JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:

BOOK OF THE DEAD (progs 859-866)

 

Judge Dredd vs the Mummy!

That’s right – we’re in the highlight of Case Files 20 and arguably the entire Dark Age of Dredd from Case Files 17-23, the eight episode story arc of Book of the Dead.

I mean – it’s just good pulp horror fun. Judge Dredd vs the Mummy – what’s not to love?

It’s also our introduction to Egypt’s mega-city, Luxor – and what an introduction! The Luxor Judges may rank as yet another mega-city of villains but you have to love their uniforms – absolutely top tier, with their pharaonic chic.

Yes – it’s the usual stereotypical depiction of foreign mega-cities and doesn’t particularly make much sense as to why post-apocalyptic 22nd century Egypt and its Judges have reverted to imitating ancient pharaonic Egypt in implausible ways. Which just so happens to include an actual supernatural Mummy. But when it looks this good – who cares?

It helps that it is illustrated throughout by artist Dermot Power, with some of his best art – or indeed, some of the best art featured in the Judge Dredd comic.

Don’t worry too much about the paper-thin plot and its tenuous premise of Dredd’s diplomatic exchange with Luxor. Like any good horror film, it’s all just part of the ride to get to what we all came to see in the first place – the showdown between Judge Dredd and the Mummy. Indeed, as we learn in something of the twist – spoiler alert – Dredd’s whole diplomatic exchange was set up at its Luxor end for that very purpose. Of course, that just raises further questions but just go with it, okay?

So strap in for eight episodes of glorious art and your ride, courtesy of Morrison and Millar, to yet another showdown between Dredd and the undead. We’ve seen him take on zombies in Judgement Day, various forms of vampires (although technically none of them so far have been of the supernatural undead variety), and the Dark Judges who are arguably a form of lich. Now it’s time for Dredd to meet his Mummy.

 

 

JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:

BOOK OF THE DEAD 1 (progs 859)

 

“I am Rameses, scourge of criminals and nemesis of the lawless.”

Here’s the introduction to Egypt’s mega-city Luxor – or more precisely its Judges. Luxor itself will have to wait until a little later in the episode.

As I said, you have to love those Luxor Judge uniforms – absolutely top tier with their pharaonic chic. In fact, I’m calling it now – I’m ranking them just below the Sovs in my mega-city Judge uniform rankings.

Dermot Powers’ art is on full display in this opening episode – so much so that I’m going to slow down and go almost panel by panel, firstly because of that gorgeous art and secondly because of the key story details in this episode. We’ll pick up the pace after this episode to the more usual panel per episode (or thereabouts) in the balance of the story arc.

As for that introduction, Dredd is literally dropped off in Luxor – “Judge Dredd, on board a Mega-City One Justice Department shuttle, has just landed at the north African city of Luxor, part of a cultural exchange program instigated by Chief Judge McGruder.”

Well, firstly, technically he hasn’t landed at Luxor but presumably their airport or spaceport facility some way from the city proper, as it is announced later. Secondly, McGruder seems to be coming up with all sorts of crazy plans lately – the Mechanismo project, that business initiative which gave us Roadkill in the preceding storyline, and now this cultural exchange. Of course, there’s method to her madness here – after their clash over the Mechanismo debacle, McGruder is keen to keep Dredd out of the city. Despite a reputation that seems to be worldwide, Dredd is not the best pick for cultural exchange or diplomacy.

And he gets quite the curt introduction to Rameses, apparently Luxor’s best Judge who is being exchanged with Dredd in Mega-City One for the week – and chose to take it personally. As we see at the conclusion of the story arc, he takes it quite a bit more than that. Judge Kamun is much friendlier – “I welcome you to Egypt with a joyful heart”.

Despite that friendly face, let’s just say that I don’t know how Kamun’s heart would fare against a feather on those divine scales of justice in Egyptian mythology…

 

 

 

JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:

BOOK OF THE DEAD 1 (prog 859)

 

“Halt, sinner!

Be thankful I only took an arm, thief! Next time, I will not be so merciful!”

 

As I said, this first episode has one awesome art panel by Dermot Power after another – and they also set up so much of the later story or atmosphere of Luxor – that one almost has to go panel by panel. And yes – I know these are technically two panels!

And this sets up the Luxor Judges as another mega-city of villains comparable to Ciudad Baranquilla in corruption and casual brutality. Sigh – their uniforms might rank as top tier but their quality of life rankings is going down to fail-tier on a par with Ciudad Baranquilla.

I mean, Mega-City One Judges are trigger-happy but at least they don’t amputate arms. Although I suppose that puts the Luxor Judges up there with the limb-lopping lightsaber-happy Jedi.

And…is Judge Kamun just going to leave the criminal walk away to wander the streets without any sort of administration of justice or even patching him up? Does he at least get to pick up his arm? Is the penalty for petty theft – it was an apple from a street stall – really amputation? I’d prefer the cubes in Mega-City One.

