12: Politics

A one-shot that serves to underline the lengths the Judges will go to in order to quash democracy, "Politics" sits a little strangely in this Volume. It was originally published well before "The Devil You Know" and "Twilight's Last Gleaming", but is presented just after in the Mega Collection.

It actually serves to undercut those stories a bit. Dredd's point throughout both of those stories was that the citizens might not like the Judges, but at least they know that they'll be upholders of the Law. This entire story suggests that the Judges, with Dredd as a main participant, regularly conduct shady undercover operations to remove people who have committed no crimes.

It's not entirely clear why they feel the need to come down so hard on an actor who seems to be doing more promotion of her movie than democratic principles. The subterfuge leads to a great image of the Judges being gunned down, including Dredd, and there's a certain amount of "shock" value in the treatment of the poor actor at the end.

Overall it's fine as a quick hit of Dredd, but doesn't fit fantastically well with what we learn about the Judges in other stories.

11: Twilight's Last Gleaming

I don't know enough about the background of Judge Dredd in 2000AD at the time this story was first published, but it's hard not feel a sense of loss that John Wagner couldn't complete his story. It seems particularly jarring to move from "The Devil You Know" to "Twilight's Last Gleaming" with a change in writer, as they are really one long story.

Having said that, Garth Ennis manages a reasonable job here in a difficult situation. Wrapping this big moment up was always going to be tricky, and he sensibly plays right in to the cynical beginnings that Wagner had set up. The idea that the majority of citizens didn't even vote, and that a huge number invalidated their own votes, is a blackly humorous take on politics and civil society that could probably make up a an entire thesis.

Ennis does get a bit carried away. We get a whole bunch of continuity references to previous stories, even going so far as directly repeating a quote from Prog 60. There's some forced and over-egged language ("A silence so kissed with destiny"), and also some evidence of hero-worship of Dredd. The idea that Blondel Dupre decides that Dredd is right and should be in charge feels like it's unearned, and it's unsettling to watch her declare "you are the law".

But overall it wraps up this phase of the democracy storyline well, with drama and humour.

10: The Devil You Know

There's a really effective sense of build-up and ramping tension to "The Devil You Know". In the grand scheme of things, it's really just holding off the democratic vote we know is coming (see you next blog post "Twilight's Last Gleaming"), but where some series would have moved immediately to the vote John Wagner chooses to show the tension and fallout of the possibility that democracy may be returned to Mega-City One.

Once again, Dredd is really effectively portrayed here. His insistence on a democratic vote isn't evidence that he's gone soft or is some kind of "bleeding heart", but a cold calculation of the facts as he sees them. He actually believes that given the straight choice, the citizens will choose to have the Judges protecting them. There's a cold cynicism to the ongoing democracy storyline that is really crystallised here. The citizens are portrayed as stupid and ridiculous - a whole opening two pages is given over to a citizen trying to wrap his head around choosing between two options. There's some sort of genius at play here that has a story holding up the importance of freedom and democracy, while saying that the people aren't really worthy of it anyway.

The band of Judges turning on Dredd is also unsettling and effective. It's not overly dramatic and overstated, but it leads to a killer final episode as Dredd lays into the ringleader Grice - not for attacking him, but for putting at risk that which Dredd holds so dear. The respect and sense of duty that comes with being a Judge.

"You're damn right I'm dangerous" Dredd screams at Grice. And he certainly is. He's the reasonable, sensible and calm force of stability in this story - and he's advocating for the continuation of a brutal totalitarian state. Dangerous doesn't begin to cover it.

9: Revolution

"Democracy is a cancer eating at the heart of our society. Any action we have to take to stamp it out - however regrettable - is justified". 

It's a pretty unique story where that quote is said by the notional "hero", and not by the moustache-twirling villain. That it isn't out of character and makes complete sense really speaks to how well John Wagner has crafted Dredd and given him stories that challenge some of our most foundational ideas about society.

