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What to Expect: The alien superfiend returns to cause more trouble for Mega City 1 and beyond.

Review by Gavin Hanly
28th February 06

When Judge Death first appeared, it was one of the most memorable moments in 2000AD's, then short, history. We were witness to, arguably, the best writer and artist working for the comic creating what would be one of its most enduring villains. And what a villain he/it was. Although Bolland has since said he created Death more or less on the page, the simplicity of the design - a broken-mirror image of Dredd himself, was a triumph. Wagner, meanwhile, created a bad guy that was truly evil and had absolutely no redeeming features. Ok, so his creed of "the crime is life, the sentence is death" was an argument full of holes (although arguing this with Death was never really going to be an issue) but it helped to establish a villain that simply couldn't be reasoned with. Both the original Judge Death and the even better Judge Death Lives still stand as two of the best Judge Dredd stories ever produced. But that in itself led to problems: with popularity comes demand.

In many ways, this led to something similar to the "Joker" phenomenon. That is, with Death being Dredd's biggest baddie, there were continuing calls for him to be brought back as many times as possible. After all, wasn't this what the kids wanted (if kids really did clamour for a slaughtering bastard)? And bring them back they did, with initial success. The eventual high point being either the Judge Death origin tale or Necropolis, one of the best Dredd Epics ever, especially when taken with the Dead Man prequel.

But, alas, it didn't stop there. Post Necropolis, things started to go downhill for out favourite undead bad guy, and the inevitable law of diminishing returns set in. There had always been room for humour in the Death stories, and even in the very first tales, there was a good lashing of the black sort. But somewhere along the way, this black humour became interchangeable with farce. The start of this trend can be seen in the Dredd vs Death tales, and reached it's nadir when Death spent most of an epic wearing a dress and wig instead of his trademark uniform (reprinted in the first Extreme Edition). Dredd's most terrifying villain had become a target for cheap jokes.

Realising that one of their biggest icons had lost the ability to scare, a reinvention was required. And this is where the latest Judge Death collection comes in. The first Judge Death series, My name is Death, was supposed to bring back Death to the heights of his former self, and recreate a villain that had the ability to scare the pants off of the readers. In almost all ways, this first series was incredibly successful in achieving this. Having Death attack an orphanage was always going to be a good bet if you wanted to be reminded of what an absolute bastard he was. In addition to going after the relatively innocent, Death does it in much more brutal fashion. As great as Bolland, Ezquerra and other's art was, they never managed to get across the fact that Death was bloody fast and strong. And that's where Frazer Irving comes in.

Irving's take on Death can be likened to the recent overhaul of movie Zombies from slow stumbling creatures in the past to sprinting terrors in films like the new Dawn of the Dead. There will always be some who prefer the slow shambling creatures, but blimey - those new speedier ones are a lot scarier. In the same way Death always seemed a little slow and ponderous in the past, and initially he seems that way here. However, Irving manages to bring a new dynamism to the character, without losing any of his creepiness. He stumbles around from scene to scene, but when he starts delivering the killing stokes, he seems to come alive, if you'll forgive the pun, and delivers the necessary shock.

This is best seen in two examples, the aforementioned brutal attack on the orphanage and the attack on the farm at the beginning of the Wilderness Years, the second tale collected here. This latter scene works even better than the first as it starts suddenly with the brutal slaying of the mother and moves inexorably forward as he takes out the remaining clan. The vision of Death stalking of the remaining child in the cornfield is a truly terrifying one that could easily belong in the best horror films. Irving and Wagner manage to create a truly excellent set piece that cements Death as a powerful and downright terrifying foe.

Irving also draws a Death that is only really rivalled by Bolland himself. Stripping him down to the tall, gangly and extraordinarily thin creature that was first created, Irving is the first artist since Bolland to really draw the character in a satisfying way. His Death looks completely otherworldly and the "lighting" that Irving uses in certain scenes - witness his first appearance in the field in the Wilderness Years - only serves to heighten this.

Now, despite all the original assertions that these two stories were part of an effort to bring Death back to being an all-out bad guy - this level of insane cruelty can't be kept up for too long. As Death wanders through the Cursed Earth and comes upon Las Vegas, we see a distinct return to the slightly comic role he has inhabited in the past. From Death as a boxer to Death as a dog with a human head - this only serves to remind us that he is a fairly ridiculous character at heart, and is actually more scary when he sticks to the shadows. But despite this, Wagner on black humour duties can work really well, and the Vegas set scenes are still hugely entertaining.

There are other concerns too. The first tale quickly becomes another Death vs the Judges tale, and only seems to serve the purpose of separating Death from his connection with Anderson (and giving Alan Grant a particularly big problem to deal with, too...). The second tale starts well, as mentioned, but seems to be over too quickly. It almost felt like it was developing into an anti-Cursed Earth (one wonders if John Wagner asked Mills if he could use his characters here...). If given twice the amount of space to breathe, it could have developed into something really special. For instance, if the Vegas section was a one episode interlude, as Death took in all the sites of the Cursed Earth, it wouldn't have had such an influence over the tone of the piece. And, as mentioned, it all ends so quickly with the character of Hocus Ritter not built up enough and Death's and his eventual fate being a combination of confusing, abrupt and unsatisfying, with the art failing in this respect just as much as the script..

But while those are strong reservations, they aren't nearly enough to take away that which is so good about the book. The Natural Born Killers section in the Wilderness Years is inspired, Death in the boxing ring is actually very funny and makes you forgive the retreat back to farce. And finally the art overall is so damned good that it makes this a near essential purchase.

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