38: Judge Death - The True Story

This two-parter marks the first real move towards treating Judge Death as a figure of fun, and I guess your perspective on this story largely depends on whether you prefer they were kept as dark figures of evil. As someone fairly new to the world of Dredd, I'm not very bothered by it. With nearly 40 years of history as characters, they couldn't just stay the same evil doom-merchants.

Ian Gibson takes the cartoony elements of the story pretty literally, and the whole thing almost reads like some sort of cartoon version of Dredd Vs. Death. The two of them time-travelling back to 1994 to muck around with some senior citizens is a far cry from what we've seen before, and presented alongside the other stories in this Volume it certainly stands out.

My main issue with this story is largely just confusion - who is Death addressing as he narrates the story? Why exactly does he think this story will raise support for him, and undermine Dredd? Death tries to claim the story is about how similar he and Dredd are, but that doesn't really come across.

This is the first big step in moving Death into comic territory before bringing him back. I guess we'll see how the rest of those stories play out in this Collection.

37: Theatre of Death

A fairly straightforward two-parter taking place immediately after Necropolis, Theatre of Death touches on few things that deal with the aftermath of that epic. Dredd is still not winning any beauty contests, and indeed is still being mistaken for Judge Death himself. The Judges are back on the beat, with the hunt for Judge Death a priority. We get some closure on Chief Judge Silver, who obtains some measure of redemption as a recording shows that he held out against the power of the Dark Judges until the end.

It's unfair of course to compare this story to the run of fan-favourite ones we've had recently, but this just feels a bit flat. Holograms and displays are often a bit tricky to show in art, so I had a bit of difficulty working out what was going on in some cases.

Overall this story mainly serves to show that even the idea of the Dark Judges is enough to cause chaos and confusion, and that the corruption of the Judges in Necropolis will have an impact on Justice Department and Mega-City One for a long time.

36: Four Dark Judges

Anderson was a natural pick for her own series, and Four Dark Judges works well both as a continuation of the Dark Judges story and as Anderson's first solo adventure. Over 12 parts this gets a lot more room to breathe than Judge Death Lives, and is all the better for it. Anderson is a great lead, with fairly equal mixtures of lightness and darkness as she is tricked by the Dark Judges into resurrecting them.

The other standout star here is Brett Ewins. Following Brian Bolland must be one of the trickiest jobs out there, but I was taken in by Ewins' work throughout the whole story. He does a great job of continuing Bolland's style while making it his own.

This is another highlight of the Mega Collection for me. I've got a real soft spot for these epic, plot-heavy and cliffhangery (a technical term!) adventures from the early days of 2000AD. Anderson's got a lot ahead of her after this story, but coming back to her official beginning is always fun.

35: Judge Death Lives

Brian Bolland's artwork was so iconic in Judge Death that he was faced with a seemingly impossible task here. Not only did he have to try and beat his previous work, he also had to introduce three of Death's "cousins". Bolland somehow not only tops his artwork for the previous story, he also builds on Death's instantly iconic design by doing it again three times! Fear, Fire and Mortis are each distinctive, over-the-top and brilliant.

It isn't just in the Dark Judges that Bolland excels. His taken on Anderson is still one of my favourites, and he does some magnificent "hero-shots" with her - the full-page of Anderson and Dredd bursting through the Dark Judges' shield is a particular favourite of mine.

In fact, this story surprised me in how much it sidelines Dredd and makes this about a rematch not between Dredd and Death, but between Anderson and Death. There's a great confidence there in allowing Dredd to take a back seat, and really highlighting how Anderson was too great a character to be left encased in Boing. The Dark Judges very much see Anderson as the enemy they have to face, and Anderson does all the heavy lifting in breaking through the shield and then finally defeating the superfriends on their home soil.

Speaking of Deadworld, the only major problem with this story is how it's structured. It really needed to be more than five parts, or for the action to be redistributed. The Dark Judges taking down the citizens of a single Block is great, but it means that the action on Deadworld is limited to basically three pages. Bolland does incredible work here, but it's over way too quickly. I know we'll be seeing a lot more of Deadworld before too long, but it's such an evocative landscape and story that it really either needed to have more time here, or for it to not appear at all.

34: Judge Death

A small three-parter that would have huge ramifications, and another story that's already been analysed to Death (pardon the pun). Indeed, it is the most reprinted Judge Dredd story of all time.

