4 out of 5

A landmark Dredd and some very solid ongoings prop up shakier entries.

The XMas bumper gives us a ‘whoulda thunk’ Tintin riff with “Mikmak’s Big Mega-City Adventure,” courtesy of Niemand and artist Stref. While the shtick of inserting a very non-MC1 type into the universe is tried and true, using Tintin – or Mikmak, in this telling – as the choice transplant is hilariously inspired. Thereafter, we get the 6-part “Death of a Judge” from John Wagner, which is the aforementioned landmark: Wags last Dredd strip. Totally wild. And while the contents maybe high-level come across as a little underwhelming – it’s an inch forward in the long gestating Mechanismo storyline – they also show the magic of John’s storytelling, and how the Dreddverse kicks Marvel’s and DC’s ass in general, because I don’t think anyone took the title of this run to imply Dredd; i.e. I think most knew where this was going, and the story doesn’t feint too hard to convince you otherwise. Meaning 2000 AD doesn’t necessarily have to rely on cheap gimmicks to get you in the door; the title is clickbait, but in a “we all know what we’re doing here” kind of way. Artist Mike Perkins really knocked this out of the park, giving John’s final outing a lot of weight, helped by Chris Blythe’s colors. And, expertly, Wagner opens some doors for future writers, while also leaving an indelible mark upon Joe (beyond the many he’s already left.)

The solid ongoings: Herne & Shuck gets another run from David Barnett and Lee Millmore. This strip has been up and down for me in general, but Millmore’s style has become a lot more fluid, and Barnett settled on a story setup that’s perfect for a weekly, 6-issue slice, sending Herne on a quest to prove to a scattered group of judges that he’s got what it takes to be a god – and he can’t get his powers back until he does so. Truly a fun time, forcing each entry to be somewhat self-contained and have a fable-esque structure, giving Herne a task from each judge that will have some type of wrinkle in its execution.

Azimuth continues, courtesy of Dan Abnett and Tazio Bettin. Trying to find their way out of Azimuth, Ramone, Cass, and Suzi Nine are being stalked in a visually awesome, deconstructing labyrinth by – what else – a digital minotaur. Abnett has fun playing around with tech lingo while Bettin enjoys giving us some wild layouts, and the result is a tight, 3-part cat and mouse that continues to flesh out the “what the hell is going on here” aspects of Azimuth well.

Alongside Azimuth are some Young Death shorts from Kek-W and various artists. Though I’ve not been the greatest fan of Kek’s Deadworld explorations, I think the one-shot entries have been better than others, as they’re less faux-world building intensive and essentially act as Future Shock-type glimpses into the Dead Judges’ former lives. Sidney De’ath obviously has more of a backstory than others (thanks to Wagner!), and that gives Kek a lot of room to insert these one-offs which show how the young judge’s step into evil was a pretty seamless one.

Once these two wrap up, we have filmmaker Ben Wheatley starting on Judge Dee with Simon Coleby on art, and a 3riller from Kek and Rob Richardson. The former is… strange. It’s still ongoing past these progs, so time will tell, but the juddery writing style does reek of someone new-ish to the medium – Wheatley jumps forward and backward in time while telling his story – and it’s hard to get a read on the overall arc. Conceptually it’s good, giving us a demon living inside a Psi-judge’s head, but the writing lacks identity so far; it reads like someone being flashy for the sake of it. The latter, despite a cool red, white and black color palette, is kind of a dud on arrival, taking the premise of a for-hire accountant – who maybe specializes in off-the-book bookkeeping – being summoned to some type of otherworldly dimension (neat!) which is filled with vampires (kinda boring!), and then… I dunno. The plot becomes an excuse to have a random cameo, and try to bait us for an ongoing story. 3rillers are tough, but the best ones do manage to create a world and tell a tale in three issues; this one kind of half-creates a world, overstuffs it with ideas, then says “vote for me for an ogoing!” Kinda annoying.

Lastly, running throughout these progs is Peter Milligan’s and Kieran McKeown’s “The Discarded,” which starts strong and then quickly plops into Milligan’s tendency towards completely unsubtle dialogue, and gets confused which character we care about / should be following, leading to one of the more boring story developments being decided on as our focus. The pitch is that of a world of refuse which doubles as a prison; a prisoner discovers a super-powerful computer chip amongst the rubble; the government sends in his cop daughter to recover it. McKeown’s a good choice on art, though their Image-leaning sense of design carries over to a bit of T&A focus. And I think the high level concept is strong, but Milligan switches from the father to the daughter clumsily, and the appearance of various factions on the planet feels a bit too video gamey, like bosses to the level we’re currently on. Still, there’s more to come to see how this shapes up.