Revolution is a fast-paced three-parter that shows how methodically and quickly Dredd and the Judges will move to maintain their grip on power - for the citizens' own good, of course. There's a great scene between Dredd and Chief Judge Silver where Silver says that any and all means are acceptable to stop the Democratic March, including "writing the law". Given that we've seen Dredd be such a stickler for following the law in the past, it says something that even just the idea of democracy is enough to rattle them.

There's a grim sense of futility behind all this. I criticised Snowstorm for being too straightforward: find the crime, shoot people, stop the crime. Revolution is really the same: find out about the march, sabotage the march, stop the march. But three episodes give this process time to sink in, and it's actually very unsettling watching the Justice Department systematically undermine, cheat and destroy this protest. In particular, Dredd threatening Gort Hyman with enrolling his sons in the Academy of Law is one of the nastiest and most manipulative things we've seen the lawman do.

There's a lot of set-up here for future stories in this Volume, but even on its own it's a very effective story that highlights all the tools a totalitarian state uses to hold on to power.

8: Letter from a Democrat

Dredd is a limited presence in this one-shot, and comes across as indistinguishable from the other uniformed Judges putting down insurrection. Chillingly, he tells Gort that "democracy is not for the people".

Short, sharp and dark. Not a glimmer of lightness here as Dredd and his Judges are entirely placed in the role of complete villains. The story - citizens storm a studio, broadcast a message and are then killed - is so straightforward that it is the moments themselves that stand out. The four activists voting to die, otherwise nothing will change. Dredd cooly ordering their deaths. Gort hugging his children after reading Hester's letter.

But the most shocking part is two simple panels, outlining in flashback the time their child's ball hit a Judge, and encapsulating the Law from the citizen's perspective with perfect clarity. Looking back on America, it's clear how much Wagner saw that moment - and this story overall as a foundational block in Dredd's overall story.

Even having some knowledge of how this fits into the larger story of Dredd, it's still effective. I imagine that there would have been now way of knowing back when this was first published how long-lasting its effects on the Judge Dredd saga would be.

7: Snowstorm

So we reach the end of the first Volume with another Garth Ennis one-shot. There's a good central idea here, with sugar being banned and then becoming a narcotic-like substance. I can't remember if that idea was introduced in this story or had already been established, but it fits in well with the mad world of Mega-City One.

Similarly to Firepower, there's nothing overtly "wrong" with Snowstorm, but there's just not a lot to it. One-shots are tricky to pull off, and my feeling here is that Ennis tries to cram too much into a handful of pages. The idea was probably good enough to explore over a few episodes, exploring the illegal operations that had sprung up around the "snow" trade.

Instead, it reads like a synopsis of a story rather than a story itself. The crime is established, Dredd and the Judges find out, then come in and shoot people, and the problem seems to be over. There are no surprises, no standout characters and no inspiration - and while Colin MacNeil has some fun with the graphic deaths he gets to portray here, even those are nothing we haven't seen before.

A lacklustre end to the first Volume.

6: Firepower

It's always interesting to see which stories are included in the Volumes to ensure they reach the right length. Often they're included due to similar writer and artist teams, other times they are more about theme and similar kinds of stories.

With Firepower and Snowstorm (which will be up on the blog tomorrow) it's a bit more difficult to determine exactly why they're here. They're both written by Garth Ennis, a controversial (to say the least) writer for the Dredd strip in the late 1980s, and with art by Colin MacNeil. But we don't really get any of the themes of the previous stories in the Volume here.

Firepower is a one-shot that is basically Dredd as total and complete action hero, dispatching a dozen mutants in three minutes and then quipping about paperwork. There's not really anything here to analyse, except that it highlights Ennis's view of the character as very, very "cool". We'll have bigger Volumes that tackle Ennis's work later on so I don't really want to get into that now, but I think Firepower's inclusion here is to highlight exactly why Wagner wanted to write America.

Wagner was worried that Dredd was actually being seen as a hero and a role model, not as a troubling aspect of a possible totalitarian society. Firepower, and particularly Ennis's portrayal of Dredd, is a great depiction of that. The story is quick and kind of fun, but it's clear that we're meant to see the Judge as a hard-bitten, dry-witted hero - which is much harder for us to swallow now after what we've just read. You can't help but think that Wagner had some very specific kinds of stories in mind to respond to when he sat down to write America.