As usual Dredd can’t resist a dry quip – “spare the rod?” – although I wouldn’t have picked him as one for Biblical or really any literary allusion, as in “spare the rod and spoil the child”.

 

 

 

 

JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:

BOOK OF THE DEAD 1 (prog 859)

 

Well, I guess there goes that sarcastic pun about denial is not a river in Egypt, since the Nile is no longer a river in Egypt either.

Some nice Judge Dredd casual worldbuilding here in Book of the Dead, courtesy of a tight script and Dermott Powers’ art of the Luxor aircraft – nicely resembling ancient Egyptian art of a solar barque of the gods in design – as it overflies the canyon that “used to be the Nile”.

Used to be, that is, until the Atomic Wars “dried up its source”. Luxor “now pumps its water from hidden wells deep beneath the ground”.

Whoa – does that accord with the actual geology of Egypt? A cursory Google search suggests there might be something to it, but I suspect nothing close to the Nile itself.

And come on – who nuked the Nile? Can you nuke a river at source? I know the Atomic Wars were all out – but it still seems a frivolous use of nuclear warheads to little purpose. Who had it out for Egypt like that? Of course, it could be the sweeping environmental effects of global nuclear war – although that begs the question of whatever causing it was big enough to dry up the Nile…but leave the urban centers and population of Egypt unaffected enough to form a mega-city.

 

 

 

JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:

BOOK OF THE DEAD 1 (prog 859)

 

 

“One of the four wonders of the modern world…the city of Luxor.”

 

Dredd is unimpressed by the sights of the canyon formerly known as the Nile, sneering from the corner of his mouth – “I’m not here to see the sights, Judge Kamun.”

You’d better get used to Dredd curling up the corner of this mouth to sneer in this storyline.

Judge Kamun tells Dredd he’s just warming up to the main attraction – “But up ahead is the greatest sight of all, my friend”.

Enter the glorious art panel of the city of Luxor, with Kamun’s line about it being one of the four wonders of the modern world.

But what are the other three?! Inquiring minds want to know! No, seriously – as far as I know, they have never elaborated on those other three wonders in the comic. I’d like to think Mega-City One has at least one of them.

And yes – the whole city appears to be under some sort of pyramid, whether of glass or the futuristic plastics they have in the twenty-second century (boing or plasteen among others), or perhaps some energy force shield. They never elaborate on it either.

The episode wraps up with another Luxor Judge on street patrol, Judge Khafre, being ambushed by a shadowy ghoulish figure – although we see enough of its bandaged arms to assume it’s that classic Egyptian undead stereotype, the Mummy. Conveniently, while the Mummy is chowing down on one of Khafre’s arms – which it appears to have torn off – it’s within eyesight of Dredd arriving into Luxor with Kamun. And strangely, it not only seems to know who Dredd is, but is also enthused to sibilance upon seeing him – “Yesss, Dredd…yessss”.

It’s nice to know that Dredd is so famous he’s known among the undead of Luxor.

 

 

 

 

JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:

BOOK OF THE DEAD 2 (prog 860)

 

Whatever else you think of Luxor, you have to admit they have the most pimped out Chief Judge. The tiger really ties the room together.

Although to be honest, they might have gone a little too far with the whole pharaoh thing they’ve got going. I also would have thought that tigers were extinct in Dredd’s post-apocalyptic 22nd century.

Anyway, you’d also be forgiven for not thinking very much of Luxor, at least in terms of the quality of life for its citizens, placing it down there with Ciudad Baranquilla, the most dystopian of mega-cities in the twenty-second century.

They’re doing much better in terms of the preservation of Egypt’s ancient monuments, as we see the Great Pyramid and Sphinx at Giza – even if the latter is used as Luxor’s prison. Or more precisely, the maze beneath the Sphinx is used as the prison, although they execute the prisoners anyway after serving their terms.

Wait – there’s a maze under the Sphinx?! Looking it up, I found out that there was a legendary Hall of Records or library purported to exist somewhere underground near the Sphinx – and by legendary, I mean a modern legend apparently originating with American “clairvoyant”, Edgar Cayce. I guess Luxor decided to build it.

While looking that up, I also found out the Sphinx was built for Pharaoh Khafre – the namesake of the Luxor Judge killed by the Mummy at the end of the first episode. I’d note that Judge Kamun, Dredd’s Luxor escort, has a similar hame to Khamun – as the suffix of Tutenkhamun, which I understand to be derived from the god Amun.

Speaking of Kamun, he tells Dredd as they walk through the citizens of Luxor – seemingly left out of Luxor’s twenty-second century technology as they look much the same as contemporary Egyptians – “Look at the fear in the eyes of our citizens. The respect they show us. They know that even the wrong kind of look will mean a public flogging”.

