Welcome, Earthlets, to Multiver-City One, our monthly look at the “Judge Dredd Megazine!” Let’s get right to it.
Judge Dredd: Body Shots
Credits: Ian Edginton (script) D’Israeli (art) Annie Parkhouse (letters)
Matthew Blair: Something incredible happens in this story, something so rare and precious that it’s almost terrifying.
Judge Dredd…smiles.
Okay, in all seriousness Dredd has to swap bodies with an alien grandma in order to catch a perp who has fled off world, but still. Let the body swapping hijinks commence!
“Judge Dredd: Body Shots” is written by longtime Dredd scribe Ian Edginton, who has a fantastic understanding of Dredd and Mega City One. Edginton understands that Dredd stories don’t always have to be serious and grim all the time, they can be humorous as well and this one certainly errs on the humorous side. Long story short, a perp has fled to another planet while in the body of an alien and Dredd makes the snap call to follow the perp in the first body available, which just so happens to be an elderly alien grandma. There’s quite a bit of humor derived from both subjects trying to work with each other’s bodies and personalities and Edginton does a great job of making it work. Not only is it funny, both protagonists play an important part in solving the case and saving the day. It’s a fun little story and very well written.
The artwork for “Judge Dredd: Body Shots” is provided by another Dredd stalwart: D’Israeli. At first glance the over the top, hyper saturated, and cartoon like appearance of D’Israeli’s style doesn’t seem that well suited for this kind of story, but it does work. D’Israeli has always been great in the background and this is certainly no exception. The whole thing is bright, colorful, and just feels like a lot of fun. The alien designs look cool and the whole thing has a psychedelic look that feels wonky and weird. It’s art that keeps the story light and breezy and shows off the fun side of Mega City One and the world that it’s built for itself.
“Judge Dredd: Body Shots” is a fun little one shot Dredd story that doesn’t take itself too seriously and really knows how to play around with its premise. Also, and I cannot stress this enough, seeing Dredd smile is both fun and terrifying at the same time…even if it is someone else.
DeMarco, PI: A Picture Paints – Part Four
Laura Bailey (script), Rob Richardson (art), Simon Bowland (letters)
Chris Egan: As much as I have truly been enjoying this series, it was starting to feel like it was in a bit of a holding pattern with both parts 2 and 3 feeling quite similar in structure and outcome. Thankfully for part four, the final chapter, things really start swerving out of control, in the best way. No one is safe, not even Judges as the bullets fly and revelations are made. This series fully understands its cyberpunk hellscape and never shies away from showing this future as awful as it should be portrayed. Overall, the structure of this series was to nail just another DeMarco case, and it sets her a new path by the end. It is written to be aimed at all readers, never holding the hand of newcomers, nor meant to be completely impenetrable. A well plotted finale to this story while setting up a lot more to come and a probably expansion of DeMarco’s corner of Mega-City One.
Armitage: Bullets For an Old Man – Part Two
Credits Liam Johnson (script) Warren Pleece(art) Jim Campbell(letters)
Michael Mazzacane: I expected a scenario like this, but what I didn’t expect was it to happen so soon. Armitage fills his tin can of a partner in on the man who has done the killing and how in an expository walk-in-talk. All of it this “V” like history building to that final image by Warren Pleece channeling his best Hannibal Lecter. This sequence was incredibly effective and is a well done bit of craft, but it also raises a large question: what comes next? What twist occurs that will justify not wrapping this all up in the next script? Now that is a real cliffhanger.
Continued belowArmitage relays not the history of the killer, but his origin story. How his Father tortured him as if he were Bane, imprisoning him at a young age with a singular goal: escape. That child now man did escape and went on a killing spree Brit Cit had never seen based on his own interpretation of history – there’s a historical materialism joke to be made. Liam Johnson than goes maybe a step too far, even for this sci-fi world, with the inclusion of time bullets aka the great MacGuffin of Final Crisis. It’s a clean device that explains everything and helps to give this killer an even more ominous tone, they don’t know how many of those bullets he fired. But it also evokes Final Crisis which is a dicey proposition.
Warren Pleece’s artwork does a good job of contrasting the simple beauty of nature, the ground he crawls out of before “murdering” his warden Father, with the hellscape of Brit Cit. He doesn’t try to make things super fantastical, if anything the design work continues the “V for Vendetta” vibes where everything just looks real run down and dirty more than anything. That dirt and grime is contrasted with the gleaming shiny Time Gun. These contrasts subtly build up connections with the world, as juxtaposed and lacking in continuity as they seem to be.
This episode is just a really good execution of tone and style, the plot developments on a technical level are not major, they walked down a hallway. But it expands the tone of the case from the working class allegory of the first episode to this more sinister, fatalistic noir. What darkness lies in the hearts of men that Armitage knows about?
Dreadnoughts: Nothing to Fear Part 1
Credits: Mike Carroll (script), John Higgins (art), Sally Hurst (colors), Simon Bowland (letters)
Greg Lincoln: Mike Carroll does an excellent job of introducing the players in this town that is still doing Justice the old way in this world on the brink of change. He idols an effective deep dive into who these characters are, how they got here and establishes their shared history. It is impressive how much we get to know in the spare few pages before the situation he sets up explodes into violent but pretty mundane combat. He makes it clear that the law in the town is merely trying to keep the situation quite and has no intention of punishing anyone but the victims for their complaints. She’s full on intent to sweep the events under the carpet to keep the influential people above the law. It’s a relief when the new capital L Law arrives to put the situation right.
John Higgins art is well suited to this modern comics drama. He draws in a style that is grounded in reality and employed exaggeration well to indicate the moods of the more questionable characters. There was one face that seemed oddly distorted compared to all the other but beyond that panel the art was solid throughout. His arr shone though with exaggerated use of shadows on the proto Judge when he made his arrival. That climactic scene has a real punch to it and leaves you with a certainty that the next installment is a must read.
