MEG 270 : WEAPONS OF WAR

[Buttonman]

No Meg thread yet? Sorry if it's up but I can't find it.

Just started a rifle through but a nice Paul Marshall Dredd certainly catches the eye.

Nice action packed letters page too!

[worldshown]

Ha, I was starting it just as you posted this buttonman.

[Buttonman]

Snoozing = losing!

Just read the Dredd - on the bog if you must know - and it was OK. A bit like the Jim Grubb 'Fungus' but after all these years these will always be some element of familiarity. Like last nights Simpsons - Lisa becomes a ballerina just like Bart did. Doh!

Letters page a doozy with a toilet reference, familiar faces and no end of surprises. OK they do end ,that was hyperbole. Or maybe bullshit.

[Richard]

Best episode of Tempest yet. I was a bit luke-warm about the whole thing until now, but I really liked the run-through of MC1 history and the character's origins. (Bit unlikely that a kid could teach himself to fight better than someone with 15 years' combat training though.) Looking forward to the next episode, for the first time.

Missing speech bubbles on Bob the Galctic Bum ... can anyone with the original issues fill us in on what we missed?

[COMMANDO FORCES]

I find the letters page a bit of a waste if there are no witty/snide comment after each letter.
Surely it doesn't take much effort to answer some of the questions!

[worldshown]

I can only see two missing speech bubbles in Bob the Bum.

On the first page, the third panel is missing a request for a few hundred creds to buy Bob's silence.

Second page, third panel, the pig, rather predictably, says 'Oink!'

[I, Cosh]

I am a killjoy.

I'm open to the possibility that I might have missed something, but it seems to me like Armitage has dragged turgidly on for a few months then the last episode simply makes up a whole load of unrelated nonsense to "explain" the mystery. Truly dire and the art is pretty shoddy too.

Off the top of my head, I can't think of a Wagner & Grant strip I've enjoyed less than Bob the Galactic Bum.

Dredd was decent. I hoped the "red-handed" and young men angle meant it was going to turn out to be some sort of wanking plague but I don't mind really.

Tempest continues to be fun nonsense and is that really what Ed Berridge looks like?

[mechanix81]

Help!

someone keeps intercepting my megazine envelope and replacing the contents with a dog chod.

at least, I hope that's the reason the meg is such low thrill power at present.

[Trout]

Phew. That's a lot to take in on Tempest. But it's stuffed with great ideas and the art's really strong so I'll forgive it, I think. Tempest's the best thing we've had in the Meg for aaaages.

I'm glad to see Armitage end - but it will be back, according to Meg-Tharg. I lost all interest in it, I'm afraid. The story was just so loosely-told. There was too much going on and it could have done with sticking to the point sometimes.
That said, I'd welcome more from John Cooper.

The lead Dredd is engaging enough and I'll read next month's with interest. Bob the Galactic Bum likewise.

- Trout

[Bolt-01]

Tempest fulfilled all of its promise for me. Mental and really good.

The rest of the meg was a bit rough IMHO.

Bolt-01

[Dark Jimbo]

I've only now warmed to Tempest, with this reveal of his origins. It takes in the whole breath of the Big Meg's history and then some, demonstrating a real understanding of just what makes the city tick - and given that Dredd's city is arguably a more important character than he is, that's a pretty important thing to have grasped. Loved the namecheck of the Heavy Metal Kid without the need to mention the Robot War, for instance, and the asessement of the mindset of the cits post-Necropolis.

Still think the art's awful though. Nice clean lines but dodgy, misjudged anatomy the whole way through.

[Proudhuff]

The Meg starting to slip big time now, I fell that an odd lame story can be carried but..

I just couldn't care for Armitage and I can't warm to the artwork it jars these old VICTOR trained eyes.

The interview was okay if a tad 'poor me' in places

Dredd: fine story and art good but this level of thrills should be the base line for all the stories not the level to be achieved

Bob I remember vaguely from years back, enjoying the art but the story seems to dawdle about a bit, much like Bob, er maybe that the point...

Tempest: I was unsure about this, there were elements that sat uneasy in the middle section, but this Megs issue was fine, great nods to the past and a great arch over all. While it must be hard to draw the Undercity (its all dark!) I feel the art let the story down a bit here, mostly in the colouring (see above)

Film stuff is never my kinda film but I'm sure it hits the Megs demagraphics, have yet to read the Cult thang. Being an old Goat The text could be a font size bigger.

perhaps dropping the film stuff and doing a review of Comics on line woulod be more apt? it would also be less time constrained

Letters page, call that a letters page, narr one sarcy comment! pah where me pen!

Scribe huff

 

[Bad Andy]

Tempest seemed to have a complete change in character for me this month. I still enjoyed the tale, but he suddenly became loquacious from nowhere.

I, for one, am enjoying Bob the Galactic Bum. It's a nice change of pace.

Dredd was fine, if not really interesting.

But Armitage.... dear me. The story has been pretty boring over the last few months, but this wrap up has to be the worst, laziest thing I have read in ages. How weak is the blond/blonde clue that unravels everything and gets the bad guy to spontaneously confess everything? What was all that nonsense with the lawyer and the tiresome sub-par legalise she was talking? Appalling.