So there you go – even looking at a Judge in Luxor wrong gets you a flogging.

Judge Kamun continues in the same vein as they enter what appears to be Luxor’s Grand Hall of Justice, resembling a palace or temple in ancient Egypt with the apt inscription He Who Weighs the Heart of Men – “There is no conflict in Luxor. There is only blind obedience.”

Kamun escorts Dredd to Luxor’s Chief Judge Giza (sigh) – although the lazy name is more than made up for by that art panel of the pimped out Chief Judge. Pimped out like a pharaoh, that is, down to a male and female servant whose only role appears to be sitting at the pharaoh’s feet to show how, ah, pharaohly the pharaoh is. The same goes for the tiger but it is a tiger after all – pretty cool.

Chief Judge Giza tells Dredd that something is rotten in the state of Luxor. We know this having seen the Mummy chowing down on a Luxor Judge, but the Chief Judge tells us that this is only one of many Judges killed by this undead thing. Indeed, thirteen as Chief Judge Giza tells Dredd.

Ah, better make that fifteen as the episode wraps up. Two Luxor Judges find what appears to be a pile of rags – but you guessed it, that pile of rags is the Mummy, although it’s not clear whether he was taking a nap or setting a trap.

And of course he chows down on them too. Or is that two? Or, for that matter, slurps them down – “Juicezzz! I need your juicezzz! Need to drink themm…and mmake me ssstronnng!”

Although that “juices” thing may be some unfortunate phrasing…

 

 

 

JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:

BOOK OF THE DEAD 3 (prog 861)

 

Judge Dredd vs the Mummy: Round 1

I’m going to call this round a draw.

This episode opens with Judge Dredd and Luxor Judge finding the corpses – sucked dry – of the two Luxor Judges killed in the last episode. That description of sucked dry was used by Chief Judge Giza for the other thirteen Judges killed by the Mummy – which was somewhat surprising as when we saw it killing Luxor Judge Khafre, it appeared to actually eat one of his limbs.

Anyway, the Mummy has a bigger target in mind – indeed, the biggest. No, not Dredd – at least not yet, as foreshadowed by the Mummy apparently recognizing Dredd on seeing him – but Chief Judge Giza.

Either from a sense of opportunity, or dare I say it, toilet humor, the Mummy targets Chief Judge Giza in the most undignified position possible – on his throne. No, not his royal throne – that other throne of toilet slang. Nice gag though of Chief Judge Giza thinking the Mummy’s bandages were toilet paper being passed under the door at his request.

Needless to say, the Mummy makes quick work of Giza – and the two Anubis-like Judges standing guard outside the stall beforehand, although you only see their slain corpses in passing.

Fortunately, Dredd and Kamun are in the vicinity – although it’s not clear why, other than plot convenience – and overhear Giza’s screams coming from the Chief Judge’s quarters. They arrive at the scene in time for the first round between Dredd and the Mummy, as Dredd takes an incendiary shot at the Mummy as it runs away.

The Mummy turns back and gets a blow in as Dredd’s about to up the ante with a high-ex shot, throwing Dredd out the window for that cinematic cliché of Dredd’s fall being broken by successive canopies.

Dredd calls out (from the ground floor stall where he landed in a pallet of fruit or vegetables) for Kamun to pursue the Mummy – but Kamun replies “It’s too late, Judge Dredd. The beast has escaped!”

Hmm – something seems to be not quite right going on here…

 

 

JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:

BOOK OF THE DEAD 4 (prog 862)

 

In Luxor, they even pimp out their resyk in pharaonic style.

I love how they threw a camel in there.

I can’t imagine there’d be many camels in Luxor but there’s one on the Luxor resyk conveyor for you.

And shame on you, Dredd, for that stereotypical crack – “Always figured the Egyptians would wrap their stiffs in bandages. As Kamun corrects him, “only the rich are allowed to be mummified…the rich and senior judges”.

In Luxor, resyk is for the plebs and proles – “the ordinary citizens” as Kamun calls them. Although you have to love the Luxor resyk motto, that they recycle “everything but the scream”.

 

 

 

JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:

BOOK OF THE DEAD 4 (prog 862)

 

Luxor sending out its Chief Judge in sarcophagus style.

As Judge Kamun tells Dredd, “Our Chief Judge will be sent to the afterlife with all the ceremony his rank demands”.

Although I’ve nicknamed this story as essentially Dredd vs the Mummy, I suppose technically Dredd does see more than one mummy in it. Chief Judge Giza’s mummy is a lot less lively than the main Mummy though.

It is somewhat jarring that the 22nd century Egyptian megalopolis has reverted to much to its ancient predecessor – including mummification of its rich citizens and senior Judges, even more so that this is presided over by its “Tek”-Judges. (Tek being the more simplified phonetic spelling adopted in the 22nd century for tech, itself abbreviated from technology – not unlike resyk for recycling).

