Dredd Megazine Issue 356 - Angelic

Angelic is an origins story about the infamous Angel family. The story opens up with a single panel which instantly sets the tone of the story.

Set in the Texan plains of the Cursed Earth, we see a grizzly looking adult male carrying a rifle in one hand whilst a male toddler sits upon his shoulders clutching a hand grenade as if i were a toy rattle. In the back ground, a few buildings can be seen. Behind these buildings lays just barren waste land. This whole panel summed up in a single word; survival.

The colours chosen for Angelic are flat tones of browns and yellows. This does a grand job in helping to convey the desert tone to the reader. At all times throughout, the background is consistent; the Cursed Earth.

A nice touch that I like is that the Judges add a western flick to the story by wearing Stetson hats as opposed to the typical Judges helmets we are more accustomed to seeing. They still maintain the décor and uniform of a Judge with the huge golden shoulder pads and blue body glove with green jackboots.

There are two particular pages that stand out for me that set that add real menace to the story as well as set up the next issue.

Page 58 of Angelic depicts the infant child seen on the opening panel, at with red demonic eyes staring with murderous intent and a burning hatred in them.

Page 63 has a particularly wonderful depiction of the Angel family, Mean Machine looking most menacing of them all.

 

Lee Carter has done an excellent job here in creating a vivid and horrifying look which is well suited to the environment in which they live; the Cursed Earth.

The comic is well paced and the panels not too claustrophobic. Each page flows really well into each other with no confusion as to which panel is to be read. My main criticism is that it feels very Tarantino in its story layout. The story starts in the present, switches to the past, back to the present then to a vision of the future.

The story certainly looks very promising, especially as its an origins story regarding one of the most fearsome and popular villains in the Dredd-Verse. Well drawn, well written and I am sure it will be very well received by Dredd fans and comic fans in general.