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 05
Credits: Ken Neimand (script) Ian Richardson (art) Quinton Winter (colors) Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Matthew Blair: This is it, the climax of the story. On one hand, you have Dredd and McBane fighting in the past and future to prevent a psychic monster from traveling back in time to kill the founder of the Judges before he can even be born. On the other hand, said psychic monster is trying to create a world where the Judges never existed.
Now, you don’t need a spoiler warning to necessarily know how things turn out. After all, we know the Judges have existed. But let’s be honest, is a world without Judges really a bad thing?
Also, time travel stories give me a headache.
Writer Ken Neimand has quite the challenge in “Judge Dredd: One Eyed Jacks 05”. Time travel stories are already complicated enough with temporal paradoxes and events happening because certain factors were in place, but the only reason they happened in the first place was because of time travel (see? headache), but Niemand does manage to pull it off. There are some pretty cool moments in the story, including one where Dredd and McBane meet face to face. They both agree to never mention it again, but it is cool to see gruff and badass lawmen from different time periods talk to each other. Also, Niemand actually sets up more story for future issues, despite the fact that the story could end here, which is an interesting choice and a welcome one.
The overlapping timelines are already complicated enough in “Judge Dredd: One Eyed Jacks 05” so it’s up to the artwork to make sure the audience understands what’s going on. Ian Richardson does a great job of keeping things clear and easy to follow, which allows the story to really go off the rails with the temporal shenanigans. As stated above, it’s cool to see Dredd and McBane actually meet, and the artwork does a great job of getting out of the way and not trying to be too fancy or distracting.
“Judge Dredd: One Eyed Jacks 05” is a legitimately satisfying climax to the story, but it turns out we’re not done yet chrononauts! More action awaits
Spector: Incorruptible Part 2
Credits: John Wagner (script), Carlos Esquerra (art), Jim Campbell (after Tom Frame) (letters)
Greg Lincoln: Hard-boiled detective and police procedural tropes somehow never get old. John Wagner and Carlos Esquerra created a real winner of a strip with “Spector,” as this initial story shows in spades. Carlos Esquerra’s artwork is a delicious blend of forties Art Deco styling, classic American pulp action art and a retro-futuristic setting. There is a grittiness to his line work and his approach to panel design that makes this book look both old and new. The secondary characters are a joy to encounter; the thugs and hangers on in the bar that Spector goes to are full of local flavor and the old woman and her dog that become possible friends to our robotic hero are a wonderful, flavorful bit of non fatale femme. The whole story feels so fresh, even though it’s borrowing a lot.
John Wagner seems to be having a lot of fun writing this tale too. There is a deadpan nature to the humor in the story that is laugh out loud funny when it lands well. Even the bad jokes that Spector tells are sure to get some laughs. Through the clever are and the narration you can hear the sarcasm in the robots tone that tells you he clearly gets the joke. Wagner is takes us on the journey with Spector as he tries to cheat his name in a case that he knows he’s being set up. It’s clever twist that his enemies are his crooked fellow police and his friends seem to be the regular joe or Josephine and the semi criminal elements in the town.
Lawless: Most Wanted 01
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Credits: Dan Abnett (script), Phil Winslade (art), Simon Bowland (letters)
Brian Salvatore: The art style employed by Phil Winslade on “Lawless,” always in striking black and white, is unlike anything else you usually get in a mainline comic in 2023. With the most crosshatching you’ll see in any non-reprint, as well as vacillating between no background and extremely detailed background, the art feels both claustrophobic and wide open at the same time, paradoxically. On some pages, it can be hard to find your orientation, due to the sheer amount of information on every centimeter of blank space. This style is evocative and certainly unique to the strip, but it can be overwhelming to look at and, when the story is a little dull, as it is in the opening chapter of ‘Most Wanted,’ it can be a bit of a slog to get through.
Dan Abnett’s story is one we’ve seen before: an authority figure being burned by the system and resorting to aligning with the folks they once despised in order to gain justice, money, or both. Abnett’s structure is interesting enough, but the story still feels a little thin, no matter how nicely clothed it may be in flashbacks and context. There’s nothing here that’s particularly great or terrible, but with the visual assault behind it, the story can be a little tricky to truly appreciate.
Dark Judges: Death Metal Planet Part Seven
Credits: David Hines (script), Nick Percival (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Chris Egan: Dark Judges, Light Judges, all will be under their ruling, but does it matter? This is yet another Megazine strip that just feels endless. What started off as mildly amusing and somewhat interesting has continued to drag on. Ok, so while the idea of a Light Judge feels like grasping at narrative straws, the visuals are pretty captivating. I wish I found more to be intrigued by in this outside of the art, but while Percival’s talent is undeniable, even each subsequent chapter is beginning to blur together. None of the ideas stick and the more ethereal the art gets, the quicker is leaves my brain after reading.
