Welcome, Earthlets, to Multiver-City One, our monthly look at the “Judge Dredd Megazine!” Let’s get right to it.
Judge Dredd: Old Soldiers
Credits: Ian Edington (script) Mike Collins (art) Jim Boswell (colors) Jim Campbell (letters)
Matthew Blair: If we’re going to play the “guess the moral alignment of a character” game with Judge Dredd, I would place him firmly in the lawful neutral territory. It doesn’t matter who you are or what kind of crime you’ve committed, you WILL be punished to the exact letter of the law.
While it’s certainly funny and a bit annoying when it’s something like littering or jaywalking it does count for something when an alien corporation steals people’s brains and uses them to pilot alien mech suits, which is exactly what happens here.
“Judge Dredd: Old Soldiers” is written by Ian Edington, who delivers a great Judge Dredd story. “Judge Dredd: Old Soldiers” has everything you could want from a 2000AD sci-fi story: aliens, Dredd being a curmudgeonly bastard who actually cares about people, weird sci-fi tech, and futuristic corporate intrigue coupled with old fashioned corporate greed. It’s the right blend of weird, zany, socially conscious, and heartfelt science fiction that Dredd is known for and even introduces a new threat for the Dredd mythos in the form of Aetherwerks, an alien mega corporation with interests and resources that are far beyond the scope and scale of Mega City One and the Justice Department. It’s a solid Judge Dredd story and a worthy addition to the cannon.
The artwork of “Judge Dredd: Old Soldiers” is provided by Mike Collins and Jim Boswell and like the writing, it is classic Dredd. Mega City One looks futuristic and the tech on display is clearly advanced and far ahead of anything we might see in the present day, but once you look closer it’s still dirty, crowded, and cracked. The artwork does a great job of showing the reader where everything is, what’s going on, and does a great job of looking just realistic enough to make people comfortable while simple enough to not look messy and confusing. It’s good storytelling artwork that doesn’t do anything too new or exciting, but it does its job well.
“Judge Dredd: Old Soldiers” is a story that strikes a great balance between large, grand scale ideas and themes while remaining intensely personal and meaningful. It shows how far Dredd is willing to go to uphold the law and protect the people of Mega City One while not being afraid to lay the groundwork for massive and terrifying consequences of his actions.
Spector: Incorruptible Part 8
Credits: John Wagner (script), Dan Cornwell (art), Dylan Teague (colors), Jim Campbell (letters)
Greg Lincoln: Things may be looking bleak for Spector; with the murder of D.A. Loban, the corrupt cops Spector was pursuing are closer to getting rid of the hated incorruptible robot office in their midst. John Wagner’s writing is solid and subtle in this chapter. He writes Spector more and more as the competent wise cracking detective and his wise cracks hit better and better. The face off with Captain Barrows that opens this chapter is stellar in its sarcasm. The abrupt phone conversation with the chief later in the chapter is particularly blunt and funny. Wagner shows how canny Spector is, having a plan b set up for his partners as well as makes him self deprecating but gives himself a demerit.
Dan Cromwell tells a great visual story here too. Cromwell makes great use of subtle, smug expressions on background characters in the opening scene. The might not be initially noticeable, but they affect the mood of the page. The big panel and inserts he used to show Spector’s use of CCTV footage to track the military murderer to he scrap yard was a lovely piece of storytelling. The action scenes this month have fallen a little flat, but the incidental and continuing cast did not disappoint. The creepy cop stooge at the scrap yard was an entertaining character too see get clowned by Spector. You can practically hear the phone getting hung up loudly in the expression in the police chiefs face.
Continued below
Mega-City 2099: The Multitronic Man
Credits Arthur Wyatt (script), Jake Lynch (art), Jim Campbell (letters)
Michael Mazzacane: “Megacity 2099” is a one off Judge Dredd strip, or is it a strip from another world? As the name implies it is punning on the Marvel 2099 line of the same name and the alt cyberpunk future of that line of books. The joke being that it’s “Judge Dredd” and everything is pretty much just, ya know, the same. Where writer Arthur Wyatt shifts things is in tone and style, writing the strip lie it’s a silver age superhero strip. There isn’t a hint of the fascism of Dredd in spite of the presence of the Justice System. Dredd here I splayed as a conventional hero doing a bit of a Clint Eastwood impression.