There have been some advances – as Kamun tells Dredd, “In ancient times, the mummification process took seventy days” but “now the whole ceremony is over in a matter of minutes”.

Why, though, since the story painstakingly shows the steps of the process that seems essentially the same as in ancient times? It seems a missed opportunity to have shown robots doing it.

Luxor even has revived the sacrificial interment of servants with the mummy of Chief Judge Giza – as an “honor guard” of “the Tek Judges of Anubis”. As Judge Kamun intones, “the Chief Judge will need servants when he awakens in the afterlife’ – which just strikes me even more that this whole mummy business should be done with robots.

Dredd is unimpressed as he accompanies Kamun for the funerary ceremony – “You don’t believe all this superstitious stuff, do you?”

What impresses me is that Chief Judge Giza is being interred in a pyramid – and indeed, one of the old pyramids, not a new one that Luxor has built for its Chief Judges. That seems to beg the question of how much room is there in those old pyramids for new mummies and their sacrificial guards? Do they just toss the old mummies out?

Dredd tells Kamun that he “feels kinda out of place here, Kamun” as they attend the funerary chamber. Kamun reassures him while standing behind him with a distinctly unnerving grin “Please, do not feel uncomfortable here, Judge Dredd. You are our guest of honor!”

Well, that’s unsettling. That choice of phrase – and Kamun’s slasher smile – bode nothing but trouble for Dredd. And sure enough – trouble is only two panels away…

 

 

 

 

JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:

BOOK OF THE DEAD 4 (prog 862)

 

Things go pyramid-shaped as Dredd is betrayed and laid out as meat for the Mummy.

No, seriously.

“I wanted you here as meat! Sustenance for my master! A feast for he who will never die!”

That’s said by Judge Kamun after he’s zapped Dredd in the back with his Luxor lawgiver rod – phrasing! – but it may as well have been said by the writers Millar and Morrison themselves.

As I said in my introduction to this story at the outset, its paper-thin plot and tenuous premise is all contrived for the showdown between Judge Dredd and the Mummy. And here we learn the big twist – Dredd’s whole diplomatic exchange was set up by Judge Kamun at its Luxor end for that very purpose.

Yes – it has been foreshadowed through Kamun’s shady conduct throughout, most of all the Mummy’s convenient “escape” after its first round with Dredd, but also his constant smile that bordered on predatory grin. We got a good example of that smile at its most predatory as Kamun reassured Dredd about the latter being their guest of honor.

It was also foreshadowed in the very first episode as the Mummy spied on Kamun escorting Dredd into Luxor – when the Mummy not only seemed to know who Dredd was, but was also enthused to see him, as if the Mummy had been expecting him.

However, as I also said in my introduction, it all raises further questions. We’ll get to more of them in the next expository episode but for now Judge Kamun monologues to Dredd – while the latter is unconscious because Kamun just can’t help himself gloating – that he had “brought” Dredd here.

Here – as in the pyramid, for Chief Judge Giza’s funerary ceremony? Or to Luxor itself? Given what we learn next episode, Kamun is in league with the Mummy, essentially playing the role of Renfield to its Dracula, one would assume the latter – and that the Mummy killing Chief Judge Giza was setting it up.

Although that would imply that Kamun was in a position to pull strings to orchestrate a diplomatic exchange of Judges between Luxor and Mega-City One – that or a senior Luxor Judge or Judges in positions of power also in conspiracy with the Mummy – and also for himself to be the Judge assigned to Dredd in Luxor. However, the story itself doesn’t tell us that.

Also, lucky for Luxor that they happened to get Dredd himself from Mega-City One. Of course, Dredd is Justice Department’s most iconic figure, both in Mega-City One itself and in the 22nd century world, but that makes Dredd being picked for the exchange rather than any other Judge in Mega-City One rather remote. Of course, Chief Judge McGruder has issues with Dredd at this time and prefers to assign him on missions outside the city – but did Kamun or his co-conspirators know that? Or was it just more luck?

Anyway, as usual, the art is outstanding throughout, including the final panel of the Mummy lurching towards the pyramid to dine on Dredd. To quote the poet Keats, who are these coming to the sacrifice?

 

 

 

JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:

BOOK OF THE DEAD 5 (prog 863)

 

“Drokk!”

Says it all really – like sands sealing the pyramid, so are the days of Dredd’s life…

Things aren’t looking too good for Dredd in this final panel, about to be buried alive by the sand sealing the pyramid to entomb the Chief Judge. It’s also the same fate as that for the Tek Judges as sacrificial attendants for Chief Judge Giza in the afterlife.