5: Blood and Duty

With the Beeny family saga wrapped up (for now), we get a story that puts complicated family ties right at the forefront for Dredd himself. Vienna was introduced fairly early on in Dredd's 2000 AD run as his niece, daughter of his clone brother Rico. Dredd sent her away when he feared she was growing to love him too much, but she has now returned to clear the air.

The parallels with Bennett Beeny and his decision to enrol Ami in the Academy of Law are clear, and are nicely highlighted by including this story in Volume 1 of the Mega Collection. Bennett and Dredd both send their family away to protect them - and while Dredd never actually he states that he loves Vienna, it's clear that he has relatively strong feelings for her.

Colin MacNeil brings an effective muted style to this story - this is a family reunion that is not your typical one filled with joy and energy. The central conceit - basically Dredd missing his "daughter's" recital - is such a cliche that when it is filtered through the nasty and dark world of Dredd it becomes surprisingly effective. In two brief episodes writer John Wagner is able to bring a fair bit of depth to Vienna. Just as with Cadet (then Judge) Beeny, Vienna is clear-headed about her childhood and situation. A lesser writer would have had her yelling and screaming at Dredd, but her grim-faced departure is far more effective than histrionics.

At the end of the day, this story highlights what Dredd has chosen to give him by devoting himself to the Law. Again, this is clearly and succinctly told in the story without drama - he misses Vienna's performance, and then doesn't even see her as she returns to Brit-Cit. He has a moment's reaction, and then is back on the streets. There's a time for high displays of emotion, and I can love a bit of melodrama as much as anyone, but there's also something tragic about the quiet resignation of how this all plays out.

The title of this story gives Dredd a choice, and while Dredd seems to try and convince himself he didn't mean to get distracted by the streets, there was never going to be any contest between blood and duty.

4: Judgement Call

This one-shot was originally published in Issue 300 of the Judge Dredd Megazine, so I assume that it brings back now-Judge America Beeny as a way of linking back to the very first issue of the Megazine that included the beginning of "America". What I most love about this is that artist Colin MacNeil has now drawn that incredible finale - America Jara gunned down in front of the Statues of Liberty and Judgement - four times. He could probably do it by heart now.

This story felt like a "check-in" with Beeny, now graduated from the Academy of Law and on the streets as a full Judge. She's still roughly the same as we saw her in "Cadet", a little older and wiser but still full of the same confidence and strength. She still has Dredd's respect and even admiration, as evidenced by the fantastic final page where Dredd seems to take some amount of joy at Beeny's removal of a sentence that some Judges didn't think was harsh enough.

"Judgement Call" isn't as strong as the previous three stories I've covered, but it seems unfair to directly compare them. This is a much smaller-scale story that shows us that Beeny is still trying to do what her father wanted and change the Justice Department from the inside. The fact that she does it by being "lenient" on the survivor from a family caught up in terrorism means that she's accused of allowing her own past to cloud her judgement. But the fact she's still wearing the uniform and cubing criminals means that she's still committed to changing the system from within.

I really like how Dredd is portrayed here. His own experiences with doubting the system have clearly given him a window into Beeny's approach, but while he still advocates for a black and white approach to the law he's willing to let Beeny go about her job in her own way. When you consider that, from the perspective of this collection Volume of the Mega-Collection at least, three stories ago he was a nightmarish vision of unstoppable power, it's a testament to John Wagner's ability to write with shades of grey that he is still the same character here.

Although I would have liked to have seen more forward momentum in Beeny's personal story, as what we get here doesn't put her a huge way head of where she was in "Cadet", this is still a good look at one of the great characters in Dredd history.

3: Cadet

"This whole family seems blighted by tragedy."

Cadet America Beeny there with the understatement of the century. "Cadet" picks up the story of little Ami, the daughter of Bennett and America Jara, as a tenth-year cadet. The framing structure of the story here is really great, with Beeny asking for Dredd's help to reconcile Total War's involvement with her father's death. The opening few pages are nominally just recapping the events of "America" and "The Fading of the Light", but are electric to read. Beeny is essentially interrogating Dredd on his role in those stories, and seeing the calm and confident Beeny grilling the taciturn lawman is just fantastic storytelling.

