Sunday 28 July 2013

Meg 204 - Justice Casts Its Shadow...



I'm slightly disturbed by children with guns, and the shadow of the Judge looming over this little lad chilled me somewhat...

Apart from the one-page Sinister Dexter there are no single episode stories in this Meg. The Dredd story, Monkey On My Back, is a Garth Ennis and John Higgins story set back in time in January 2099. Cal is still Head of the SJS and the Chief Judge is Clarence Goodman. When Goodman delivers a New Years message of peace and love - and reducing Judges on streets and granting the Mutants entry to Mega City One - Dredd and his colleague, Judge Chambers, fear the worst. This episode has a real sense of a mega-epic about it, like Day of Chaos or the Apocalypse War. I don't know how many parts it will be in, but it has the makings of an excellent story. It was also 15 pages! Brilliant stuff!

The last episode of Juliet November wound up, and whilst the action did increase, it still felt lacking in substance to me. I checked the credits and was surprised to see Alan Grant writing it - surprised because I enjoyed the early Dredds in the Prog written by him and John Wagner under the pseudonym T. B. Grover. Graham Manley's art was good. In the previous Meg the episode had finished with a lovely full page splash of Dredd, and there was plenty to like about the art in this episode too. All in all, I'm quite glad to see the back of this strip and see what next month's brings.

In reprints section, Slaine continued to recover from a slow start. Still a lot going on with loads of characters to get your head around. But these epsisodes had Glen Fabry's art to help, and the detail in his drawing is just so good it makes it a pleasure to read. I would say Slaine is worth persevering with...

The other main reprint, Darkie's Mob, is still thrilling 70's war strip action! There is an awful lot of dialogue, and every action is explained in the tiniest detail through it, but the action just keeps coming with every episode. Each part sees the Mob take on a different objective, but there are some common themes that run through each. Who exactly is Captain Darkie? Why does he hate 'the Japs' so much? In the introduction before the first set of reprints, the editors had decided to get rid of some of the more profane racist language. This caused a little bit of a stir in the letters pages, with some people objecting, but just like we don't get repeats of Love Thy Neighbour (thank God) on TV anymore, so we should be sensitive to this kind of stuff. We had some colour pages in this reprint too - which was fun!

Add a Brian Bolland Future Shock and another Daily Star Dredd and the reprint section was a lot of value this month.

I talked a lot about Black Siddha and Family in my last Meg review, but suffice to say that Black Siddha is still moving forwards, as Rohan now understands the gravity of the task he is being asked to fulfill. Unfortunately, Family confused the hell out of me! I've read it a couple of times now, and I'm clinging on to the story...barely....

Devlin Waugh is coming along nicely. All sorts going on, and story strands are starting to come together. The MacNeil paintings really add to the atmosphere of the story, and the vampires really are hellish! I'm not sure if Waugh's clipped cliches ("back in time for tea and muffins") will start to grate soon - only time will tell. John Smith, the writer, was the subject of the Interrogation Cube

Curiously, the Meg finishes with a one page weird little tale called Apocalypse Soon which is rather fun and rather good. It promises To Be Continued, and I hope it is! Alan Grant writing some interesting stuff, and very bizarre art from Shaun Thomas. Proper weird out-there Meg story!

And finally...a word on the Editor, Alan Barnes. He writes a letter to introduce the Meg every month and responds to the Dreddlines letters. He is articulate and passionate about his direction for the comic. One letter this month accuses the Meg of not being good value anymore. Alan responds by addressing every point with a counter argument, thus concluding the letter writer is just plain wrong. His introduction commends a well written and researched article on comics he has read recently, whilst attacking all the stereotypes that exist about comics and comic readers. And for me, that's what the Meg stands for...

Someone described these early Megs to me as a"golden era" - and if that's true - Alan has probably got to take a lot of credit for that...

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