I'm blowed if I can find any thematic or other connection between these epics. Let's just say they're all the sorts of stories that are fine, but are only / will only ever be reprinted out of duty, not because people are demanding it. We start with an epic that I bet many people have entirely forgotten about, because it feels like a workaday Dredd tale that just happens to have rather a long page count...
Epic 35: The Ecstasy Progs 1617-1626
Written by John Wagner, Art by Paul Marshall
(10 episodes, 60 pages, and just to be awkward, number 37 in sequence)
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| What's IN the box doesn't matter so much as what effect the box has. Art by Paul Marshall |
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| Seeing a corpse twitch, awaken, and heal up is never not satisfying! Art by Paul Marshall |
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| An indestructible but non-descript villain is a good, if unmemorable, foil for Dredd. Art by Dave Taylor |
Story: 7/10 (Wagner)
And now, an epic that earned itself some notoriety on account of 'borrowing' some famous faces from cinema to tell a tale of Sov spies pitting themselves against Dredd...
Epic 34: Blood Trails Progs 1440-1449
Written by Gordon Rennie, Art by Andrew Currie
(10 episodes, 60 pages; Number 32 in sequence)
The Basics: The Sovs are back! Sov agent/assassin Pasha is sent to Mega City 1 to snare Vienna Dredd, with the aim of getting Dredd himself. But, unlike previous 'Vienna is kidnapped' storyline, the not-quite epic-length the Satanist, this tale follows the mechanics of the wooing/kidnap stage far more closely. Dredd, with the help of his 'family' and Justice Dept friends, investigate the situation, but will it be in time to save Vienna?
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| This is also known as 'that epic where Judge Rico got his jaw blown off, but most people have forgotten.' Art by Andrew Currie |
Analysis: And here we have Gordon Rennie tackling his first epic-length tale. He already proven himself with a variety of one-off Dredds, and shows his love for Dredd continuity by not mucking around with the villains here – they're Sovs, proven over the decades to be the most reliably fun enemies of Mega City 1. With that in mind, it's hard not to compare proceedings here with epics of old, or indeed not so old. Blood Trails ends up feeling like a cross between 'what if Block Mania were re-told from Orlok's point of view', coupled with the procedural shenanigans of Terror/Total War.
It's worth recapping the bare bones of the plot: following the events of the story Total War (an epic to be covered higher up these rankings), a Sov agent in MC1 gets wind of the existence of Vienna Dredd, and let his superiors know. After a botched attempt to snare her, they send in Pasha, a top agent who is more or less the suave version of Orlok – hyper competent, and fully owned by the Sovs. Pasha seduces Vienna, and is at the point of whisking her away from MC1. He's so good at it, the challenge is for Dredd (and team) to uncover any mistakes he might make, and any hint from Vienna that she's in any danger at all.
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| Pasha Mark 1; actually he's a pretty relaxed dude, neither fast nor furious. Art by Andrew Currie |
It's perfectly well told, and there's an added
dimension of
fun in that Rennie, unlike Wagner, felt happier to bring in recurring
characters. In this case, we get Giant, Guthrie and Rico. But frankly,
the
memory of this story is rather overshadowed by the art. Andrew Currie is
a
skilled cartoonist, and he's on good form here for some panels, but
rather rushed form for others. And even apart from this inconsistency,
Currie's natural tendency is
towards comedy, which takes away from some of the tension. And then
there's the
choice to have Pasha take on disguises that
caricature first Vin Diesel, and then George Clooney. It's odd how this
visual
joke just doesn't sit right in Judge Dredd. As Block names, they'd be
fine, and
even as a background jokes it'd probably raise a smile, but as a choice
for the
main character of a strip it's kinda irritating. Did Rennie ask for this
in the script? Or did he suggest a 'Vin Diesel type' and Currie decided
to take it literally? Perhaps best if we never find out the truth...
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| Pasha Mark II: seduction mode activated... Art by Andrew Currie |
Story: 8/10
Art: 6/10
Legacy: Major physical sacrifices abound, in the form
of Judge Rico ending up with a mechanical jaw (which seems to have been
forgotten a decade later), Guthrie being blasted to smithereens (but not dying,
as future stories will reveal), and Judge Giant taking a pretty big hit, too.
