3 out of 5

Having only recently read Pat Mills’ 2000 AD contributions via some Slaine bits, it’s definitely not a stretch to see him on a similarly mythos-fueled story like ‘Black Siddha.’  However, something that’s apparently a component of Slaine to which I haven’t been much exposed is a supposed undercurrent of humor; I wasn’t really sure how that was supposed to blend with what seems to be a fairly heavy-handed sword and sorcery-ish type setup, but I also definitely haven’t read enough Slaine to say whether or not I’m just missing the joke.  ‘Siddha’ gives me a bit more of an indication of how this could work, though.  A modern day Indian is told that he’s guilty of the crimes from his past lives – including Black Siddha, a super-powered anti-hero type with a cool costume.  The deal is that if he becomes Siddha and fights against some evils that are coming this way, he won’t be reincarnated as, like, a dog.  It’s a little messy, and fairly obviously structured around Mills’ desire to do trivia first and story later, but thankfully the tale is a bit fun, too, so it balances out.  Pat’s dialogue is rather clunky (as it is in Slaine), and he struggles to give us definitions of a whole bunch of terms that apply to the world of Siddha.  He also struggles (I think) to make the main character a likeable slacker through his ‘wit,’ but it generally falls flat.  Instead, the humor comes out moreso through the general setup that’s allowed once things start to get funky.  Overall, it’s a nice and straight forward ‘origin’ story for Black Siddha, but it’ll be cool to see what else can happen now that all of this exposition is outta the way.

Simon Davis’ painted art has the same half-and-half match: once the action revs up, his art scores, and straight on reaction shots feel well realized.  It’s humans interacting with humans (which can include looking off-panel at someone) – talking heads – where the art gets that very stiff feeling that happens with painted work.  He tries to vary the angles a bit to keep things exciting, but then you have to sift through that clumsiness of Mills’ dialogue I mention, so it just doesn’t sync up fully for the majority of the tale.  Davis is better suited to the world of Dredd, which fills up some remaining pages in this mini-mag, in an effective oner of Judge Giant teaming up with a Dredd clone, scripted succinctly – and yet with character – by Gordon Rennie.

Sometimes I’ll complain when two titles are just smashed together for no reason, but this was well-chosen filler, even though it has no relation to Siddha.  Maybe I give it a pass because it is a Dredd magazine, after all, but mainly because it was actually a good story, so, y’know, that’s sometimes of value.  To some people.