Synopsis by Gavin Hanly
1st review by Sam Wilkinson
2nd opinion by James Mackay

Synopses and reviews contain spoilers for this issue

SW: With covers like this, and the art within, it's not hard to see why Mr Irving is swiftly becoming one of my top artists at work in the House of Tharg. For me, this one ticks all the boxes - there's a nice action pose crossed with some humour as Point tries to hold his hat while battling alien killing machines. The gun, quite importantly, isn't following the old cliché of pointing straight at the reader out of the cover, but rather doing something far nicer. No logos are obscured, which, while not high on my list of priorities, I know will keep Gavin happy. There's an equisitely alliterative and rhyming cover, presumably so some wordsmith somewhere can feel satisfied with himself, and finally, putting myself in the perspective of a non-reader catching sight of this nestling seductively on the shelf at WHSmith's, I'd be sure to think to myself "A clown? Fighting some kind of alien monsters with blood everywhere? I'd better give this closer examination!"

Just one question, though: Why is the logo in those camoflage tones? It just looks like it's trying to hide from the Raptaurs or something.

JM: Fraser Irving has discovered the colour button on his computer (it was next to the magenta and cyan ones all along!) and the end result is a truly awesome image. The light coming from the muzzle flash is simply perfect, since it gives a landscape of sharp contrasts and thus makes sense of Irving's gothic style.

Point’s ashen face has a wonderfully human expression that contrasts with the horde of Raptaurs, and his choosing to hold onto his hat at the point of certain death brings home the combined menace and slapstick that makes up the Simping Detective.

However, I do have a couple of grumbles. Firstly, couldn't the house style have been relaxed to allow for a bleed image? The picture screams not to have a big white wasteful border all around it. Secondly, there's one line in the blurb on top that's irritating: "Is Judge Dredd on PJ's death list?" Well, um, no. Nobody familiar with PJ's modus operandi would have thought he was, either. Why raise the question if it's not even an issue in the strip?

Six - Part 2

Maybe plys his trade...

Synopsis: The next victim on PJs list is Aurora Devine, who was thrown into the grinders at Mrs Shubert's pie factory, on production line 6. Again, she grew up on Berger Block, like the other victims. Dredd now believes that Maybe gave up his heart to escape justice, but that he's arrogant, and they'll find out what the connection is soon. They interview the relatives of the families and people who would know him, but come up with nothing. Meanwhile, Maybe, in his guise as Montez, is sorting out the deals for his Montezuma projects and even meets Dredd at a reception held in his honour. Dredd makes the connection that they are from the same area but doesn't take it any further than that.

Later, Maybe kills Larson Sidowski. He meant to drown him in the bath but, with the water cut off, he has to make do by tying a bag around his head and drowning him with bottled water, leaving six rubber ducks around him. Maybe is left dissatisfied by the murder and still has nightmares about the event that set off the spree. However, Sidowski wasn't a member of Berger block, so Dredd feels he could be the breakthrough they need. Interviewing his father, they learn of a play that Larson took part in while he stayed with his aunt.

They identify the potential sixth victim, Robert Boxx. Undercover judges enter Boxx's apartment, who seems to already know that he might be next on the list. But Maybe is leaving Mega City, while Boxx is still alive. Boxx tells the judges the story of the play from his childgood: how someone tampered with the hoverjets on the fairies, and the kids all believed it was Maybe. He left, swearing revenge, but never taking it until now.

Meanwhile, Maybe's robotic pilot has put an hallucinogen into a hovertanker captain's synthi-caf, and told him to drive his tanker into Moxon's block, killing him and 20,000 others. Dredd swears revenge...

SW: I'm very much in two minds about the conclusion of this tale. For the first part, I'm suitably impressed at Wagner's penmanship - not a clumsily worded and unneccesary thought bubble to be found anywhere, despite more than one opportunity for him to stick one in there. On top of this, now that the big secret has been revealed, PJ's trademark spelling mistakes are more common and obvious, serving the dual purpose of letting us all revel in his return for a bit, and reminding us that Maybe isn't entirely mentally intact - as his motivation for the murders would indicate. And, of course, there's the way Wagner makes us feel clever, as he did last month when we worked out it was PJ just before Dredd, and this time as we (or at least I) realised his motivation just before the judges worked it out.

Having said that, though, the motivation itself seems a remarkably silly reason to kill six people plus umpteen thousand bystanders, even for one such as PJ. But, on the other hand, I tell myself that PJ Maybe is a certified psychopath and as such is unlikely to follow any kind of logic which we normal types would understand. Both a blessing and a curse, perhaps.