They at least have taken poison for a painless death before being swallowed up by sand, but it does lead to a nice exchange with Dredd as he looks for a way out of the pyramid chamber only to be told there is none – “What? Are you people crazy?”

In short, yes – for this insane level of verisimilitude in imitating ancient Egypt but that’s about to get worse.

But wait a minute, I hear you say – wasn’t Dredd zapped into unconsciousness as Kamun’s captive on the menu for the Mummy? How did he escape?

Well, this is the final panel of the episode, which indeed open with Dredd in chains as Kamun’s captive for the Mummy. As to how he escaped, Dredd did it like he always does – with an apparently superhuman feat of strength to break his chains, killing Kamun and an unnamed co-conspirator Luxor Judge.

But not before Kamun gives Dredd an exposition dump on the Mummy. Kamun tells Dredd that while most of the city follow the one god Yud – presumably like Grud for God, 2000 AD’s publication-friendly way of referring to Allah – he is part of a cabal following the “old gods…those ancient beast-faced gods”. Within this cabal, there were legends of “the return of a dreadful redeemer…Ankhhor, the dead-in-life, who found a method whereby his physical body could survive beyond death”.

You guessed it – that’s the Mummy. And luckily, Luxor dug him up. Yes, literally – when drilling for Luxor’s subterranean water. “I made sure I was part of the team of Judges sent down to investigate”.

And to fully restore himself, Ankhhor needs to suck Dredd’s ka. No, get your minds out of the gutter – his ka, “the genetic essence of men”, which sounds a lot different (and awfully advanced) for what I understood to be the ancient Egyptian concept of ka as the soul (or one of them anyway).

Which begs a lot of questions of why Dredd is contrived as the missing piece of the puzzle for an ancient undead entity to revive itself, even if he is one of Justice Department’s finest clones – but just go with it, okay?

Anyway, back to the final panel, time is running out – or rather the sand is running in – for Dredd…

 

 

 

 

JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:

BOOK OF THE DEAD 6 (prog 864)

 

Dredd vs the Mummy – Round 2!

Nice of Ankhhor to save Dredd from being smothered by sand in the burial chamber first.

Of course, if you had just waited a little longer, Ankhhor, Dredd probably would have been smothered into unconsciousness and not put up a fight.

I suspect Ankhhor couldn’t risk Dredd dying as he has to suck Dredd’s ka au naturel as it were. No, not that – phrasing! – ka means soul or one of them anyway, as ancient Egyptian mythology had numerous soul components

It doesn’t matter since Book of the Dead adapts ka as genetic essence – which seems remarkably well informed for an ancient undead entity. It’s also why Ankkhor wants to suck Dredd’s sweet cloned genetic Judda juice. Hey – phrasing!

Anyway, Dredd literally headbutts Ankhhor and escapes through the passage from which Ankhhor burst into the burial chamber, before escaping the pyramid entirely with an Indiana Jones roll under the stone door sealing off the pyramid (until the next Chief Judge burial, I guess).

There’s a nice double take as Dredd thinks to himself that the stone door will stop Ankhhor for some time at least, but Ankkhor just bursts through it anyway – “I have waited three thousand years to be reborn as the lord of all the earth. Give me your fleshh!”

Eww.

Also – three thousand? It’s 2115 – so that would mean Ankhhor mummified himself in…885 BC or so. Well after the peak of ancient Egypt and well into its decline, shortly before being conquered by the Assyrians, Babylonians and Persians.

Dredd hits Ankhhor with a blast from Kamun’s rod – phrasing! At least, I’m presuming it’s Kamun’s rod but it would have to be a spare one as Kamun and his rod are back in the pyramid, after Dredd choked him out – hey, phrasing! It could be one that Luxor lent Dredd but the storyline made a point of Dredd using his own Lawgiver and its ammunition.

Dredd then flies away on one of those Luxor Lawmaster sky-chariot things that was outside the pyramid. I’m also presuming that it’s Kamun’s sky-chariot Dredd takes. Luxor definitely lent him one of those as we see him flying it side by side with Kamun to the pyramid for the burial, but the storyline seems to have forgotten that as we only see one sky-chariot outside the pyramid. If there were still two of them, Anhkhor could also have simply flown the other one after Dredd instead of leaping on the one flown by Dredd.

Fortunately for Ankhhor, he obviously was the long jump champion of ancient Egypt and makes the leap. Unfortunately for both of them, he and Dredd are thrown clear and fall from the chariot as they struggle over the Luxor skyline.

 

 

JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:

BOOK OF THE DEAD 7 (prog 865)

 

“Grud! Guess I oughtta be grateful for the soft landing” Dredd’s got guts as he ends up in one of the worst parts of Luxor’s resyk.

Well, that was lucky – as was not being too high up that the intestinal soft-landing doesn’t injure or kill him.

