Cover by Staz Johnson and Eva De La Cruz

AC: In the vein of last year’s Regime Change, one half of the Miranda/Cruz partnership pairs up with another artist to deliver a sandy, sunkissed action shot; I can almost feel the heat just looking at it (damnable thermostat). Even Dredd’s little butt-hair facial doesn’t seem especially incongruous.

The Hotshot Script: Gordon Rennie Art: Len O'Grady Letters: Annie Parkhouse

Dredd proves a hard taskmaster...

Synopsis: Dredd visits Sector House 163 to visit Judge Janna Danzer, a new Judge and one who used to be Judge Murdoch's rookie, who Dredd thinks might be a hotshot - a judge with a tendency to violence who goes over the edge once out on the streets. Dredd feels he can pull her back form the edge. After witnessing her in a fight with another judge (which they both call a sparring match) she's assigned back to street duty with Dredd as her partner.

Dredd intends to take her on a troubleshooting run, responding to alerts as needed. She does well on the streets, particularly in the use of her daystick which she says she became proficient in by watching footage of Dredd. Finally, they respond to a futsie pyromaniac torching a cityblock. Without waiting for orders Danzer heads into the building and appears to take out the futsie, who crashes burning out of the window to his death. She saves a kid in the process and seems to pass Dredd's birdie test that she did things by the book and didn't take the law into her own hands.

Dredd assigns her to be Judge Giant's partner...

AC: An electrifying one-shot from Dreddland, and we have rising star Gordon Rennie to thank for that. Beating Lost to the punch by a couple of years, Rennie came into comics with a well developed sense of serialised storytelling. He brings to works such as Caballistics Inc and The 86ers.

It’s interesting that the same should be true of his work on Dredd; themes, character arcs and stories can take an age to unfold with a multitude of other artistes jostling to get their stories told. We can only be thankful then that he’s determined to put in the effort; this follow-on to the tersely melancholic farewell to Judge Murdoch some months back manages to maintain the atmosphere over the time difference.

The ‘hotshot’ herself is a compelling little character, all pent up ferocity and dubious motivation. Following a similar throughline to John Wagner’s meditative America III, Dredd has to take a next-gen Judge in hand; the increase in colour and action from that strip is not an unwelcome addition, and ably brought to the page by the artist, and the strip even sees fit to introduce another plot thread at the end.

If Rennie’s future is indeed as the Dredd showrunner, we could be looking at a much tighter and more incident packed strip.

Apres Moy, La Deluge Script: Alan Grant Art: Dylan Teague Letters: Simon Bowland

Dubbel's pest control...

Synopsis: The curator of the museum searches for an escaped tiger, finally subduing it and dragging it back to where it belongs in the museum. On the way, he tells the story of the efforts of tek division in the aftermath of the Apocalypse War.

Project Arkus was designed to seed life on other worlds in case the Earth was destroyed by the war. However, before the craft could be launched, sugar junkies Mickey Moy and his girlfriend were escaping from the judges and decided to hijack the ship as their getaway vehicle. The Arkus was powered with a new electromagnetic drive, and as the judges opened fire on it, causing a temporal storm. The craft switched place with Noah's ark from 40,000 years in the past. The judges kept the ark and its inhabitants locked away safely, while it's possible that the world might be descended from Mickey Moy and his girlfriend...

AC: Throw your hands up and fall to your knees; a black sun rises this day, and in its glorious radiance we can divine the twisted faces of the future… that’ll be Black Museum back then.

I can’t tell you how pleased I am to see the Museum back so soon, and I won’t be the only one; what might have otherwise been yet another series of fillers (I rather think many of them are just strutty cockfights (steady) between the writers) spurred creators old and new to fantastic new levels of perversity.

Still, I’m a little put out to find this month’s offering from Alan Grant doesn’t have the kick of earlier instalments; set during the Apocalypse War years, it reads like a story of that era too, with the rather spaced out bike punks getting high on sugar, and stern Judges discussing things of great import in the background (A few utterances of “My Dok!” wouldn’t have been out of place).

Hopefully, it’ll be back next month at full strength.

Innocence & Experience - Part 3 Script: John Smith Art: Peter Doherty Letters: Peter Doherty

Waugh's schooldays...

