210: Let's go to Wok

Let’s go to Wok…insultingly racist or awesome? You decide! So yeah we are onto part two Gordon Rennies three part “backdoor pilot in disguise” Judge Dredd stories with personally what I thought turned out to be the weakest of the three characters.

Judge Dredd heads to Hong Tong to try to stop a perp running racket and is forced to join forces with peoples justice ministry inspector Liu Chan Yeun better known as Johnny Woo

I do love Johnny’s description of Dredd however as a notorious war criminal and capitalist oppressor assassin. The white ghost called Dredd I got a chuckle out of that due to it being so darn accurate it hurts…

Judge Death Bullshit alert: The guy who famous puts his hand into peoples chest and squeezes their hearts uses a sawn off shotgun…yeah…

209: Road Kill

There’s nothing quite like a….wait WAUGH is still running?!?

Yes Devlin Waugh and the reprints of Darkies mob continue…we okay darkie will be leaving next episode but Waugh will be around until the next relaunch issue!!!!

Okay lets ignore that for now and check out the new stories within these pages. We have cover boy Judge Death returning in a sequal to the infamous “throw Anderson off a roof as punishment for the monkey story” series known as My name is Death. He is now on the loose in the cursed earth and will within the next few months will be built up as a legitima….bwah-ha-ha-ha…sorry can’t keep that up. If the sight of Death on a buggy does not tip you off as to what will come then keep your eyes peeled as I will chronicle the complete ruination of Death….

Elsewhere this issue two new series Xtinct and yet another pilot by Gordon rennie appears in judge dredd. Also returning is a much welcome repeat for harry Twenty on the high rock and a return appearance of the banditti vendetta but we’ll cover those stories in later entries.

208: The worst strip in the Galaxy...

Okay deep breath it’s only been like two weeks….yeesh…

Madon

Bato loco has his own strip now he started off as a bit character in a dredd strip and managed to get his own strip. A similar fate would happen to two more of Gordon Rennies characters but I am sure we’ll talk about them in the future.

Carlito Argarra is known as Bato loco the crazy guy. He is trying to make creds but continues to face up to the might of the mobs and the judges but this issue faces his most dangerous foe. His girlfriend who may be even crazier than he is!

A fun series which will return and I welcome it….which is a nice segue way into the reason this entry has been postponed so much…

Now before I say this I like David Bishop. He has written wonderful things in particular the Nikolai Dante Novels which I am rereading for my too cool to kill series for Everything comes back to 2000ad he contributed to the dredd audios from big finish which should be re-released for the movie and he wrote thrill power overload which I have gushed about in the past. Heck I even like some of his more maligned strips from the past Straitjacket fits was fun, had no place in the Meg but it was fun!

This however…oh god this…

The editorial spins Repomex as a new strip they are proud to present and wish for people to let them know if they wish to see more…

Kind of stinks of desperation as if they knew they had a clunker but decided to slip it in anyway.

Anyway let’s try to talk about this strip. So there’s this hotel and a bellhop is seduced by a sex-mech but it turns out he is being set up as he is led into a hotel room and is then attacked by criminals. Turns out the sex-mech is some kind of bounty hunter and something?

And it ends with the bellhop being forced into being a repomex which is apparently the worst job in the galaxy?

I am sorry I really do not like this story. If I was still doing videos this would merit a daily hate of its own it’s that bad…

I am just glad it’s over I mean there won’t be a strip in the future worse than this right?

Err right?

207: Femme Fatale

What a lovely pulpy cover for this issue heralding a new story from the wonderful John Wagner in which justice department orders a full shakedown on an entire block. A crime ridden hellhole. The story focuses on various inhabitants of the block trying their hardest to remove incriminating evidence before the judges barge in.

Oh and the angel of death is stalking the same block. Oola blint is a recurring villian who is a nice person who genuinely believes that killing people is a good thing. Allowing them to pass on away from the madness of the mega city. The episode in this issue actually ends with Dredd ending up inside the same elevator as her and her long suffering husband Homer…

Also Ending this issue however is Family a superhero story with no real heroes. Instead its more like the godfather except the two families have powers. It is a fine story when read all in one. However two major issues let this tale down in its original printed run.

