Meg 210 - 23 September 2003
Cover by Patrick Goddard, Dylan Teague and Chris Blythe

Synopsis and review by Gavin Hanly
2nd Opinion by Eric Moore

Synopses and reviews contain spoilers for this issue

GH: A very obvious reference to Reservoir Dogs which, although it has been done pretty much to death, works pretty well here, with good work from Goddard. At least it continues the Meg's recent examples of stand-out covers that try something different from the usual 2000AD covers.

EM: It's always fun when 2000AD plays a riff on something from popular culture and this one is pretty darn good - albeit having been predated by a poster in Lenny Zero's room (Megazine vol. 4, issue 2). So good in fact it's actually better than the strip inside.

Hong Tong - Part 2

Synopsis: All hell breaks loose as Dredd and Woo's guards are killed in a hail of gunfire. Dredd, with no weapon, dives for cover. One of the gangsters runs for him, but Dredd nails him with a bootknife. He picks up the gangster's twin autopistols and after overriding Woo's objections they both take out the remaining gangsters.

Inside, Uncle Ho beats a hasty retreat, after dispatching of the two Mega city cons that brought Dredd to him. He orders his surgeons to delay the lawmen, who are ready with all manner of bladed weapons by the time Dredd and Woo storm in. Woo dispatches many of them using the martial arts skills he's learned, while Dredd uses simple judicial theories of violence and force to get his job done. They order the patients to wait until they're picked up, and burst through the window after the remaining gangsters in the street below.

Uncle Ho tries to escape in a limo as Dredd and Woo get in pursuit. Woo is taken out by a shot to the shoulder, and Dredd uses the opportunity to get his Lawgiver back. He fires a hi-ex into the limo and they retrieve Uncle Ho. Woo says they'll take him and interrogate him - passing on any information that will help Dredd deal with the Mega City side of the operation. Woo muses about whether the next time he and Dredd meet if they will be friends or Enemies. Dredd tells him to come to MC1 with no "fancy diplomatic protection" to find out...

GH: All out action this week in a story that can be read very quickly indeed. Dredd finally bows down to commercial pressure and engages in some two pistol action - but unfortunately he looks a bit silly doing it. There's also a very irritating moment when Dredd and Woo seem to have a conversation about the merits of the new guns while a horde of Gangsters barely 10 feet away from them, guns blazing, don't seem to be able to shoot either Dredd or Woo. Are these the crappiest gangsters ever?? I understand that this story is not meant to be taken that seriously, but come on - that just looked bloody stupid.

That aside, Goddard, Teague and Blythe handle the action very well, which is just as well because that's pretty much all there is to this week's episode. All the interesting set-ups from last month are thrown away in an orgy of violence. But hell - it's fun to read, and is probably meant to play like a John Woo film and it succeeds in that respect. So in all, a fun throwaway Dredd story - but not the best work by Rennie on the character by a longshot.

EM: Hmmm, part one was pretty good, with some typical Dredd-world scenario's, and set the tale up very nicely. But what do we have here? Dredd and Woo go after Master Ho, fight the obstacles in their way and catch him. Sorry, but after re-reading it twice I still can’t find anything memorable about it. Well, maybe proving that other artists have a tough job copying Brett Ewins designs (witness Patrick Goddard’s version of the Sino-Cit Judge helmets on the last page).

The Wilderness Days - Part 2

Synopsis: At night, Death comes across a circle of wagons and kills everyone. In the morning he comes across an isolated house inhabited by a lone blind man, who invites him to rest. Death takes the opportunity to let off some steam. He ponders leaving to find a world more easily tamed, but dismisses this as cowardice. He considers releasing the other Dark Judges but still sees the task as insurmountable (at this point some mutant kids arrive and try to warn the blind man - Death kills two, leaving the other to run). Back to ranting, he raves that it's "choice" that makes humans criminals, until the blind man decides to let him into a secret. He leads him to the huge library buried under his dwelling - which he himself is unable to read. Death examine the books, realising that mass extermination and destruction is the only way forward - as illustrated all too well by the history books.

Meanwhile, the escaping boy has brought back a posse who attempt to seal Death in the library. They fail miserably and Death easily kills them all, finally snuffing out the life of the old blind man too ("Don't usually get a man so wrong"). He lays him to rest in his library and speeds off on his quad bike...

GH: Still the best story in the Megazine, and frankly the best story by Wagner in ages (even beating his current impressive Strontium Dog run in the weekly). Wagner appears to be slightly influenced by Gollum's schizophrenic scene stealing in the Two Towers as Death rages against the paradox of the necessity of his mission versus the sheer impossibility of the overall task of wiping out life on Earth. The scenes of him raving, trying to prove to himself that he's doing the right thing, to the background of the sympathetic talk of the (frankly rather stupid) blind man are brilliantly done. And when juxtaposed against scenes of the deadly and efficient violence of Death which hammer home how dangerous he is, this makes for a blackly comic tale.

