1. Devlin Waugh - The ReckoningS: Ales Kot, A: Mike Dowling, C: Quinton Winter, L: Simon BowlandDevlin has always been morally ambiguous and massively self-centered, caring little about collateral damage in
Swimming in Blood, yet horrified by the predations of the Herod. Here we get something of a climax to the Titivillus arc that started in 2018's Meg 400, and it's a terribly bitter pill.
A Very Large Splash has already provided that Devlin's friends may well be sacrificed on the altar of personal gain and here we get a tale that cements the notion of victory at any cost.
But it's a complex tale, and a true horror. There are ambiguities and confusion throughout and where the Herod trilogy was a relatively straightforward action adventure, this is a psycho-dramatic, skin-crawling nightmare. It removes the heroism from Devlin and leaves us with a grimy feeling of loss, as it seems that the easy escape from the web of the Shearer Estate in
Call Me by Thy Name was nothing of the sort.
The best comic with football in it that I've ever read. Plus, one of the characters is a possessed dildo.
2. MegatropolisS: Kenneth Niemand, A: Dave Taylor, L: Jim CampbellLike
Snakes on a Plane or
Sharknado, this had a concept so high you knew it from the title alone, and I felt that it would never work: an alternity version of Mega-City One that would name drop in a painful way, then rinse-and-repeat early, established adventures like the conflict between Rico and Joe. How wrong could one Squaxx be?
Dave Taylor's superlative Deco cityscape (echoing
Metropolis) is nearly always shrouded in darkness and inclement weather (as with
Blade Runner), so that what's supposed to be uplifting and future-looking is instead forbidding. The shift of focus for the central character away from Dredd and onto a noir-styled, hard boiled Rico (and his new partner Amy Jara) allows the story to set up its own characterizations so that nods toward the source material come across as nuanced.
3. Angelic - RestitutionS: Gordon Rennie, A: Lee Carter, L: Annie ParkhouseAnother nail in the coffin of my assumptions about alternate visions being something to avoid. Much as different Mad Max movies can be taken as alternative versions of a legend (with, essentially, none of them being the true turn of events), Angelic lands so powerfully and provides such a strong character in the form of Mr. Angel that it seems as if
The Judge Child wasn't quite telling it right.
Here, Angel feels a responsibility to try and rescue The Varmint (this version's Fink, simply referred to as "son" by Angel) from a gang who reckoned to profit from his preternatural tracking abilities. There's a sense that this might be the final installment as it nudges at the door of existing canon, but (if that's so) it's been a wild ride and a compelling sci-fi Western.

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I think it's worth noting that there was no need for me to exclude Dredd from my decisions here for top three. If I was allowed another three, then they would be:
(4)
Dreadnoughts - Breaking Ground, for being the best origin story yet.
(5)
Judge Dredd - A Dream of a Thousand Flowers, for the love.
(6)
The Returners - Amazonia, for playing hard to get and easy to remember.