A review by thecommonswings
Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files 01 by John Wagner
4.0
For many, Judge Dredd and 2000AD are not so much synonymous as interchangeable. So it’s a weird old thing reading a young and still not quite Dredd like Dredd. His character slowly takes form as the book and progs go on, but it’s weird to see him almost be funny a couple of times and be fond of Walter his annoying robot butler. But the strength of this first volume is seeing the world of Mega City One come together
Call Me Kenneth and the robot rebellion is the first longer plot the story tries and it mostly works brilliantly. Rico’s episode is surprisingly frittered away - no build up and none of the repercussions that his death will bring are immediately felt here. We also get the first sense of one of the biggest problems Dredd always has - no reoccurring villains of note, because by nature Dredd is a cop at the height of his game and as such even long running foes like PJ Maybe eventually have to die at his hands. It’s good to see Max Normal though and some of the other familiar aspects of Mega City life. The bits that have been long since forgotten - Judges being buried, for example, has I presume become a luxury they can ill afford and so they become recycled at Resyk too - are forgivable because of the genuine crackle the story has when an element falls resoundingly into place
The other fascinating thing is the art - McMahon is a lot scrappier than you remember but still feels like the archetypal early Dredd artist (those feet!); Gibson particularly enjoys the robots and it’s unsurprising that Tharg moved him to Robo Hunter where his ridiculous and hilarious imagination at dumb robots could take flight; Bolland must have been a revelation with those clear lines and use of chunky blacks and it’s fascinating to see that he’s the one who streamlines the helmet into the familiar one we have today. Dredd himself doesn’t quite look himself (and you can see how early artists took up on Ezquerra’s unusual early idea that Dredd might be biracial in some way) and his jaw is particularly nothing like the iconic presence it would become. It’s a fascinating moment when his face is censored (because Bellardini cocked it up), a genuinely historical moment where a happy accident leads to one of the most iconic absences in comic history. If Bellardini had managed to conjure up a suitable face, would Dredd’s days have been numbered? His very facelessness is in part why he is so iconic. It doesn’t matter what he looks like, he’s just “The Law”
Call Me Kenneth and the robot rebellion is the first longer plot the story tries and it mostly works brilliantly. Rico’s episode is surprisingly frittered away - no build up and none of the repercussions that his death will bring are immediately felt here. We also get the first sense of one of the biggest problems Dredd always has - no reoccurring villains of note, because by nature Dredd is a cop at the height of his game and as such even long running foes like PJ Maybe eventually have to die at his hands. It’s good to see Max Normal though and some of the other familiar aspects of Mega City life. The bits that have been long since forgotten - Judges being buried, for example, has I presume become a luxury they can ill afford and so they become recycled at Resyk too - are forgivable because of the genuine crackle the story has when an element falls resoundingly into place
The other fascinating thing is the art - McMahon is a lot scrappier than you remember but still feels like the archetypal early Dredd artist (those feet!); Gibson particularly enjoys the robots and it’s unsurprising that Tharg moved him to Robo Hunter where his ridiculous and hilarious imagination at dumb robots could take flight; Bolland must have been a revelation with those clear lines and use of chunky blacks and it’s fascinating to see that he’s the one who streamlines the helmet into the familiar one we have today. Dredd himself doesn’t quite look himself (and you can see how early artists took up on Ezquerra’s unusual early idea that Dredd might be biracial in some way) and his jaw is particularly nothing like the iconic presence it would become. It’s a fascinating moment when his face is censored (because Bellardini cocked it up), a genuinely historical moment where a happy accident leads to one of the most iconic absences in comic history. If Bellardini had managed to conjure up a suitable face, would Dredd’s days have been numbered? His very facelessness is in part why he is so iconic. It doesn’t matter what he looks like, he’s just “The Law”