Judge Dredd Megazine #223 Review

Archive

Reviewer: Will Cooling

Editor: Alan Barnes
Publisher: Rebellion


Judge Dredd
Story Title: How To Succeed In Bizness (Without Getting Caught)

Written by: Alan Grant
Art by: Dave Taylor
Lettered by: Tom Frame

Alan Grant is one of the great satirists in comic history with a iconoclast disregard for the scared cows of the great and good, the middle class and sometimes the poor and downtrodden. Sometimes his satiric bite is more than the reader is willing to chew but when gets it right his satire is extremely tasty. This story is a case in point with a very simple tile of a serial killing given extra interest and spice by his use of a start-your-own-business self-help kit as the motivation for the killer. What makes the satire so astute and biting is that Grant plays the motivation straight, the killer is not a loon and he isn’t a sadist he’s just a struggling entrepreneur with his application of a “corporate strategy” to murder being genius. The action is excellent as well with the death’s handled in a visually stimulating and inventive way brilliant portrayed by Dave Taylor whose art is a combines the style and weirdness of D’Israeli with the retro simplicity and energy of Mike Allred. Amazingly close to matching the brilliance of Six.


Cursed Earth Koburn
Story Title: Kuss Hard: Pt. 3

Written by: Gordon Rennie
Art by: Carlos Ezquerra
Lettered by: Annie Parkhouse

In this climatic part we see the Kuss Brothers holed up in a Cursed Earth cafÃ??Ã?© (remembering of course that the Cursed Earth is a atomic desert that cannot sustain life…er…about that…) as Koburn and Bonaventura ambush them with ruthless aggression…and guns obviously (be a bit stupid not to bring those). Enjoyable episode even if Rennie leaves the slapstick and comedic moments outside as he concentrates on delivering an old fashioned gun fight with some great moments. That’s not to say that this story lacks laughs, there are some very cute quips and character moments especially from the ridiculously incompetent hicks that are the Kuss Brothers. This is very old school Strontium Dog with Rennie’s writing wearing its influences on the sleeve with Koburn showing the same mixture of conventional-hero/anti-hero as Johnny Alpha and the same cool, collected and cunning manner. Of course the strip is slightly more saucy and edgy than Stronty was/is but not by much. Of course that’s no criticism, plenty have tried to follow in Wagner’s footsteps but few have succeeded like Rennie does with Koburn as he produces an excellent conclusion to an enjoyable debut story.

Carlos Ezquerra isn’t bad too you know.


Anderson PSI
Story Title: WMD: Pt. 3 ~ The Telepath

Written by: Alan Grant
Art by: Arthur Ranson
Lettered by: Annie Parkhouse

With King’s exit last month at the hands of the Half-Life virus, the remaining four psychonauts are at the mercy of a horde of “soldiers” that are rampaging Anderson’s diseased mind. As the other three are decimated the angriest Behr in town (sorry) attempts to show that when it comes to PSI hijinks where there’s a will there’s a way…

This is maintaining the standards of the previous parts with Behr’s characterisation whilst hardly subtle proving a welcome relief to the standard humanity and kindness of PSIs (as so welcoming satirised by Gordon Rennie) with an arrogance and determination that’s worthy of Jose Mourinho as she clearly fancies herself as smarter than the average Behr (sorry…again). This month she goes round like the boring one in a horror movie screaming “THEY KNOW IT IS F*&$ING REAL!!!”, which is entertaining because a) she that’s not the point and b) the interactions of everyone else who promptly ignore her, with the “weakly witch of the west” proving very mysterious in his dealings with her. Of course that’s just the Behr Necessaries (I can’t help myself) of a top quality story with the growing mystery that surrounds Half-Life and how their going to defeat him and the gorgeous artwork of Arthur Ranson getting the temperature of this story just right (please don’t hit me).


The Simping Detective
Story Title: Crystal Blue: Pt. 3

Written by: Si Spurrier
Art by: Frazer Irving
Lettered by: Tom Frame

In this action packed finale Point is on the run from the remaining Rapturs with only good vibrations keeping him from being GM-Dino food. Guess what? This is great with Si keeping to what has proven successful over the past three months with kinetic action, laughs aplenty due to the witticisms of Point and some hilarious comedic moments from the Simp-Daddy especially his ridiculous Excalibur. Frazer Irving is equally excellent on art duties with his artwork having loads of character and energy that just reeks of awesomeness. There really isn’t much more to say other than how quickly these two have got into their groove with this series is scary.


Black Siddha
Story Title: Kali Yuga: Pt. 6

Written by: Pat Mills
Art by: Simon Davis
Lettered by: Ellie De Ville

So we reach the long awaited conclusion of the Rohan and Rak conflict as the former friends battle it out in the special hostel. Of course this being Pat Mills there’s plenty of symbolism with Rak representing traditional Hindu religion and values whilst Rak represent libertarian capitalism. And to be honest it works for one central reason, the fact that both are great characters. Black Siddha for all Mills’ dislike of conventional superheroes is a great one with an excellent and sinister costume, a sense of righteous indignation that makes Batman look like Polly Toynbee (shudder) and fecking cool powers including a terrific super nasty swirly sword. Rak on the other hand is the super-villain version of Honky Tonky Man-a desperately uncool, cowardly heel but one who manages to entertain with his egotism and vanity. There battle whilst being too one sided and short in this part is fun whilst their respective fates are welcome with Rohan’s promising a strangely conventional superhero plot for next time round.

And that perhaps is the best thing about Black Siddha, that amid the bonkers mythology and slightly dodgy politics i.e. the amazing bad parodies of feminism there is a terrific superhero comic. Whilst the existence of themes such as Karma within give it some depth in reality they are extra spice to a rollicking good tale that like classic American superhero characters like Spider-Man mixes action with enjoyable character moments such as the Bollywood inspired romantic scenes between Rohan and Mirabi. With the imaginative and unique artwork of Simon Davis whose dirty and messy paints adding really verve and vitality to the story you have an enjoyable end to a story that started terribly but has ended excellently!

Final Word: Once again no time to review the reprints (which is going to be cut next month) but both Charley’s War and the climax of Helltrekkers are great reads that pack lots of action, characterisation, bathos and pathos in a nice classic package. The new content is amazingly good with none of the stories missing a bit whilst Dredd sees only a slight dip from the instant classic Six. If this was any other comic it would be heading for a 10 but by God this comic has set higher standards over the past few months.

A Comics Nexus original, Will Cooling has written about comics since 2004 despite the best efforts of the industry to kill his love of the medium. He now spends much of his time over at Inside Fights where he gets to see muscle-bound men beat each up without retcons and summer crossovers.