The story itself provides some semblance of closure to the events of those two previous stories. As with all of Bennett's decisions, it's impossible to judge if what he did was "right", but we see that his decision to enrol Beeny with the Judges has at least kept her safe as he hoped. She's also become a smart, confident and very able Judge, earning Dredd's respect and a positive evaluation. The tangled history of Beeny and Dredd is the centrepiece of this story, but Wagner doesn't go the obvious route. Dredd is clearly expecting her to be angry at him for his role in the death of her mother - and while Beeny clearly has some complicated feelings about it, she doesn't hate Dredd. She is open about her concerns with the culture of the Justice Department, but acknowledges directly to him that he is her best chance of solving the case.

We end with a trip back to Bennett's house, and a showdown with the final (we assume) person involved in the Total War cell that America Jara was a part of. It's touching to see Robert the robot still there tending to the place, and then even more affecting to see him die protecting Beeny one last time. "Cadet" is nowhere near as intense or twisted as the previous two stories, but Wagner pulls one last twisted bit of irony here as we see that - in yet another example of Beeny's bizarre decision-making - he had his own body stuffed and displayed after he took over America's. It's also been given some robotic movement, and is used to allow Beeny to rescue herself at the end of the story. So, just as throughout his whole life, right at the end Bennett - or at least his body - is used and controlled to achieve an end. At least this time he gets to actually, properly save someone he loves.

The closure of this story is exactly the right kind. Beeny seems to put a lot of her ghosts to bed, but is still committed to remaining a Judge and changing the system from within. The story is hers now, and she has an ally of some kind in Judge Dredd himself. After all the twisted craziness of "America" and "The Fading of the Light", this is a powerful cap on the complications raised by these stories. Beeny is alive, but part of the system. Her chances of changing things are small, but there's a chance. Beeny's self-aware observation that her family is not exactly normal really highlights the troubling depths beneath the final line of this story, spoken by Dredd as he lays a uniformed hand on her uniform shoulder.

"We're your family now."

2: The Fading of the Light

The overwhelming thought after finishing off this sequel to America is just how complicated everything is. America really is as good as its reputation, and there are significant layers of complexity in how Mega-City One and its society is viewed and portrayed. But there is a clear direction and motivation to how the story progresses, and how the characters behave.

The Fading of the Light asks a whole lot of uncomfortable questions that can't be answered, taking the final revelation of America - that Bennett Beeny had his brain transferred to America's body - as its starting point to question almost everything about America the story, America the character, Beeny himself and the society around him.

Nothing in this story is simple or clear - and a lot of it is uncomfortable. Beeny taking over America's body is problematic at the very least, but to then impregnate that body and give birth to Ami, their daughter, is an absolute minefield of troubling ideas. Complications are piled on top of this as America's body begins to fail Beeny - even from beyond death she pushes him away. Beeny's final decision to enrol Ami in the Academy of Law needs a 10,000-word essay just by itself. It is so difficult to classify anything that happens in this story as "right" or "wrong", which I imagine was exactly John Wagner's intent.

Ami is really the central issue here. Her very creation is troubling, and highlights Beeny's inherent selfishness. This is evident not only in her birth, but then in her being left without a family as his stolen body fails - something he must have thought would be a possibility. Wagner is an absolute twisted genius in having a fairly unsettling character like Victor Portnoy actually make good points as he calls out Beeny's treatment of America. But then you can't help but admire Beeny's final point that as a Judge, Ami can have a profound affect on the system that bombs and violence can't.

Interestingly, Wagner takes a very different tack with Dredd here. In America, Dredd is the terrifying enforcer of the state. This story provides a more traditional portrayal of Dredd, balancing out his negative and positive qualities. His removal of the Judge that failed to stop Beeny's rape - a truly shocking scene - highlight's Dredd's code of honour with the Law. Wagner's drive to complicate every aspect of this story even extends to Dredd and the Judges, re-introducing the tension of their place in Mega-City One after their dark totalitarian portrayal in America.

