Synopsis and review by Hugh Platt

Summaries and reviews contain spoilers for this issue.

Culling time

Dredd goes gardening...

Synopsis: Out in the Cursed Earth, hordes of Flinks, creatures of unknown origin made of mutant vegetable matter, are swarming. Above, circling H-Wagons use incendiary bombs to kill as many as possible. However, there are too many to kill, and it is up to Dredd and a rag-tag collection of citizens and Judges to stamp out the infestation.

On television, Judge Estler explains that while no-one knows the origin of the Flinks, they are mutant vegetables who devour entire crops, making their extermination essential to the city’s survival. A general call out for volunteers is put out to help exterminate them. Large crowds respond to the call, but instead of being allowed to bring their own weapons they are issued with large, spiked maces.

Penal workers are also being drafted in to help clean up the mess. One gang in particular is angry at being forced into helping out, and tries to escape in an H-Wagon after killing the judges with their issued maces.

Estler calls Dredd and informs him of a new mutation in the Flinks – they have turned carnivorous. The rapid reproduction and evolution of the Flinks means the judges must find and exterminate them at their breeding ground. Dredd and Estler are interrupted by the perp’s escape attempt. Dredd fires an Armour Piercing round into the H-Wagon’s power system, in order to bring the H’Wagon down with minimal casualties.

The escaped perps crash and find themselves surrounded by the carnivorous Flinks. Dredd stumbles across them. The perps think Dredd has come to save them, but instead kills them with some Hi-Ex. Dredd radios the co-ordinates in to the West Wall Gunnery, and a few mini-nukes irradicate the Flink nest.

Later, as the sun sets, a Flink crawls out of the dirt, sprouts some wings, and flies off into the sunset. It appears that perhaps Flink problem isn’t over for good…

HP: Rennie’s handle on Dredd is widely regarded to be second only to Wagner, and when he’s serving up slices of thrill power like this it’s not hard to see why. With the seal cull in Canada making this one oddly-topical, and a touch of ultraviolence, Mega City-style, this harks back to classic Dredd while still remaining very much the action-packed fast-flowing Dredd of today

I am loving the comb over and twee moustache of Judge Estler. A born bureaucrat before he even said a word. While Justice Department’s arming of gangs of felons seems a little suspect, this isn’t Deep and Serious Dredd, this is Shooting Carnivorous Vegetable Dredd, and I can forgive a minor plothole if it gives us lines like “Freakin’ Cursed Earth! What kinda place breeds bouncing pet vegetables?”

Dredd’s perhaps not looking as grizzled as we’ve come to expect these days, but he is looking suitably impasse, but Paul Marshall manages to give the Flink horde a sense of mass bouncing madness. And who can beat a Chris Blythe mini-nuke inferno? I feel warm just looking at it.

Malachi - Part 4

Koburn gets even...

Synopsis: Koburn and Malachi face off at the Juve camp. Koburn shoots Malachi with a Hi-Ex round. It blows Malachi’s arm up, but Koburn is forced to use his remaining five Hi-Ex rounds to reduce him entirely to ash. Koburn checks on Bonaventura’s condition. She needs medical attention from the city.

A juve alerts Koburn to the fact that Malachi isn’t dead and is slowly re-building himself. Koburn tells Michael to escape on his bike with his pregnant girlfriend. As he is out of Hi-Ex, he then lines up everyone with a gun and gets them to concentrate their fire on Malachi. The plan does not appear to be working, but Michael returns on Koburn’s bike and fires a harpoon through Malachi. Koburn jumps on the bike, driving it deep into the Cursed Earth. He sets a course for the Nebraska Split, a chasm that goes deep into the Earth, and bails out, leaving Malachi to fall down the trench.

Back at the ranch, the Med-Wagon has arrived. As Bonaventura is loaded aboad, Koburn reveals that he’s signed a recommendation that she returns to street duty. He also sends Michael and his girl back to the city with a full pardon. Michael doesn’t want his unborn son to grow up to make the same mistakes he did, and protests. Koburn tells him to go away and think about it, and to come see him if he still wants to live in the Cursed Earth...

HP:Koburn’s latest run has been a little bit short of the mark for me. The Juve camp seems a bit…earnest…dare I say it…a bit “Robbie Morrison” for Gordon Rennie. Malachi just doesn’t seem like a particularly good villain – more of a cut-price Judge Death, without the hisssss.

Koburn’s rather short-term silencing of the Malachi threat (chucked down a massive chasm doesn’t seem like too much of a setback to a creature that can re-constitute itself from flaming ash) makes it seem like this is just the first face off between Koburn and the undying beast.

Ezquerra has given the strip a superb showdown-at-high-midnight vibe, as there’s been something of the Wild West lacking from Koburn as late. The Cursed Earth is a playground bigger than just re-treading ground that I feel the Missionary Man has already done. Here’s hoping that when Koburn saunters back into the pages of the Megazine, he’ll be packing a little bit more swagger and spit.

The Wages of Crime

Never a good sign...

