Meg 205 - 6 May 2003
Cover by Mark Harrison

Synopsis and review by Gavin Hanly
2nd Opinion by Leigh Shepherd

GH: While I like Mark Harrison's work, I sometimes feel it can be a little too dark for my tastes. However, this is a striking image with a headline that works wel in contrast with teh image.

LS: Despite being a little murky, this is one of the best covers for a while for the Meg - Harrisons McNulty really captures the character well, and the cover line's quite fun considering McNulty's previous Beano style outing! - "This isn't catapults and football in the street"!

Monkey on My Back - Part 2
Synopsis: Goodman has ordered the H Wagons back to HQ after failing to find Dredd or Chambers, ready for a mysterious new op.

Dredd & Chambers are cruising the Cursed Earth, and realise that Lawson could only have gotten back to Mega City 1 if he had "help" from something. When resting, they hear the sounds of H Wagons coming back, which then proceed to drop thousands of leaflets inviting all mutants to return to MC1. Later as Dredd watches the crowds returning, they get ambushed by a group of muties. Dredd's bike gets most of them, and heatseekers taking out the rest. The Mutant Leader is the last one left alive, but wounded, and tells them where the ship carrying Lawson came down - after which Dredd kills him.

Back in MC1 Goodman tries to raise the alarm against the creature posessing him, as it sleeps, but it awakes and stops him. As a lesson, he gets Goodman to call in Judge Martini, telling him to inspect his firearm. As he does so, Goodman shoots him dead - telling the other judges that Martini tried to attack him. After they leave, the creature says it's nothing compared to how Goodman makes the mutants live in the Cursed Earth - "Maybe I am evil Clarence, but we both know how I got that way, don't we?"

Dredd and Chambers have found the ship, and find a dead Judge Freeman, along with some non-human matter. They call up the ships logs and find out that Freeman was the head of a Tek Division ship, piloted by Lawson. They were investigating some caves, but were warned by the mutants there that "that was where the monkey lived -- a beast that could make a man's soul not his own" - it was held at back by a line of red dust, which Freeman took some samples of. But they went in despite the warnings, and unknown to Freeman, Lawson was posessed.

Back on the journey home, Lawson kills the remaining crew and turns on Freeman, controlled by the thing, leaving Freeman for dead. But Freeman survives long enough to fight back wit the red dust, but doesn't mange to kill it - crashing the ship instead - and the wouded "monkey" forces Lawson to walk back to MC1.

As the mutants are pouring back into MC1, Chambers finds the remaining Red Dust - a small half-full container. They head back to the city...

GH: Ennis proves himself to be a top scribe by avoiding many of the pitfalls that accompanied his last Dredd epic, Helter Skelter. While that tale was bogged down by too many bad guys, a tendency to play around a little too much with the toys of yesteryear and a slender plot, this goes in a different direction. Namely, it has a much stonger plot holding it together, exemplified by the backstory of the Monkey's discovery in this issue. You feel that Ennis is more interested in telling a particular story this time, rather than jusr putting Dredd through his paces.

He's also created a worthy co-star for Dredd to face-off against in Judge Chambers - who doesn't treat Dredd with the awe that many of the characters in the "present day" storylines do, and thus is able to have a stronger personality herself. Her bouncing off Dredd's hard man facade provides comic relief, and in makes the interplay between them on their journey all the more entertaining.

Higgins once again proves himself to be one of the top Dredd Artists, particularly in his rendition of the Mutant leader - and in his raveged body at the hands of Dredd. His Cursed Earth is great too, with plenty of shots showing the vast empty landscapes, and is particularly effective with the scenes of the hordes of mutants descending on Mega City One. His tratment of the side story of Goodman's posession is well handled too, keeping that action to the shadows, and ably illustrating Goodman's growing isolation at the hands of his possessor.

LS: There’s a lot to nitpick about this story. The Cursed Earth is fairly tame in comparison to the Cursed Earth we see in the "later" epic. Dredd's dialogue with Chambers regarding Judges Rations doesn't really ring true, and there’s no explanation (yet?) of how the monkey would help you traverse a 1000ks of hostile radiation desert. Given all that, it's still a solidly enjoyable tale, with some great art by Higgins that improves on last months episode. I particularly like the chin straps that John has given Dredd and Chambers, and even his odd versions of the Lawmasters have a certain primitive charm about them - the Lawmaster Mark 0?

