When John Wagner starts writing letters, you know things aren't going well. In Letter from a Democrat, Wagner took six pages to undermine everything the readers thought they knew about Dredd, the Judges and their domination over the City. In A Letter to Judge Dredd, Wagner takes six pages to undermine everything Dredd thinks about the Judges, their domination over the City - and himself.
In coming back to read this one again, I'd completely forgotten that the 10-year old who writes to Dredd is killed at the end. It's telling that I felt more this kid here in 1 episode than I ever felt for Nimrod over multiple episodes in Total War. The questions that Dredd is forced to face are undermining the very foundations of the entire series. Wagner takes the exaggerated, over-the-top nature of the series - and then takes it completely seriously from the ground level. And that's enough to shake Dredd's belief in everything.
Even knowing the decades' worth of stories that surround this tiny entry in the Dredd canon, it's still a quietly seismic moment for the series and the character that holds up today. Volume 4 has been an incredible read so far.
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