I’ve said in past blogs on this website that I’ve been a reader and fan of 2000AD’s Judge Dredd for almost 30 years. Mega City One’s future lawman is one of the UK’s best known comic characters and I don’t think he gets raved about enough. I’m going to address this by raving about the Dredd story currently running in 2000AD.
The story is called “Day Of Chaos”, it’s written by Judge Dredd’s creator John Wagner, different chapters have been drawn by a selection of artists including Henry Flint and Ben Willsher and it has been running weekly since July of last year.
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What’s different about this story is its sheer complexity. Dredd isn’t faced with one enemy or a single crisis; in fact Dredd hasn’t even been the main focus of the story – it’s very much an ensemble piece. The focus has been a systematic crippling of Justice Department and the city. We’ve seen terrorist attacks involving gas and missiles on both citizenry and the Justice Department’s infrastructure. We’ve seen enemy agents trying to sneak biological weapons into the city, assassination of key figures, sleeper agents causing civil unrest and rioting citizens turning against the law.
The plotting has been so dense that there have been several events occur in one six-page instalment which in the past would have been worthy of a multi-part story on their own. The story has been running for 40 progs so far and we haven’t actually reached the Day of Chaos of the title. We’re still on the eve of this fateful day.
As a long-time reader I’m finding this story both gripping and very compelling. It’s like watching news of a real-life crisis unfolding on TV; it particularly echoes the riots in Manchester, London and other cities we saw last year. Seeing something you know well slowly taken apart and the momentum of events is like a slowly unfolding nightmare over which you have no control. Exactly where John Wagner is taking Dredd and Meg City One in the “Day Of Chaos” story I have no idea. On his Facebook page Mr Wagner has said the script is finished and he’s “really looking forward to seeing what other writers do with what I’ve left them” because where he’s left the world is “a new ballgame.”
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In case anyone is interested in getting into Dredd here are two threads from the 2000AD forum that might help. This thread is full of 2000AD fans suggesting three Dredd graphic novels they would use to introduce someone to the universe, and this thread gives a chronological order for all the non Case File Dredd graphic novel releases available.
Give Judge Dredd a try. I think he’s one of the best comic characters out there and he’s worth a read.