Art-wise, though, I can't even find such a niggling fault as that with Chris Weston's art, which continues to bring the amazing combination of a city backdrop you can spend quite some time pondering over and an array of facial detail you can't help but be impressed with. The worst frame in the entire job is that of Maybe's ship leaving the city in the penultimate page - the computer effects just don't mesh with the huge hand-drawn explosion taking up the majority of the page, but that's just nit-picking. Which is more than made up for by the fact that he draws a damn fine lawgiver.

JM: This last 18 months has seen a lot of new visions of Mega City One come to the pages of 2000AD and the Megazine, and many artists compete for the “second only to Carlos Ezquerra” crown. Well, it’s just possible that, with the stunning art on display over the last couple of issues, Chris Weston has laid the question to rest. This is great, detailed art that very clearly owes a particular debt to Cliff Robinson, but without the static quality that frequently invades Robinson’s work.

The story, meanwhile, is spectacularly well written. Alan Barnes deserves appreciation for having had the wisdom to keep this under his hat, which lead to such a great thrill in the last issue when we realised that those occasional misspellings weren’t typos but heralded the return of quite possibly the best of Dredd’s recurring foes. But here the surprise is more visceral. Up until now Maybe’s crimes have always had the kind of camp precision of an Adam West Batman villain: elaborately constructed, with lots of clever gadgets and laden with PJ’s own line of mordant wit. The sulk that he falls into following the botching of the death of Larson Sidowski merely reinforces this idea.

So the shock at the final bloody attack, which leaves all his previous atrocities in the shade, is all the greater for being unexpected. The comparison with the terrorist actions of 9/11 is obvious, and it leaves this reader extremely hungry to see what Wagner has planned for the showdown that must surely be coming. The twist also has the effect of removing the residual charm of PJ Maybe’s narration. Up until now, readers have always been encouraged to root for Maybe as being something like the dark opposite of Chopper (Maybe’s hunger for material wealth contrasting with the other overgrown teenager’s contempt for it). By the end of Six I found myself for the first time firmly on Dredd’s side, as he stands among the debris, fists clenched in impotent rage, left to do the dirty work.

Overall, a triumph.

Koburn cuts things short

Weezil used to run with the Kuss's and should be able to help track them down. They tie him out on some stakes and wait for the wildlife to come and eat him. Weezil cracks pretty quickly…

SW: After starting with an interesting, if hardly original first episode, featuring a Justice Department maverick and a strait-laced, rule-following, juniour judge sent to assist him, Koburn begins to show exactly why we should still show an interest, besides Ezquerra's artwork. Unfortunately, it's a double-edged sword. As the character of Koburn becomes a little more than just a judge who has sex with hookers and won't wear the uniform properly, Bonaventura slides far too quickly into the 'dreary sidekick' role.

Taking Koburn first, the addition of a hard-bastard side of his persona is more than welcome, since I was beginning to worry that he was due to become a yahoo-shoutin' hard-fightin' heart-of-gold cowboy. Leaving Snake to die on the cactus erases that one quite quickly, showing us a Koburn not bothered enough to put a bullet through his head and save his misery. Brilliant.

My major gripe has to be with Bonaventura, though. Clearly, in the long drive through the Cursed Earth, her sense of generic rule-obeying judge-ness fell off the back of the car, to the story's detriment. From last week's shennanigans, I'd expect at least a questioning of Koburn's methods, if not an outright shouting match. He let out a prison full of dangerous miscreant's for Grud's sake, and yet she stands there doing nothing. The closest we get to any friction between the two supposed diametrically-opposed judges is the question "Fargo day?". Good character interaction, this is not.

Having said that, Carlos Ezquerra's fine art continues to be the saving grace of the series, After all, who else could draw a scruffy maverick judge with such clear recycling of their old stuff and still get away with it?

But there's a definite flagging of the pace here. Rennie makes the wonderfully over-the-top slang ("Ya pizzle dicked, mule-shuckin' cactus jockey" being a standout) seem effortless, and gives Carlos a simple yet perfect last page to work on, but I do hope this isn't going to turn into another long chase sequence. It just doesn't suit the extra length or the monthly frequency of the Megazine, and at the end of the day it's all a little too…undemanding. Also, I know that Koburn's cool, now I want to see him get into a situation that makes this unflappable hero flap a bit. Breaking all the prisoners out in a single shot was a bit too uncomplicated as well.

There you go. An entire review, and not once did I mention the word "easy". Oh, drokk it.

WMD - PArt 2

King is the first to go...

