Cover by John Higgins

Robert Cornell: Well, it’s that time of year again. The time I have to ask myself, “is The Megazine worth sixty quid a year?”

I wouldn’t PAY to look at the cover but it’s vibrant and eye-catching. Perhaps a bit isolated from the banner. More about Higgins’ artwork later.

Floyd Kermode: This review, I'm going through two readings of each item, to make sure nothing is missed. Thorough is not my middle name,but I'll give it a whirl because I like you. A big hand please for this month's guest reviewer, the waitress in the Elle cafe, Canterbury, (Melbourne's Canterbury that is, not to be confused with the Canterburies in New Zealand or the UK) who has just asked what I'm up to, had a squiz at the comic and announced that “it looks artistic”. I bet that's just the effect the artists were after. Now nip off and get my hot chocolate pronto.

As for the cover... First reading: well this does the job. I still miss the less cluttered Megazine covers of yore, but this one's okay. Right away I know that the guy who did those Preacher covers is to be interviewed. Interviews aren't what I subscribe for, but Fabry has been around a bit. Could be good. 'New Dredd Thriller' – always a good thing. 'Tank Girl' – uurgh, also 'what, more?', Armitage, excellent, I like Armitage. A lovely spooky picture with a looming spooky bear thing and not one but two puns.

Second Reading: You know, I love that looming panda. Way to loom! By the way, Glen Fabry's words about covers are apt “the secret behind an effective cover... is to not make your image unnecessarily fussy” Hear, hear Mr Fabry. The image isn't too fussy but the cover is.

Synopsis: Rudy Ruckus is a photo journalist with cameras implanted in his eyes, covering a story on a secret med facility that performs plastic surgery on mutants to turn them into "normal" Mega City 1 citizens. However, the Judges were following him and burst in, taking Rudy away for interrogation. They tell him that they are after gang leader Miguel Montoyez and expect him to be attending an upcoming skateboxing gig. The judges will alter his camera implants to let them see what he sees, and use the health of his mother as both a carrot and stick to get him to co-operate. Rudy has no choice, and soon he's heading into the Skateboxing club...

Robert Cornell: Megazine writers have to ask themselves what to do with those extra four pages. Four pages of action? A more measured story style? Or just padding?

Smith’s story is nice and atmospheric and worth the extra length just for that. The mutie extreme makeover centre is a nice idea. One of those occasional stories when the judges are shown blackmailing their citizens but why do they need this guy? Why not kick the door down, shoot everything that moves and arrest everything else? Is this a police state or isn’t it?

A solid start to a story that probably won’t go on to be a classic but still has a lot going for it.

Doherty’s gloomy and oppressive MC1 is a joy. Rainy streets, badly lit interrogation rooms, grubby torture chambers. Somehow, all this dinginess and murk gives the story that final touch of class.

Floyd Kermode: First reading: Good, promising, takes too long to set things up. After Cradlegrave, the words 'John Smith' at the beginning off a story make me perk up. Here, he's working with the genius who did Young Death, Peter Doherty. I keep confusing him with the junkie who shacked up with Kate Moss, but this Doherty is awesome at crumpled grotty people and black humour. So my hopes are high. The set-up is a bit too long – in fact you could put the whole story into four or less panels. Dredd is blackmailing/bribing a sleazy journalist with cameras in his eyes to spy on a crime boss. There, I've done it for you. Of course, doing it the Floyd way means you miss out on 'isja kikum bobbos kan'oo?', Smith's contribution to alien languages, pages of Doherty doing what he does well about plastic surgery on mutants, Judge Jacob speaking funky (he's been doing undercover work with perps who say 'mofo').

Sorry, I'm sounding too cynical there. It is a good read. I like the toughish line at the beginning 'this wasn't a place you went to – it was a place you wound up'

Second Reading: Now I know all the atmospheric stuff at the beginning isn't part of the story, I'm impatient with it. That's what happens when you read things twice. Still if Smith is in fine form he can meander all he likes.

Synopsis: Tank Girl has discovered that her childhood idol, Benny Greengables has been arrested for murder and extortion. Booga is worried that she'll respond the same way she did when her old school was scheduled for demolition - she blew up the place herself to stop anyone else doing it. He thinks she might kill Greengables - but all she does is shoot the TV and go to see here mum...

Robert Cornell: This is the third time I’ve reviewed Tank Girl and quite honestly I’ve run out of things to say. Talk about a pushy house guest.

With her tenure set to extend into the next decade and beyond, I’m increasingly getting the feeling of being on the outside of an in-joke.

Not funny is not funny and that’s all there is to it.