Synopsis: When Devlin's father was buried, his mother burned all his works, but Devlin rescued the one thing his father obsessed over most, the Black Pyramid of Ptah. he became obsessed himself, barely noticing how Urqhuart was abusing Conrad until Conrad finally hanged himself. When Urqhuart moved his attentions to Devlin, Devlin killed him with the pyramid. Urqhuart burst into flames and the pyramid opened to reveal the Eye of Sekhmet.

Meanwhile, the group attacking the mansion are revealed as vampires but they are being whittled down by the defenses. They protect the advance of one of them, a bizarrely defined figure who heads to Devlin's mother's room. She thinks that it's Freddy, but Devlin fatally wounds it before realising that it's a tulpa, a doppelganger made up of Freddy's memories. The tulpa delivers a message to Devlin telling him that something's coming for Freddy and to prepare to set sail on the Ship of Fools. Devlin realises he's going to have to get Freddy out of another mess...

AC: John Smith’s latest excursion into the twilight world of gay vampire exorcists (good to see how the other half lives…) comes to a close, with typical style and invention; the ‘messenger’, trippy typeface and all, is classic Smith, with Pete Doherty rising to the challenge big stylee. The grottiness and even downright cruelty of the subject matter forms an effective counterpoint to the decadent glamour of the strip and as Innocence and Experience closes the book on Devlin’s past (or some of it), no strip turnover rate can be too high to speed the next (ahem) Waugh story to the Megazine.

No Body, No How - Part 4 Script: Simon Spurrier Art: Frazer Irving Letters: Ellie De Ville

Jack Point roughs up the staff...

Synopsis: The DNA match comes in and the body is revealed as Judge Freedi Dree, discharged after an unjudicial liason with an unknown fellow judge. When fired, she went to the outer Epsilon system but came back to the Meg with a new face and name. Point starts to remember that she came to visit him and offered him a drink, but upon taking it, he passed out.

At that point in the present, the flashback is halted abruptly by a pain in his head. He again seems to black out, heads to the sink and chops off two of his own fingers, coming to only to see what he had done but with no idea why. Desperate, he visits Friggy McGlutinin, a black market neurosurgeon to find out what's wrong with him. Later, with all the answers, Point returns to his apartment. He calls Roth and tells him he knows what he's smuggling from the Epsilon system and to come to his apartment or a meeting. He then calls his pet raptaur to the body of Dree - "chow time".

AC: The writing and art continues strong on this inventive liddle number, but to be honest I’m beginning to glance at my watch with this one. The emergent story is proving a little more slim than it first appeared, bolstered as it was by the succession of visits to Point’s hab by an admittedly colourful cast of characters.

Still, when it’s Spurrier and Irving, it’s not difficult to find patience, and as ever we’re left with a veritable trove of linguistic gems.

Judge Dredd reprint: The Alien Zoo
Interrogation - Mike Mignola
Feature: Comic Auters - Mick McMahon
Small Press - Crystal Tips
Dredd Files
New Movies

AC: A highly impressive small press piece blows the predecessors out of the water in terms of art; the story’s pretty damn cool too, even if it does suffer the “pilot episode” syndrome of earlier efforts. An ongoing series of “What’s Dat Skull Fer?” would get really old, really fast, and it would have been better off with a standard issue twist ending.

The movie reviews are beginning to grow on me, I have to admit; then perhaps the favourable review of Hot Fuzz might have sweetened the pot for me. A pedestrian reprint that never really deserved a second look mars proceedings (just how many “alien zoo” stories have there been in Dredd’s history?), but we get back on track with some pretty Mike McMahon pictures and a decent interview with the influential artist.

AC: This may actually be the strongest issue of the Megazine I’ve seen since I started buying! It’s not great that I should be able to pinpoint a favourite so easily, but what is great is an issue where Dredd provides soul with its action, Devlin supplies human horror alongside supernatural horror, and small press provides, well, good story with good art (!). Simping Detective and personal favourite Black Museum give typically strong showings, and the textual material is a cut above the usual bathroom reading level.

THIS right here is the standard these guys need to be working to if the Meg is to last another 15 years…

Best story: Judge Dredd