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Tharg’s 2021 in Review - Best Megazine thrill (non-Dredd)

Started by Colin YNWA, 27 December, 2021, 06:56:17 AM

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Colin YNWA

What a year it's been. Man oh man what a year it's been...I said this last year and well not a great deal has changed... while so much has changed. But forget all the stuff outside Tharg's palace of delights, put aside plague, the happy erosion of our freedoms, the crushing blows to the economy Tharg has produced the full allocation of 50 Progs, 12 and Megs despite this indeed being the End of Days. And man that is the most wonderful thing - and funnily enough I've been able to copy and paste that from last year!

But how good have those thrills been - well I say very good BUT which are our favourite... if we put aside ol' Joe and give him his own category. So yeah it's as simple as this, vote for your top three thrills (not Dredd) of the year IN THE MEGAZINE.

I'm going to provide a list of thrills in a sec in my next post - over the last year - please let me know if I've missed any. I've only included thrills that appeared in multiple parts.

Format is easy. Simply look at the list in the next post - and post your top three in a reply to this thread - just make sure to clearly indicate your order using the format below - with the points awarded for each placing:

(1st, foremost and best) = 5 points
(2nd runner up) = 3 points
(Bronze who cares really) = 1 point

If you don't make it clear I'll award all your mentioned votes 3 points each.

The vote will run for a week(ish) and I'll announce the winner early Monday 3rd January... hopefully... maybe... could be Tuesday???

If you have any questions just ask and I'll wing it as normal...

Colin YNWA

Again dismissing the talents involved due to laziness I'm only listing writers and artists - colourists and letterers of the world forgive me please.

I'm going to include any story that was running in Prog 428 as a number of thrills crossed into 2021 and had half their run there. You may of course ignore these if you choose. I'm also NOT going to include the stories starting in 439 as one part doesn't feel enough to judge them on (no pun intended... maybe...)

In order of appearance:

Megatroplis (424) - 431 by Kenneth Niemand and David Taylor

DreadNoughts (424) - 429 by Michael Carroll and John Higgins

The Returners - Heartswood (424) - 430 by Si Spencer and Nicolo Assirelli

The Dark Judges - Deliverance (424) - 433

Devlin Waugh - The Reckoning  432 - 438 by Ales Kot and Mike Dowling (I'm throwing in the two one off that preceded this in 430 and 431 by the same team as they feel like they are building to Reckoning - you can do with then what you will!)

Diamond Dogs - Books 2 431 - 436 by James Peaty and Warren Pleece

The Returners - Amazonia 432 - 438 by Si Spencer and Nicolo Assirelli

Angelic - Restitution 434 - 437 by Grennie and Lee Carter

broodblik

When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.

Old age is the Lord's way of telling us to step aside for something new. Death's in case we didn't take the hint.

GoGilesGo


WhizzBang


Aaron A Aardvark


Funt Solo

1. Devlin Waugh - The Reckoning
S: Ales Kot, A: Mike Dowling, C: Quinton Winter, L: Simon Bowland

Devlin 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. Megatropolis
S: Kenneth Niemand, A: Dave Taylor, L: Jim Campbell

Like 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 - Restitution
S: Gordon Rennie, A: Lee Carter, L: Annie Parkhouse

Another 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.




---

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.
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

Lorenzo

1: Dreadnoughts
2: Megatropolis     -   would have been first if I could have seen what was happening more than half the time.
3: Dark Judges

NapalmKev

"Where once you fought to stop the trap from closing...Now you lay the bait!"

AlexF

1. Angelic
2. Deviln Waugh
3. Megatropolis

-no offence to the writers, but it's the artists on all three strips who deseve the lion's share of the credit. SO MUCH GREAT ART in the Megazine these days. (But these three strips do have the best writing as well)

SmallBlueThing(Reborn)


Tomwe


Magnetica

1 Megatropolis
2 Dreadnoughts


I'm not voting for a 3rd as nothing else came anywhere close to the magnificent top two.

Blue Cactus

1) Devlin Waugh
2) Megatropolis
3) The Dark Judges

Although I think on a reread DreddNoughts might sneak in there. Hope we get a lot more Devlin from this creative team.

Rogue Judge

1. Megatropolis
2. Dreadnoughts
3. Angelic

Beautiful art in these series.