Overall, I came away thinking of The Fading of the Light as less of a sequel to America then as an extended epilogue. The story takes what we learned in America and then probes the messy and complicated fallout of the actions taken there. It's hard to end this story liking Beeny or agreeing with everything he's done, just as it's hard to like Total War although they are fighting an oppressive regime. It's a testament to the writing skills of John Wagner, and Colin MacNeil's depiction of the characters, that Beeny's final end - euthanised with his final friend, a robot butler - is as moving as it is.

It's hard to know after these two intense stories whether Beeny deserves our affection, pity, hatred or ambivalence. Or all of them at once.

1: America

It’s hard to find anything to say about America that hasn’t already been said. It’s John Wagner at the height of his writing powers, relentlessly moving through a plot that tackles the biggest themes of our societies - law, rights, safety, justice - while also bringing it all back to one “ordinary” man trying to make his way through it all. And find love.

So instead, I’m going to talk a bit about what I often hear in relation to America: that it’s a great introduction or starting point to the world of Dredd. I don’t necessarily agree. For me, America works best as a response to what’s come before it, and a significant touchstone for what comes after. Wagner wrote this story after worrying that readers had come to sympathise with Dredd and the Justice Department, even going so far as to support their authoritarian rule over Mega-City One. America pulls no punches in making the Judges, including Dredd, a force of utter, implacable totalitarian power.

But this wasn’t the first time that Wagner had highlighted this part of the Dredd saga. As we’ll see in upcoming posts as part of the “Democracy” storyline, Wagner and other writers had already made clear that the Judges were problematic, to say the very least. Yes, Dredd had often been portrayed as a hero and saviour, and earlier progs had often been simplistic in their portrayal of Dredd and the Judges stopping crime, but it was never forgotten that they worked in a non-democratic system that stomped all over citizen’s rights.

So America to me can only really work as it’s meant to in that context. It’s Wagner removing all subtlety and complexity about Dredd and the Judges, by introducing subtlety and complexity to the citizens through Ami and Beeny. This isn’t Dredd’s story, it’s theirs - which means we see it through their eyes. With the Judges looming over them with daysticks.

But if this had been the very first time we’d seen Judge Dredd, I doubt we’d still be reading these stories today. Because it isn’t the whole story. Judge Dredd, and the series itself, is more complicated than that. It may have all happened by accident, but introducing Dredd in 1977 with “light” and even ridiculous storylines before introducing darker tones of politics, and then delivering the killer blow in this story, is the right progression. America as a starting point doesn’t give us anywhere to go. The key facet of Dredd is that he is an upholder of a totalitarian system and is prepared to be brutal to uphold it, but that there is also more to him. He has his own, possibly twisted, sense of justice and order. He has a code and sense of fairness, if not respect for rights and equality. Trying to introduce those parts of him if this had been our only knowledge of Dredd wouldn’t have worked, and would have seemed cheap. America works by fitting precisely into the past and future of the character, and the series.

Moving along from that point, I can only echo what others more eloquent than myself have said. The combination of Wagner’s writing and Colin MacNeil’s art is fantastic, and the images that make up the conclusion of the story are some of the most powerful ever seen in the series - if not wider. It’s hard to picture a more perfect summation of some of Dredd’s key themes than the enormous Statue of Judgement standing over the Statue of Liberty, while a citizen is crushed beneath them both.

0: Taking The Long Walk

This blog will be taking a long journey through the Judge Dredd comic series, using Hachette Partworks' Judge Dredd: The Mega Collection as a guide.

With the majority of volumes now available, I decided to start reading them again in volume order and write a quick blog post on each story as I go through.

Entries will be up fairly randomly depending on how I go - I don't want to stick to a posting schedule that may become harder to keep up with as I go along. Entries will likely be fairly short quick hits with my overall thoughts.

So if you're looking for an excuse to go back and read through this beautifully put together collection, join me in a few days as I bring my thoughts on "America", the title story from Volume 1: America.