Epics 25-23: noble failures?

Frankly trying to find a connection between the stories that come up in a countdown like this is silly, but it's fun trying. Anyway, here are three epics that I can't imagine are anybody's favourite, but that all do some things particularly well, starting with an action/horror epic that was intended to end all action/horror epics...

Epic 25 End of Days Progs 2184-2199
Written by Rob Williams; Art by Colin McNeil and Henry Flint
(15 episodes, 90 pages; epic 51 in sequence, and so far the most recent)

The Basics: It’s the Apocalypse! The one predicted by the Bible and prophecies from many other religions (but mostly the Christian one). Four Horsemen (not actually on horses) are unleashing literal hell on Earth. Dredd and a small squadron of allies (and non-allies) quest to find and defeat them all before it’s too late.

 

The burning US flag is neat imagery but doesn't actually have anything to do with the story
(unless there's a 'downfall of America' theme I missed?)
Art by Steve Austin

Analysis: To say the least, this was not a popular epic as it ran in the Prog, even from the start. Reading it as a whole, I like it quite a bit better, especially the art. But also the structure of the story, the way flashbacks and call-forwards work to seed parts of the ending. There’s also more than I remembered of showing how badly things are going in Mega City One, and hints of devastation around the world.

I’d guess that the discontent among readers is to do with:

1)    The Apocalypse basically comes out of nowhere. Dredd epics past have spoiled us all for the long, slow build-up to these things.

2)    The villains in this case are supernatural, and are all dispatched through supernatural means. Dredd has tangled with the supernatural before but typically uses ‘real-world’ means to save the day.

3)    The ultimate ending involves not just the supernatural, but some sort of timey-wimey destiny thing.

And yeah, some of that bothered me too. But when setting it to one side and just going with the story, it bothers me a lot less. Williams has I think crafted an immaculately clever structure, setting up a team to pursue four different villains. There will be sacrifices along the way, there will also be avoidable death, and mistakes made. It’s satisfying to see that all unfold.

 

When hunger takes hold, you really notice!
Art by Colin McNeil

Even better, the four villains have some sweet designs, and bring along their own surprises. This epic, after all, is mostly about being a fun romp, an action story based around ‘oh my goodness, how will our heroes get out of this impossible situation?’ And if you don’t like the solutions, it’s going to ruin the epic for you – but I swear that on each re-read, I’m going to find those solutions more and more fun.

'War' doesn't really get to do much but he looks super cool and angry.
Art by Henry Flint

This does leave one question, though – what was the point? I haven’t even mentioned one of the bigger features of the epic: Ichabod Azrael. Who, if you don't know, was a kind of avenging angel/demon cowboy created by Rob Williams for his own 2000AD series. It's quite pretentious and very good, and is about love and death and vengeance and god and talking horses and all that good stuff. It makes sense for a character with biblical connotations to be part of a story sort of inspired by a book of the Bible. And, while week to week his presence often felt pointless, read as a whole I rather think Azrael works (and not just so we can enjoy a quick-draw face off between himself and Dredd at the end!). But still, so what? He justifies his presence as a random cross-over character, but the themes of his own excellent series don’t translate, at least that I can see. And Dredd as a strip has never really been about destiny / inevitability. If anything, it has been more about how Dredd’s determination/stubbornness can outstrip ant sort of destiny, whether it’s Nuclear War or the prophecy of great evil befalling a city. He even overcomes the meta-level of destiny that his series can and has defeated things like a Democratic Vote, several city-destroying wars / plagues, and even his own resignation!

If End of Days was meant as a commentary on that, it didn’t do it openly. But overall, as a romp, I find myself thinking of it fondly.

 

With a gunslinger in the team, this strip had to end in a shootout, didn't it?
And there could only be one candidate to become the final horseman...
Art by Henry Flint

Story: 7/10
Art: 8-9/10
Legacy: We’ll see. Not expecting much to be honest, although it’s nice to know that the sort-of tradition of getting non-Dredd characters to appear in the world of Dredd is alive and well.

There have been two immediate epilogues, one focussed on rebuilding the city after the devastation, the other tying up some loose ends out in the Cursed Earth, and neither adding anything to the thematic concerns of the epic proper. It'll be interesting to see if they lose Weather Control for good (or at least, for a while). Am also curious but not seriously expecting to see if Dredd’s world now embraces the idea that Judeo-Christian teachings appear to be, broadly speaking, true. And, per the second epilogue, it seems that creepy Sov Psi Bulgakov will turn up again at some point, with who knows what agenda...

Not explored yet, but one other thing I wonder about: there’s also a serious possibility that Dredd's world might genuinely consider full nuclear disarmament. If all the world’s weapons can start to overheat, and several blow up, all of their own accord, maybe Mega Cities would think twice about just keeping them as a deterrent? At the very least it’d make for a fun story (that would no doubt end with all Mega Cities actually keeping their nukes, if in more sensible locations).

Overall Score: 16 out of 20
Want to read it? There's a collection.