Hopefully this comes to an end sooner than later.
Dreadnoughts: The March of Progress – Part One
Credits: Mike Carroll (script), John Higgins (art), Sally Hurst (colours), Simon Bowland (letters)
Michael Mazzacane: In the first episode of ‘The March of Progress’ I was struck by how plainly horrifying the whole thing was. That is a tonality that you can’t really keep up all the time. The shock of horror is because it is novel, unexpected. As a reader we’re on this slow trainwreck towards fascism so everything begins to take on a certain level of normalcy. Normal in that it reacts the way you expect it to. Mike Carroll script changes things up a little bit by introducing the seeds of a larger conspiracy and an old fashion Old West shootout.
Caroll’s use of interior monologue is a bit old fashioned but proves to be an effective narrative tool in this episode. There is a nonchalance, the expected, to the way the first three pages play out. The Justice Department has gotten used to the routine of outrage and how to manipulate the politicians circling like vultures after every incident. He uses it to underline the logic behind understanding every act as a political act, while also highlighting the nihilistic element that the corrupt judicial force cling to in order to feign superiority.
Sally Hurst’s color pallet is wonderful in this strip. It reminds me of Arthur Ranson’s work in “Button Man” there’s a flat quality to the rendering, some smudgy shadows appear but Hurst lets John Higgins line work do the spatial rendering. There aren’t many highlights if they do appear; it’s from mechanical sources like gunfire which allows them to stand out more.
Soon after Judge Glover and a rookie are called away on a special assignment, Gene Lagrange had managed to escape their net. It’s their job to terminate him. During this sequence Carroll leans into the procedural element to push things forward but with a vigilante edge. Which gives them the expected results.
Continued belowThe cliffhanger has to disrupt the normalcy of the strip in order for it to be effective, otherwise we wouldn’t recognize it as a cliffhanger. This episode’s cliffhanger is a promise I perversely want them to keep. Will the Judge draw their firearm and shoot that kid in the face? It evokes a history of police interaction with youth and guns that rarely goes well. Is it bad I want to see Carroll directly invoke this history just to see how the fictional Justice Department gets out of this bad headache?
Judge Dredd: One Eyed Jacks 06
Credits: Ken Neimand (script) Ian Richardson (art) Quinton Winter (colors) Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Matthew Blair: While the last part of the story could have easily been the end of the whole thing, there is still one major plot point to wrap up. It turns out the threat isn’t quite over at the moment, but since the time travel window is closed, it’s up to McBane to save the future from itself on his own with no backup.
Writer Ken Neimand wraps everything up in a nice tidy bow with “Judge Dredd: One Eyed Jacks 06” and even throws a fun little bit of action in for good measure. The final showdown is something straight out of a Terminator movie, only instead of killer robots it’s psychically possessed corpses. With that being said, the real purpose of this last part of the story was to show how the people of the 1970’s wind up impacting the world of Mega City One, and how everyone and everything will wind up where it’s supposed to be. There are some moments in Dredd’s time that feel a little bit half baked and there’s a pretty unsatisfying resolution to a big plot thread in McBane’s time, but it’s still a smartly written time travel story.
If the last part of the story was the physical resolution, then “Judge Dredd: One Eyed Jacks 06” is the emotional resolution. As a result, artist Ian Richardson has to rely on facial expressions to keep the audience engaged, and as per usual he succeeds. The reader has a solid connection to a past that is known and familiar while also being connected to a future that is both similar to our time, yet radically different. This is a very plot driven story, which means the artist has to know when and how to enhance the writing instead of overwhelming it, and Richardson understands how to do this very well.
“Judge Dredd: One Eyed Jacks Part 06” is a satisfying conclusion to an ambitious, time traveling, era spanning epic that brings two of the most violent and capable lawmen across two different times together. It wraps everything up in a nice, paradox free bow that leaves few stones unturned and the reader without too much of a headache.
Spector: Incorruptible Part 3
Credits: John Wagner (script), Dan Cornwell (art), Jim Campbell (after Tom Frame) (letters)
Greg Lincoln: Dan Cornwell’s art is a marvelous tribute to Carlos Esquerra and jumps off the page, demanding to be seen. The art is the first thing that grabs you and, even though there is little that is sexy or pretty in its grim and sometimes ugly way, Cornwell’s art demands to be experienced. A hell of a lot of work went into these pages, from the richly detailed backgrounds to the all-too-easy to read and relate to facial expressions. The action is well staged and fluid on the pages and the plethora of talking heads scenes have plenty of and energy life in them, too. It’s a fine tribute and continuation of what Esquerra started and sadly won’t get to see grow in the telling.