That luck doesn’t last as Ankhhor plunges into the guts after him…

 

 

 

JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:

BOOK OF THE DEAD 7 (prog 865)

 

“In defiance of death and all the ancient godsss of judgement, I will live again and rule! YOU ARE SSSIMPLY FOOD!”

Ankhhor explaining the rules in Round 3 of Dredd vs the Mummy – or the continuation of Round 2. It’s a little hard to tell – he’s worse than the Terminator and absolutely will not stop ever until he’s devoured Dredd’s ka.

Note to self – I really should do a list of antagonists Dredd has faced which see him as only food. There’s probably enough for a top ten – Ankhhor for one, but I can think of Satanus, the Black Plague spiders, and Nosferatu off the top of my head…

Anyway, back to Round 3 of Dredd vs the Mummy, it doesn’t start off too well for Dredd. The chain we see Ankhhor pulling here is connected to the gangway Dredd is on, breaking the gangway – and Dredd’s arm as he falls to the resyk conveyor belt.

Which prompts to mind the saying about costing an arm and a leg – as Ankhhor soon adds a broken leg to Dredd’s broken arm as Round 3 continues.

The episode closes out with things not looking too good for Dredd – with Ankhhor crouched over Dredd and poised to suck Dredd’s ka or life-force. Of course, being a comic, Ankkor can’t resist monologuing about sucking Dredd’s ka – and showing his surprising knowledge of genetics for a three thousand year old undead entity who has spent almost all of that time in a sarcophagus.

“I can almost tasste the honeydew of chromosomes, genes, the rich wine of your being”.

Which begs the question of why Ankhhor is almost tasting it as opposed to, you know, just tasting it rather than talking about it.

 

 

JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:

BOOK OF THE DEAD 8 (prog 866)

 

“See, I figure there’s only one way to stop someone who can’t die. The Resyk way”

Would it work, though? An automated assembly line breaking down a body into its organic or even chemical components would seem hard to beat for killing an undead entity like the Mummy – or your average lich or vampire for that matter.

But what if the Mummy can regenerate from that? Luckily again for Dredd, it seems the Mummy can’t – but things might have been different if, say, it could regenerate from a single cell, like Junji Ito’s Tomie. Now there’s a match-up I’d like to see!

Wait, I see you say, what happened? We closed out the last episode with Ankkhor poised in victory over Dredd, the latter with a broken arm and leg.

Well, Dredd uses his good arm to pull out Ankkhor’s tongue in a scene I was sorely tempted to feature here – and then his good leg to kick Ankkhor into the automated resyk mechanism that dissects bodies into their components, hence my feature line and image.

And Dredd wins Round 3 – and the match – against the Mummy by resyk knockout.

Of course, it would have been more satisfying if Dredd’s victory had been less by chance than design – the happenstance that he and Ankhhor fell into Luxor’s resyk plant, rather than, say, Dredd deliberately luring Ankhhor to it. If they had fallen anywhere else, then Dredd would have been toast with his broken arm and leg. Having already quipped about Ankkhor as the Terminator, I suppose it’s not unlike the happenstance showdown of the automated assembly line at the end of the first film (or the smelting plant of the second film).

 

 

JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:

BOOK OF THE DEAD 8 (prog 866)

 

“Shut it down! In the name of Grud, shut it down!”

These anonymous Luxor resyk workers don’t get enough credit as the true heroes of the story saving Dredd.

Dredd may have won his match against the Mummy – but it’s out of the frying pan and into the fire as Dredd is dragged into the same resyk automated mechanism that dissected the Mummy to its destruction.

Fortunately, the Luxor resyk workers overhear his cries for help and shut down the mechanism – which is particularly impressive as they don’t speak English and apparently ‘wake-up’ cases occur enough that the workers usually ignore them. Amusingly though, the note to the panel has “translated from the Egyptian” when it should be Arabic.

That wraps up Book of the Dead (except for a few panels effectively by way of epilogue). I also can’t help but think that Dredd’s quote reflected the reaction of fans to this story – as well as Morrison and Millar writing Dredd in general – at the time.

I can see where they’re coming from but I like Book of the Dead – as well as odd moments of Morrison and Millar writing Dredd – if only for Dredd vs the Mummy and Dermot Power’s sumptuous art of Luxor’s 22nd century retrofuturistic version of ancient Egypt.

 

 

JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:

BOOK OF THE DEAD 8 (prog 866)

 

“What’s the matter, Rameses? Cut yourself shaving?”

And Dredd sees out the epilogue to Book of the Dead with his usual one-liners.

I suppose arguably that would make Rameses the third “mummy” Dredd encountered in this storyline, at least in appearance – the actual Mummy Ankhhor, the mummified corpse of Chief Judge Giza (killed by Ankhhor), and now the heavily bandaged Rameses.

