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Dredd - Judgement Day
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15th
January 05 |
Judge Dredd:
Judgement Day
By Garth
Ennis, Peter Doherty, Dean Ormston, Carlos Ezquerra, Chris Halls, Anthony Williams.
(Plot by Garth Ennis and John Wagner)
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What to Expect:
Judge Dredd and Johnny Alpha vs Zombies. Lots of zombies...
Review by Gavin
Hanly
American comic readers must
find 2000AD readers somewhat perplexing.
Currently receiving
great acclaim and an even greater amount of money in the US are huge stars in
the shape of Mark Millar, Grant Morrison and Garth Ennis, writer of Judgement
Day (we’ll be using that spelling here). However, 2000AD readers often treat
these writers with, shall we say, something less than respect. These creators
may well be producing some stellar work across the pond, but all that was written
for 2000AD in the early days was not gold. Current 2000AD readers’ very
long memories aside (and even ex 2000AD readers I've spoken to have bad memories
about Millar's efforts), it's easy to see why other considerations have to be
taken into account with the US market. Garth Ennis is simply a more bankable name
than John Wagner in the states, and it makes sense to kick off the Dredd collections
with one by a proven US writer.
Of course, if "A
History of Violence" does well in the cinema this year, expect Wagner's stock
to rise considerably…
But leaving aside
the reasons for going with Judgement Day over more well received storylines, this
is an opportunity to look back on the epic and see if it comes up to scratch all
these years later. Ain’t it Cool recently reviewed the collection and gave
it a… less than stellar review. They appeared to be expecting great things
from the first standalone Dredd story – and this fell rather short of expectations.
Looking at the collection side by side with recent Dredd tales in the comic and
indeed some of the undisputed classics from the past, it’s easy to see why.
Judgement Day clearly falls short when placed against some of the very best Dredd
epics.
Judgement Day was one of
Fleetway’s excursions into American style crossovers. This really got the
readers backs up at the time and has never been handled in the same way since,
with readers really having to buy both the weekly and the Megazine to understand
the whole story. It exhibits the worst traits of such crossovers with jarring
changes in plot and art style between episodes in the Megazine and the weekly
- this despite the whole thing being written by the same writer. The art in suffers
badly in particular in this collected form, with the artists in the weekly sections
coming and going throughout with no discernable pattern. Dean Ormston puts in
the most dependable stint in the bi-weekly Megazine sections, only once being
replaced by Chris Halls. Everyone else puts in a competent job but, unsurprisingly,
it’s only Ezquerra who lend his scenes some of the visceral urgency the
series deserves,
In addition, the plot is
very lopsided. Only towards the end, when you feel that Ennis has decided that
he’d better devote some real space to background of the bad guy of the piece,
do things really begin to gel. But if he’d done this earlier, the whole
epic would have felt much more rounded. The scenes with the origins of Sabbat
and his pet “Den” are the standout elements of the book and much more
of this would have been welcome. And, with regards this collection in particular,
surely a better explanation of Johnny Alpha in the introductory pages would have
been a good idea?
But…
Despite that –
it’s still enjoyable. It’s a very easy read, a style that’s
overlooked my many writers working in comics today, and it simply can’t
be identified as an all-out bad Dredd tale. Occasionally Ennis pulls out an excellent
set piece and the whole story never slows down enough to get boring. There’s
some decent action interludes, some off-hand decimating of key members of the
supporting cast that occasionally happens in 2000AD and despite it being handled
rather cack- handedly, it’s quite easy to get a kick out of the team up
between Alpha and Dredd.
But there’s still
a nagging feeling that DC/Rebellion have dropped the ball somewhat with this choice
for the first reprint, given that it’s been collected twice before. Either
the Pit or even the Morrison/Millar penned Purgatory/Inferno would have been better
first runs – especially the latter, given that it has never previously been
reprinted.
So this comes with a tentative
recommendation. If you’ve never read it before, then give it a try. It’s
a decent enough Dredd tale that’ll easily keep you occupied. It’s
also actually cheaper than the original Hamlyn collection that came out a good
few years ago (although the print quality isn’t anywhere near as god –
something of an issue with all the DC reprints) and it even has an extra story
that was not included in that collection. But if you really want some excellent
Dredd reprints, hang around to see what they’ll offer next.
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