Floyd Kermode: First Reading: John Wright of Australia is kind to call this 'pubescent dross' in the letters column. Pubescent dross has the charm of youth. Tank Girl's recent incarnation has had all the charm of a mid thirty-something trying and failing to blend in with a bunch of creeped-out uni students at a party ('how about those Ramones dude?'). This month's story is better in several ways; no Ramones references, doesn't go on and on, the art is, as always, cute as a button and the silly sound effects and exclamations ('blap! knackers! babooshka!') aren't over used.

Second Reading: The down side is that the story is a bit ordinary. Tank Girl and her mates sit around talking. TG blows up things that make her nostalgic so they can't be destroyed. I'm not sure if the story is supposed to be anarchic, which is usually what they're after in a late to the party sort of way, or profound, which it is in comparison to other TG stories. I'd say that it was not true to the character, which it isn't since TG hasn't been a very sentimental type in the past. Then again, since Tank Girl doesn't have character in the way Dredd or Batman do it doesn't matter.

So the Second Reading verdict is Nice Try but I still would love to see the back of Tank Girl.

Synopsis: Top Mega City One supermodel Sandie Dew is thrown out of her apartment block and killed by what appears to be a giant panda bear. Darren Dead notices her ghost (as that's his thing, being a zombie who can talk to the dead) looking at her own mangled corpse as he's on the way to work as a TV celebrity. While his long-suffering assistant Elaine continues to put up with him, he discovers that thye Mega City One Magic Circle has come to an agreement with the TV networks and filed a cease and desist order that effectively stalls his TV career. Darren and Elaine visit the Magic Circle to complain (just as another of the Magic Circle is killed by the panda) but they have a deal to make with him...

Robert Cornell: Celebrity culture, narcissistic heroes, dead characters who speak to the dead and giant killer pandas. There’s nothing here we haven’t seen before (in one case very recently) but I enjoyed Darren Dead far more than I expected to.

Funny is funny and that’s all there is to it. Williams is Tharg’s best comedian at the moment (perhaps he sees himself as a gritty realist, but that’s tough) and as the Dirty Frank version of Low Life has shown, he has a knack for outrageous dialogue and weirdly likeable loonies. There were lines that made me laugh out loud. In some cases twice.

As for the artwork: Ah! My eyes! In a good way. Vibrant, colourful, expressive. That MC1 sure is versatile.

Floyd Kermode: First reading: A pun on a pun! First ever comics reference to Lynne Truss! Yaay! A chance for me to explain why a typical Australian man is like a wombat*! It's all good. Gorgeous humour helping-visuals abound here. Check Darren's face when he finds a nasty surprise in a box and the 'you think?' moment when Darren asks if they're at the magical whatnot headquarters. There's a pan back and we see that they're standing in front of a gigantic mystical eye thing which looks just like a mystical whatnot headquarters, hence the 'you think?'.

A pleasant pictorial treat is that Tony Lee, the writer of a couple of recent 2000 AD stories appears to be the victim of an other-worldly panda attack. Google Tony Lee's picture and tell me I'm wrong. Either it's Tony Lee or the artist has just decided that people with beards like that deserve phantasmal panda attacks. There's also a lot of quick-witted dialogue which doesn't strain at cleverness.

Second Reading: Is it just me, or is there a Watchmen reference in the first panel? Looks like Ozymandius and Bubastis. Well, with breasts. John Smith and a lot of comics writers for that matter, could learn a bit from Darren Dead's attitude to updating “yadda. Yadda and yes, yadda. Now on with the narrative”. Second time around this is still super fun.

Synopsis: Armitage is now partnered with Detective Timothy Parkerston-Trant, a hard working but incredibly irritating man. Meanwhile, Steel is being treated in the asylum and goes to group therapy to address her anger. However, one of the other judges there lost his job because of Steel and tries (unsuccessfully) to attack her.

Elsewhere, Armitage and Trant go to Biomorph industries to follow up their lead - where the chief of security has ordered the security robots to kill all the staff. He gets a contact to shut down the security system, and after a mishap with an Trant's unauthorised gun making them a target again, they find the security chief. He says they'll get nothing from him and then gunk explodes out of his orifices......

Robert Cornell: Comedy sidekicks are a tricky breed. For every Wulf, there’s a Grobbendonk. I like the idea that no one likes Tim because he’s TOO good. (Although there’s no sign of this yet.) Meanwhile, the not-so-funny ex-sidekick is off in a sub-plot. I hope this is going somewhere, because it looks like a distraction with a gratuitous Dredd reference.

This generally feels like a first episode, there’s been a lot going on but mostly side to side, without enough forward momentum.

I really WANT to like Armitage, I appreciate that way Stone has pushed character to the forefront and made Brit-Cit into an interesting backdrop beyond the judges in national dress standard.