The first is the tale is badly wounded due to the monthly run of the meg. If this story ran in the prog it would be much easier to follow weekly instead of monthly. The other problem is Simon Frasers art. No I am not going to rag on him again. I feel bad enough as it is with my first Too cool to kill entry which ragged on him.

No it’s the mash of no colour plus characters wearing similar suits and hats fighting each other is the problem of this story. If this was in colour and in a weekly comic this would be an instant classic. As it is now its just good and that’s a shame…

206: They don't like it up'em!

Monkey on my back ends with Cannon fodder judge chambers dying to stop the mutant. Fifty seven judges died during the mutant incident and ceremonies were held for them all the narration helpfully says that Dredd himself went to just Chambers…

Tell me…does this sound like the hard bastard we all know and love? Nope Ennis bullshit right here folks.

Meanwhile cover star Devlin Waugh continues in the story which never ends. Devilins group are still taking Lilith to the Helsing institute. The group are still being chased by vampires. They still want to bleed daywalker Lilith in order to steal her ability to stay alive….

Wash, rinse and repeat…

Ugh…this goes on for a year and you know what the payoff is? Devlin Waugh becomes a daywalker….thats it!

ugh

205: Street Bash kid

Ah my boy Young Middenface is back and begins a run of stories which explores the origins of the strontium dog universe from the point of view of Scotland. Beyond the impossible as it may sound Scotland is worse in the future than it is at the moment.

Kreelmans kreelers is on the march targeting mutants everywhere. Middenface and bonny Charlie prince are on the run after their epic escape from prison in the previous story and they both join the mutant anti kreelman resistence.

Thrill power overload ends its run in the meg. Two follow up series focusing on Battle and the meg itself would follow yet while both interesting in their own right never did quite top the original series. TPO eventually became an updated and revised book which is still available. While many creators still refused to be interviewed and thus opinions are not exactly fully formed it is still well worth a read.

Meg 204: Be very afriad

Garth Ennis is back!

Way back when I first began writing these entries I spoke of Helter skelter. Or as I referred to it, Garths 2000ad Masturbation fantasy. Well he’s back again although I do wonder what they bribed him with this time?

Anyway we are in the past or more specifically round about the beginnings of Dredds time in 2000ad. Chief Judge Goodman is still alive and so is that evil psychotic shitbag Cal.

The story goes that Goodman is taken over by this bizarre creature that latches onto his back and makes him do terrible things including taking down Dredd. Continuity? ENNIS laughs at your feeble ideas of continuity.

Also bringing to mind the early days of this blog Juliet November has been having her own solo series and while it started off as “Oh I have this date, oh I hope my fire powers don’t cause hijinxs!” it got dark very quick and very fast. Their dinner date is hijacked by a family who proceeds to beat her date to death thinking he is a judge spy.

Horrified that her date did this to protect her she goes apeshit and burns first the family and then the entire audience after they turn on her believing her to be a mutant. Dredd has to arrest her and the story ends with her locked in a special psi cube and one of her hands burnt.

Bit of a downer to end this entry really…

Next

Fear the atavar!!!

Megazine 203: til death do us part

So mr gibson…who are you supposed to be parodying in this episode of judge dredd? Cilla black maybe a good few years after people knew of her? Or Davina McCall? Either way this is the marriage game and this is the return of walter the wobot and mrs gunderson.

Kinda appropriate this is my valentines entry. So this is a mega city dating game in which a lucky prospective bachelor gets a chance to win a marriage to a lucky woman and our fave eldster and wisping wobot are there to cheer on a man called Troy…who works at mrs gundersons house of horrors as judge death….

Ever since Gunderson opened up her home for the tourists the actor she always gets to play judge death goes mental and kills people….

Which is of course what happens to troy as he claws and bites at his prospective brides, and of course Dredd shows up and does what he does best.

Meg 202: the serpent sword demands blood

This is the story of a madman.
A hard, cruel son of satan
who led us into the very pit
of hell -and laughed
About it. Then he began
To turn us into animals-
The most savage fighting
Force the japs had
Ever known…

This is the story of Darkies Mob and pretty much the entire premise of this wonderfully grim story is in that opening paragraph. A man named joe Darkie takes over a platoon of soldiers and leads them into enemy territory and we spend a long time getting used to the group and then they all start to die one by one. Brutal stuff but pretty good!

