Epics 13-10: Nostalgic favourites

Having any of these stories outside of the Top 10 feels a little like madness. But, objectively, there are problems here with either story or art (never both!) - at least, measured by today's standards. These ones are all, basically, comics for children, where story and character logic are not the point.
That said, these are, I think, my personal favourite epics, mostly because I read and re-read and re-read them in my early days of 2000AD fandom. As such putting them into an order is more or less impossible as well, so the maths is even more made up than usual.

Anyway, first up is a breathless action epic that suffers from having all the really good bits at the start, with not much left in the tank for the end...

Epic 13: Necropolis Progs 662-699
Written by John Wagner; Art by Will Simpson, Jeff Anderson, Carlos Ezquerra
(39 episodes, 255 pages – if you count all the prologues. If you added in the Dead Man, well, it's a full year of Progs! This counts as epic 10 chronologically, I'd say)

The basics
Part 1: Judge Dredd resigns, following a dispute with the Chief Judge about how to handle the rising pro-Democracy movement in Mega City 1. He is replaced by a young clone, Kraken.

Part 2: The Sisters of Death fail to kill Dredd, but succeed in manipulating Kraken into releasing the Dark Judges, who take control of the city. Dredd returns, to lead the fightback!

Even Dredd can't help smiling when he quits a job
Art by Jeff Anderson

Analysis – broken down into two parts for this most epic of epics - and I'm not even including the Dead Man here, which is long enough to function as an epic tale in its own right...

Part 1: Necropolis prologues Progs 661-673
(13 episodes, 93 pages - which could be its own epic, but when many of those episodes are literally called 'Countdown to Necropolis' that seems churlish)

'Tale of the Dead Man' and 'Countdown to Necropolis' were two stories that bridged secret thrill the Dead Man (more on that another time) with Necropolis proper, but neither of them are optional reads. Heck, if you had no foreknowledge and leapt straight into the epic even with the parts labelled 'Countdown', there'd be an awful lot of plot missing! Don't do it, kids.

These two prologues specifically concern rookie Judge Kraken, a clone of Dredd who was raised and brainwashed by the Judda, and restored to MC1 during the Oz storyline, and then re-brainwashed to be a Judge. He appeared twice more, in Bloodline and The Shooting Match. Both times, Wagner seeded the idea that his Judda programming still had a deep rooted hold on Kraken. No matter how good a Judge he is, how Dredd-like he is, there are moments where the evil of Judd shines through.

Locking jaws with your own clone
Art by Jeff Anderson

At least, that's how Joe Dredd calls it. It's fascinating and compelling; also it feels like a tiny bit of a cheat. It comes down to Dredd's judgement of a person's character – a story idea we've seen every now and then beginning with the Judge Child quest (more on that... in a couple of minutes 😆). Might Dredd's judgement be wrong? What if the Chief Judge doesn't listen to him? Well, we'll find out soon enough...

Meanwhile, there are other, longer-running threads that play out in a big way. And these make up Epic Trope 7: Dredd questions the system. In fact, this is not new for Dredd. Most obviously, the origin for this was a tiny trilogy of stories many years earlier: A Question of Judgement/Errorof Judgement/A Case for Treatment. Essentially, Dredd goes ballistic on an accounts Judge who is not human enough in his reaction to a tale of woe. Then there's the Democracy storyline, at this point also pretty small, restricted to a classic one-off story Letter from a Democrat, and the three-part Revolution. Dredd has no qualms about suppressing democrats, even those who break no laws. Or does he? It's a letter from a dead child about the events of the march that put Dredd on the path to the Long Walk, which in turn sets in motion both the Dead Man story, but more crucially allows the Kraken prologue to work out the way it does. 

Can you imagine all your bosses calling a special meeting to talk about you behind your back?
Words by John Wagner; Art by Will Simpson

Quite apart from the story itself, this period of Dredd held people's attention for really addressing long-running continuity. Nothing entirely new there, except by this point in Dredd's history there were a lot of different threads to pull on, across 14 years of publication history, and it had the feel of just really, really mattering. At least, to this comics fan.

And I haven't even talked about what happens! It's Dredd taking Kraken out on his rookie assessment. There's action aplenty, a lot of references to the idea of Dredd ageing (in hindsight somewhat premature – no way they could predict how long Dredd would go on for, but they could have made more of a point in this series about how modern medicine can keep bodies and minds in youthful trim for decades). And there's the general introduction of Kraken himself. If there's one consistent through-line, it's his ambition and arrogance. I don't know how Wagner does it, but when it's Dredd, you like him, root for him, generally trust his intentions. When it's Kraken, you think he's a little drokker and you don't like his attitude! Even though they're pretty similar.

