Magazine Review: Judge Dredd Megazine #417 edited by Matt Smith
I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned before that Judge Dredd, the breakout character from 2000 AD was so popular that the publishing company spun off a monthly magazine featuring him and his world, which has lasted a remarkably long time. It’s still primarily featuring stories tangentially related to Mega-City One, but other features appear from time to time.
Judge Dredd himself leads off with part 3 of “Plunder.” Writing Michael Carroll, Art Karl Richardson. On the wreckage of Luna-2, Judge Dredd, two aquatic judges, and a small group of escaped prisoners battle pirates. The leader of the pirates is a crustacean-like mutant whose shell can even shrug off bullets. Missing the setup really hurt my enjoyment of this chapter, as it was all action and I didn’t get the emotional beats.
Next up is an obituary for long-time letterer Ellie de Ville. Lettering is one of those comic book jobs that is more important than it looks, as you can lose readers very quickly if it’s done wrong. Ms. de Ville did it right.
Freelance paranormal investigator Devlin Waugh is up next in “A Very Large Splash” part 3. Writing Ales Kot, Art Mike Dowling. He, his current lover, and a few friends are on a cruise near Amalfi when gruesome murders start happening. Everyone’s a suspect, even the demon who looks like a talking penis. At least part of the motive is revealed by the end of the chapter. This one gets pretty gory.
“Blunt III” Part 3 with writing by T.C. Eglington and art by Boo Cook. Half-human, half-Uplift hybrid Blunt has been trying to rescue himself and the other remaining colonists from a world that is one large collective life and trying to kill them. They’ve finally gotten on to a rescue ship, but the ship’s captain has realized the survivors are hiding something and he’s going to find out what, even if it results in everyone’s death.
Next up is a profile of artist Martin Simmonds, who is currently working with writer Joe Hill on Dying Is Easy, a horror comic set in the world of standup comedy.
This is followed by an article on Hugo Pratt, creator of Corto Maltese, one of the all time classic European comics series. It seems that he worked in British war comics for a while, and a collection of his work, Battle Stations, is coming out soon. This article was the most interesting to me because I recognized the art.
“Zombie Army: Last Rites, part 2” written by Chris Roberson and art by Andrea Mutti, is the odd story out. It’s set on an alternate Earth where Hitler unleashed a necromantic army of the undead as a last ditch effort to fight off the Allies. Two years into the new campaign, a diverse group of “Deadhunters” stumble into an unusually large concentration of zombies in a southern French village. Fighting their way to a relatively strong shelter, they soon discover that these undead have a new trick that makes them seemingly unstoppable.
“Lawless: Boom Town part 3” with art by Phil Winslade and story by Dan Abnett fills out the issue proper. We’re on another colony world, this one vaguely Western in motif. Marshal Metta Lawson has made many enemies taming the local settlers and bringing law to the colony. Now she’s saddled with a new bunch of Judges as help/overseers as the town opens to trade.
Much of this chapter is from the viewpoint of Archie, a child newcomer. He can’t shake the suspicion that there are monsters here, but all the adults assure him that there are no monsters. Aliens, mutants, killer robots, uplifted apes, that sort of thing, but no monsters. But as we all know from media, every time a child is told monsters don’t exist….
Each issue of the Megazine for the last few years has come with a reprint from the vaults of British comics past. In this case, from the pages of Scream!, a horror anthology.
“The Nightcomers” has Beth and Rick Rogan investigating the death of their parents near a spooky mansion. It turns out that the elder Rogans were not just a mind-reading act, but paranormal investigators with psychic powers. The college aged offspring have had their own abilities surface, with Beth getting the lion’s share of the ESP.
Raven’s Meet turns out to be a focus for an evil spirit, which may have something to do with sinister owner Simon Cutler. Or maybe the demon Baphomet, or both.
Script is by Tom Tully, and art by John Richardson.
“Terror of the Cats” starts with several inexplicable attacks on humans by cats in the sleepy town of Barchester. The town’s surgeon is baffled, but reporter Allen Woodward suspects it has something to do with the research being conducted by Dr. Ulrich Kruhl at the government facility outside town.
Allen’s right, but he could never have guessed the true nature of the experiments, and he’s going to have to fight through an army of bloodcrazed cats to find out, as the feline menace also invades the hospital.
It’s pretty fun.
Script by John Agee and Simon Furman (you may remember the latter from his work on Transformers, art by Gonzalez and John Richardson.
Due to the heavily serialized nature of the stories, the Megazine is best consumed in multiple issues in a row.