What this really could have done with is being longer - The Cursed Earth could have thrown up a few more challenges for the Judges, while the prospect of the story resolving itself in just 15 pages (Dredd has to get back into the City, confront the Chief Judge and sort out the muties that are seeking entry) suggests that the full dramatic potential of this story might be stunted by too little space to tell - not something I thought I’d find myself saying after Helter Skelter! In a sense, you could argue that this is similar to what Helter skelter suffered from - the ideas are sound enough, but are not being developed either sufficiently (in the case of Helter Skelter) or to their full potential (here, where the story seems to be racing past some interesting avenues on the fast track to it‘s conclusion)

Mutopia - Part 1
Synopsis: Young Middenface and Bonnie Charlie Prince have escaped from a Glasgow jail - they stow away on a cattle truck and head west, hiding out of sight in a freezing river as a drone circles looking for them. They enter a town seeing fire - and then witness a Mutie Clearance: "the Norms drive them out and seize their land". They follow the crowd of Muties out of the town, eventually making themselves known - advising them against going to Glasgow, as a drone spots the crowd. The control tower realises they've been forced out of their homes, but regards them as curfew-breakers anyway and the drone guns them all down. Only Middenface, Charlie and a mutant child, Supermac, remain alive.

They take the cild with them and reach Lillapool, where a boatman meets them, and takes them to a castle in the island of Harris, an island owned by the religious group the Wee Free. The leader of this group ("heidcases" according to Middenface) is called the Lord of the Isles, and is Charlie's father...

GH: I haven't read the first installment of Young Middenface, so I'm slightly in the dark this time around, although the (very) short recap at the front of the magazine does help slightly. It's made a good early impression on me, with this being the kind of tale that Grant tells particularly well - concentrating more on character interaction and low key events as opposed to large scale epics. It's a little too early to say what I think of the series, but I've already warmed to the characters (Middenface does seem less irritating than his grown up self) and want to see where this is heading.

And it's great to see John Ridgway's work in 2000AD again. He's always been one of my favourite artists, particularly for his early work in Hellblazer, and it's been far too long since I've last seen his art. His style particularly suits the kind of story on show here, and as ever, his character work is exemplery. Interesting interview with him in this week's issue too. Not sure if I agree with his comments on adverse criticism (although I do try to be constructive if I have a problem with an artist's work) but I do thinks he has a point about 2000AD tending to go for too old a readership...

Part 5
Synopsis: Cane finds the destroyed Stone, and thinks Gio did it, but Al wants to look into it further. Kurt comforts Talia on a rooftop. She says her family's screwed up, and asks to hear about Kurt's.

Meanwhile Gio reminisces about what happened to Silver, his older brother. They met on the docks one night - as Silver was out of control, killing made guys. But the gang had agreed that Gio will take over the family, so Silver is stabbed in the back by his friend Al. But as Gio closes in for the kill, there's a large explosion, and then he's gone. Gio says Al's proved his friendship to him.

Back to the present day, Kurt and the police have found the body of detective Marc Proehl in the water (killed by Cane a couple of issues back)...

GH: Family continues to be almost captivating - but is missing something that I can't quite put my finger on. I still think it's something to do with the confusing number of characters vying for attention, seeing as I missed the important role of Al in the first reading of this episode (surely a pivoltal character should have a more memorable name?). It's not a bad strip by any stretch, but I just don't feel any particular empathy for any of the characters - even Kurt, who's motives remain murky at best.

The art is still top notch- and Fraser exhibits soem thoughtful panel compsition and angles, particularly in the scene on the roof. Cane and Al, however, are confusingly similar looking characters, and more work was needed to define them better. But Fraser's still another favourite artist of mine, and he continues to produce some brilliant work overall here.

Simon Fraser’s art is a bit of a disappointment compared with his previous work on Dante. Whether this is because his black and white art looks sparse, or this is just a little rushed, I’m not sure.

Bad Karma - Part 4
Synopsis: Rohan tells Rak and Rita what happened, but tells them he's not interested in being a hero. Rita is red hot "from the tantra we did last night", and says anything is possile in Tantric Magic. To this, Rohan tells them of the time the Siddha could look through walls and pass through solid objects. They find this funny, and do not take him serously. Rohan heads to the shop to see Mirabai, followed by a stray dog, and he tells her that he had a dream that made him realise that she was special to him. But at the back of the shop, Lakshmi is waiting for his decision, and when he refuses to help, joking that he's "not American" Lakshmi goes wild throwing things at him, attracting Mirabai's father's attention. He says he slipped and only came in from a magazine, grabbing a porn mag by mistake - which doesn't impress her father.

Meanwhile Rak and Rita are trying to persuade a homeless man to "fondle" her breasts - saying they'll give him £50 if he does, and that it's not a trick. But monsters lurk in the darkness...