A definite plus is the artwork. Drawn with the same granite as Armitage himself.

Floyd Kermode: First reading: Woo hoo, a comic at last! I should warn you that I'm a sucker for Armitage. I like Dredd but there have been bad Dredd stories. Maybe it's because Armitage appears much less often than Dredd. Maybe it's the fundamental incongruity involved in a very British character working in an American premise (ie the world of the judges) which comes out of the British background of boys comics. Perhaps I just have a thing about names which end in 'age'.

Armitage shouldn't work. Unlike Dredd, he's in a time limited situation – always fighting the power, constantly being suspended/taken off the case. It should just get silly after a while, but somehow I always find the character compelling. I have the same problem with Devlin Waugh – no matter how dissapointing the stories are, I find a gay Terry Thomas actalike vampire irresistible.

Anyway, enough about my lack of critical distance. Good characters and silly-ish plot just about sums this up. Armitage has a tough time with an upper-class twit while Steel goes through more angst with the inmates of a psych-ward. I keep wishing Steel would get over her problems and get to do tough police stuff with Armitage. It seems like the poor woman's only there to have crap happen to her.

Second Reading: Now that I've read the old Armitage story, the new one is less impressive, but still fun. The jolly John Cooper art seems perfect for the abrupt humour here. Abrupt here means 'simple but fun'. The characters' faces practically twinkle, except for the evil ones who just look a bit bland. This story is so very very British. Like the twerps in Four Weddings and a Funeral, everyone talks a bit too much; “We do have some slight idea of what we're doing” rather than just “we know what we're doing”, “somewhat lucid” rather than just “lucid”.

Unlike Hugh Grant and his mates, the characters don't make me want to kick them all through a window.

Robert Cornell: I notice in passing that “You Should Be Watching” has become “You Should Be Reading” but what I should be reading is the articles. Apart from the creator interviews I’m mostly skipping them.

The first thing that struck me about the earlier Armitage story is that it really needs to be in black and white. The second is that the stories are quite similar. It’s a decent read but, like the latest story, doesn’t seem to be making enough from the set-up.

I loved those joke binoculars. Where can I buy a pair?

Floyd Kermode: Interrogation: Glenn Fabry. First Reading: As previously intimated, I'm not into interviews in comics. I'm not the sort of person who can sit through those 'how we made this' bits on DVDs. I don't want to know the nuts and bolts of how they make it look like Arnie is dropping a tree on the Predator – I just want to enjoy it going 'ka-thunk' while he smirks through a camoflaged face. Likewise with comics interviews my first reaction is that the creators should just shut up, do their drawing and/or writing and save the “well my art caught the editor's eye at a comics con' stuff for some more specialised magazine which I'm not subscribing to.

Having said that, this a a pretty readable interview. I love Fabry's suggestion that Pat Mills should be the next Dr Who. The mind boggles. This week the Doctor frees an entire planet from the evils of non-pagan religions and capitalism. Tune in next week as the Doctor and Rose spend a month in the universe's greatest library doing research for the next Defoe story. Nose-in-a-book action just the way you like it!

Second Reading: Hey, if we're going to have interviews galore, this is the way to have them. Firstly, with a subject who has been around a bit and done some good stuff. Secondly letting the subject talk. Thirdly a minimum of fatuous interview-speak – the only example I can find here is Pat Mills being described as “scribe” rather than a writer. Knowing Mills, it's not impossible that he uses one of those quills made from a cassawory feather whilst sitting at a high table the way medieval monks did, but until we're sure, 'writer' will do.

There's some good art on display, although I would love to have seen some of Fabry's work from the Stranglers fanzine. My uninvted guest reviewer just delivered some tea and told me she didn't like Fabry's covers for 'the dead', because 'what have children got to look forward to'. Wimp that I am, I did not reply “I'm 47. It's not for children you dozy mare'. Any more chat and I'm worried she'll finish the review for me.

New Comics: The Rise and Fall (and rise again?) of com.x. First reading: snore! Nice pictures! on to Darren Dead

Second reading: Three nicely illustrated pages about a comics company that sounds like a very good thing indeed. What more is there to say? I could have done with more details about the stories in the comics, but that's just me. I'm impressed with the guys who started the company and their comics sound awesome. What's more, they're back, sort of, so there are more comics for us to buy. Much as I'd like the Megazine to be just comics, comics and more comics, it is very broadminded and cool of the editor to have articles encouraging people to buy stuff he doesn't profit from. You don't get Marvel doing that. That's the kind of spirit which got me into 2000AD in the first place.

