Scan barcode
thecommonswings's review
4.0
I bought this today on something of a whim, without realising it’s in effect the last complete year of the prog that I read as a kid. So a lot of these stories are very memorable to me already. But more interestingly, it functions as probably the most transitional year of Judge Dredd yet. After Oz, Wagner and Grant stopped working together because they both had very different visions for the series: Grant wanted to push the satire, black humour and Dredd as fascist; Wagner wasn’t averse to these, but wanted to focus more on the sense of Dredd ageing, becoming a more human and flawed character and how he felt about the Judge system and democracy
It’s a surprise that the story that had the most effect on me as a child is a Grant version of Wagner’s vision. John Cassavetes is Dead was not only the first time I had heard of the actor/ director but felt for the first time like a story that was in our future - the incongruity of Dredd reading the Guardian and doubts beginning to seed inside him feel like a subtler dry run for the final story in this (and the prelude for the Necropolis saga), Letter to Judge Dredd. It’s also the only Grant story like this here, as he’s happier with the goofy stuff
But Wagner may well have been thinking along these lines already. There’s periodic discussion of Dredd’s age - he’s well into middle age by now - and so when we get the first appearance of Kraken about midway through the year, we’re already beginning to see the first major story about Dredd facing his future starting to slowly turn up. Necropolis is a horror epic with a subtler sense of Dredd’s doubts bubbling under and it’s actually very impressive seeing these slowly grow as the book develops. The Cadet Giant story - I think the longest here - very much feels more purposeful than it did first time round
The biggest problem with the year is that there’s not a solid base of Dredd artists to latch onto. Some iconic artists are here: Ezquerra, Cam Kennedy, Jim Baikie, Cliff Robinson and Wagner’s sort of chosen replacement for Ezquerra as collaborator, Colin MacNeil. It’s also surprising to see Chris Weston here, who sort of holds the position of the new Brian Bolland in the prog at the moment and is becoming a significant writer in his own right of late. The problem is there’s also a lot of rather careless and listless artists turning up and being shifted along, so the year seems significantly less focused than it really is because there’s no one artist staying put for a majority of the stories. These days you tend to get Dredd with a rotation of artists, but this feels almost like Tharg is just trying people out which doesn’t help the stories feel very cohesive. It’s a shame too because otherwise this is a surprisingly vintage year - to the extent that PJ Maybe finally coming to his first brush with the law feels like a minor element
It’s a surprise that the story that had the most effect on me as a child is a Grant version of Wagner’s vision. John Cassavetes is Dead was not only the first time I had heard of the actor/ director but felt for the first time like a story that was in our future - the incongruity of Dredd reading the Guardian and doubts beginning to seed inside him feel like a subtler dry run for the final story in this (and the prelude for the Necropolis saga), Letter to Judge Dredd. It’s also the only Grant story like this here, as he’s happier with the goofy stuff
But Wagner may well have been thinking along these lines already. There’s periodic discussion of Dredd’s age - he’s well into middle age by now - and so when we get the first appearance of Kraken about midway through the year, we’re already beginning to see the first major story about Dredd facing his future starting to slowly turn up. Necropolis is a horror epic with a subtler sense of Dredd’s doubts bubbling under and it’s actually very impressive seeing these slowly grow as the book develops. The Cadet Giant story - I think the longest here - very much feels more purposeful than it did first time round
The biggest problem with the year is that there’s not a solid base of Dredd artists to latch onto. Some iconic artists are here: Ezquerra, Cam Kennedy, Jim Baikie, Cliff Robinson and Wagner’s sort of chosen replacement for Ezquerra as collaborator, Colin MacNeil. It’s also surprising to see Chris Weston here, who sort of holds the position of the new Brian Bolland in the prog at the moment and is becoming a significant writer in his own right of late. The problem is there’s also a lot of rather careless and listless artists turning up and being shifted along, so the year seems significantly less focused than it really is because there’s no one artist staying put for a majority of the stories. These days you tend to get Dredd with a rotation of artists, but this feels almost like Tharg is just trying people out which doesn’t help the stories feel very cohesive. It’s a shame too because otherwise this is a surprisingly vintage year - to the extent that PJ Maybe finally coming to his first brush with the law feels like a minor element
skjam's review
3.0
Another decent volume in the long-running (over thirty years!) series about a cop in the dystopian future of Mega-City One.
The most interesting thread here is a series of stand alone stories , scattered through the book, where Dredd starts to feel his age and be confronted with doubts about the Judge system. This will lead into the Necropolis arc in Volume 14.
For more science fiction reviews, see http://www.skjam.com/tag/science-fiction/
The most interesting thread here is a series of stand alone stories , scattered through the book, where Dredd starts to feel his age and be confronted with doubts about the Judge system. This will lead into the Necropolis arc in Volume 14.
For more science fiction reviews, see http://www.skjam.com/tag/science-fiction/
More...