As far as setups go this one wasn’t entirely effective for me. The gag of it all just seemed kind of obvious (and likely done before but that’s bound to happen with a property like this). Wyatt’s scripting lacks the kind of dry wit or caustic meanness you’d expect in Dredd. The direct address at the end is the best gag the strip pulls off. Without the char of comedy to frame the strip as a reader I’m left with a straightforward hero cop strip.
The antagonist being a riff on the Mule from the Foundation series of strips is solid enough.
The real standout in this strip is Jake Lynch’s art. Lynch draws everything in that “Orlok the Assassin” way with strong compositions and smart use of digital zipatone. He manages to create a lot of fun textures but keep the images readable, see Dredd reading a mighty tome of law on the first page, the sergeant on the second to last page, or the city hall on the page prior to that. There’s a lot of smart use of perspective, and homages to both “Dredd” and other images. Lynch’s figure work walks that fine line between being cartooned and juxtaposed with that sort of overworked, over inked, look you can get with black and white art. The ability to find the sweet spot between the two is what makes this strip worth considering even if the plotting was pedestrian.
DeMarco, PI: A Picture Paints, Part One
Laura Bailey (script), Rob Richardson (art), Simon Bowland (letters)
Christopher Egan: It’s been a while since we’ve seen Galen DeMarco and she’s still healing from the attack that’s left her face scarred. Not skipping a beat, this new strip picks up right along where we left off as DeMarco is picking up some extra work from another PI pal. He seems to blur the lines of good and bad even more than DeMarco and as he introduces the client and job to Galen, it’s quickly evident that this could go wrong for everyone, especially if Judges decide to make themselves known in the situation.
This is a fun story getting started as Galen is very quickly pulled into this story. An excellent little techno-noir, the narration from DeMarco is great and feels like the old Hollywood noir that they are emulating. The game is afoot as Galen makes her way through the city following clues and the frustrating news that these weirdos need to rely on her.
The script from Bailey is snappy and solid without trying too hard. And Richardson’s are is spot on. Clean and crisp, giving us plenty of detail without overdoing it. The palette is gorgeous and uses a nice variety of colors and shades to convey the city at night. It’s really quite a beautiful first chapter. This art should pull in readers, even those unfamiliar with DeMarco. It nails the detective noir while still feeling like a Mega City One/Judge storyline. It hits the right balance of making it mostly about Galen, but still dropping in enough Judge material to remind us what world we are in. A great opening chapter that has a bizarre enough mystery that, if nothing else, will keep even the toughest critics looking for what comes next.
Lawless: Most Wanted 07
Credits: Dan Abnett (script), Phil Winslade (art), Simon Bowland (letters)
Brian Salvatore: This chapter is an oddly focused one for “Lawless,” with all of the action taking place outside of Fugly’s stronghold. Both sides of the battle get not only shown, but are given time for the reader to get a good sense of where both sides are in their place. Lawson is leading a crew of the town’s law to meet Fugly’s crew of outlaws. The most effective part of this chapter involves Rondo, both his former allegiance with Lawson and Nerys and his conflicting feelings about buying them time. It’s some of the best writing that Dan Abnett has done in this volume, as it lays everything out in such a way that gives the strip better definition.
Speaking of definition, Phil Winslade continues to do some of the most intricate work anywhere with his heavily cross-hatched pencil and ink work. The work done around Fugly’s crew is especially impressive, where each of the thugs has a distinct look that doesn’t seem like it should fit in with the others, but somehow they all do. There’s a nice, perhaps unexpected, side effect of the thugs being so distinct, which is that it helps the crew of Judges and associates all look more uniform. While in most 2000 AD stories, the Judges are, at best, the lesser of two evils, in “Lawless,” the Judges tend to be less terrible. And so, in another story the image of a gang of people in Judges’ garb would be terrifying, here it looks like the cavalry.
