Synopsis and 1st review by David Knight
2nd opinion by Floyd Kermode

Synopses and reviews contain spoilers for this issue

DK: The design aspects of the cover work well, but DeMarco’s partial nudity isn’t nearly as appealing as in the idealised version drawn by Frazer Irving in The Simping Detective.

FK: The cover is a mess and seems to contain a lot of last minute ideas. Loads of text with groan-inducing puns ("ladies who punch") and an illustration that doesn't work. I imagine it was put together by a committee all chiming in with bright suggestions "ooh, let`s have a headline that looks a lot like "Girl On Girl", that's
daring", "How about a little guarantee stamp with Dredd's face?". Nothing was thrown out and so we get this cluttered bits and bobsy thing. I pack this way, can't bring myself to throw anything out. Depressingly, Alan Barnes tries to pre-empt criticism of the cover by claiming it will draw flak for being "saucy". It would be "saucy" if
DeMarco's lower half looked anything like a female lower half. Unfortunately it looks like a mutation or a strange pair of pants.

Bite Fight - Part 2

Dredd takes on Waugh...

Synopsis: Judge Dredd investigates the abduction of Wally Squad Judge Ferrara by a bite-fighting ring. A tenuous lead ties in the disappearance of Vatican occult specialist Devlin Waugh. Bite-fight promoter Horst Reinhardt is staging another illegal contest when he is ambushed and assassinated by Mr. Katakuri of the Withered Hand Triad. Entering a skinless mutant named Ichi in the contest was merely a pretext for Katakuri to get close enough to steel the Eye of Sekhmet, Devlin Waugh’s psi-active pendant.

Meanwhile, Devlin Waugh is chained in a dungeon, enduring vicious torture at the hands of Reinhardt’s henchmen. Vatican psi agents direct Dredd’s investigation to an abandoned dockyard, where a contest between Waugh and Judge Ferrara is underway aboard a cargo ship. Dredd and his back-up squad sneak dispose of the guards. Below decks they find Ichi shooting his opponent and turning the gun on Reinhardt’s heavies. Judges order the bite-fight audience to surrender, and a gun battle ensues while the vicious contest between Ferrara and Waugh continues. Dredd knocks out Waugh, but Ferrara dies of his injuries. Devlin Waugh thanks Dredd for rescuing him; however, Mr. Katsakuri has escaped with the Eye of Sekhmet.

DK: For me, this wasn’t the most satisfying of Judge Dredd stories. The judges burst in, but fail to prevent the death of Ferrara, and the whole scenario seems to serve as a plot device to deprive Devlin Waugh of his pendant and set up a future adventure for the vampire exorcist. John Burns does some nice facial features for Dredd, Waugh and others, but Katakuri looks like some weird cipher wearing a mask. For the gore and the gruesome appearance of the bite-fighters he should score top marks, though.

The homophobic, swearing henchman adds some verisimilitude that Dredd’s world often lacks, and the inclusion of such an element had a good deal of shock impact. Plot-wise it was a bit scrappy, with the judges’ detective work achieving nothing, the Vatican psi operatives coming up with the best lead, and Katakuri’s murder of Reinhardt rendering the judges’ presence almost irrelevant.

FK: This story is beautifully drawn and well written. John Burns' art is always a delight and he gives us some very good looking female bite fighters (they should have got him to do the saucy cover). After the shock of Devlin Waugh`s introduction, it doesn't really do much with him. Reducing him to a snarling animal was very effective, but he remains that way until the end, bouncing back to camp Terry Thomas mode in the last couple of panels. A judge dies faced with the awful alternatives of bleeding to death or becoming a vampire. This is dramatic and interesting - but then he just croaks and we aren`t given much of a reason to care (trivia note; why would being a vampire be such a problem....Waugh seems to enjoy it). Good but flawed.

Innocence: A Broad - Part 2: Simping with the Enemy

Point sees something between Dredd and DeMarco...

Synopsis: Wally Squad Judge and private detective Jack Point finds himself in a stand off with fellow P.I. and former judge Galen DeMarco. Both have heavy back-up, in the form of Cliq, Jack’s pet alien raptaur, and DeMarco’s gorilla bodyguard, Perkins. It’s Demarco who backs down. Back at his office, Point digs up Justice Department info on DeMarco and reviews the case: a notorious gang boss’s henchmen are exploding one by one, and alien go-go girls are being drugged and/or abducted. Point has just discovered DeMarco used to be a judge, and learned of her connection to Dredd, when Judge Dredd himself kicks down the door and announces a crime swoop. For Point, this confirms that Dredd and Demarco have a close, if not illicit relationship; and Dredd and DeMarco find out that Point is a judge. Subsequently Dredd orders Point and DeMarco to work together.