Rameses was of course the Luxor Judge trading places with Dredd for this cultural exchange – I guess the streets of Mega-City One are tougher than Luxor. What puzzles me is how Dredd got speed-healing and Rameses didn’t – Dredd broke an arm and a leg during his fight with Ankhhor.

Also – I’m digging Hershey’s appearance here. Dredd of course has another characteristic one-liner to her asking him what happened with Luxor trying to feed him to one of their gods – “I didn’t agree with him. Now how about pointing me in the direction of some real action?”

And that’s a wrap on Dredd vs the Mummy in Book of the Dead.

 

 

 

 

JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20

Mega-City One 2115-2116

(1993-1994: progs 856-887 / Megazine 2.44-2.56)

 

We’re still in the darkest part of the Dark Age of Dredd (as written by Morrison and Millar) but there is one bright shining light in Case Files 20 – perhaps the brightest shining light in the entire Dark Age or Case Files 17-23.

I am of course talking about The Book of the Dead, the standout story arc in this volume or any other in the Dark Age.

It’s Judge Dredd vs the Mummy! What’s not to love?

It’s also our introduction to Egypt’s mega-city, Luxor – and what an introduction! The Luxor Judges may rank as yet another mega-city of villains but you have to love their uniforms – absolutely top tier, with their pharaonic chic.

It helps that it is illustrated throughout by artist Dermot Power, with some of his best art – or indeed, some of the best art featured in the Judge Dredd comic, up there with Brian Bolland. Hmm…note to self – compile my Top 10 Judge Dredd Artists.

Sadly, the same can’t be said of The Sugar Beat, the other exotic story arc introducing Dredd to another foreign mega-city – the Pan-Andes Conurb.

The Pan-Andes Conurb and its Judges had much potential – even if the latter were essentially just glorified security guards for the criminal sugar cartels – but instead that potential is squandered by what is arguably the laziest and most blatant stereotyping in the Judge Dredd comic. And we’re talking about that period of time in the comic’s history when stereotyping was most on the nose – after all, they had a Sov Judge named Traktorfaktori.

We’re talking literal flies buzzing about the Pan-Andes Conurb Judges – which is more the pity as they actually have one of the better uniform designs of foreign mega-city Judges, with condors instead of the eagles used in Mega-City One uniforms.

Now we get it – the Pan-Andes Conurb Judges are meant to be in the same casually brutal and corrupt category as the Judges of the only other surviving South American mega-city, Ciudad Baranquilla, the latter otherwise mimicking Mega-City One in their use of eagles in design. However, at least the Ciudad Baranquilla Judges have a genuine edge of menace and cunning to them, not to mention get some sly digs in at Mega-City One’s expense whenever there are dealings between the two mega-cities. The Pan-Andes Conurb Judges are just pathetic – literally fat and lazy in the case of their Chief Judge, seemingly in perpetual siesta but for when they are roused by corruption.

One wonders how these bozos survived Judgement Day when Ciudad Baranquilla just barely scraped by – and the two other South American mega-cities, Brazilia and South-Am City, went under and got nuked.

There are some other middling arcs and episodes, with points of interest but nothing to write home about – although enough to do brief recaps or reviews.

For arcs or stories of more than one episode, there’s the opening arc in Roadkill – but I’ll also briefly stop in on Frankenstein Division, The Manchu Candidate and Scales of Justice.

For episodes, we’ll have stopovers at Crime Prevention and Top Gun. However, as in Case Files 19, the Megazine stepped in with the standout episode – It’s a Dreddful Life.

 

 

JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:

ROADKILL (prog 856-858)

 

Judge Dredd does a combination of Christine and, um, Robocar?

Yes – that’s a play on Robocop. I stand by my opinion – and I understand not only my opinion – that Robocop was inspired by Judge Dredd. However, in this particular story arc of three episodes, instead of putting a dead police officer’s brain (and what’s left of his body) into the titular cyborg, it’s putting a dead criminal’s brain into a car’s automated guidance system.

As you might guess, it does not work out too well.

The set-up for the plot involves elderly citizen Merv Whitstable due for his statutory eye test to retain his driving licence. Dredd pulls him over for a traffic violation (and gives him sixty days in an iso-cube). Dredd also advises him to use his nest egg savings to “invest in a new pair of eyes”.

Dredd would know of course – he’s had his own bionic eyes since losing his original organic eyes from gruesome injury all the way back in City of The Damned in Case Files 8 (nine years earlier in both episode publication time and in-universe time).

Although it is a little puzzling that 22nd century medicine has not extended people’s health more – as his licence indicates when Dredd pulls him over, Merv is 73, which you’d think would perhaps be comparable to someone a decade younger in our time. For comparison, Dredd is 54 at the time of this episode – and he’s in robust health. (It’s a little complicated – Dredd was “born” in 2066, but by virtue of acceleration during “gestation” in the cloning process was physically and mentally five years of age at “birth”).

