Judge Dredd Megazine 344

Can the Meg maintain its solid run of form into a new year? 344 kicks off with an eye grabbing cover by John Burns. I love the perspective of the hand coming out at us over the title. Not so sure about the awkward thigh twist needed in order to keep little Claude hidden from view, but hooray for another brilliant Tharg pun.

Dredd: The Man comes around by Rob Williams, RM Guera, Giulia Brusco and Annie Parkhouse.
Another meditation on Dredd's age and mortality with plenty of scars both physical and mental to consider. The plot about another doomed maniac with mind control that will work on all the judges apart from Dredd is almost an irrelevance. The best bits are Guera's downtrodden Dredd and the moment with the black horse, is that another reference to the return of Judge Death? I hope that Williams is setting something up with this.

DeMarco P.I. The Whisper part 2 by Michael Carroll, Steve Yeowell and Ellie De Ville
Steve Yeowell is still filling in the backgrounds and providing a reasonable amount of detail on the main characters. He must have been listening to all those podcasts about the Red Seas. I didn't really buy the cliché that DeMarco gets straight through to the captive mutant by offering him a chocolate bar when all other attempts to talk to him have failed. Nor did I believe that the Judges would let Claude out to act as her guide but it is all rather fun and I'm enjoying the story so far.

Ordinary part 5 by Rob Williams, D’Israeli and HV Derci

Once again this rises so high above the ordinary. I love the artwork, I love the Pink Floyd references, and I love all the minor background mutations on display. On top of all that there is the strange symbolism of the child who is only half visible to one of his separated parents. Apparently this ends next month but hopefully will be back soon. More please, Mr Tharg.

Anderson. Psi Division: Dead End part 2 by Alan Grant, Michael Dowling and Simon Bowland.

Probably the best thing I can remember Alan Grant writing for a while. Grim and nasty. In fact the whole Megazine has a slightly downbeat feel to it this month, not that that is a bad thing, especially when there is crazy nuttiness like Ulysses Sweet going on in the Prog.

The Megazine rolls into 2014 with four great stories in a cracking issue. Anderson heads the pack for me for the tone and for Dowling's beautiful colours. (Nope, still not reading the interviews)