And this is backed up by the artwork of Frazer Irving which is still astoundingly good, and suits the story perfectly. From the wild gesticulating at the blind man's table to the shockingly quick dispatch of the two boys, Irving has the character of Death down pat. As said last month, no one's managed to make him look this scary since Bolland - and that's the best compliment I can think of.

EM: Best thing in the Meg by a long chalk. After a bit of blip last issue with that quad bike, Wagner's back on form here. What a perfect self-contained story, with just the right balance of humour and horror - hopefully this quality will continue. Frazer Irving is easily in the top five 2000 AD artists and this tale is really showcasing his talents. I'd disagree that his Death is the best since Bolland's but have to admit, when Frazer depicts him at night – or lit from below as on page five, that’s some pretty creepy stuff. Much more of this and memories of the "funny Death" should start to fade.

Red Tide: Part 9
Synopsis: Landis rips the chin off the girl, instantly killing her, and then bites Helsing on the neck - but is fought off by Waugh, although Helsing worries about how long it will be before he turns himself. Waugh tells them all to retreat to Bobby's garden while he fights them off. As they enter the garden the vampires incinerate - the lights for the garden throwing out as much UV as sunlight. However, they're now trapped in the room.

Back at the institute, a nurse is tending to Hannah, who has bitten her own hand off, but Hannah jumps the nurse before she can close the cell door and sedate her.

Elsewhere, Waugh is trapped in a room by vampires, but he props open a gas cylinder by the door - opening the valve. He waits by the window and as the vampires burst in, he throws a lit book of matches at them - blowing them all up...

GH: While I still think this Devlin Waugh story is, on the whole, highly enjoyable, even I'm beginning to see the need for the plot to start advancing a little more significantly now. Not a great deal actually seems to have been achieved over the last few months and while this wouldn't really matter a great deal if this was in the weekly comic - which would have been ideally suited to the story - in the monthly there's becoming a need for something significant to start happening. But the high octane action is cleverly done, and perhaps more inventively than the action in this month's Dredd tale. It also remains to be seen whether MacNeil could have kept up the pace it he had to produce this for the weekly. So all-in-all, it's still fun, but will work a damn sight better as a graphic novel.

EM: "Stop the strip, I want to get off". Gawd, when will this end??? How long have we been watching Waugh and the survivors escaping from the vampires? Eight years? Certainly feels like it. Reading this is like Groundhog Day, with the same situation being played out over and over. Even Colin MacNeil's art is failing to make a mark. Please finish soon.

Part 2

Synopsis: Rex is ready with a scientist's head in his jaws. We flashback to see how this came about.

The five main creatures are storming an underwater base with 6 humans aboard. The base sends out defender jellyfish, but they are destroyed by Raptor, who is happy just to feel something. As they board the base, the humans are waiting. The lead scientist, Peter, greets them asking for an hour's grace. Peter tells "the vegetable" that they are clones of the original scientists, and they've been working on a virus for 300 years that will kill only humans - as humans are responsible for killing the biosphere. But Rex decides to kill them all anyway, as they haven't learned and are still trying to remake the world. Raptor, Trike and Aviatrix (who talks about her "holy mission") kill the scientists but when only Peter remains, he asks to decide who kills him.

He chooses Rex, as we return to the first scene, and Rex closes his jaws, killing Peter. Aviatrix brushes the talk of the holy mission aside, saying it was just a "turn of phrase..."

GH: D'Israeli continues to be one of the best assets of both the Megazine and the weekly 2000AD at the moment, turning in another truly unusual effort here. The artwork is wonderful in a totally different way to the art currently appearing in the weekly, with a much greater emphasis on the fantastical, but still managing to mix this with the relatively normal appearance of the scientists. There's still the high level of violence that appeared in episode one - but it seems so incredibly over the top that it's easily acceptable. And the first image of Peter in Rex's jaws is a great one to draw the reader in.

Now I'm not 100% sure I know what's actually going on here all the time but the story by Paul Cornell, whose work I'm not that familiar with, is starting to grow on me. It's certainly one of the most inventive approaches I've seen in either the Megazine or the weekly in quite some time, and telling everything from the perspective of "Peter" this month works particularly well. As long as everything holds together by the end - i.e. the strip actually makes sense once we have all the pieces - this is a very promising strip indeed, and perhaps we should see a bit more of Cornell in the weekly?

EM: The third best thing happening in the 2000 AD universe right now. Aside from the D'Israeli connection, both this and Leviathan have original set-ups that leave you wondering where the hell the story's going to go and wanting the next installment straight away. D'Israeli too is perfectly suited to both these tales – was he first choice in both cases?

