Mega-City Max #1

[Funt Solo]

Replacing the Sci-Fi Special, and something of a Regened Summer Special crossed with the Megazine. If you dislike Regened then you won't be best pleased with this and probably won't have bought it. It says it features teen or post-teen characters, and sort of does, although an aging Max Normal doesn't quite fit the mold.

One oddity here from The House of Tharg (aside from the abundant lack of an alien editor) is the decision to allow many of the creators to do their own lettering. While this is hit and miss, when it misses - it's really distracting.

DeMarco P.I. retcons time to have her leaving the Judges at a time when Hershey is only months out of the Academy, and buddies her up with a young Anderson. Retcon aside, it's got good art and a serviceable narrative that keeps us in a generic city bottom that could be set almost anywhere.

Walter the Wobot has lush art but you have to put up with a constantly rhyming Max Normal and the titular lisping wobot. It suffers from presenting comedians that aren't actually telling jokes. The lisp being played for comic effect, plus gayness being equated with simpletons make this a sort of accidentally anti-woke entry that might play poorly with the intended audience.

Devlin Waugh is probably the best entry here, with sumptuous art, professional lettering and fast-paced plotting. The last few pages unravel in terms of storytelling clarity, though. It's just not abundantly clear what's happening in places, or what relevance the dialog has to the action.

Cranium Chaos seems like a one-off. Very Beano-tastic, it is what it is.

Harlem Heroes might work quite well if you like the art. It's had an odd path here through two Regened collections and an FCBD, but isn't really a reboot so much as a second or third generation (depending on how you feel about the 90s version). Compared to Gibbons or Belardinelli, the art is not particularly clear, and there's heavy use of single-color background fills, so it all feels less accomplished.

There are no direct ads in here for 2000 AD, but lots for Regened and its spin-off GNs, so the stall is set as a new thing. Perhaps this could untangle Regened from the prog? To that end, we should all buy several copies and hand them to random kids in the street.

[Richard]

I loved V. V. Glass's art, but I hated everything else about this.

[broodblik]

I found the whole thing to be quite boring. Devlin was the standout.

[Colin YNWA]

What an odd thing this is. I will say that the art on the whole worked much better here than recent Regened, most of it looked fresh lively and engaging. I do think a lot of the colouring could have popped a lot more to smash some life into a couple of stories and indeed the cover.

The stories very hit and miss.

DeMarco was close to good but had some really dropped balls. The addition of Anderson and Hershey was horrible. Why deflect from the lead with such trite and wasted appearances. These characters served purpose and had a role to play but really didn't need to be Cass and Barbara and stunted their impact. Also did I miss something and did the villian of the piece just reveal themselves. Lazy! (Or I've not paid attention!?!).

Lovely art over dark colours aside.

Walter the Wobot - as you'd expect from Roger Langridge great to look at. Fun, well plotted and really enjoyable. great stuff.

Devlin Waugh - errr I just don't know it part the changes here just didn't work, deadened the things that make Devlin work. He's not jaded, he's not buff, he was Devlin light... which I guess if kinda the point but robbed him of much of his presense... and yet I quite enjoyed this. Not sure why?

Cranium Chaos errr look he has a big head, I'd like that. Oh big heads ain't a thing so I no longer have a big head... that's it, that's absolutely it. No jeopardy, not sense of conflicit. Just a big head for a bit. Pointless story.

Harlem Heroes.... sigh... I mean its good that this one actually has, you know Aeroball in so I guess you have to give it points for that compared to the previous outing BUT the way the match was structured just sucked a lot of the sense of excitment from the game and the way the other team was.... oh look this just isn't interesting enough to be worth going into!

So a couple of good things, things with promise that could have been used to mix in with one of the Regenes this year and at least we'd have had at least one decent comic!

[IndigoPrime]

Perhaps I'm missing the point, but I don't get a lot of this. Like Regened, it's so referential and reverential to decades-old properties the readers will be unlikely to have seen. Why bother bringing in Anderson and Hershey? Why not have someone new?

DeMarco has some good art but problematic lettering. The story didn't really click with me though, although it had some good moments (like the notepad drop). Feels an odd lead too. Would a new reader struggle without knowing any of the context? More worryingly, how much would they care?

Walter... I mean, I *love* Roger Langridge's work, but this was just strange. Are teens quieting up to read a comic about a robot that's a wannabe stand-up being advised by an old bloke in a suit who talks in rhyme? It felt like something I'd have probably quite happily read in an annual circa 1993, but feels weirdly out of place here and today.

Devlin absolutely has to be thought of in isolation. Compared to proper Devlin, this is almost an insult. BUT taken on its own merits, it had something. Energy, mostly. The punch was funny. The whack from the bride. It felt like his personality needed dialling up a notch or two though. Best thing in the comic by some margin.

I liked Cranium more than Colin, with its attempts to be visually different and do something with MC1 crazes. It felt like a modern take on an Otto Sump story – or at least something that might happen adjacent to it. That said, it felt more Regened than Max. Anyway, quite good.

And then Harlem Heroes. I don't like sports strips anyway. This one's nice and colourful, but it lacks dynamism.

Devlin > Cranium > Walter > DeMarco > Harlem

In all, I guess this isn't aimed at me. I'd be interested to know what the target audience thinks.

[Funt Solo]

I was in Glasgow for my summer hols, and I bought a copy of this, but didn't give it to my kiddo. I gave them a Monster Fun instead. I probably should give them a shot of it, but it feels like I'd be recommending a pretty poor product - so why?

On the other hand, I spotted one of their cousins devouring a copy of the second Regened collection.

One thing I dislike about modern House of Tharg is that they casually reboot and recycle established characters - which means they don't give a shit about continuity, which makes me sad. I always like that HoT productions weren't like Marvel and DC, in terms of the characters being used as cookie-cutter starting points for stories that happened anytime, anywhere.

Seems like we're losing that ethos.