You Should be reading....: DC: The New Frontier. First reading: save it for the second reading

Second reading: The comic being reviewed sounds like fun, although it's not entirely clear that someone who knows as little about DC comics as I do would enjoy it. Berridge reassures us that it's still fun in the old fashioned way, although he spends more time on what he calls 'know-it-all references than on explaining why New Frontier is terrific retro fun. I get the general idea – darkness in comics is played out, it'd be nice to have the simple fun of yesteryear and here it is. I'll keep an eye peeled for this.

Sinema City: Edinburgh Film Festival. First reading: Snore, move on . I'm not interested in horror movies or the Edinburgh Film Festival.

Second Reading: A punchy, well-written round up of what's available in the way of horror from the Edinburgh film festival. An Austrailian move about nature attacking unsuspecting hikers is being remade. I've never heard of the original but must see this. I didn't know we had any wildlife here that could threaten people. There's always razorback and those feral camels, I suppose. Do koalas fall on them in a scary way? Must see this. The rest of it is well written and to the point if you're into horro. I'm not but guess that a lot of Megazine readers are. It seems the boom in zombie/classics is continuing – there's a review here for a Romeo and Juliet meet zombies movie. I'm getting tired of zombies from just reviews without seeing any of the movies.

New Movies: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Moon,Antichrist, Ichi

First Reading: Did you know there was a new Transformers movie? Did you suspect it's a big dumb waste of time? The number of people for whom this would be new information could be counted by a cat. The number of people who need to know that Tranformers 2 is a big dumb movie and who read the Megazine must be zero, given the comics lack of selling power amongst cats. True, there's a nice picture of Ms Megan Fox's breasts next to a sneery quote about the movie, but for that people read Nuts, Zoo etc. Read on to see if there's any comics left in this here Megazine

Second Reading: Now I've actually read the unneccessary review. I've seen Transformers 2 and found it phenomenally stupid – like flicking through a years worth of Lad Mags at high speed in a game centre, so can't agree with the positive aspects of this review. Besides for funnyness about Transformers, you can't go past Charlie Brooker telling us that watching the movie was like having an angry washing machine shit on your face.

As superfluous reviews go, this is well written. Non-superfluous reviews follow. Moon sounds good and the the review tells me just what I need to know to decide whether to see it. We gather that Antichrist is disgusting but fun if you like films about films having the right to 'offend against acceptable thinking'. I think that means that it's fun to see films which push the boundaries of what's appalling and what isn't. From this review I can't tell if AntiChrist is a pile of cobblers or a brave experiment of some kind and I suspect the reviewer is in two minds about it too. Ichi seems to be derviative of Zatoichi but enjoyable, with a female lead.

Armitage: First Cut (bonus comic. Sorry 'Graphic Novel which looks exactly like a comic' I'll refer to it as 'the free comic' from here on).

First Reading: What is it with the British and Masons? This excellent bonus free comic has the same Masonic skullduggery that enlivened the Viz strip 'Bodley Basin, Monumental Mason'. Continuing the trend to use the extra comic to highlight new stuff in the Meg itself, we have here some vintage Armitage. It's not a bad idea, although it runs the risk of the vintage stuff showing up the new - like bundling songs from Let It Bleed with A Bigger Bang would be for the Rolling Stones. Kind of.

There's a nice mix of scary, futuristic and silly in this early Armitage story. Some very artsy pudding-bowl haircuts. I rack my brains but don't remember this look from the early 90s. Must google some old Shriekback videos and see. A bonus Judge Hershey story also from the early 90s. The waitress isn't peeking at this one, but 'artistic' would be the word. Looks a bit stilted. At the very end there are two early 90s Megazine covers. One is imposing and follows Glen Fabry's dictum that a cover should be as striking as the Union Jack. In fact is has the Union Jack with Armitage, Steel and some unnamed Brit-Cit Judge looming impressively at us. The other is an absolutely foul picture of Judge Anderson, put there to remind me to stop imagining that early Megazine covers were all awesome.

Second Reading: I like this. It makes me think a little less of Armitage's recent, more frivolous outings. There's a bit of detective work which doesn't make much sense if looked at in the cold light of day but which is very satisfying to read. You could say the same thing about Sherlock Holmes and a lot of Agatha Christie's work too.

Robert Cornell: As always, The Megazine is frustratingly close to being good but a long way short of essential. The main point in its favour is 25% more Dredd but too many stories simply outstay their welcome.

I probably will renew that sub. It’ll be good for the economy.

Best Story: Darren Dead

Floyd Kermode: A pretty solid Megazine, buoyed up by a good Dredd story and above average interview and articles, not to mention Darren Dead. Oh and a very good free comic.

Best Story:Darren Dead for effortless fun. Dredd is a close second.

*why is an Australian like a wombat? Because he eats, roots, and leaves.