Welcome, Earthlets, to Multiver-City One, our monthly look at the “Judge Dredd Megazine!” Let’s get right to it.
Judge Dredd: One Eyed Jacks 03
Credits: Ken Neimand (script) Ian Richardson (art) Quinton Winter (colors) Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Matthew Blair: All of the set up and expository information is out of the way, so now it’s time for the past and future to come together and start interacting with each other. The thing is that time travel stories like these are usually either too complicated to follow or the creative team doesn’t plan it right and winds up creating a jumbled mess.
Not with this one though, this one takes the idea of a 1970s cop meeting a future Mega City One cop and makes it work…for now.
It’s very clear that writer Ken Neimand knows what he’s doing in “Judge Dredd: One Eyed Jacks 03” and has managed to craft a time travel crossover that is readable and actually makes a lot of sense. Neimand does a very good job of striking a balance between the two time periods, giving each side a chance to do some great detective work and realize what is going on. It’s safe to say that a lot of thought has gone into making this story fun and believable, but not at the expense of the reader’s confusion.
The parallels between the grit and grime, the aggressive cops, and the criminals ranging from idiotic to intelligent of Mega City One and 1970’s New York are extremely clear in Ian Richardosn’s artwork on “Judge Dredd: One Eyed Jacks 03”. While most of the comic is made up of close ups and character shots, Richardson does a great job of showing how dark, brutal, and violent both times can be. Richardson uses a lot more dark coloring in this segment of the story, which gives the whole book a dark and oppressive vibe.
“Judge Dredd: One Eyed Jacks 03” brings the two main characters of two different series closer together. In fact, they’re so close they’re starting to overlap and crossover with each other in weird and interesting ways.
Storm Warning: Dead and Gone Part 6
Credits: John Reppion (script), Clint Langley (art), Jim Campbell (letters)
Greg Lincoln: The finale of ‘Dead and Gone’ finally brings us back around to the changeling imps plot from the opening set up. Given all that has occurred, it’s easy to have forgotten about them by this point. Lillian Storm has been to the afterworld and back to the consternation of her fellow judges, and she’s lost her commander and father figure in this story that seemed a bit of a farce at the outset. This chapter sets the hook with Judge Turners line “… no one actually gave you permission to return from the dead,” and does not let go until the final shots ring out in the end. It’s so freaking British to apply bureaucracy and red tape to coming back from the dead. It’s funny and returns us to the weird and oddly humorous opening chapter. John Reppion’s dialogue just kills it in this chapter from that line on; the play between the dead serious and smirk inducing lines makes this ending a solid ply well told tale.
Clint Langley is spot on with the art, too. Lillian Storm looks sharp, hones and menacing throughout this strip. The art has a tone of the ethereal and sinister about it due to the cold and haunting colors Langley used. Storm comes off as a full-on visual righteous, vengeful angel in the face of threats to her second life. The choice to tint everything in a cold blue tone, faces, armor, and all, still makes everything look a little Warhammer 40000, but it’s still a solid stylistic choice and one carried throughout this story. It’s a sold ending to this meandering tale, leaving you wanting more despite its faltering middle chapters.
Devlin Waugh: Karma Police, Part 6
Credits: Ales Kot (script), Rob Richardson (art), Simon Bowland (letters)
Brian Salvatore: Of all of the spiritual and supernatural creatures that might emerge in a Devlin Waugh story, a guardian angel – hilarious described by Waugh as a twink – would have been last on my list. But here were are, and the explanation works well enough. How else would Waugh have survived this long otherwise? Yes, it is a bit of a deus ex machina, but that doesn’t really matter in this context. Ales Kot earns the reveal, both through the amazing reveal and because of just how down Devlin is at this point in the story.
Continued belowThe interaction with the angel happens while Rob Richardson shows Waugh continue to devolve into a lumpy, naked mess of clay and goiters. That is juxtaposed nicely with a Waugh ancestor on the high seas, pirating to and fro. Richardson is able to make being a pirate look downright glamorous next to Devlin’s current state. Not that Richardson is white-washing the pirate exploits, but anything looks better than melting into a limp flesh bag of bones and fat.
For the first time in a few chapters, there appears to be hope for Devlin, and yet that hope, as always, seems conditional. As has been said in this column before, Kot is telling a new kind of Devlin Waugh story with “Karma Police,” and it still manages to pack in surprises and twists, six months in.
Dark Judges: Death Metal Planet Part Six
Credits: David Hines (script), Nick Percival (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Chris Egan: A slight peek into the how and why of a Dark Judge’s creation is the bulk of this month’s chapter. Unfortunately it is more interested in hinting at things of this nature rather than exploring them. And while it seems apparent that these answers will come in future entries, the problem that this story just isn’t all that interesting makes the wait for answers typically more annoying or at least frustrating rather than making the journey more interesting and worth it.
Almost this entire strip has seemed more concerned with its aesthetic than the story, and while it does play around with some ideas and isn’t all style over substance, it never rises above its parts. The art is strong and mostly does a good job with the gross out violence and otherworldly spookery. Parkhouse’s lettering is a highlight as always, especially getting to play around with some wilder stylings.
Hine isn’t just messing around with the writing, he clearly has a plan for how this will all shake out. I just wish the pacing was a but quicker as it tends to feel like it’s getting stretched out to meet the longer Megazine format. Fans of this kind of horror art and the Dark Judges will surely find plenty to like, even if the story is lacking some meat on its bones.
Surfer: Book Two, Part 6
Credits John Wagner (script) Colin MacNeil(art) Chris Blythe(colours) Simon Bowland(letters)
Michael Mazzacane: The second book of “Surfer” comes to a satisfying noir-inflected conclusion, a surprising attribute considering it takes place hundreds of stories up in the middle of the day. John Wagner manages to balance a multitude of tones and genre tropes against one another in this conclusion. You have this call back to American surfer/beach films of the 50s as a gang of ne’er-do-well surf bums raises havoc. There’s the unfulfilling grayness of writing a crime story in the fascist hellscape of Mega City One. And yet it still manages a sort of Goonies-esque happy family ending. I say -esque because the family unit has been destroyed, and our protagonist winds up back where he started, the Juve cubes. But he got what justice-vengeance he could, and that matters for something.
Wagner and artist Colin MacNeil play things relatively straightforwardly in this strip. The plan is simple: expose Snarky as the crime boss he is. And that’s what they do. There isn’t a surprising high-pitched battle or anything. Just the execution of a plan. The most drama comes from MacNeil playing with silhouettes and negative space to capture Snarky and Perkins floating above a Mega City skyscraper, pushing, and pulling if Snarky is going to be dropped. The daytime setting allows MacNeil to stretch some muscles and show off techniques we haven’t seen in this strip – barring the opening pages of the first episode. Previous strips have largely been set at night, allowing the heavy use of spotted blacks to plunge panels into darkness. That can’t happen in broad daylight; there’s too much sunlight or whatever passes for it in the City. What comes through, as has been the case throughout the run, is MacNeil’s use of perspective and environment to create interesting dynamic images around two people talking.
With all this going on, it’s surprising how satisfying the conclusion of this book is. It is exactly what it needed to be, Perkins gets his vengeance, but no one can escape the Law forever. Wagner works in a solid bit of dark Judge humor with Snarky being arrested for “crimes yet to be determined”. He’s guilty of many things, but the particulars don’t matter. I’m curious if “Surfer” will be back for another round and if so, what form it takes. Hopefully, the creative team at least work together again on some crime-influenced Dredd story or something.