Vienna ends up pregnant – but the story of her child has yet to be told, should
anyone wish to tell it.
Overall Score: 14 out of 20
Want
to read it? It's in Case Files 41.
Epic 33: Sin City Progs 1289-1299
Written by John Wagner, Art by Kevin Walker
(11 episodes, 78 pages, + 2 epilogue stories; Epic 29 in sequence)
The Basics: Chief Judge Hershey permits a floating pleasure island to moor off the coast of MC1 and grants the citizens access to visit - but only because she knows it's currently home to international terrorist Ula Danser. Dredd and a team of Judges enter the island to hunt for Danser... and run into an old foe.
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| Nothing says 'sin' like neon signs! Art by Kev Walker |
Analysis: Wagner manages to create an entirely new concept for an epic, which is great! But it's kind of a bit dull, which is less great. Sin City (aka Satan's Island to appease Dark Horse Comics) itself is meant to be a place where literally any kind of human depravity can be an is indulged. And, to an extent, Wagner isn't shy of giving us examples of this – the best being in the form of game shows, naturally. But for me this is where the epic fails to come to life. The problem is that by this point in the long history of Dredd, Wagner, Grant and others had already shown fantastically weird and outrageous goings on in the Mega City, ranging from legal but gross mega-eating contests to illegal and horrific snuff-film making.
Apart from anything and everything being legal on Sin City, there's not much new to add. Either it's more of the same Mega City weirdness, in which case fine but so what. Or, it's really nasty, in which case, points to Wagner 'n Walker for imagination, but it just leaves a nasty taste, really.
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| I mean, sometimes obscene violence is funny - but sometimes it's also obscene. art by Kevin Walker |
One potential arena for using this well is Sin City's literal arena, a venue for gladiators to fight to the death. Top killer, and ex-Judge, Muerte is set up as the obvious antagonist. But aside from a couple of fun fight sequences, there's not enough meat to his story, either as a foil for Dredd or even Guthrie, Dredd's deputy on this mission. Frankly, the terrorism story line takes up too much room for the Muerte storyline to breathe, made even harder when Orlok the Assassin turns up, yet again as a surprise twist villain (rehashing an old favourite epic trope!). Now Dredd has three villains to contend with, not one of them with enough panel-time to count.
Weirdly, the main problem with both Sin City and its Orlok-centred epilogues is that both are procedural stories in which we essentially see everything going right for the Judges. Sure, there's a big 'wrong' at the end of Sin City, but it's contained and the drama is covered in the span of a single episode. On the one hand, it's right that this is how it goes down as Mega City 1 and it's Judges are, frankly, very very competent. On the other hand, it doesn't make for the most compelling story.
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| Keeping a disease contained on a small island - not as easy as it sounds, eh. Art by Kev Walker |
Story: 6/10 (Wagner)
Art: 8.5/10 (Walker) Good art, sure, but Walker can and did do so much better…
Legacy: Well, this tale finally put paid to Orlok the Assassin. He's still alive at the end of it, but only for the length of two epilogue tales that deal with his trial and – spoiler – execution. In theory this should also mean the very end of the Apocalypse War / East Meg 1 plotline, what with both Orlok and the New Kremlin disposed of. But, in fact, that didn't happen. If anything, Sin City now reads like a sort of dry run for Day of Chaos – I found it impossible to read it as anything other than 'What if the Judges had captured Nadia and prevented the Chaos bug?'...
Want to read it? You can get it in collection as Satan's Island (including the two epilogues following up on Orlok), or else it's in Case Files 35, but without those epilogues.
Epic 32: Die Laughing
Written by John Wagner & Alan Grant; Art by Glenn Fabry, Jason Brashill and Jim Murray
Two specials, 92 pages in total - published right around the time of Beyond the Call of Duty, to put it in context of other Dredd epics - I make it number 24 chronologically)
The basics: The Four Dark Judges, plus the Joker, sneak aboard a pleasure ship launching from Mega City 1. Dredd and Batman get onto the ship to stop the carnage.
