Multiver-City One: Judge Dredd Megazine 436 – Fit for Duty!

Welcome, Earthlets, to Multiver-City One, our monthly look at the “Judge Dredd Megazine!” Let’s get right to it.

Note: there is a NSFW image in this post, in case you’re reading this from your job and don’t want to have your boss see you looked at a possessed dildo.

Cover by Paul Williams and Chris Blythe

Christopher Egan: Following the recent kidnapping of Judge Francisco, a crime that was thwarted by Dredd himself, the two Judges are paired up to patrol together for a day. McConville’s script paired with Dyer’s artwork really delves into the shame and fear permeating Francisco’s thoughts. It’s a story of pain, anger, and PTSD. All things that normally get overlooked in the fascist future of Mega City One; and how Francisco acts and reacts in certain scenarios makes it abundantly clear that there is no help coming for his mental state, even if he knew how to seek it out.

The story moves along through multiple set pieces, allowing us to see a typical day of arrests and violence in the big city. McConville’s writing is well paced, giving us plenty of information while still allowing for the visuals to help tell the full story. It takes quite a few turns allowing for the plot to move in directions both expected and unusual, which was really nice. Not everything was cut and dry, nor as easy to figure out as expected. Even the final resolution to the strip was not at all where it seemed to be going. Dyer’s illustrations are finely detailed, and has a nice chunky, weighty feel to it. It feels right at home in the long-standing tradition of 2000AD artwork. Every scene is clearly understood. Every panel is plotted out perfectly. It’s a nice-looking story, with a solid script as its backbone.

A lot of the material covered in this month’s “Judge Dredd” has been tackled in some way over the years, but this story allows for this return to be a welcome one. Sometimes the Megazine 10 pages strips feel dragged out to make up the page space, but this never does. It’s a great story that shares the focus with Dredd while allowing another character to be in the spotlight, even if it’s for unfortunate reasons. One of the better Megazine outings in recent months.

Diamond Dogs II: Part 6
Credits: James Peaty(script), Warren Pleese (art), Simon Bowland (letters)

Matthew Blair: The problem with undercover work is how easy it is to lose yourself in a tangled web of lies, deceit, desires, and hidden loyalties, and in “Diamond Dogs II: Part 6”, we find out just how demanding it can be when it all comes crashing down.

“Diamond Dogs II: Part 6” is a finale with a good ending that’s still pretty sad, and writer James Peaty has created a situation where the reader feels happy for the hero, but it’s very easy to feel sad and sympathetic for her. To be clear, all of the sympathy is reserved for the hero, since Peaty goes out of the way to show just how evil and through the bad guys are by having them hang Jones’ colleagues. Despite all of this, the ending feels a bit sad. Sure, Jones has avenged her father and brought the bad guys to justice, but she’s still lost friends and people she cared about along the way. It’s a very bittersweet finale that ends with a great action set piece and a protagonist that got everything she wanted, but will be trying to process the cost for years.

The finale of “Diamond Dogs II: Part 6” requires a proper blend of action and emotion, and while I’ve had my complaints when it comes to Warren Pleese’s artwork, it’s artwork that does a very good job of conveying all the necessary width and breadth that is needed to end this story. Pleese continues to shine in the close up shots of each of the characters, ensuring that the reader knows exactly what they are thinking and what they’re about to do. As for the action, it remains clear and understandable and the reader always knows what’s going on.

“Diamond Dogs II: Part 6” is a solid ending to a story filled with all sorts of twists and turns, and while the hero of the story does suffer through quite a bit of emotional trauma that will probably haunt her for the rest of her life, it’s still an ending where she gets what she always wanted.

Michael Mazzacane: Things get weirder in “Amazonia” Part 5 and not in a good way. Of all the Megazine strips in this series it is the lightest and poorest of the bunch. The creative teams storytelling takes a sudden shift into “The Dark Judges,” ‘Torture Garden,’ territory by the team of David Hine(writer) and Nick Percival (artist). You can go into the 2019 Multiver-City One archives and read my coverage of that series; I didn’t find it very effective.

It mostly came down to Hine’s broad page layouts and their lack of flow. Nicolo Assirelli’s page design has more panels than Hine’s work, but both operate on a similar quasi-picturebook approach to construction. To his credit Assirelli’s pages do flow well with a clear guide for the eye. Still there are large page design choices that eat up real-estate and stretch the light plot of this episode even thinner. Take the opening splash page for example. It is an effective spread that also draws your eye across the page as our hero’s battle Mapinguari. But even in the Megazine, do you really need a spread?

Nicolo Assirelli’s art is mostly fine but falls short in terms of storytelling due to scripting by Si Spencer. As our trio battle Mapinguari Judge Mineiro suddenly gets an idea on how to defeat the beast … by feeding pieces of themselves to it they establish some kind of psychic hold over it and force it into the fire. That is a brutal way to defeat the monster, however, nowhere is this foreshadowed or setup in this or the previous strip. It just happens, and Correira and Chavez go along with it donating an eye and hand in the process. The fact that Mapinguari took Mineiro’s leg isn’t evident for another two pages – this is due to Eva De La Cruz choosing to a blood red too similar to Mineiro’s pants and a staging choice by Assirelli.

Everything just kind of happens and I have no explanation why it happened. This episode is 9 pages long and ends on another splash! 2000 AD and the Megazines tend to force storytelling synergy and efficiency, this episode is the opposite. It feels like a 5 page story stretched to 10 in the way you can make the font on a word document bigger and fill more pages.

Brian Salvatore: Angel is a fun character to follow around, because he seems like someone who can survive through almost anything. Sure, he’s in cuffs for most of this chapter, but there was never a moment where his survival was in doubt. But what Gordon Rennie’s script does is find ways to surprise you in how those things get accomplished, allowing the story to still be a relative surprise, even if the outcome is expected.

Lee Carter’s art is a little cleaner than you’d maybe draw up for a strip set in a western town. Everything is just a little too pristine, both in terms of the staging of the action and the characters’ appearances. This is the first chapter that’s felt that way and, perhaps, the more clinical setting is due to the setting in the Judge’s realm.

This chapter tells a, more or less, complete story about Angel’s incarceration, but leaves on a cliffhanger of the fate of the ‘Varmint,’ and Angel’s role with the Judge going forward. Though a little more slight than prior installments ‘Restitution, Three’ sets the story in an interesting direction for next month.

Brian Salvatore: The trial of Titivillus is underway, and to call the whole thing Kafka-esque would be silly, as Kafka is a part of this story. This entire installment is basically stalling for time as Devlin hatches a plan to free Titillus, and when the plan comes together, though not executed yet, the disparate pieces of the story start to fall together in really interesting and fun ways.

Mike Dowling, whose work has been so dynamic throughout this strip, is once again leveled a pretty static script to work with, but manages to do his best to make the story visually sing without much movement. The court of hell has cheerleaders, giant, talking carrots, and lots of other fanciful imagery, and cutting back and forth to them for reaction shots helps the story not feel so claustrophobic or repetitive.

Kot’s script is funny and fun, and sets up the strip for a few action packed chapters before wrapping it up, but I can’t help but feel this would have been slightly more fun if the trial was half as long, just to get back to what made the first few parts so engaging. That said, bring on the football!