 

From the biggest of all possible threats to the smallest - time for a police procedural...

Epic 24: Beyond the Call of Duty Progs 1101-1110
Written by John Wagner; Art by Carlos Ezquerra
(10 Episodes, 72 pages; number 23 in sequence)

The basics: a kinda sequel to the Pit, in which Judge DeMarco takes over as Sector Chief of nearby Sector 303, and calls in Dredd to help her out. Which is all an excuse to explore that old idea – why aren't Judges allowed to fall in love?

One wonders if Judge Galen DeMarco was partly invented
to allow for titillating covers
Art by Dermot Power

Analysis: It's hard to pinpoint why, but this mini-epic never quite catches fire. The main event is all in the DeMarco-Dredd interaction, but, apart from her re-expressing her stance that Judges do and should be allowed to love, this part of Judge life isn't pushed. It's not as if Dredd or indeed Justice Dept suggests it's going to relax that particular rule! Mostly it felt like an excuse for then-editor David Bishop to commission a salacious DeMarco cover, followed shortly by a Dredd canoodling cover. Yes, both scenes do actually happen in the story, but of course it's not quite the way it appears.

The whole story is also hung around a police-procedural B plot, this time about a conspiracy of vigilantes. It's well-done, but somewhat by the numbers as far as John Wagner is concerned.

 

Wagner is just the king of character moments that end in comedy gold.
Art by Carlos Ezquerra

Story: 7/10
Art: 9/10 Ezquerra's on good form, but still at the tail end of the dodgy computer-colouring phase which never quite sat right with me.
Legacy: A major turning point for DeMarco, and, in turn, it's clearly a key moment in Dredd's slowly changing relationship to the rules – if not the specific rule about romantic liaisons. Also, we get to meet snoop-Judge extraordinaire, Roffmann, who will continue to play a role in Dredd for a few years.

Overall score: 16.3 out of 20
Want to read it? It's in Case Files 28.

Speaking of running through old ideas, and not quite as well, here's...

Epic 23: Dark Justice Progs 1912-1921
Written by John Wagner; Art by Greg Staples
(11 episodes, 66 pages; epic 44 in sequence)

The Basics: The Dark Judges… IN SPAAAAAACE

 

The Four Dark Judges - always straddling that tricky line between scary and funny
Art by Greg Staples

Analysis: The Dark Judges had their big epic, it was called Necropolis and it was great. But they are the villains that just won’t die, both in-story and in the imagination of the readers, such was the design brilliance of Brian Bolland, and the perfect blend of chills and laughs from Wagner and Grant on the first two stories in particular. That said, it turns out there IS always room for one more Dark Judges tale, even in longer form. This time, Wagner doesn’t try to stray from the basic formula, he just does the formula really well, especially in the long second half where the plot gives way to the mechanics of an action film.

Death's mission: to kill everybody, especially Judge Dredd.
Art by Greg Staples

That formula: put Dark Judges into confined setting; fill said setting with idiots that we the readers are happy to see die; send Dredd and Anderson in to sort it all out; remind readers that the amount of carnage caused is actually horrible; give each Dark Judge a chance to show off their attributes; let Dredd and Anderson be at once heroic, endangered, resourceful and stubborn.

 

Meanwhile, Greg Staples over in the art corner giving it his all, and then some. He explains in the end matter to the collected edition that he wanted this book to really and truly look like a movie (one imagines the movie Aliens in particular…), and he goes to obscene lengths to achieve this in terms of lighting, costume, atmosphere and spectacular set pieces. His Dredd and his Mortis have arguably never been bettered. His Death and Fear are good as they come. There are panels and pages here and there that are objectively spectacular, by turns funny and sinister and dramatic and exciting. There are also panels where it looks more as if someone has executed a really amazing painting of people posed in action positions, rather than someone drawing a comic, and it doesn’t always work.

But even with all this it’s impossible to escape the problem that this strip doesn’t have anything new to say about Dredd or Anderson or what the Dark Judges stand for. It’s no more – and no less – than an extremely competent, epic length re-telling of one of the all-time great Judge Dredd stories.

Story: 7/10
Art: 9/10 – and I’m aware there are people who would unhesitatingly give this a 10, just being honest about my style preferences.
Legacy: In the world of Dredd, largely none. But the Dark Judges have since gone on to their own series which picks up directly from the ending, over in the Megazine, under the series heading 'Dark Justice'. So the Dark Judges are still out there, but now they bother Mega-City colonists on an alien world. Somewhat unbelievably (and yet, with Dark Judge logic, completely believably), they even manage to reconnect with Fear, the one baddie captured in the course of Dark Justice.

 

Overall Score: 16.5 out of 10
Want to read it? It has been collected in a lush hardback; just don't worry about wondering why the Dark Judges begin this story where they do. (it's all buried within another long and better story to be discussed later)
The non-Dredd-related sequel has also been collected, if you want more Death...

Next time, the last three epics before we get to the really good stuff.