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| Joker has a smile; Batman has a snarl; Dredd has a bike; Anderson has... a bum? Art by Glenn Fabry |
Analysis: This epic smacks awfully of being an artistic showcase designed to create sales, rather than to explore fun character ideas. On one level, it IS fun to explore the idea of what the Joker would be like if he turned into a Dark Judge, and, to be fair, the way in which he is only half-present in Dredd's dimension IS a new and dramatic angle. But ultimately, this is one of the most basic Dark Judges tales ever told. Get the four villains into an enclosed area, surround them by humans with the 'buffoon' setting set to maximum, and unleash comedic carnage. It's the best bits from 'Judge Death Lives' and 'The Four Dark Judges' stretched out from a handful of panels into a whole epic, and it's... fine.
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| Death & the Joker - a match made in Hell. Art by Glenn Fabry and maybe finishes by Jim Murray? |
Dredd and Batman play off each other well, but the familiar scenario isn't really enough of a challenge for them. Wagner and Grant have found too many ways to destroy the Dark Judges, and people as competent as Dredd and Batman aren't going to need to find yet another way to do it. So it's all about the fatalism of the set-up in the first place, and then wringing as much comedy as possible out of mass murder. Commercially speaking, it all comes down to the art - and the hope that this might sell the comic to Batman fans not already well-versed in Dredd-lore, one imagines...
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| You know it's a mainstream crossover comic when the one female character is naked. Art by Fabry (and maybe finishes by Jason Brashill?) |
It's good art. I mean, obviously. But as far as Glenn Fabry goes, there's little in here to rival the heights he achieved on Sláine. By far the best bits are the fully-packed crowd scenes of idiot Mega-citizens getting ready for their hedonistic pleasure cruise. He did some pretty neat work with the Joker, too. But, oddly, none of his Dredd/Batman/Death images have stuck with me.
And perhaps Fabry knew something wasn't quite working. Famously, it took him years to get to a certain point (not all of it within his control of course!), to the extent that Wagner, Grant, Kennedy and Critchlow knocked together two shorter (non epic-length) specials to keep the crossover alive. And Fabry only made it most of the way through 'part 1' of Die Laughing, before new editor David Bishop roped in newcomers Jim Murray and Jason Brashill first to paint over Fabry's roughs, and eventually to finish the whole thing themselves. Both brought with them a cartoonish mania that suited the strip very well, but frankly the Dark Judges have never been forgiving to artists who aren't Brian Bolland.
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| It's a great image of Death being shot in the head - and yet, not quite iconic Art by... Jim Murray? |
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| 1990s violence through and through Art by... Jason Brashill faces on Jim Murray bodies? |
Story: 6/10 (Wagner and Grant)
Art: 8-9/10 (Fabry, Murray and Brashill)
Legacy: It's a real testament to these specials that
Wagner insists that they form part of the overall narrative. So, when it comes
to the fate of the Dark Judges, their final state here is indeed where they are
left off until the next time they escape...
Batman, on the other hand, hasn't been seen since (in the world of Dredd, that is). And somehow I get the impression that present-day DC comics editorial is less inclined to ride the crossover train with the likes of a British comic.
Overall Score: 14.5 out of 20
Want to read it? It's collected with the other Batman crossovers (one of which will show up in this ranking in due course), in a digest edition which is currently in stock at Rebellion, and in normal size, which isn't.
Next time: three of the most ambitious epics ever attempted...
Two things about Die Laughing- it was a pleasure dome, not a spaceship. The spaceship was Dark Justice, for which you could make a lot of the same points admittedly. Also, Herriman died in this one. They made a reference to it in the prog at some point (I think in Doomsday). That put Hershey in the Deputy Chief Judge's chair, which led to her first Chief Judgeship after Volt bit it.
ReplyDeleteI once made a list of potential Case File volumes based on average length and keeping prog and meg about even. I don't know what your system is but it's been right on the money with mine. Well done.
Ooh good spot there on Herriman/Hershey. It's a curious thing that the two 'big' Batman/Dredd crossovers feel like throwaway fun, but actually have direct continuity consequences for the long history of Judge Dredd (most obviously in the status of Death and his fellow Dark Judges).
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