John Wagner’s script plays heavily with the tropes of the police procedural and makes some fun puns along the way through the now Inspector Spector. The set up of Spector for the crime overlooked the determination to clean up the corrupt police department programmed into the robot with flair by his creators. Particularly interesting is the insistence that people won’t accept a robot cop and the revelation that public opinion actually was pretty positive about it. Additionally, the end of the story sets up the next arc with a literal bang and makes you wonder where we will go from here. “Spector” is a solidly conceived and drawn tale; hopefully, it is a mainstay like so many other Esquerra’s creations.
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Lawless: Most Wanted 02
Credits: Dan Abnett (script), Phil Winslade (art), Simon Bowland (letters)
Brian Salvatore: ‘Most Wanted 02’ spends most of its runtime giving us descriptions of various folks in town who may be, in the eyes of the narrator, turned to the side of good. While it would be surprising if all of these characters played major roles in this chapter, it does a good job of establishing the setting for new readers and seeding some potential future stories while highlighting a few characters.
Of those characters, the former Judge Nerys Pettifer gets the most time, and she’s being set up as the mirror of Lawson, the former Judge who joined the gang last chapter. I still don’t know if I totally buy the latter’s heel turn, but the conflict is well set-up and looks to be a fun element going forward. Dan Abnett manages to squeeze a lot of information into this chapter and, while it does feel too expository at times, it never really tips into unenjoyable category. Abnett is a skilled enough writer to make these pieces all fit together without too much issue.
But the star of this issue is the burlesque/vaudeville show presented in the middle. This is where Phil Winslade gets to really shine, drawing the absurd, as well as the reaction to the absurd. Winslade perfectly captures staged emotion and genuine enjoyment, with some equally genuine disgust, that acts as conversation between the performers and the audience. While the busyness of the pages will never not be jarring, those sequences fit the style better than any other part of this chapter.
Dark Judges: Death Metal Planet Part Eight
Credits: David Hines (script), Nick Percival (art), Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Chris Egan: Leaning into the more terrifying side of how a Light Judge is the same coin as a Dark Judge, the body horror and never-ending cosmic nightmare keeps raging on. It’s currently what’s working best with this strip, but again outside of some of the visuals, there is little to care about at this point. I’m grasping at the ideas being played with, trying to be interested at more than just a surface level, but it just isn’t there. It all looks great and gross, like a blend between blissful dream and stomach-churning nightmare. It’s that aspect that sticks with me most so I’ll be focusing on that until this thing finally comes to a close.
Dreadnoughts: The March of Progress – Part Two
Credits: Mike Carroll (script), John Higgins (art), Sally Hurst (colours), Simon Bowland (letters)
Michael Mazzacane: Judge Glover doesn’t just shoot the kid. A little bummed Carroll didn’t go there just right away, but it’s understandable. Judge Glover is a complicated character who has already given themselves over to a fascist police force but also our way into this world. While we should be critical, having them shoot a kid would place them firmly in the unlikeable zone. Carroll and Higgins have done a good job of humanizing her thus far and in the previous strip. To humanize her isn’t to pass moral judgement and say she’s a good person, clearly that isn’t the case. But they do highlight the human elements that make her on some level understandable.
While Carroll lets the narrative off the hook in that regard, the sequence is still laden with a nihilistic quality. Glover tries to leverage an end to the standoff by withholding medical care from her father, Gene Lagrange. Of course, he was already terminal by that point anyway it was just a manipulation tactic. John Higgins wonderfully captures the emotionally fractured faces and body language of the family as they’re all cuffed and led away.
The violent montage of anti-Judge attacks and chaos that follow in the wake of the blitz is effective. Sally Hursts coloring makes everything appear sickly with turquoise, reds, and purples. These colors also make the blood red viscera stand out more on the page. This parade of images is contextualized by a lecture on the nature of Judges as a scapple, using medical terminology you’ve all heard before. Crime is a cancer that must be cut out by the scapple Judge, it’s a traumatic affair where some uninfected tissue is caught up and reacts poorly but it’s good for the body politic.
These anti-Judge movements are followed by the threat of the Coyote, leader of the Hemlock Cartel, and his declaration of war on the Judges. It creates for strange bedfellows on one hand everything is fait acompli, we know who wins this one. But I am curious to see how effective the cartel is and maybe really wish they could’ve won this one.