Dredd of course finds that Kraken has little streaks of evil that make him unsuitable to be a judge. Chief Judge Silver then puts him through an obscene test of loyalty which he passes, and then we're into a run of Progs in which 'Judge Dredd' the strip features not Joe Dredd, but Kraken in a Dredd uniform.

Three artists bring this to life, bringing their own perspective. Will Simpson communicates Joe Dredd's increasing dissatisfaction with the Judge System, as well as his own view of himself as increasingly aged, and somehow both more cynical and more soft than he used to be. The simple fact of showing stubble on Dredd's chin is both a Simpson trademark and a telling feature of the arch-stickler's mind starting to soften.

Jeff Anderson has the job of really showing Kraken as a cocky young over-achiever, and it's he who sells us on Dredd's judgement that Kraken isn't Judge material.

The final prologue, 'Countdown to Necropolis', is so integral to the main story that it seems odd to think of it separately. This was where Carlos Ezquerra took over on art, and by golly and by gosh he's firing on all cylinders. So much tension, which even goes as far as showing Kraken's muscles on the constant verge of bursting out of his judge suit. Storywise, it's also worth noting that the final part of the prologue is one of the rare examples of an episode of 'Judge Dredd', in which the big man himself (even in clone form as Kraken) did not appear. It's such an epic build-up, nobody minded.

 

Kraken is like Dredd, but younger and more bloody.
Art by Carlos Ezquerra

Story: 10/10 If there's a better set-up to a major story for a major character, I'd sure like to read it!
Art: 7-10/10 Simpson's work is his finest hour on Dredd, no question. Anderson is good, too, but a little stiff, and neither can quite hold a candle to King Carlos...
Legacy: well, it's directly on into the longest epic yet...

Part 2: Necropolis Progs 674-699,
(26 episodes, 162 pages if you're curious)

I'm just gonna come right out and say it – I don't rate the way Carlos Ezquerra draws the Dark Judges. Nothing wrong with it, and an awful lot right with it, but it lacks that creepy edge inherent in Bolland's original designs. Now, his work on showing the entire city under a pall of death, that is amazing. And his action-packed sequences showing the cadet judges picking their way through the city, into the undercity and generally saving the day, that's what hooked me in as an 11-year old reader, made this whole era of Progs a read-instantly proposition every Saturday morning.

 

Following a gang of plucky teens is like my favourite thing in action thrillers.
But I like my rotting-corpse-based villains to be a even more creepier.
Art by Carlos Ezquerra

Compared to the Prologues, the epic itself is a largely straightforward action thriller. There's a bit of set-up at the beginning showing Kraken starting to crack up, and getting Anderson both into the story and then shoved onto the sidelines early on. I'm trying to remember if I actually believed she'd been killed early on – I don't think so (possibly not helped by the fact that Anderson had her own solo series running in the very same progs).

When Dredd himself rejoins the story, it feels like it's a race to the finish line which can only end in his victory. But it's a marathon, not a sprint, and the fun never lets up, from the completely unexpected re-introduction of McGruder, to the clockwork mechanics of Anderson psychically bringing together Dredd and the team of cadets.

But, it's telling that I had loads to say about the prologues, and relatively little to say about the epic itself. Yes, I love it, but it's not necessarily saying much, it's more about providing the fun of watching a well-crafted domino topple falling down, with a few fun twists added.

 

Those painted swirls of evil penetrating a man's mind - now that's some chilling stuff right there.
Art by Carlos Ezquerra

Story: 9/10
Art: 9/10 (yeah, gonna get push-back for this! But my reasons are clear)
Legacy: like the Apocalypse War before it, this story was too big to ignore, and for the next year or more there are plenty of callbacks, including a direct epilogue in the form of Nightmares, which picks up Yassa Povey's story from the Dead Man, and also plays a vital part in the long-gestating Democracy storyline. Then there's the dangling thread that Judge Death went missing at the end of Necropolis, and wasn't found for a long time. Along with two follow-ups in Judge Dredd proper, Death got his own solo story, and was able to become a recurring figure (in various ways) for many years to come. There's also Cadet Giant, who had appeared in one earlier story but really makes his mark here. Unlike previous rookies such as Dekker, Giant would actually go on to reappear again and again, but his popularity, and his connection with Dredd, surely was cemented in this epic.

In Mega City terms, we get another baton-passing so Silver is out as Chief Judge, and McGruder back in. Dredd's scarring lasts for a few months as well, before he gets some treatment – which sewed the seeds for decades to come of how a seemingly old man can still run around like a top athlete. Plus of course, there are the burial pits that now surround the city with dead bodies. These came back quite soon to provide fodder for a new epic...

