2 out of 5

Just luck of the draw on this one: a set of below average Megazine tales, and the wandering, concluded-in-the-next-volume The Pit, mean you don’t get much that really lands in this volume.

The Pit presumably stretches into volume 25 – or at least I hope, given that it’s at a complete non-ending here, in a tale where Dredd takes on the lead role in a particularly troublesome block, promising to not only shape it up, but also to root out its corruption. This is a version of a Dredd story Wagner’s written a few times, and they’re a good way to represent a sort of microcosm of the character and MC-1, but it’s just too much here. I like the conceit of taking Joe off the streets, and trying his hand at being behind a desk, but the flip-flopping between montage and the corruption storyline – a double-crossing judge – never gets fully going on either front, with too many characters to really get a feel for the story’s tone. Reading it all at once will probably work; its unceremonious halt, partway through, doesn’t help this volume.

Preceding that, you get a Pat Mills ABC Warriors tale, somehow presented under the Judge Dredd banner – kind of frustrating that it never presents a reason for its existence, but not a bad read – and a solid Wagner tale kicking things off where Dredd and other judges are haunted by some past events. The other 2000 AD entries vary between mean-spirited (hello, Mark Millar), rather forgettable, and kinda dumb.

Over in the Meg stuff, Robbie Morrison is still feeling out the character, getting closest to balancing humor with commentary and plotting, a la Wags. A lot of these have the same classifications as the aforementioned 2000 AD also-rans, including a Wagner ep about kids who have a habit of “judge spotting” that would seem less cruel if drawn by a less severe artist than the Tom Carney of that era. While artists are otherwise pretty solid, Maya Gavin’s contributions are hard to parse – their sketchy style is maybe not a great fit for the book, and eye direction is not well-handled. Maya appears on a couple strips, both hard to read.

The only entry in the Megs that I’d qualify as a classic, or even really recommended reading, is Wagner’s and Paul Marshall’s Killing Time, in which Chief Volt’s mandatory downtime drives Dredd a little nuts. A great slice-of-absurd-life strip.