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Dredd Case Files Vol 3
Judge
Dredd Case Files -
Volume 3
by John
Wagner, Pat Mills, Mike Mc Mahon, Carlos Ezquerra, Ian Gibson, Brian Bolland,
Ron Smith, Brett Ewins, Brendan McCarthy and more...
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What to Expect:
The latest in Dredd's complete history, including his first run-in with a
certain undead alter-ego...
Review by Gavin
Hanly
6th June 06
As we reach the
3rd volume in Dredd’s complete adventures, there is a shift away from the
“epicness” of the previous collection. Herein, the strip concentrates
on 1 or 2 parters, with the odd mini epic to keep things moving along nicely.
While the long running storylines of the previous volume are missed, this one
manages to show other strengths of Dredd’s world – namely the vast
variety of stories possible in the Dreddworld – as well as a few major tales,
including the introduction of Dredd’s greatest nemesis.
Wagner remains
the key writer, with mills pitching in only occasionally. Wagner really solidifys
his claim as the man behind Dredd, with his stories showing a much firmer grasp
of the character than Mills. The volume starts out with a low-key, but extremely
important story, given the nature of current Dredd continuity: the introduction
of his niece, Vienna. This is a throwaway tale in essence, yet it is of keen interest
to current Dredd fans who want to see where this "Bloodlines" thing
all started. In this strip, there may be a little more heartfelt Dredd internal
monologue than we get these days, but the storyline is an early part of official
Dredd continuity that still fits in with comtemporary storylines without the need
for a reboot.
Soon after, there’s
another tale that Wagner has come back to recently – the tale of Judge Bryce
(last
seen as a psychotic maniac in the Megazine). These two tales show
that Wagner isn’t above going back to some of his older work and using the
tales as springboards for grittier sagas than would have been acceptable back
in the day.
Early on in the
book, we also see the introduction of some classic Mega City staples, including:
- The Crime Blitz:
citizens subjected to random home searches, uncovering the pettiest of crimes
- designed to keep the citizens on their toes and subserviant to the judges
- Futsies: citizens
who go insane trying to live in the madness of the mega cities),
- Rampant unemployment:
where people will do anything to get the most menial of jobs
- Suicide boxes:
the future equivalent of the cyanide pill, which have made a recent return to
the weekly
- Riot foam, the
Holocaust Squad, and loads more...
It’s the
introduction of these classic elements that make the book so enjoyable. We witness
Wagner et al having immense fun working out what level of misery they can bring
to the citizens next. Indeed, there’s a level of vicious invention that
would be good to see in contemporary Dredd tales, where clever new touches seem
to be few and far between.
One of the great
inventions in this volume is that of Boing, introduced in a seemingly one-off
throwaway story of human pinball in the big city. Of course, as pretty much everyone
knows, this makes a big return in one of the most memorable Dredd tales ever:
Judge Death.
In many ways Death
is a fairly uninventive villain – simply the opposite of Dredd and even
Bolland admits to designing him on the page. Yet Wagner avoids the obvious route
that many writers might take when creating such a polar opposite character. He
gives Death some bizarre touches like his abilty to squeeze hearts and take over
minds that raises him well above what could have been the pantomime villain. This
three parter also introduces Judge Anderson, a character many people have come
to prefer over Dredd. It’s easy to see how she was such an immediate hit
as she bounces off Dredd at every possible moment and, of course, with her “ultimate
sacrifice”.
Judge Death marks
Brian Bolland’s efforts on Dredd becoming unsurpassable by any other artist
before or since. His art on this, and indeed on The Forever Crimes, Father Earth
and the remaining un-named tale in the collection are classics in every way. The
art is extraordinary, and even today, no artist can really match Bolland for creating
a page that simply halts the reader in their tracks as they pause to take in every
lovingly detailed line. We can onoy hope that one day he might deign to do another
Dredd one-off in the future.
As for the rest
of the art in the book, while others make a good stab at things – McMahon
once again developing his style with every strip - it’s really Ron Smith’s
show. His art is ememplary throughout and really reaches astonishing levels of
detail in the Black Plague saga. The Black Plague is unpleasant reading for many
people like myself who run a mile at the sight of the smallest arachnid, as Smith
seems to take perverse joy in depicting countless spiders sinking their teeth
into unfortunate citizens. This story also emphasises the Judges willingness to
take pretty dire action and sacrifice whatever is needed in the needs of the many.
With no one to monitor their actions, this show the Judges simply getting the
job done without fear of retribution - a totalitarian regime that will come under
question in later volumes...
What about the
presentation of the book itself? This is where I have a few issues. Firstly, it’s
noticeably smaller than the first two collections. While this may have been to
ensure that larger storylines don’t spread across multiple volumes, I can’t
help but think that a few of the one offs at the end of volume two could have
been transplanted to this volume to make the drop in page count drop less obvious.
There are also some severe issues with the print quality on some of the strips.
Bolland’s work on Father Earth is quite indistinct on some pages, where
some of the lines bleed together. This has been the case on a few of Rebellion’s
black and white volumes (one of the worst offenders being some terrible printing
on the recent DR and Quinch collection) and really is something that needs to
be addressed in future printings.
As mentioned before,
the lack of every Dredd cover from the comic is also a missed opportunity, and
would have been much more preferable to the truly awful Dredd strip culled from
the 1979 annual that we get as an “added extra”.
Despite those qualms,
this is still a worthy purchase. There are enough classic tales to merit a healty
recommendation (and I haven’t even covered Otto Sump, Umpty Candy or Blood
of Satanus). Despite the drop in page count, it’s still a healthy volume
for a pretty damned cheap price. One for the collection of any self respecting
Dredd fan and lovers of decent Sci-fi alike.
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