Judge Dredd gets a full-colour re-invigoration and a brand new story that should please old and new fans alike.
Written by Ulises Farinas and Erick Freitas
Illustrated by Dan McDaid“Mega-City Zero,” part 1! Ushering in a brave new era, Judge Dredd awakens to find that Mega-City One has been sent back to the Stone Age, with city blocks overgrown and nary a citizen to be found. Witness as Dredd struggles to unravel the mystery as he copes with being just an ordinary Joe…
As a British comic book reader I’ve always felt a certain lack of patriotism when it comes to Judge Dredd. I missed the era of hard-talking, gun-toting mavericks that swamped popular culture during the seventies and eighties and inspired the creation of the character in the first place, and the weekly publication of “2000AD” meant that, by the time comic books had started to creep into my consciousness there was already such a backlog of Dredd’s totalitarian adventures that I didn’t know where to start.
Over the years I’ve dipped into the tales of Mega-City One once or twice, but on the whole I always considered Dredd, Anderson, and co to be a part of comics that just wasn’t really aimed at me.
And then this week’s issue of “Judge Dredd” #1 was released.
“Mega-City Zero: Part One” manages the difficult balancing act of feeling like a relatively standalone first issue and still being very much attached to the history of one of the longest running comics outside of the big two.
It’s a pretty simple premise: Dredd wakes up in a post-apocalyptic pastural setting with no idea how he got there. His last memory is investigating a mass disappearance in one of the hyper-urban blocks of Mega-City One, and he feels thoroughly out of his depth away from its filthy, crime-ridden familiarity. That being said, he’s still a Judge, and there are still protocols to follow, so he heads off in search of something resembling home. This is still a Judge Dredd story, so he doesn’t have to look far before he stumbles across some delinquents kicking the krudd out of one another. But these kids feel so far removed from Dredd’s world that they raise more questions than they answer. And by the end of the issue it’s clear that, while following these kids is probably his best bet for getting home, its definitely not going to be as easy as clicking his heels three times.
Freitas and Farina’s script is a pretty standard fish-out-of-water set up, but as far as fish go, Dredd is one that we don’t get to see flounder very often. Dredd’s clipped, official gruffness is on full show from the first page, but Freitas and Farina pair Dredd’s procedure with staticky silence from the non-existent control that is positively eerie.
Once Dredd finds his first signs of life, this issue really ramps up the pace, with the locals of Mega-City Zero spouting a frantic patois that sounds confusing even by Dredd’s flexible linguistic standards. Throughout this issue there is a beautifully, frustrating mis-communication between Dredd and the locals that further builds the mystery that this arc is clearly going to be centred around. While many of Dredd’s best stories are variations on the whodunnit, “Judge Dredd” #1 asks who, why, and how, in quick, confusing succession.
McDaid has worked in British comics for a while, and he’s been vocal about wanting to draw Judge Dredd long before this book. The meticulously remastered throwback style of this issue really captures the cartoonishly exaggerated elements of the classic 2000AD style, most specifically the perma-frowning face and ghoulishly broad, leatherclad body of his perennial protagonist. Fans of the Judge should feel right at home with the visuals of this issue, even thought the majority of it takes place outside of civilisation altogether.
But McDaid’s biggest contribution to this issue in my opinion is a fluidity of panelling that really gives the issue a frantic, action-orientated feel without sacrificing readability. There’s a clear and consistent physical through-line that runs throughout this issue and makes it feel as though it could be read almost without any words at all.
Continued belowMy scepticism about the bawdy, brash world of Judge Dredd has definitely been challenged by this issue. It oscillates in a way that feels much more nuanced than I originally gave the Judges credit for, at times feeling wacky and hyperviolent, at others super stylised and satirical.
What’s more, Freitas, Farina, and McDaid’s first issue is irreverently referential, with nods to everything from The Fifth Element, to Mad Max, and there’s even a sneaky Captain Philips quote slipped in for good measure. Some of the scripting feels a little on the nose, with characters sounding more cartoonish and two dimensional at times than you might expect from a comic in 2015, but its obvious from the helter skelter nature of the issue that it’s supposed to feel that way; subtlety is not a word in Dredd’s vocabulary.
Final Verdict: 7.2- A smooth diving in point for new fans of the Judge, but with enough depth to sate the thirst of more serious Dredd-heads too.