Meanwhile on the cover Pat Mills brings to life Finn with Indians (finndians?) …okay it is actually called Black siddah but replace all the hippy crap with mysticism and I can assure you you can barely tell the difference.

Its mad…I don’t know what else to say about the strip other than that…but it is truly insane!

Next slog…err pat mills brings the insane again…with slaine this time

Meg slog 2o1: Return of the writer!

Back by popular demand the text entries and let us start with the completely new beginning of the megazine. A new renumbering, a new page size and a whole page size and that are just the beginning of the changes. The reprint has been branded together as 2000ad gold and through the coming months, we would get classics such as fiends of the eastern front, Harry 20 on the high rock and err slaine time killer…

What makes this period in the reprinting of strips more interesting is the reprinting of battle classics. Darkies Mob is reprinted and so is the classic Charlies war but more on those in a future entry.

As for the new strips inside this issue, we have two dredd stories. Phartz, which is one huge poot, joke gone horribly awry by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra. And an apocalypse war anniversary tale by Gordon Rennie, which ends up being better than the John Wagner strip…seriously.

There is Family a strip, which is written by the Nikolai Dante team. But more on that in a future entry and finally there is a one off story called the Kleggs which is a comedy strip featuring the alien race once hired by crazy judge cal during the day the law died storyline. It is….not my cup of synthe tea I am afraid. It is not a daily hate crime but I still am not a fan of it.

Devlin Waugh begins a new story with a text feature, which explains the long torturous life, the strip has had. More on this story in a future entry although I would be remiss not to mention that the supposedly reprint free 201 has an old Waugh text strip inside its pages…perhaps the no reprint rule didn’t count for text stories? Moreover, speaking of text we get a double shot of thrill power overload this time round including a special episode, which never became part of the eventual book. It focuses on original IPC publisher John Sanders and is well worth a read.

Well that is the first written slog in a long time. Do not get used to the length they all won’t be this long…see you next time as some alien bastards hit the big meg…

4.17: banged up

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5_O9FbwGKQ&feature=youtu.be

4: 16 first person shooter

http://youtu.be/Phnf-nWbrgc

Meg slog: 4:14 Bring me the head of lenny zero

http://youtu.be/NWuU2Wnd8yw

4:13 American beauty

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fl87LocY-kk

Meg 4.12: Queen of the damned

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8_xZGDyZHo

Meg: 4:11 Heart of darkness

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6wek1jfQww

4.10 Fighting talk!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIAl9J6UlP4

Judge Dredd Megazine 4.9: The filth and the fury!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVRDoUYGEc8

Judge Dredd Megazine VOL 4.1

In the summer of 2001 it was clear someone in rebellion was pleased with the end of year progs because the judge Dredd megazine after years of printing any old crap from the files or being stuck with reprints of recent mega epics (necropolis) or stuff which while awesome does not deserve to be in a book called JUDGE DREDD MEGAZINE (Preacher) It was clear it was time for a change and thus the Meg undergone its forth such regeneration turning into a mammoth 100 pager.

For your £3:95 you got over 90 pages of comic strip about 50 of which were reprint. Over half of this reprint would come from 2000ads own archives. For this first issue Robusters was dusted off for the first time in years joined by over exposed awesomeness from Dr and Quinch.

The other half at first came from other British books as we say hello to Lazarus Churchyard. I didn’t enjoy it much though it was interesting seeing D’israelis early art which looked nice but nowhere near as good as his current stuff. This British reprint thing took a backseat after Churchyard ended but we’ll come to that in 4.9 as we officially begin the Meg slog.

The remaining 40 pages of strip were all brand new. We got a 15 page Dredd strip featuring the return of the fatties and in particular a training camp for speed eating contests. Lenny Zero returns as he comes face to face with a certain Lawman…who? Well his name is on the front of the magazine.

The final brand new strip was wardog which I believe was supposed to be based on a Rebellion published videogame which never happened as far as I know which is a shame because despite the cornball insane premise it was a neat little strip. What was that cornball premise? Well our hero has a bomb in his head and if he fails to complete a contracted mission before the timer hits zero, he dies. Better than it sounds believe me!

The meg slog will continue in 4.9 the first officially bought by me issue