This issue reads a lot smoother, with Dredd again a fugitive, leading the revolt against the crazy new chief judge. Unfortunately, Wagner goes for absurdity at every turn–the new chief judge is so crazy he appoints a fish as his deputy–and it’s never believable the other judges would follow the new leader with such blindness. It’s almost like Wagner saw he couldn’t make the story work straightforwardly, so he introduced the lunacy to at least make it funny.
And there are a couple decent comic moments but there’s also a lot of laziness.
Of the three pencillers, Brett Ewins does the best on his pages. He captures the mania of Wagner’s script and the enthusiasm helps a lot. The pacing gets the better of McMahon, who handles the beginning of the issue (and the setup); he can’t keep up.
If Wagner had fuller scenes, it’d probably work better.
B-
CREDITS
Writer, John Wagner; pencillers, Mike McMahon, Brett Ewins and Brian Bolland; inkers, McMahon, Ewins and Garry Leach; colorist, John Burns; letterers, Tom Frame and Jack Potter; editor, Nick Landau; publisher, Eagle Comics.
It’s something of a lackluster issue.
The resolution to the Las Vegas cliffhanger is a little lame. Dredd just happens to get there in time to challenge the sitting judge and there just happens to be a good resistance movement in place to help out. The whole subplot–the mob being the corrupt judges of Vegas–is weak anyway.
It’s Dredd versus a dinosaur. Not just any dinosaur, but the offspring of the dinosaur from the early issues of 2000 AD. Mills spends more time writing from the dinosaur’s perspective than he does from Dredd’s, which makes for a vaguely annoying, while still engaging enough outing.
It’s an excellent issue. Mills sends Dredd on something of a self-discovery; he encounters all different types in the Cursed Earth, with the villainous gangs being the only bad guys. It comes as a surprise to Dredd, but not the reader. Mills has a way of trying to surprise the reader with Dredd’s humanity. He’ll give Dredd a choice and one of them seems obvious if Dredd is just a caricature, then Dredd’ll choose the other option and Mills will gently explain.
Mike McMahon does the art for the first three quarters of the issue, with Dredd getting ready to go on a mission through the Cursed Earth. Writer Pat Mills does a decent job setting up the back story, though once it moves on to preparations for the mission, he and McMahon get wrapped up in showing off the goofy hardware Dredd’s going to have. It’s relatively short sequence–the initial double-page spread of a militarized RV–but it stops the story cold.
The feature story, with Mega-City One under attack from mutants from the Cursed Earth, is fairly strong. Wagner foreshadows throughout the story, but gently enough it just looks like he’s doing a lot of texture. He’s enthusiastic about describing the various settings; even when connections seem obvious later, when he’s introducing them, Wagner never draws too much attention.
It’s an awesome issue with Judge Death getting freed. The story has clear chapters, from the original 2000 AD progs, but the way Wagner brings it together–the changing focus on the first few–the both awesome and lackluster finish… it works out beautifully.
This issue has stories where Dredd is stationed on the moon. There’s a bit too much of the Wild West mentality to it–which early 2000 A.D. progs often did with Americans in the future, so I guess it fits; the cowboy hats are still annoying.
Of the three stories in this issue–this Judge Dredd series being a reprint series, the first one is the best, but the third one has the best writing from John Wagner.