Synopsis: It is late at night at the Black Museum, Justice Department’s Museum of Famous Crimes and Criminals. A shadowy figure without any skin is moving in the shadows and announces his intention to tell us the story of his origins.

Two days a week the museum is open to the public. The figure from earlier, this time looking normal and human, is working as a guide, showing the public the Judge Fear exhibit. He then moves on to show them the heart of PJ Maybe. As he is leaving for the day, a Judge calls him by the name ‘Henry’ and asks him if he has seen the Pavlov Lobotomy, an exhibit that has gone missing.

Outside, in the shadow of the Hall of Justice, Henry gets in to a waiting car, and hands over the stolen brain of Pavlov to a shadowy figure on the backseat. Henry tells the collector that he cannot steal for him anymore as the Judges are getting suspicious. The collector however will not be satisfied until he has PJ Maybe’s heart. He blackmails Henry into one last theft. Henry buys a souvenir fake-heart from the museum gift shop, and switches it with the real heart. However, the Judges are watching on camera and follow him to the collector.

In the car, the collector accuses Henry of trying to fob him off with a fake heart. When the Judges following are spotted by the driver, the Collector accuses Henry of turning him in. They open fire on the Judges and destroy their vehicle. Automatic systems change the colour and registration of the car. The collector gets agitated when Henry calls him crazy, then says he has a place for a man like him. The collector lives in an enormous house. He collects relics and remains of serial killers and their victims. He introduces Henry to his father – a plasticinator who animated corpses and eventually moved on to living victims. The collectors robot corpses seize Henry and put him in the machine to be plastinated.

Several months later, a random Judicial search uncovers the collector’s hidden museum. They reveal that the collector is Armando Rivetts, the son of another serial killer, and re-possess all his exhibits, and identify the animated corpse of Henry Dubble.

Back at the Black Museum, Henry Dubble has become an exhibit himself. The Judges keep him there to remind the staff that crime doesn’t pay. As the tour group moves away, Dubble turns to the reader and signs himself off.

HP: Like Frazer Irving beforehand, Shaun Thomas’ stuff works well when it comes to creepy horror. While his recent Middenface McNulty might’ve suffered from the characters looking so similar it was often hard to tell them apart, here it’s less of a problem.

In a suitably ghoulish introduction to the series, Wagner establishes our Crypt Keeper-esque guide to what might hopefully become a semi-regular feature. What with Mega-City Noir being effectively shelved to make room for more Jack Point in Simon Spurrier’s schedule, a series of Dreddverse one-offs provides a welcome change of pace.

The animated plastinated corpses are a nice contemporary twist – after all, it’s surely only a matter of time before Gunter von Hagens adds that to his touring mortuary.

Miscellaneous Material inc.

• Rogue Trooper Article
• Small Press - By the Pricking of my Thumbs
• Charlie's War
• Metro Dredd
  

HP: Charley's War - With Matt Smith’s promise to reduce reprint to around 7 pages from now on, it looks like Charley’s War is slowly going to be phased out. Which is a shame for those of us who weren’t even born the first time around and are only just coming to it now.

With the story of Blue’s past mixing in and out of the narrative of Charley and his escape from the Drag Man (an unquestioningly iniquitous opponent, who was only tarnished by his cop-out death), Pat Mills was producing some of his best stuff here.

Rogue Trooper feature - Even with the upcoming Rogue Game, there’s no way this could come across as anything other than a dry-heave of a read. It’s like the most turgid aspect of the woeful Dredd Files forced into prose form. If anything, this article just highlights how good the recent Gordon Rennie arc was – juxtaposed against the abortion of common sense and storytelling that much of the latter Friday / entire Tor Cyan period represented.

Instead of this staid little exercise of a history lesson, I’d have liked to have seen a somewhat less-stoic article about the Rogue Trooper game. After all, it’s the game that’s caused the Rogue-heavy flavour of this year.

The rest - Who is really missing Heatseekers? They were an okay feature, but you always felt that they were tacked on. Metro Dredd? I think we all know what to expect from this.

As far as this month’s Small Press recommendations – I agree whole-heartedly with both Bulldog Empire and Thrud. Having picked up the former at this year’s Web & Mini Comix Thing, it’s a fantastic roaring tale with the spirit of Tom Ten and the what-ho of Boy’s Own. Bi-planes that turn into Bi-mechs, giant trans-dimensional stompy robots, and a second-story with a squid-headed master criminal? What’s not to like?

Thrud’s continuing rampages should have pricked your comic-radar by now. The pictured issue has Thrud inadvertently save the beleaguered city-state of Carborum from a giant pig-beast after butchering the state’s more chivalrous saviors after a mis-understanding over their intentions, and is a perfect introduction to the meat-headed oaf’s exploits. Just don’t spill his pint.

It’s hard to be objective about By The Pricking Of My Thumbs, what with Mr Berridge being a pretty hefty contributor to this site over the years. It was certainly different to the usual fare of the Megazine, certainly as creepy as any Terror Tale and oblique enough to be enigmatic without being irritating. If future spotlights on the small press can be half as engaging, then the feature will have done it’s job.