizing Judge Fear is back. Things do start out with the description of this strip as “this almighty snafu” so there are some hints of fun about it.
Percival’s art continues to be too static for my liking, although their page designs are becoming better overall which lessons it. The static quality is put to good use at the start as we get the needles one page backstory on the history of the Dark Judges. While Hines script is superfluous, it lets Hine draw the hilarious image of three of the four judges just floating in space, and that is funny. Percival seems to be using layouts with more inlaid panels for the tight reaction shots, as various people stare at computers or get secret messages. Those inlaid panels help with the strips overall flow, it is starting to move away from that picture book quality of early strips. One clear shortcoming – or perhaps symptom of Sabatini’s madness – is the presentation of Sabatini’s squad all looking the same.
The interactions between Sabatini and Fear are overall solid, panels are constantly shown with canted angles that help both exasperate the size of Fear and raise the feeling of creepiness. For all his worship of death, Sabatini’s reaction to Fear asking if he is ready to die is rather humours thanks to Annie Parkhouse lettering. The expression Percival gives Sabatini as he prepares for his reward is among the best expressions he’s done in the strip thus far, mostly due to the follow up panel.
As always “The Torture Garden” has moments of quality, but this strip in particular feels like it is filling pages instead of getting to the payoff that is now promised for the next Megazine.