Baddies are always more fun, so it’s no surprise that Judge Death gets the starring role here, but for me Anderson is the real standout character. Death is very well-realised by Bolland and his bizarre inversion of the Judges is a great conceit, but Anderson in two episodes (she doesn't even appear in the first episode!) manages to make a mark as a character and then demonstrate strength and resilience in dealing with the problem. The use of Boing, a comedy product from a fun episode, to resolve a dark and dramatic evil is also cleverly done.

A packed three episodes that will have huge ramifications – and they all work excellently. Judge Death and his superfiend cousins will take some epic twists and turns from this point on, but you can make a very solid argument that it's hard to top this initial story.

33: Necropolis

There are maybe 5-10 Dredd stories that were so big when first published, and have been analysed and examined so often since, that it can be challenging to find much to say about them that hasn't already been said - and said better. America was one, and Necropolis is most certainly another.

I'm not going to have some contrarian view or any sort of "hot take" here: Necropolis is great. John Wagner's work feels energised and urgent, driven by the themes that have been bubbling away all this through this and the previous Volume: duty, becoming obsolete, inheritance and how succession works (or doesn't) to name just a few. Even though Necropolis has 26 episodes to play with, Wagner wastes no time in getting to work. Dredd's apartment is destroyed in fire right at the start - the very last symbolic act of his removal from Mega-City One.

I was surprised just how quickly Kraken falls to the power of the Sisters. My memory of my first read of this story was that it was a much longer struggle - but it's insanely quick. I'm always impressed with how Wagner doesn't go for the obvious. We could have had 10 episodes of inner turmoil and struggle, but Wagner doesn't see any point in hiding the inevitable conclusion: Kraken is weak, and always was.

In the end, amidst all the fantastic scenes of the City under the power of the Sisters and the Dark Judges, this run of stories has always been about Dredd - how reliant the City is in him, how fallible he is and how hard he will be to replace when the time comes. Kraken should have been the ultimate replacement - honed to be a Judge. But he falls at the very first hurdle. And when he falls, the entire system falls. The Judges end up under the power of the Sisters, oppressing the citizens they are meant to protect.

Mega-City One is imperilled by "The Perfect Judge", working as a solo force. It is saved by a group of the imperfect - raw cadets not yet Judges; somewhat crazy McGruder; injured Anderson; and Dredd himself. Kraken was used by Odell and Silver after they thought Dredd was past it - but the City is eventually saved with the return of two "old-timers", Dredd and McGruder, from out of the Cursed Earth. In the end the idea of a single superhuman Judge can't work. It's working together with others that fight on despite what holds them back that allows Dredd to do what he does.

In the end Kraken is a tragic and doomed figure. Used by the Judda, then by the Justice Department, then by the Sisters. Kraken was meant to the perfect solo Judge, a man alone enforcing the Law - and it turned out that the one thing he could never be was his own man. Dredd eventually gives Kraken the only release he can - some measure of acknowledgement that Kraken was a victim, and then a quick death.

Everything around this central issue is just window dressing, but the majority of it is very entertaining. Carlos Ezquerra's colour-stained artwork is evocative and gripping; the return of McGruder is hilarious and her unlikely buddy comedy road trip with Dredd is a fun mid-story diversion.

At the time, Necropolis was the finale to a masterclass in storytelling by John Wagner, bringing together story threads from years previously to this renewal of Dredd. It's still effective today. What else is there really to say?

32: Dear Annie

For the third time in the Mega Collection so far, when a letter is written - things go very bad, very fast! We’re still exploring the absence of Dredd, and Dear Annie doesn’t even really have anything from the Justice Department bar a single panel. This is very much the real prologue to Necropolis, with the introduction (at least in terms of these Volumes) of the Dark Judges.

It’s clear that John Wagner enjoys writing the twisted monsters, giving them a sick sense of humour that counterbalances their over-the-top horror. Carlos Ezquerra is having a good time too, with an incredible full-page scene showing off all four of the Dark Judges as they take out other citizens.

Wagner takes a gleefully nasty route to reintroduce the epic villains we’ll be facing in the upcoming epic. They’re not back through some scientific experiment, or a cult or some other obvious plot device - they come back through a loving couple that are then forced to go through a twisted version of a failing marriage! The whole thing is even structured around a desperate letter to an agony aunt. Wagner really piles on the cruelty to poor Chip. Stabbed by his own wife and left for an undead superfiend!

This idea that Xena is essentially "seduced" by Judge Death is a nice little set up for Necropolis and Kraken's storyline. Wagner and Ezquerra are obviously no strangers to the horror genre and its underlying themes of being drawn to dark and seductive powers - it's a real appetiser to the main course as the entire City faces the same horror.