When they meet up after tapping their contacts for information, a thug knocks out Perkins with a bat, while gang enforcer ‘Shite’ O’Leary takes DeMarco hostage and puts his boss on the phone to Point. The Boss threatens to kill Demarco unless Jack Point finds his wife, Innocence Barumba, who has been missing for two days. Point’s pet raptaur follows a scent, and Point finds Innocence the captive of a gang of weirdos and tied to a chair.

DK: In the course of events that have brought Jack Point, Galen DeMarco and Judge Dredd face-to-face, I’d quite forgotten and also ceased to care about Point’s case involving exploding gangsters and DeMarco’s involving drugged or disappeared alien strip club dancers. However, Frazer Irving’s heavy use of black to evoke an atmosphere of noir and Si Spencer’s sharp dialogue and the narrator’s voice story-telling device are engaging nevertheless.

Dredd carrying out a crime swoop in person as a favour to DeMarco is a turn-up certain to set tongues wagging, but as cheeky a means to a Dredd cameo as it is, it’s the highlight of not only this story, but this issue of the Megazine. Finally, at the end of part 2, the story gives the excellent pun title some meaning. Up to that point, I’d been thinking “which broad?”

FK: The Simping Detective zips along with loads of terrific noir art from Frazer Irving and puns a-plenty from the Spurious one. He has a nice way of forcing a pun to move the story along. I'm still chuckling inside at some of the jokes. The story is not only the freshest thing the Megazine has done for ages, it's also interestingly laid out, with the voice-over using a lot of space between panels. It's not perfect and could still disappoint by the end, but both Irving and Spurrier are extending themselves here.

DK: Part 1 very carefully laid out the score, so that it was plain who was who and why Dredd wanted Shimura to kill Inspector Sesoku for him. Part 2 dispenses with Dredd and his assassination mission altogether, as if it’s an alternative first episode to the series. I will confess to not being wild about martial arts, gangsters, the futuristic Japanese setting, or any of the themes this series deals with, but in this instance when you peer beneath these trappings there isn’t much besides. The last page is just daft. When Sesoku’s plot to get Inaba into bed doesn’t work out, he gives up far too easily and blabs the whole scam, as if he’s never heard of plausible deniability. But does he then shoot her as well? Maybe one of the gangsters crawled out of the wreckage and it’s him Sesoku’s shooting at and not Inaba after all?

FK: Shimura is looking damn fine, although the new haircut that Andy Clarke has given Inaba still startles. The action moves along well, mostly with Inaba being tough and sparring with a sexist-pig executioner type judge. Inaba is as acrobatic as ever This month's episode is competent rather than great, it gets us from the interesting first episode to the (hopefully) satisfying finale. It's good to see these characters back.

WMD - Part 5 - The Psi

Half Life attacks...

Synopsis: In Judge Anderson’s mindscape, the three surviving judges follow a marching army of the undead to a place where Anderson’s subconscious is under siege at its very core, represented by a floating sphere. Siege engines hurl suffocating black poisons that cover its surface. The army begins to chant the name of Half-Life, and the bodies merge together to form a giant monstrous manifestation of the misshapen creature. The Justice Department extispicist, Gistane, carves a message on the terrain in Anderson’s mind to be read by Fauster on the outside. As Half-Life attempts to break open the sphere with its spiked tail, Gistane prepares to channel Fauster while Shakta and Wain attack Half-Life and are swatted aside by the tail. Shakta launches a second attack and is blasted aside as Half-Life breaks a hole in the sphere. Gistane catches Shakta in a force bubble and blasts Half-Life with Fauster’s power. Gistane is scooped up in Half-Life’s claw and gives up hope. Shakta and Wain recover enough strength for a last assault, this time attempting to break Judge Anderson out of the sphere of her subconscious.

DK: Having gone over this several times to review it, I must say it gets better with every read. I haven’t a clue what Alan Grant’s cooking up here, but Arthur Ranson really brings it to life. Anderson’s fragile unconscious mind has retreated into a ball, which is first covered in murk and suffocated, then smashed open by a monster while the heroes try to stop him smashing it open, then they also try to prise her out. Half-Life is transformed from an abused innocent into a towering ogre, and whatever course of action the good guys take seems to be in vain.

However, the script and art work together to convey a sense of desperate urgency, and the last panel but one hints at Anderson popping up in the story some time soon. We can but hope. As things stand, this is a story I’m fairly happy with at the moment, and one that has brought something distinctive to the Megazine.

Killoden - Part 2

The mutants rebel...