Overall score: 18 out of 20
Want to read it? It's pretty much all there in Case Files 14, although you might want to pick up a certain prologue volume. And to get the full effect, you kinda want to read all of Judge Dredd (and a bit of Judge Anderson) up to that point. What? That's only like 14 Case Files-worth of reading, what're you complaining about.

 

Next up, remember that time Judge Dredd went into space? That was fun, wasn't it? Wonder why he doesn't do it more often...

Epic 12: The Judge Child Progs 156-181
Written by John Wagner and Alan Grant; Art by Mike McMahon, Ron Smith, Brian Bolland
(27 episodes, 169 pages, epic 5 in sequence)

The Basics: A dying psi Judge predicts doom for the future of Mega City 1. The only hope is to find the Judge Child. Dredd and a small team journey into space to find him.

 

Space! Where Dredd had (barely) been before.
Art by Ron Smith

Analysis: Described in the abstract, this is like the Cursed Earth (more on which... in another minute 😉), but better. Like that story, there's an overall narrative that sends Dredd on a quest, which sets up a series of episodic adventures in different places. What makes it better is, arguably, the fact that the overall narrative itself makes actual sense, and has even more of an urgency about it. Dredd isn't just getting from A to B, he's chasing the Judge Child, the people who have kidnapped him, and we the readers, along with Dredd, learn more and more about who and what Owen Krysler is. I can only imagine reading the progs at the time would've been nail-biting awesomeness, and what an ending!

Owen Krysler and the Angel Gang - just the antagonists an epic needs.
Shame they're only in like one-third of it.
Art by Mick McMahon

But like I said, this is what you get from a description of the epic, not the story itself. Or rather, the stories themselves. These episodic epics stand or fall on how good each unconnected adventure is. Most of the Judge Child is in fact excellent, but not quite as excellent as the Cursed Earth – which really only had one dud episode (the Jolly Green Giant), and even that had gloriously off-beat ideas and art.

It's not that any given Judge Child episode is bad, and, for me, the art is a touch better, with McMahon in a new groove at this point, Bolland as playful as ever (although he's only got a handful of episodes here), and Ron Smith really pulling out all the stops with his fine details, but overall few are quite as memorable as the Cursed Earth. I think part of the problem is the setting. Space / alien worlds are fun for Dredd to visit, but it doesn't help tell us much about the man or his world, certainly not revealing neat bits of back story as in the Cursed Earth. It's something of a wasted opportunity to tell us about the history of space exploration and colonization, or even about humans' first contact with aliens (I suppose we got a bit of that with Tweak's story, again, in the Cursed Earth!)

The Judge Child saga does have its share of bad craziness, mind.
Art by Brian Bolland

 

Or maybe it's just that I had the collected Titan editions of the Cursed Earth and read them to death as a youth, and only read the Judge Child some years later, after amassing a set of back progs.

But I don't think I'm alone in my assessment. It's telling that the best stories within the Judge Child are clearly the first two – Smith's killer crowd scenes in the Filmore Faro story, and McMahon's amazing work in the Texas City theme park, and then the next best sequence is the final showdown with the Angel Gang on the Grunwald's planet. And, although this sequence has bags of charm - mostly because of the Angels themselves, and the way McMahon and Smith draw them -  the world around them with its mix of western tropes and the 'free robot' city are kind of wasted, and were not explored again (until Abnett and Winslade's series Lawless, some four decades later!).

 

There is a little bit of mucking about with murder on a spaceship at least.
Art by Brian Bolland

Story: 8-10/10 The best bits are utterly enthralling; but there are less amazing bits, even though they're never less than good. It feels entirely seamless, but it's worth noting that it's towards the end of the series that the John Wagner-Alan Grant writing partnership was forged. And those end bits are some of my favourite scenes. But, as with all anthology stories, some sequences are better than others.
Art: 9-10/10 I'm knocking off a point because McMahon's work is just so good here it's a little sad to get to a Bolland or Smith episode, even though their work is both faultless and delightful.
Legacy: Owen Krysler, the Judge Child himself, comes back into Dredd's world to provide some fairly major storylines. Although weirdly, the pre-cog division that identified him is barely mentioned again. Mostly it's about two major new characters: Judge Hershey and the Angel Gang.