Synopsis: Death prepares to give Anderson the "kiss of Death". King is finding Anderson's mind difficult to handle but the others remind him that what is happening is symbolic and they can overcome it. They fly to Anderson, using Psi blasts to subdue Death, while Gistane provides psionic shields around them, although a little belatedly. Death is destroyed and they grab Anderson to a safe location. But Anderson changes into a sister of Death and invades King's mind. They destroy her, but King is deeply traumatised. Shatka informs Psi division, and King is removed. Fauster tells Shenker that the mission will be worth it despite this loss. "Once we learn the secrets of death, we can move beyond death".

The judges head deeper into the desert of Anderson's mind, and find signs of life, itself a sign that the virus hasn't taken over that part of her mind. But a group of black riders charges in, subdues Gistane, and surrounds the others…

SW: It's been mentioned before that stories about groups don't work so well in the 2000AD/Meg format, with the exception of Caballistics, Inc and possibly a few others I can't think of. Nonetheless, this story is one such demonstration of a team dynamic not really hitting the spot. Although, yes, overall it's supposed to be a story about Anderson and the Half-Life infection, the fact is that the psi-judge group are a fairly important part of that story, and shouldn't really have cookie-cutter personalities. With the exceptions of Gistane and the angry Behr, the team seem to act as generic judge-types, which they really shouldn't, considering that they each have these amazing psychic talents and come from a department famed for housing mavericks. Perhaps Mr Grant should have kept George King around, and traded out one of the less-interesting psis, instead.

Just a word on Arthur Ransome's artwork - yes, it's good and all, and the bright blue rings of protection cast by Gistane seem somehow appropriate for both caster and situation, but I have one question for him - Fauster. Man or woman? In last episode, I was convinced Fauster was an old-ish woman, yet now he/she demonstrates some male features. So which is it?

Arthur Ranson is sometimes criminally underrated for his reliance on photo reference, as if it’s all too easy compared with “proper” artists who, you know, make stuff up. But the brilliance of the art (on full display here) is in the choice of images, the colour scheme, the arrangement of objects, and the power of the combination. His Death has nothing remotely amusing– this is an embodiment of evil, not a ghost-train prop.

But the greatest art in the world would be nothing without a good script, and Alan Grant has really come up with the goods here. Inside Anderson’s mind seems to be a thoroughly Jungian universe, with archetypes springing up at every turn – the snake writhing from the bowels of the woman, the dead men trapped in the bowels of a blasted tree, the ghost horsemen. It’s this ability to draw on deep reserves of meaning that allow a second episode to go by without Anderson herself and not come across as drawn out or over-expository.

The team lose a member and sadly it’s the empath, King, who made such a good contrast with his rather harder colleagues. This makes me suspect that what we’ve seen so far is nothing compared to the horrors coming up – then again, this shouldn’t be a surprise: a writer like Grant was hardly going to deploy the term “WMD” without good reason.

The Simping Detective badly needs a pick-me-up...

Meanwhile, the nun is on the vidphone with Daveez telling him they had a deal, but Point returns and the call is cut short. He takes a gun from the laboratory and escorts the nun upstairs, but a raptuar is waiting for them...

SW: I didn't even realise that this episode had a subtitle until about my third reading, when a slightly creepy interest in the man being torn apart on the first page revealed that the blood spurting everywhere actually spells "Raptaur Released." It's this kind of read-it-too-fast-and-you'll-miss-it detail which runs all the way through Frazer Irving's art on this series, and we're all much better off for it, his style being perfectly suited to the grim humour and thoroughly dark elements of the script.

On to Si Spurrier's script, then, which races through the plot at a nicely balanced speed, letting us spend time with the various characters and places in Angeltown, but not letting us get bored with them. Although, a little more time with the gangster who dresses more shabbily than his ape mobsters wouldn't go amiss - if nothing else, they could probably get some kind of job on the comedy circuit.

On top of this, of course, is the fact that Si Spurrier is a script droid who actually knows how to show monologue without resorting to cloud-shaped bubbles attached to little circles. Well done, that man.

JM: Jack Point, The Simping Detective, is without doubt one of the finest creations ever to have strolled in clown boots through the dark alleys of Mega-City One. So strong, in fact, that he shows up the efforts at creating new heroes in Dredd's universe attempted in the Megazine of the 90's - Calhab Justice, O'Rork, even Armitage - as the pallid imitations they were.

It would be criminal to let a review go by without picking out at least one line from Jack's world-weary commentary, but which one? Maybe the "point of logic" concerning the overeager apes' attempt to beat the truth out of Point without giving him the chance to speak? Maybe the "Virgin-drokking-Mary"? Or maybe just throw in the towel and admit that this is writing at a sustained level of stylistic brilliance very rarely seen in comics, and to extract any one element from the flow is to dull its shine just a little.