Blooded - Part 2

Synopsis: 1999. In the ruins of the Struthof Nazi concentration camp in France. Faulkner has been taken there by a mysterious man who tells him his story. Upon entering the camp in 1943 with his family, his mother was taken out of the line and away by Commendant Brandt just after they got through the gates. A few days later, his father was killed by the camp guard's dogs. Brandt played classical music as the dogs savaged his father. When the narrator couldn't stop screaming, he brought him to a gas chamber and made him witness a mass slaughter - he didn't speak again until the camp was liberated. When that happened, they found his mother hanging in Brandt's villa. He had kept her for himself, and she had kept the narrator alive.

Many years later, he had made his fortune and managed to track Brandt down. He asks Faulkner if his first kill was easy - and he says it was, because it was personal revenge. But the narrator had found it hard to kill Brandt until he came across Brandt's classical music collection - which gave him the impetus to kill.

He says that in the orphanage, after the war, he had read of a group called the Benendanti (translated as "doers of good") "who banded together to fight witchcraft and sorcery in the middle ages". The group was hunted down by the inquisition, and went underground, now by the name of Bendatti. He now wants to revive the Bendatti as a modern crusade against criminals. Faulkner asks about the woman who picked him up, but the is not told anything. But the man says he has the power to help him kill the man he's after - but he has to join the Bendatti in return.

GH: OK - now I'm starting to get into this a bit more. After learning that last month's episode was a prequel to the last series, I'm feeling a little less in the dark than I was last time around. This is a much better episode by far. The setting of the concentration camp and the tracking down of Brandt really gives John Burns the chance to shine, and the art is a major improvement on the occasionally scrappy drawing from last month. The use of the sepia tones to denote the flashback is well handled, and he easily manages to convey the sense of horror of the concentration camp, and indeed the brutal murder of Brandt.

Morrison also goes up a gear this issue, as the rather confusing and not particularly satisfying first episode is followed up with one which introduces some much needed exposition, while still provoking enough questions to keep readers hooked - like who the mysterious narrator is, what the woman operative's story is, and indeed who it is that Faulkner want to kill so much? Certainly enough to make me keen to find out what happens next.

So in all, pretty entertaining. I still would have like to known what happened in the first series though...

EM: While I can appreciate Robbie Morrison’s writing, and John Burns puts in some top-notch work, I just don’t think this is suited to the Meg (maybe, if in an alternate universe Action is still going, it would fit there fine). Would rather see another reprint.

Miscellaneous Material inc.

• Harry 20
• Darkie’s Mob
• Future Shocks
• Apocalypse Soon
• Patrick Goddard Interview
• Blazing Battle Action
  

GH: Harry 20 continues to be as great as I remember it being, and I'm getting great feelings of nostalgia over this one.

But the most notable point about the 2000AD Gold section is the end of Darkie's mob. Now this has been treated like a war comic holy grail by many readers, but I'm afraid it just didn't stand the test of time for me - showing a desperately one sided view of the conflict. Only the last episode did something that captivated me, and I can see why John Wagner thought that was the best one. As for the revelations about who Darkie actually was - they unfortunately reveal him to be particularly unlikable, not a hero at all and the character certainly showed no signs of wanting to redeem himself for his early crimes. Maybe that's implied, but I don't see it. But it was diverting enough, and always fun to read a reprint that I hadn't read before. I hold out higher hopes for Charley's War - if indeed that's what's coming next (as there's no indication of this anywhere in the magazine).

As for "Blazing Battle Action" - it's a diverting enough read, but it's only the part about the end of Darkie's mob that really seems of interest. What does seem clear to me is that Bishop does not seem to have had much first-hand interviews with the people in question - and it shows. Much of the best quotes are pulled from already printed sources, and a large amount of the text still seems to be an extended bibliography of Battle. It just seems to be missing something. However, I'll take this over a text story any day.

As for the Gordon Rennie piece? Hmmm - throwing away original art does seem a bit unforgivable...

Harry Twenty. I loved this when first printed and still enjoy it now but knowing the twists and the outcome takes the thrill out a bit. Nice early art by Alan Davis, bringing back memories of reading both this and Captain Britain at around the same time.

Future Shock. Again, back then it would have been quite an impressive tale but now just seems a bit quaint. Surely there’s better choices to be had than this?

Blazing Battle Action. David Bishop has to be commended for taking on the task of chronicling British boy's comics as a follow up to his brilliant Thrill Power Overload. But there’s a problem and that’s one of recollection. Battle's not a problem – I’m sure I’m not the only one who collected it religiously and can recall most of the strips in it. The trouble is the strips in other comics are, by and large – at least to me – pretty inferior and unmemorable compared to those in Battle. Most of the panels used are from Battle, which personally I didn't need and I would have liked to have seen some from other strips to try and jog my memory.

I know the article would be better suited to chronicle the 2000 AD related creatives as that’s what the majority of the readership would want to see, but would it be possible to have panel reprints of some more obscure tales in later editions. It’s also a shame not to see David’s initial idea of including reader’s memories into the feature – I would like to have seen how my memories compared. 

Gordon Rennie. You were joking weren’t you Gordon huh? HUH?

Apocalypse Soon
Nice script, nice art, instantly forgettable.