Synopsis: First Minister Jack Weasel and Sir William Cumberland, Chief of Kreelers, plot to crush Scotland’s mutant population, while a mutant uprising is already underway. Weapons are distributed by the mutant resistance and reprisals against the Kreelers begin. Dundee is the first city to be captured by the mutant army, followed by Glasgow, Dumfries and Edinburgh. All of this is related in the memoirs of Scottish Parliament member, Sir David Stealer. Middenface is in Edinburgh fighting alongside Hard Angus, and uses a catapult to launches explosive shells at Edinburgh Castle were defenders are holding out. The mutant resistance captures the Holyrood Palace, which has at last been completed but still hasn’t been paid for, and Middenface leads an armed band of mutants into the debating chamber of the Scottish Parliament.

FK: Given what’s happening over in 2000AD with the mutant ghettoes suffering reprisals for the abduction of King Clarkie, it’s nice to see the mutants winning a few in this tale from Middenface’s McNulty’s youth. However, the in-story commentary hints that things are only going to go their way for so long. John Ridgway’s black and white line drawing proves equal to the task of depicting the mutant uprising, and the 200 year-old fashions worn by many characters seem to echo the script’s preoccupation with satirising present-day institutions.

This in itself is no bad thing: the best bit is the joke about the Scottish Parliament building being so over budget it still hasn’t been paid for midway through the 22nd century. More gripping developments are presumably still to come in part 3.

FK: Young Middenface: Killoden goes from strength to strength. This month, the mutie's war for freedom is brilliantly reported by bigoted norm propaganda, a trick which works. The art seems a little hurried this time but it still does the job and there`s a great picture of Scotland in there (which, if this isn`t a spoiler, looks as if it`s crying).

2%

Dredd starts sparring...

Synopsis: Terminal stress, known as ‘Street fatigue’ is the number one enemy of Mega-City judges. Only 5% of applicants to the Academy of Justice become full judges. Only 2% of judges prove immune to street fatigue. Judge Dredd is among that 2%. Dredd is currently investigating a spate of killings of notorious underground death fighters. The latest body to turn up is that of the illegal fight king, Champion Jack Duplex. The only possible explanation is that a new contender has emerged who is more than a match for the established names. Contests are filmed and holovids of the bouts are sold for fortunes. Dredd is called to the aid of judge in trouble, and saves Judge Chow from a gang of thugs.

Tek-Division’s post-mortem of Jack Duplex finds traces of sandstone dust that point the investigation toward a derelict factory. Dredd and Chow respond, and are let down by Chow’s street-fatigue induced indiscipline. His unnecessary aside to Dredd triggers a voice alarm and both judges are captured. Dredd is ordered to fight the seemingly impervious mutant death fighter, Boner. Dredd refuses, so the fight arrangers shoot Chow dead as encouragement. Dredd defeats the mutant by blinding it and seizes a gun, which he turns on his captors, wiping them out. Dredd is immune to street fatigue because in common with 2% of all judges, he is a natural aggressive psychopath.

FK: Shaun Thomas seems to be trying out new techniques here, with much darker backgrounds in contrast to his recent Bob Zombie artwork. The most striking visual effect is the texture of the smooth bone on the mutant’s fists.

The story itself is fair to middling. The description of judges’ susceptibility to terminal stress is confusing when paired with the visuals of the Boner/Duplex fight. We are presumably to understand that Judge Chow has street fatigue: he seems to exhibit all the symptoms. Yet he isn’t formally diagnosed, and Dredd doesn’t pick up the signs, and instead goes into a dangerous situation with an unreliable partner. Dredd’s speech sounds inauthentic, as if he has picked up an accent he didn’t have before.

On the plus side, it sets up the death fight idea well and provides Dredd with a suitably tough enemy to fight, and the ‘natural aggressive psychopath’ explanation for 2% of judges being unaffected by street fatigue is an interesting revelation. But to have two illegal fight stories in one issue seems like a bit of a scheduling blunder.

FK: This one episode story from Alan Grant has a nice narrative line and moody dark art by Shaun Thomas, which harks back to more depressing days at the Meg. I wouldn`t want all the art to be like this again, but here it`s a perfect match for the story. The theme, that Judges are all a bit psycho and could go off anytime, is nothing new, but as Jack Point says of his jokes, "it`s how you tell them".

Miscellaneous Material inc.

• John Burns Interview
• Dreddlines
• Fiction - Judge Fear's Big Day Out
• Metro Dredd
• Charley's War
• Dredd Files
• Heatseekers
  

DK: The Robin Smith interview wasn’t especially illuminating, and with the chronology of 2000AD format it read like a companion to Thrill Power Overload. I did like his insights into the role painted artwork may have played in alienating 2000AD’s younger readers. It’s an interesting theory.

