The original one sort of worked in its era, but it left very little space for good cover art. The next one was a reasonable compromise, but they then headed towards varying degrees of awful. 2.50’s metallic was perhaps the nadir, but there are also weird periods where the brand becomes ‘Magazine’ (during, ironically, my favourite run — that 4.01 relaunch was fantastic).
From a design standpoint, 4.09’s is quite good, despite omitting the Judge Dredd brand. 238 is probably my overall favourite. The new one’s a fairly close second.