I got the feeling that this story ambled for four episodes then went for the breakneck resolution in the fifth. Very odd.

I don't mind seeing Armitage return, but lets have more of him than Steele and her family life (boring). The art was pretty good though.

[Floyd-the-k]

I like the Tempest art, but dislike the way he seems to have shat his pants. Either that or he's wearing MC Hammer cast offs. Is that misjudged anatomy?

anyway, all up a pretty good Meg. Tempest's origin was fun. I like the references to life as it is for Al; I'm thinking of the 'best..human..ever!' line from last week and this week the bit about there being a lot of drugs in the 90s...the way Tempest fits in the gaps of other stories and is undone by the last Robot War was fun

Bob the Galactic Bum trundles along

I liked the Cult article about Nigel Kneale. Reminds me of the British Icons series. Well written, nice links to things comicsy

The art on the Dredd story was terrific, but the story itself didn't grab me - it seemed cluttered. It may redeem itself next month

Armitage finished in a rather lame way. I like Armitage, I really do and agree that he's a different part of Dreddworld worth exploring, but he misfires a lot

the artist interview was okay too. Has anyone read that 'Tongue Lash' series he did? Just wondering

[House of Usher]

I disagree that the Megazine is starting to slip. I thought Meg 270 was substantially better than Meg 269 which was mediocre indeed, and with one new story next month there's no reason why Prog 271 shouldn't be better.

I really enjoyed Meg 270.

Judge Dredd was run-of-the mill, but a lot more fun than last month's. Paul Marshall's artwork is crisp and neat, and so are Si Spurrier's scripts, come to that. A couple of continuity errors in the artwork, I think. Page 1, Panel 3: Dredd punches perp. Panel 4: No grue on Dredd's glove. Panel 5: loads of grue on Dredd's glove. WTF? Page 4, 'weak gang boss', holding the cash box with the dead hand in it, has a peg leg. Page 6, the judges are interrogating some perp. Is that the weak gang boss again? If so, how strange that he now appears to have two feet!

Dave Taylor interview - I really enjoyed this! Did it come across a bit 'poor me'? Well, is it any wonder? The guy's had it rough! Dislocated fingers, turned away from art school, 3 years an invalid with a torn oesophagus, divorced from a wife he wishes he'd never met, hating earning a living doing the thing he loved most, damp housing affecting the materials by which he earns his livelihood - have I left anything out? The Interrogation is most interesting to me when it's full of these tales of human suffering.

The least interesting story would be "I graduated with a double first in economics and oriental languages, Mum and Dad bought me a studio in Islington, and within a year I was painting covers for DC at $300 dollars a piece and I've never looked back. Of course, I don't really need the money..."

Armitage really is as bad as people say it is. Superb artwork by John Cooper, and the flashback uses these little vignettes once more that add an extra dimension to the story telling. But what a far-fetched plot! Tamara Defane's producer covers up and assists in her killing spree when he could just go to the Judges, the deaths on set are never investigated, and the female victims are all but invisible: unmissed, and not even a record of their DNA having existed. Tamara Defane wants to fake her death by killing a transsexual to take her place and mutilating the body to remove tell-tale signs of gender, and the producer goes along with it even though it's 'obvious' the plan can't work because the body will have giveaway signs of cosmetic modification and in any case will have XY sex chromosomes, something that can't escape the notice of a New Old Bailey pathologist.

Four Colour Classics was a terrific little article, 'Someone Else's Toys', and answered a question that I'd pondered for ages: what's it like writing the 40K universe when it's codified in miniscule detail in almost 20 years' worth of novels, articles, short stories and sourcebooks? One thing that made me laugh was the irony of placing this article in a feature called 'Four-Colour Classics, when Warhammer Monthly was in black and white, and is not a classic, being less than 10 years old!

Bob the Galactic Bum has got better now they're not just bouncing along in a pig truck.

Kings of Cult: Nigel Kneale was another well written article from the keyboard of Berridge. It's certainly all in there, even with quotes from Warren Ellis, Eugene Byrne, Ian Edgington, Kim Newman and Paul Cornell. But where did the quotes come from? If they were interviewed, it should say so, and if these are quotes from books it would be nice, even customary, to be told which books. The wry comment about 'Stone Tape Theory' was priceless!

New Movies - I don't see why people dislike Alec Worley's film reviews so much, unless they're dedicated avoiders of spoilers. I found this month's particularly enjoyable and informative.

Tempest was absolutely brilliant! A very improbable origin story, and pulling it off so well was a masterstroke. Do we believe every word of it? I don't know. Johnny Kirkegaard seems sceptical on Page 8, Panel 2; but the sudden revelation of the bomb-droid on Page 9 tends to support Tempest's story. Many, many impressive flourishes here, not least "getting scrotnig to the pin-stripe sound", which made me laugh out loud on the train, curse you Al Ewing, you varmint! "An abandoned katana factory"? Hahahaha! Disappointing as it may be for some that Mes-1-a turned out to be a bomb-droid, what I want to know is: who or what will the Electric Head turn out to be?