3 out of 5

Solid Megazines, though no real standouts. What I will say is that I’m loving the all-in-one structure and IDW reprints – I look forward to reading these in a way I can’t say I always was before. It all feels very purposeful: some text on upcoming Treasury works and then giving us some pages; the IDW back catalogue is a good way of clearing that stuff out – while I don’t think much of it has been great, it’s an appropriate way to bring in Dredd-adjacent work that truly hasn’t been in the prog / Meg before.

In the Dredd slot, Michael Carroll’s unstoppable beast tale “Ravenous” concludes. I thought the concept of a constantly-regenerating foe (thanks to some dimension-hopping tech) was really fun, and Anthony Williams was the perfect artist for adding some cartoonish zing. This felt maybe more like something you’d see in the prog as an ongoing – Megazine ongoings I feel like tend to have a bit more weight – but despite it being ultimately pretty “normal” (spoiler: Dredd beats the foe), it was a lot of fun. Carroll follows that up with Paul Marshall on Escalation, which… is kind of like a comedic take on the former, if you swap in a nigh-unstoppable robot. It’s silly, but of a classic Dredd no-nonsense, no-one-wins tradition. But: hands down, Ian Edginton’s / D’Israeli’s bodyswap ‘Body Shots’ is the best of the bunch, taking the concept from start to finish with every beat being successful, and making me laugh out loud.

Fully contained in these issues: Laura Bailey’s / Rob Richardson’s Demarco tale, No Smoke. Richardson is a great fit for this, bringing a weightiness to Demarco that’s fitting for her downtrodden P.I. shtick. Bailey hasn’t really sold me yet on her 2000 AD contributions, but as I think I’ve commented before, I love an ongoing writer for Demarco, and I think Bailey’s voice for the character is well conceived. Still, I can’t quite get into the stories: she was a way of writing around the plot that never quite makes me feel like it’s in motion. So this story of backstabbing thieves and face-swapping tech has a lot of pieces that should make for a thrilling, twisty-turny tale, and I was only ever appreciating from afar. Conflictingly, though, I want this relationship to continue: I feel like I’m one story away from “getting” Bailey’s style, and then I’ll want to reread this stuff.

Harrower Squad – David Baillie’s / Steve Yeowell’s Calhab castoffs tale, in which a prickly crew of “heavy-weopons” Calhab judges seem to be sent to deal with the oddball cases – ends, with a new case starting in 468. Yeowell, as colored by Chris Blythe, seems to have a lot more weight in his swoopy art than usual; Harrower is one of his best-looking recent efforts. Baillie’s story maybe goes a little too supernatural in this first outing, which confuses the intention of the judges, positing them more as ghostbusters than I think they’re supposed to be? But I like that this seems to be a pretty mean-spirited (no pun intended) bunch; it’s truly just hard to get a read on what kind of strip this will be. However, nothing about it is bouncing me just yet, which makes the start of another story appealing, and will hopefully give it some focus.

Ales Kot and Steven Austin take Devlin Waugh out for some clubbing to find a homophobic serial killer, and it’s about as ribald and obvious as Kot has constantly written this character. Not that that’s a bad thing; Kot’s found his shtick and Waugh (and his demon penis buddy) have grown within those confines. This is a fun story, just unsurprising once you’ve read some of Kot’s other outings. The followup oner with P.J. Holden is a bit confusing, just in terms of the intention – it reads like an open spot in the schedule. It’s kind of just a celebration of the character, told from a third-person perspective. Worth it, at least, for the Holden art.

Lastly, a return for Armitage, via Liam Johnson and Warren Pleece. I’ll reserve a fuller opinion on this until its concluded, but so far, Johnson’s riff on pairing the anti-authority old man with a snarky robo cop is being effected well, actually using the setup to ferret info out of the story instead of just doing analog vs. digital jabs. Pleece – I’m not positive he’s the right artist for this yet. Pleece is in a similar spot to Yeowell, where his work tends to be a little float, and Armitage… hm, I don’t know. So far, the way Johnson is writing it it works, but, again, these are just first impressions.