This epic was also the first major excuse to explore Earth (and Mega-City 1's) relationship to space and its colonies – something that, unlike the Cursed Earth, hasn't come up much at all in the years that followed. I guess there was that one not-quite-good-enough murder mystery story set on Justice 1, the spaceship first seen in this very epic. And those stories we have seen, such as Insurrection, explore those outer worlds as much more wild frontier, and less like crazy space civilizations.

As with the Luna 1 story, we also get an epilogue showing Dredd's first day back at work. It's another corker, introducing the concept of Block Wars, while also showing the Council of Five deliberating over Dredd's decision made at the end of the Judge Child quest - and it won't be the last time! We also meet future Chief Judge McGruder.

Overall score: 18.3 out of 20
Want to read it? It's in Case Files 4, although I'm more than ready to get hold of a collected edition that reproduces the colour centre spreads. There have been a few stand-alone collections as well, including a pocket edition.

 

So anyway, having spent half of that 'analysis' comparing one epic to another, here indeed is...

Epic 11: The Cursed Earth Progs 61-85
Written by Pat Mills, John Wagner and Chris Lowder; Art by Mike McMahon and Brian Bolland
(25 episodes, 164 pages, this one's epic 3 by my count)

The Basics: Judge Dredd, with a small team, must cross the Cursed Earth to deliver a vaccine to Mega City 2.

Just this one panel leaves you in no doubt:
This is a vital mission. It's also a dangerous mission. Dredd is determined to succeed!
Must. Read. Next. Episode...IMMEDIATELY!
Words by Pat Mills; Art by Mike McMahon

Analysis: 'Epic' tales are one thing. But Judge Dredd, every now and then, delivers a MEGA-epic. And this is the first of those. And it's a doozy. The overall story couldn't be simpler - Dredd has to journey overland from Mega City 1 to Mega City 2 to deliver a vaccine. Along the way, he will encounter many and varied hardships that will gradually wear him down, and, incidentally, set up many concepts for Dredd's world that have endured and been explored ever since. It'll also include three characters who have lingered long in readers' memories, even though one dies during the story, one has been seen all of two times since, and the third shunted over to an entirely different story. I'm talking Spikes Harvey Rotten, Tweak, and Satanus.

 

Spikes and Tweak - 40 years on, they're still not forgotten.
Words by Pat Mills; Art by Brian Bolland

As an episodic epic, not quite all the stories are top tier classic, but basically 85% of them are, and even the stories that are weaker boast the most fantastic art. The best episodes – vampire robots, flying rat plagues and dino sacrifice – are Dredd at his gonzo best. Not much to do with judging, but everything you could want from crazed sci-fi action weirdness comics. The wraparound story of the journey is pretty silly in many ways, but it's put forward with such brio that it doesn't matter, and gives the epic a sense of urgency that wouldn't exist if it were just the episodes strung together. Not much else to say, really – read it now creeps!

 

If this isn't your Top 10 2000AD covers of all time, well, you're wrong.
Art by Mike McMahon

Story: 7-10/10 Some points taken away for the ending, in which a plague is defeated in the space of two panels (you know, rather than a year of lockdown and 6 different vaccines...), a direct contrast to later epic Day of Chaos, in which a similar plague devastates over the course of several months.
Art: 10/10 I guess you could argue that both McMahon and Bolland produced better work later in their careers, but it’s incredible here and I’m not taking any points from either of them!
Legacy: just a ton of legacy from this epic. The Cursed Earth itself as a setting, along with the many and varied mutants, hillbillies and rednecks who live there; Bad Bob Booth and the Atomic Wars as part of Mega City One's history; Mega City 2, as a city in itself but more especially a city that is forever grateful to Mega City 1 – albeit tinged by distrust and resentment; Mutants, both as crazed, ugly marauders, and as super-powered beings, and as victims who need the help of the law. Dredd as someone who upholds the law beyond his own city walls. Oh, and some monster called Satanus!

 

What's black and white and red all over? A hungry T-Rex...
Words by Pat Mills; Art by Mike McMahon

Overall score: 18.4 out of 20
Want to read it? Well, there's Case Files 2, but really you wanna get hold of the Uncensored edition! It includes two previously 'missing' chapters from the epic, and all the lovely full-colour centre spreads to boot.

How do you go one better than the Cursed Earth saga? Why, by launching Dredd straight into another epic-length thriller, but this time with a single through line on the story...

Epic 4: The Day the Law Died, aka Judge Cal Progs 86-108
Written by John Wagner; Art by Brian Bolland, Mike McMahon, Brett Ewins/Brendan McCarthy, Garry Leach, Ron Smith
(23 episodes, 129 pages, epic number 4 chronologically)

The Basics: An evil Judge takes control of Mega City 1; Dredd leads the fightback!