The Dredd Files this issue was best read with gritted teeth, as David Bishop’s assessment of some classic Judge Dredd stories of yesteryear seems arbitrary verging on dismissive. Somehow the ‘merely average’ New Year is Cancelled merits 3 stars, while The Great Plasteen Disaster and The Black Plague only warrant 2. I realise this only reflects David Bishop’s opinion and isn’t being presented as fact, but I presume the reason for getting Dave to write this and not some tramp encountered in a bus station is that Dave’s opinion is considered to be worth something.

Passive/Aggressive by James Swallow was rather an old-fashioned text story, and none the worse for it, but I’m not sure it repaid the effort of reading it. I got considerably less out of reading this issue’s Heatseekers than last issue’s, although all the columns were probably well written. I am grateful to Scott Gray for drawing my attention to the work of a classic comics artist I’d never heard of before, and I enjoyed Simon Spurrier’s Movies piece even though I didn’t have to suspend my disbelief all that hard for Hellboy.

Metro Dredd was jolly enough, with the age old formula of perps fleeing through some fashionable leisure emporium and getting poetic justice meted out to each of them in turn by Dredd in time honoured fashion, courtesy of a variety of bullets from his trusty lawgiver. Metro readers aren’t as familiar with this scenario as the rest of us, so they need to be brought up to speed, and this does the job.

Call me a cad, but after seeing Ginger blown to smithereens and Charley’s body thrown on a barricade made of corpses in previous episodes of Charley’s War, the three installments printed this issue didn’t move me quite so much, even with the fresh horror of the dugout executions, and the Tommies drawing lots to see who should walk outside to get shot while Charley circles round the back to ambush the Jerries from behind.

FK: Interrogation Cube gives a lot of space to Robin Smith to talk about his life as art editor for 2000 AD's early days. It's well laid out and the background isn't too obtrusive. I found it readable. I don't care enough about behind-the-scenes stuff to find it controversial, as some have. One small gripe; strikes are mentioned. As in Thrill Power Overload, we are told nothing at all about why the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) went on strike. If it's worth complaining about a strike, it's worth mentioning the reason.

Passive/Aggressive. James Swallow's text story is competent and has one joke and a very familiar twist. It's not a bad idea having text stories, but it'd be good if they could all be up to the standard of the last Meg's Spurrier story. That felt as if Barnes was breaking new ground. "Passive Aggressive" feels as if he's saving money. Cam Smith's illustrations are nice.

Dreddfiles is....well, you know. Tells you things you don't know if you haven't read the early progs, but in a far less entertaining way than those progs did. Tells us things we know already or don't need to know. Is it news that Des O' Connor is an entertainer? If you didn't know this fact, would it be interesting? Dreddfiles also asks continuity questions with an air of "gotcha!". At these points reading the Dreddfiles is like being stuck next to the world`s most boring comic fan at a dinner party. I suppose it's good if you like it. The most impressive part for me is the chilling words "to be continued".

Charley's War, takes a step forward with a new character, a sympathetic German officer who hates the upper classes of both countries. Best line "I'm not a von". We are reminded yet again, that atrocities happened on both side. I'm still liking this.

Heatseekers

Movies: Just For Effect. Si Spurrier's movie column is mercifully not as ridiculous as his first. This time it's a hymn of praise to Hellboy, on the grounds that Hellboy dares to ask the audience to suspend their disbelief rather than just shower us with CGI. I agree that Hellboy is terrific, but don't quite get his argument here. Movies that shower us with CGI ask for more suspension of disbelief than movies which show
some restraint, because large amounts of CGI make the artificiality obvious. However, it`s pretty well written and he's right about Hellboy.

Orient: Do the Monkey. Once I've gotten over my annoyance at Jonathan Clements, rather than me, being our man in Hondo his column is good fun and quite interesting. This time it`s all about Monkey, how the idea came about in Japan and how it was received in the UK.

Cult TV: Homeland Insecurities. Jonathon Morris' column is damn good fun, a chucklesome review of a spy show called Spooks. Let`s have much more of this please, I don`t care if I never get to watch the shows.

You're Next Punk: Gordon Rennie has one page in which to say interesting stuff about deaths in 2000 AD. Perhaps they should try restricting Spurrier to one page too. He tots up various deaths in 2000 AD, discusses the fact the fact that it isn't afraid to kill its characters and goes over some of the more entertaining deaths. Oh and he bemoans Chopper's being brought back to life, reasonably enough. Informative,
kind of fun and much more interesting than Dreddfiles.

Comics: Time Lord: Scott Gray tells us all about an artist called Bernie Krigstein in anticipation of two new books of Krigstein's work coming out from Fantagraphics. I've never heard of this man, now I would love to read the books. Here's hoping these reviews run and run.

Metro Dredd: Snowdomia. I almost forgot the metro Dredd stories. These fit in well and provide a bit of fun and colour. Kind of Dredd-lite. I wouldn`t mind getting them in my morning paper.