Villordsutch reviews Judge Dredd Megazine #349…
“It’s the final confrontation between Psi-Judge Anderson and her enemy in ‘Dead End’; there’s an epic smackdown in the Cursed Earth in the finale to ‘Red to the Bone’; Tony Tubbs tips off the Judges in ‘Tales from Mega-City One: Two Tonnes of Trouble’; and a long-lost spaceman comes crashing down to Earth in ‘The Man from the Ministry.’ And in the bagged graphic novel, ‘Judge Karyn’ by John Freeman and Adrian Salmon.”
The unfortunate thing for me here is I’m walking on the middle of stories that have unfolded over a fair few issues. It happens with every new reader and here I am jumping in on three stories that I’ve missed the opening to; in the case of “Anderson, Psi-Division” which is up to Part 7 , the final part it appears, I’ve got no clue on what’s happening. However with such a mixed bag of tales and features within these covers I’m kept at good level of interest – more so than I would be than if it was a stand-alone comic.
Judge Dredd Megazine is not only comic strips and my I apologise for my ignorance here but I mistakenly assumed David Pugh (retired 2000 AD comic book artist retired) was Sir Terry Pratchett on my initial glance,and as I began to read the interview I quickly wondered why Sir Terry was pictured above. The other interviews within the Megazine look at the rather marvelous monsters of Nick Percival, discussing his history and also showing some of his delicious demons, and we also look at the art of violence with Vince Locke.
However, the real reason we are here is the comic strips and as mentioned three-quarters of these stories are already part way through, but one of these stood out for me as fantastic- “The Man from the Ministry” (written by Gordon Rennie with art by Kev Hopwood). Black and white and harking back to the old British hero days of comics, whilst at the same time playing honouring completely Bernard Quatermass, I truly loved this comic so much I re-read it. We also have a stand-alone story in “Tales for MC-1” (written by David Baillie with art by Eoin Coveney) where Two Ton Tony Tubbs is having debt problems due to the fact he’s no longer a competitive eater and is losing endorsements and weight. With the chance to earn some money by handing over a perp to the Judges he goes looking for a crime via his unhinged brother-in-law and a rather disgusting way of smuggling out incriminating evidence. It’s a story that could translate anywhere except certain throw away jokes like Tony looking for crimes in Vanessa Feltz Block;, that had me chuckling a lot and I doubt anybody outside the UK would even twitch a lip, which makes it even funnier as it makes it ours.
The Dredd and Anderson pieces look good but with little to grab onto, especially from the latter, I can’t really give it an honest review. However it looks like next week I’m starting with two new tales and the slate will be wiped clean, so I’ll be able to start reviewing these two Judges properly.
I enjoyed my first Judge Dredd Megazine after being away from anything like this for decades and the stand-out story for me was “The Man from the Ministry” even with catching this at part two. I’m really looking forward to the next issue, that’s for certain.
Villordsutch likes his sci-fi and looks like a tubby Viking according to his children. Visit his website and follow him on Twitter.
Originally published June 18, 2014. Updated April 12, 2018.