 

Judges normally wear green gloves, don't they? What could the significance be of
Cal choosing red...
Art by Mike McMahon

Analysis: One of the best things about this epic was that it began immediately after the Cursed Earth finished. Technically, the final episode of that story gave Dredd a few weeks to recover – but it plays out as if it was more like a few days. There's an urgency about the story right from the preposterous prologue, in which Dredd is framed – not very convincingly, to be honest – for murder, paving the way for deputy chief Judge Cal to take over and begin a reign of madness.

The epic itself alternates between scenes of Cal's mad reign, which are always delightful, and Dredd's escape and attempts to fight back. These episodes are less fun, but brimming with how-will-he-do-it excitement, something John Wagner excels at as a writer of weekly serialized storytelling.

Yes, there's a reason why one of the judges is in boxer shorts only here.
Art by Mike McMahon

 

Dredd bags a man on the inside to betray Cal.
Also, nifty noir-ish car there. Haven't seen one of those in MC1 in a while.
Art by Brian Bolland

The lasting joy of the epic is in Cal himself, who is portrayed as a narcissistic psychopath, in love with himself, in love with power, and always keen on murder. It's his flights of fancy, and his excesses of rage, that make the epic fun. It's also where artist Brian Bolland gets to have the most fun, delivering over-the-top emotions ranging from extreme boredom to joy and of course rage. Yes, it's clearly inspired by recent TV hit I, Claudius (and possibly the x-rated movie Caligula, although very few people actually saw that at the time, as I understand it.). But in classic Wagner tradition, he's not so much stealing ideas, he's more gleefully appropriating and twisting bits that would be funny in Dredd's world, and not worrying about any actually literary/historical parallels. You would hardly call the 'Cursed Earth' (or the previous epics) serious, but Judge Cal pushes the comedy button hard, and I think this helped set the tone for Dredds to come.

We also get the Kleggs, largely wonderful, and Fergie, mostly bizarre but Wagner pushes through his oddness to such an extreme level, ably abetted by Mike McMahon and Brian Bolland in particular, that he won me over and his final sacrifice is strangely moving.

There's so much to love about the epic, which is arguably a better version of The Robot War – better villain, higher stakes because Dredd has to fight Judges, but same basic idea – but for me it can't quite sustain the glory of the Cursed Earth. Ultimately it's the art that brings Judge Cal down just a notch. Not anyone's fault, as all are delivering cracking work, but the mere fact of having four separate art teams (one is a double-act of Ewins/McCarthy) is jarring, especially as they're all drawing parts of the same continuous whole, and not unrelated episodes as in epics like the Cursed Earth. Poor Ron Smith, one of THE definitive Dredd artists, got his start on the strip in the back half of this epic, and it's just too different from the others to mesh – even though he is the master of a) crowd scenes and b) madmen who love themselves.

 

Dredd leads the final charge to bring Cal down.
Art by Ron Smith

Story: 9/10 It loses one point purely because the plot mechanics, and indeed Judge Giant’s speech patterns, don’t hold up to today’s sophistication. To be fair, this was written for 11 year-olds.
Art: 8-10/10 Bolland's best work, for me (with a little help from Garry Leach), and McMahon's doing great too. Not to take away from Smith, Ewins and McCarthy, but imagine if we'd even more Bolland on this particular epic.
Legacy: Second in the long line of 'a madman takes over the city and Dredd must fight back', this story is the first to set up Epic Trope 4: the death and succession of a Chief Judge.

 

There are two future Chief Judges in this panel!
(Three, if JD himself ever takes up that mantle)
Art by Brett Ewins and Brendan McCarthy

Cal himself would continue to appear every now and then, a fondly remembered megalomaniac. The Kleggs also reappear sporadically (including in Ace Trucking Co), but not as much as they might given how fun they are. It's only really the recent introduction of Sensitive Klegg that has reminded people they were available as characters who could do more than snarl.

The real biggee of legacy from this strip is the City Wall – Cal gets it built within three weeks, and it forms a big part of the landscape of Mega City 1 going forward. Oddly, it's never referenced that the wall only exists because a super-evil, extreme fascist chief wanted it up. The Judges seem to be rather keen on maintaining it, even after Cal was ousted...

Overall score: 18.5 out of 20
Want to read it? This one's also in Case Files 2, and also has a pocket edition. Unlike other epics of the era, this one ran mostly in the front of each Prog, so there are no (or not many) colour pages to restore for any sort of definitive edition.

 

Next time: well, we're into the Top 10 here, and we've got three epics that are, one might say, small but perfectly formed.