GH: I'm still unsure about Black Siddha. I think the art is improving every issue, and for a story which for the most part consists of characters simply talking to each other, Davis manages to make the page come alive. While I am preferring pen and ink work far more over painted work these days, Davis' art has a unique quality and vibrancy that sets it aside from the majority of painted art that 2000AD has seen in the past.

However, the story is still taking it's time to get going. There's still far too much mumbo jumbo, with scant explanation on what most of it means for those (most) of us wh don't understand what the hell a "kundalini" is. There are some nice touches of humour though, and it's still much much better than recent Sláine stories. So there are signs with this and ABC Warriors in 2000AD that Mills hasn't totally lost it yet. He does need to get a move on though...

LS: Some good humour this month, and it's nice to see that Pat is building up Rak as a villain - he’s usually the sort of character that Pat would make the hero of his stories! Indeed, the idea of a likeable Pat Mills character fighting for Justice still seems like it comes from another age - if anything it might be this aspect that holds out hope that Pat isn’t just going to enter into another lecture on global politics for beginners. Amusing to see the swear words bleeped out - wouldn’t it have made more sense to change the dialogue here for a less offensive word (especially given the language is nothing that hasn’t been in both 2000AD or the Megazine in the past)? That said, having read this months Thrill Power Overload, rather Alan Barnes mess with the sacred scribe's words than me!

Simon Davis' art is impressing me more and more, with some atmospheric use of colour and interesting looking nasties in the final panel. The real problem here is In trying to tell a story with only 6 pages every four weeks and it a problem that also affects Devlin Waugh and Family.

Red Tide: Part 4
Synopsis: Van Helsing, Waugh and Lilith fight back the vampires that storm the boat. Mrs Thorson and her son see hundreds of vampires underneath the boat, but the aquafloods keep them at bay. Meanwhile, the vampires are storming Fangland, killing everything in sight. Back on the boat, the group are attacked by Berserkers - bottom dwellers who explode as they near the surface with the change in pressure. Their explosions take out the aquafloods, and the vampires start to break through the plexiglass on the bottom of the boat. More storm the deck of the boat, as Helsing and Waugh try to keep them at bay - but the boat is out of control, heading at a breakneck speed for the shore...

GH: Still, surprisingly, the best story in the Megazine. Not much actually happens - that's for sure, but the pacing continues to be breakneck, and this is more like an action epic than anything else recently (with the possible exception of Dredd/Aliens in the regular comic). This shows that Devlin Waugh is a much more entertaining character when he doesn't have to spend most of his time trudging through a story weighed down by too much plot and exposition. Put him in a fast moving story like this, where his witticisms match the frantic action, and he's far more fun.

MacNeil contniues to produce magnificent art too, possibly his best since the first America tale. Some great action set pieces, and a realy gruesome picture of the vampire over the crib make this the one story in the Megazine that I tend to put off till last, as I want to savour it. I just hope it's not rushing to a quick conclusion.

Miscellaneous Material

• Slaine: Time Killer
• Hall of Heroes: Tyranny Rex
• Darkie’s Mob
• Tharg’s future Shock: Solo Flip
• Apocalypse Soon
• TPO
• The Interrogation cube: John Ridgeway
  

GH: So this month we bid a fond farewell to Thrill Power Overload. This being only my 5th Megazine of recent times, it's a shame I've missed so much. It's been possibly the best written feature I've ever read about 2000AD, and deserves to be collected as a much larger book. There were still some surprising revalations this time around - especially with Andy Diggle's tenure at the top.

This seems far more contrversial than I had expected, and his clashing with Mills something of a surprise. I rather enjoyed the last series of ABC Warriors, and I wasn't expecting its birth to have been such a problematic affair. Mills, it has to be said, comes off rather worse, with his insistance at printing his entire "statement" seeming rather childish. While Diggle is trying to put this entire mess behind him, Mills seems desperate to prove himself right, and insult Diggle more in the process. The Satanus incident is ridiculous, and I can totally understand why Diggle though he didn't have to ask for "permission".

Darkies Mob continues on its bloody path, with the cliffhanger in the final episode being of the quality you just don’t seem to get in comics anymore.

Thrill Power Overload ends with a flourish, taking us through the Rebellion takeover with a refreshing honesty. Of greatest interest to most readers will be the Diggle/Mills debacle - for what its worth, my sympathies lie with Andy Diggle - certainly Pats claim that Andy was the worst editor doesn’t stand up to the acid test of just how much the comic Improved during his tenure.

The Hall of Heroes feature on Tyranny Rex is more interesting than last month's, with its revelations of a Hicklenton Tyranny story that never saw the light of day. It’s this kind of information that’s needed to lift the feature above mere filler.