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 By John Wagner and Peter Doherty
What to expect: The origins of your fiend and mine, Judge Death.
Buy Judge Death - Boyhood of a Superfiend
Review by Jim Purcell
“This is a love story."
Okay, that's not the first line of this comic, rather another masterpiece that ran side-by-side with it at the birth of the Judge Dredd Megazine. But it probably should have been.
Judge Death – Boyhood of a Superfiend was one of the stories that kicked off the birth of the Judge Dredd megazine back in Oct 1990. Alongside such classics as Judge Dredd: America and Kenny Who?: Beyond Our Kenny. To read that line up must have brought on a serious case of Thrill Power Overload™.
I wouldn't know, I wasn't there. I was seven years old and on the wrong side of the Atlantic, just starting to read Fantastic Four and Spider-Man. My first personal experiences with the character of Judge Death are very recent indeed, facilitated by the Judge Dredd Case Files reprints and the My Name is Death collection.
Personally, i like Judge Death, as much as you can "like" a mass murdering undead alien monster. As a villain, he provides an interesting super-natural foil for Judge Dredd and co. to spar with. His bloody single mindedness makes him a threat that can not be reasoned with, a great strength in any villain. It also makes him more of a force of nature then a character.
 In Boyhood of a Superfiend, John Wagner presents the origins of Judge Death, raising Death from those lowly "force of nature" roots to a fully fleshed out character. This depicts young Sidney De'ath's earliest days, torturing animals and his sister, learning life philosophy from his serial murderer father and taking in his days learning to be a judge at the Academy of Law. All the while his "crime is committed by the living" beliefs are growing and flourishing. His home world, Dead World, is a twisted mirror image of Dredd's Mega City 1. Life is at its cheapest already and it doesn't take much for De'ath's influence to grow and twist his world's justice department to his own purposes.
It really is a love story. Judge Death truly loves his people, he loves them so huggy-wuggy much he wants to free them from an existence of sin - to give them perfect harmony among the dead. His passion about this dream almost brings a tear to my eye. Until I remember the guy is absolutely psychotic.
The origin story is framed by another, of tabloid journalist Brian Skuter, and how Judge Death (free again after the events of Necropolis) comes into his life looking to put his life story on record. These moments add some rather dark humor to the whole story, particularly as the nearsighted landlady Mrs. Gunderson bumbles about, oblivious that her tenant is an alien murder machine. Meanwhile, the judges of Mega-City 1 slowly become aware that Death is on the loose again. Dredd, Hershey, and Anderson all have their, albeit bit, parts to play by the end.
I've heard it said that this story kicks off the "goofy Judge Death" phase of the character. And I can believe it, the motivation of Judge Death wanting to have his story public is a bit ludicrous and, honestly, beneath the guy. But the meat of the story, of Young Death and his rise to pure malevolence is excellently dark.
That darkness is captured expertly by artist Peter Doherty, who's painted art style was a perfect fit for the story. The dark parts are moodily dark, while the light parts are light enough to provide a real contrast. This is quite unlike some painted artists of the same era, who seemed to paint everything evenly dark using what seems to be elephant dung on their brushes.
 The collection itself, honestly, feels a bit thin. At 96 pages it's a short, if meaty, read. The only extras are an afterword by Peter Doherty, mostly about how he got the gig, and the Masque of The Judge Death strip by Si Spencer and John McCrea, which I believe was about the very last people to be killed on Dead World by Judge Death and the Dark Judges. I couldn't really tell as - alluded to above - the artwork seems to be hewn from mud and the writing is not much clearer. There was also no cover art section, which I felt was odd, Surely the Duncan Fegredo cover to the Judge Dredd Megazine #3 should have been included, at least?
Personally, I think they should have thrown in all those Judge Death stories that saw print in 2000AD extreme edition #1. Yeah, they weren't very good (see: Goofy Death era), but they could have at least filled the book out a bit, and put those marginal stories into a TP. Because they sure aren't good enough to be put in one on their own.
Reproduction wise, its the usual high standard of quality i expect from Rebellion. The art probably looks a tad better at full size on non-glossy paper stock back in the original Megazine run.
Minor gripes aside, this is a fantastic read. I'd go so far as to put it up on the same pedestal as Judge Dredd: America in terms of pure quality of storytelling, if not for its importance to Dreddworld lore. John Wagner weaves a convincing story with a deft hand and gives us a look under the helmet of Judge Death and a peek into the madness found there. You can't really ask for more
Buy Judge Death - Boyhood of a Superfiend
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