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A review by thecommonswings
Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files 05 by Colin Wilson, Barry Mitchell, Mike McMahon, Steve Dillon, John Cooper, Ian Gibson, Alan Grant, John Wagner, Ron Smith, Brian Bolland
5.0
First of all, let’s get the non Block Mania/ Apocalypse War stories out of the way. Wagner seems to be coalescing his ideas of Dredd’s world at an incredible rate, helped no end by Grant. The Mega Rackets widens the scope of the series but still focuses things on actual crimes. We get a Futsie story, some more Cursed Earth shenanigans including the first Hot Dog Run and a general tone of writers and artists in complete control of their universe. Hell, even Death comes back with company, including probably the most iconic panel in Judge Dredd history
Which they then utterly destroy
For some reason, in all my years as a 2000AD reader I have never read the Apocalypse War series - all the precursors and responses, but never the actual thing. As a huge fan of Day of Chaos, I now appreciate how much that exists as an echo and response to this. Block Mania slowly builds the tension (whilst also incorporating gonzo violence), with McMahon and Bolland taking their leave of the strip, Ron Smith capably carrying much of the story and new artist Steve Dillon knocking it out of the park in his first story. It carefully builds on threads and ideas the story has been creating over the last four or five years and inexorably builds to a climax. Beat for beat it’s an approach Day of Chaos refines and comments upon
And then the war itself. Over in nine days, much of Mega City One is destroyed while Tex City and Mega City Two look on in powerless horror. The story becomes in essence a cross between SF horror and old fashioned war comic, but one that spends 3/4 of the time having the ostensible good guys (and that ostensible is really stretched here, for the first time) lose horribly before bouncing back and devastating the Sov Block in retaliation. Day of Chaos is mostly build up with the devastation a terrible domino effect of events towards the end. This is all action and drama and mayhem and incredible violence and horror. Ezquerra finally debuts properly on the series he designed and it’s astonishing to see one of these epics done by one artist all the way through. It’s like the strip was waiting for him to show up and demonstrate exactly how this world looks
The story is flawed and at times very scrappy, but it’s definitely a real step up in showing what the comic could do. For all those faults, it’s an astonishing work of mature confidence and arguably is the high water mark of the early golden years of Dredd as a series
Which they then utterly destroy
For some reason, in all my years as a 2000AD reader I have never read the Apocalypse War series - all the precursors and responses, but never the actual thing. As a huge fan of Day of Chaos, I now appreciate how much that exists as an echo and response to this. Block Mania slowly builds the tension (whilst also incorporating gonzo violence), with McMahon and Bolland taking their leave of the strip, Ron Smith capably carrying much of the story and new artist Steve Dillon knocking it out of the park in his first story. It carefully builds on threads and ideas the story has been creating over the last four or five years and inexorably builds to a climax. Beat for beat it’s an approach Day of Chaos refines and comments upon
And then the war itself. Over in nine days, much of Mega City One is destroyed while Tex City and Mega City Two look on in powerless horror. The story becomes in essence a cross between SF horror and old fashioned war comic, but one that spends 3/4 of the time having the ostensible good guys (and that ostensible is really stretched here, for the first time) lose horribly before bouncing back and devastating the Sov Block in retaliation. Day of Chaos is mostly build up with the devastation a terrible domino effect of events towards the end. This is all action and drama and mayhem and incredible violence and horror. Ezquerra finally debuts properly on the series he designed and it’s astonishing to see one of these epics done by one artist all the way through. It’s like the strip was waiting for him to show up and demonstrate exactly how this world looks
The story is flawed and at times very scrappy, but it’s definitely a real step up in showing what the comic could do. For all those faults, it’s an astonishing work of mature confidence and arguably is the high water mark of the early golden years of Dredd as a series