Aftermath part 1: What'd I miss?

To create this ranking, I spent a LONG time on Barney, trawling through the list of Dredd stories in Prog and Meg, and checking a few specials and Annuals, too, to see what measured up to and ultimately ‘felt’ like an epic story. I ended up going almost entirely on length, will a side order of ‘has this story been collected in its own volume?’ to get around some stories that were originally run in smaller chunks. ‘Split epics’ as I’ve been calling them.

Partly for the sake of making this manageable, I decided to draw a line, and that meant some longish stories didn’t qualify for the list, being less than 60 pages long. In case anyone cares, here’s the full list of stories that were longer than the first Dredd epic I did count, ‘the Robot War’, which was was 9 episodes and a mere 46 pages long – but that I felt didn't deserve inclusion.

I’ve added links to collections for the stories I rate highly, that would’ve cracked the Top 20 in all likelihood. They’re listed here in chronological order.

Destiny’s Angels (8 episodes, 50 pages) Progs 281-288
Cry of the Werewolf (7, 47) Progs 322-329, read it in Case Files 7
The Graveyard Shift (7, 45) Progs, read it in Case Files 7 (It's a great collection!)
 

'Cry of the Werewolf' - it's exactly the story you think it is!
Art by Steve Dillon

Midnite’s Children (5, 48) Megs 1-5
Twilight’s last gleaming / the Devil you know (7, 42 in total) Progs 750-756
Book of the Dead (8, 48) Progs 859-866 – special mention that this story, for me, is even worse than Crusade (although the art is better)

The Scorpion Dance (8, 48) Progs 1125-1132, read it in Case Files 29
Sector House (8, 48) Progs 1215-1222
The Satanist (7, 42) Progs 1350-1356
The Edgar Case (7, 42) Progs 1589-1595 – long time foil for Dredd, Surveillance Judge Jura Edgar has been part of some very significant stories but never quite an epic (apart from a cameo in ‘Chief Judge’s Man’). This story is actually about her legacy, and it’s compelling stuff. I’m curious now why the Edgar strips have never been collected into one volume.

This is a nice collection of John Burns Dredds

Emphatically Evil: the life and crimes of PJ Maybe (7, 42) Progs 1569-1575 – this is really part of the build-up to Tour of Duty, but would’ve qualified as its own mini-epic had it been a couple of episodes longer. It's NOT in The Complete PJ Maybe, which covers (almost) all the PJ stories up to that point. It IS included in Tour of Duty: the Backlash. To get the missing bit of Maybe, you'll need the Hachette collection. Speaking of PJ Maybe...

Ladykiller (8, 48) Progs 1991-1999 – PJ Maybe’s final outing, and although he got starring roles in Tour of Duty and, to a lesser extent, Day of Chaos, it’s kind of a shame this last story didn’t quite get epic status. I’m also gonna confess that although he draws it well, I’ve never found King Carlos to be the best fit for PJ.

Deep in the Heart (8, 48) Progs 2012-2019

I'm going to single out a handful of edge cases that only just missed out:

The Exterminator (9, 59) Progs 919-927
I feel especially bad for this story missing out by 1 page! But, you, know, it’s only OK and doesn’t quite feel right as a ‘Judge Dredd’ epic. It’s more or less well known that this was originally a ‘Terminator’ story proposed by Wagner that he repurposed into a Dredd tale. And, if it hadn’t been played as a ‘Judge Dredd’ story it could have seeded the mystery of ‘who is this unstoppable killer from the future?’ in a super neat way, with a twist ending to match the Dead Man…

Goodnight Kiss (9, 54) Progs 940-948 – I could have tacked on the Prologue story ‘Enter Jonni Kiss’ from Prog 830, and it'd just qualify - but that prologue isn't part of the same story, it just sets up Jonni Kiss as an assassin. I suppose I could’ve counted ‘The Marshal’ from Progs 800-803 as the true prologue. But I didn’t. Draw you own conclusions.

Control Progs 2141-2145 isn't nearly long enough, but has an an epic feel and HAS just been collected along with its two prologue stories - but added together that still isn’t quite 60 pages. So much juicy Chris Weston art! But not an epic.

 
The one I came closest to adding was the set of tales by T C Eglington that have not yet been collected, but could be, perhaps under the name ‘The Booth Conspiracy’. Three short tales and one longer one that, totted up, DO come in over the page count. But a) there is no collection, and b) the final story, despite being the longest, doesn’t really have an epic feel. It’s pretty good though! Bung it all in a floppy Tharg, you know you want to.

 

Just to stave off further complaints, here are a few stories that might seem longer and more epic in the memory than they actually are. Just for fun, I’m listing them in order of how much I rate them.

These range from great…

Midnight Surfer (6, 43)
America 2 (6, 48)
Judgement (6, 36)
Ratfink (5, 52)
Guatemala (6, 48)

…to good…
Ghosts (6, 36)
Radlander (3, 36) + Damned Ranger (3, 40) which are really two separate stories about the same character, but one could lump them together for an epic-length tale. John Ridgway art, not less!
Blood of Emeralds (6, 36) – basically a prologue for ‘Every Empire Falls’.
Monkey on my back (3, 45)
The Monstrus Machinations of PJ Maybe (4, 50)

…to more-or-less forgettable:
Warzone (4, 48)
Regime Change (4, 40)
Your Beating Heart (6, 36)
House of Pain (6, 36)
Killer Elite (4, 48)
The Forsaken (6, 36)
Meatmonger (6, 46)

These are fun but kinda silly:
The Starborn Thing (6, 38)
Lawcon (4, 48)
Death Aid (7, 42)
Cascade (6, 36)
Three Amigos (6, 54)
Dredd Angel (7, 40)
Dead Reckoning (7, 42)
Missing (6, 36)

These two are good stories with GREAT art but are a little bit racist:
The Warlord (6, 41)
Emerald Isle (6, 36)

…and then there’s this one, which is super racist and not very good:
The Sugar Beat (6, 36) 

Here's the Midnight Surfer - you know, so we don't have to end on a sour note!

Next time: enough of this nonsense, what are REALLY the best Dredd epics??