Irving's art continues to be about the best I've ever seen from someone who was already one of my favourite artists: all the little touches, like "Raptaur Released" written in the entrails of the lab technician on the first page, or the fade to blue on the second, or… well, you get the picture.

In fact, the only vague criticism I can come up with is that I really, really want to know more about why Point dresses as a Simp.

Kali Yuga - Part 2

Siddha vs Jovian...

Synopsis: Rohan decides to make the doctors in the facility pay, as they try to talk him out of it. But the head doctor has injected himself with "acto phase" and has reverted to his Jovian phase, in which he has phenomenal strength. They fight, but Rohan wins, besting the doctor who returns to his human self.

Lakshmi appears, directing him to a cell containing Sati, one of her fellow priestesses, with whom she fought over the love of a gardener. Akto Phase has brought her back as one of the patients. Lakshmi and Sati argue, while Rohan tries to appease them. Rohan surmises that the Acto Phase must be based on the shamanic medicine Soma, and then realises he must have got it from Rak, who appears, followed by the freed aliens. Rohan realises that he'll have to fight them and kill them with his sword, as there are too many. Rak decides to get involved himself and starts opening fire at Rohan...

SW: Like some others, I was more than a little sceptical at the idea of Earth as a prison colony being used by Mills, not least because of bad memories of Interceptor residing in my head. Nonetheless, I think I've been converted, partly due to the antics of the doctor and Jillie, with their inane, never-ending grins and pure evil hidden beneath their smiling facades. On top of this, we have an intertwining of the two apparently radically different concepts of the Lords of Karma and the aforementioned Earth as a prison thing, and one which makes at least some vague sense to my headache-addled brain. Just one point, though - does anyone take a Babylon-5 watching bad guy seriously?

As for the art, it's a pleasure to see Simon Davis demonstrate exactly why a social worker can be the bad guy, drawing eerie emotionless grins even in death, and huge quantities of alien nasties in the same strip.

JM: Rohan seems to have got over being the first British superhero called Rohan, and started settling down into the role, which is a good thing. You have to like a strip that can fit Martians, Jovians, soma, reincarnation, Babylon 5, New Labour satire and really, really strange views about women into just 8 pages.

Reading this strip is like being on a see-saw: within the space of just a few panels Mill's writing goes from the new highs of Savage to the depths of Slaine Book MCCLVIII. The principal faults being the really odd mock-feminism leading up to Rohan's "I forgot. I'm only a man." and some expository dialogue that is very obviously the author's monologue with himself.

But, in the end, for all Pat's attempts to ruin it, Mills has created a great mix of instantly likeable and interesting characters, and I for one would be quite happy to see them continuing to fight each other with a backdrop of loopy-looking aliens amid the gleaming grottiness of an NHS ward forever. It's just that, Mills being Mills, "forever" takes on a scary vein of literalness.

Simon Davis' art just continues to get better and better with each page he draws. The sight of Rak surrounded by the alien beasties is a particular stand-out and it's the first time I've ever been tempted to actually try to buy a page of comics art.

Miscellaneous Material inc.

• Editorial
• Dreddlines
• The Interrogation Cube
• The Dredd Files
• Metro Dredd
• Charley's War
• Hell Trekkers
  

SW: I'm afraid to say I'm not all too impressed with the quality of the various bonus stuff in this month's Meg. Charley's war, which has been an on-again off-again affair for me, is off again, while Helltrekkers is read only because the bus ride takes longer than I'd like. The only vaguely saving grace is the Metro Dredd which backs up the 'fatties losing weight' LowLife story over in the progs, thus proving me right about said story being perfectly valid and not out-of-tune with the rest of the Dredd universe.

JM: The Dredd Files, however, having started out as an interesting idea, has descended for this reviewer into an awful slog that I dutifully undertake each month. "But I've read these strips!" I want to cry, to no avail: my inner completist forcing me to wade through them anyway. Whether the format would make sense to anyone who's new to Dredd I can't say. Charley's War really is superb. Helltrekkers a lot less so, but still fine as filler material.

What I really want to draw attention to, though, is Alan Barnes' statement of intent in his short editorial piece, and to say "Good for you". The punchy confidence in those words demonstrates just why the Megazine is right at the top of its game and producing its best, most interesting and varied issues ever (so much so that trying to choose a "Top Thrill" is a complete bloody nightmare - they ALL deserve it!).