There is a nice gag that Dredd could tell Merv’s eyesight was bad because Merv drove into a Justice Department vehicle park.

Unfortunately, his eyesight has deteriorated to the point he can’t pass the eyesight test for a driving licence. Instead of bionic eyes, his car dealer – who also strangely conducted the eyesight test and renews his licence – sells him and his wife the robo-car, or “living brain guidance system”.

And you guessed it – because they had limited money to spend, the dealer fobbed them off a “living brain guidance system” using a dead criminal’s brain. He’s nice enough to introduce himself to them – and for some reason is able to replicate his former face on their monitor – as Lenny-Lee Lucas, who we later learn was known as the Karaoke Killer, “part-time runner for the White Lotus Triad”.

“An’ boy-oh-boy…does ol’ Lenny have some scores to settle!”

For someone who finds himself posthumously as a car automatic guidance system, Lenny adapts quickly to his situation – with his first stop almost literally a pitstop at a local mechanical body shop to pimp out Merv’s modest vehicle (by holding one of their mechanics as hostage at, ah, bonnet-point against a wall, threatening to crush him). All this while holding Merv and his wife captive in their own car.

And by pimp out, I mean equip with wings and weapons, including missiles – which I’m not sure would have been part of the inventory of the average body shop, but then it is Mega-City One. As the Judge investigating the strange hold-up tells Dredd, the vehicle “demanded a full systems conversion and armaments fit-up” – which makes the latter sound relatively routine.

The investigating Judge also fills Dredd on the background as to how Lenny-Lee’s brain ended up in the car – “Vehicle is equipped with a Quantrak auto-pilot. Uses brains from repeat offenders. Med-Division supplies ’em straight from the slabs”.

As Dredd dryly asks, “whose bright idea was that?”

Apparently, it was Chief Judge McGruder’s as part of her business initiative for closer cooperation with private enterprise. In fairness, “the brains are wiped and reprogrammed from scratch. We got a 100% success rate. Well, we did have, up till today”.

It’s always that one glitch that ruins it. Anyway, Lenny-Lee is out for revenge on the Triad that left him out to dry – and die – on a botched organ bank job. You know how it goes – he essentially goes all Christine on them. Yes – that’s a reference to Stephen King’s demonic car of that name. Except Lenny-Lee likes to sing twentieth century songs as he kills people – hence his karaoke killer moniker.

Dredd apprehends Lenny the hard way – entangled by an anti-personnel net on the vehicle windscreen, he manages to extricate himself and cling long enough to the airborne vehicle in order to literally pull Lenny’s organic brain out the guidance system. Or as Dredd says, “time I got my hands dirty”.

So Dredd effectively kills Lenny for the second time but was injured by Lenny’s attempts to shake him – although not too badly by the standards of Dredd’s misadventures. It’s enough to wonder how he does maintain his robust health at his age.

Merv’s wife does less well – as in dead from cardiac arrest while held captive by Lenny. Merv himself does marginally better – paralysed from the neck down. My biggest problem with the story arc is that Dredd arrests him as “accessory to about thirty major variations” because the vehicle was registered in his name. I know Justice Department in general and Judge Dredd in particular are heavy-handed in their police state, but this just doesn’t seem to sit right – given that Dredd knows exactly what happened. Normally Dredd would target the dealer who sold Merv the automatic guidance system as the accessory or for criminal negligence – possibly even Subaro Autopods that holds the exclusive contract, or the Med-Division staff who supplied them.

To be blunt, Merv and his wife out of all the people involved were innocent victims – indeed, the only innocent victims as the people Lenny actually killed were Triad mobsters. Not to mention that Dredd used Lenny to lead him to the Triad gangsters who otherwise had eluded Justice Department.

Some names dropped not so much for blocks as for apartments – Arcudi for Merv’s residence, possibly a reference to comic writer John Arcudi, best known for his work on The Mask, which this story arc seems to invoke at times. Also – sigh – Sax Rohmer, author of the Fu Manchu books, for the Triad kingpin’s residence.

 

JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20: BOOK OF THE DEAD (prog 859-866) has its own page.

 

 

 

 

JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:

FRANKENSTEIN DIVISION (progs 868-871)

I Hate Christmas (prog 867)

 

“An unholy amalgam of the Sov Judges who died in the Apocalypse War, Project X is the ultimate Judge with one mission in life…”

There – I’ve saved you actually reading the four episodes of Frankenstein Division.

I suppose I have to mention this story because once you see it you can’t unsee it but as you can tell, I’m not a fan.

You can guess the premise from the title and my feature quote – some weird Soviet project to create a Super-Judge from the best body parts of Sov Judges killed in the Apocalypse War. Which serves as something of a metaphor for writer Mark Millar picking over the pieces of the Apocalypse War to stitch together this monstrosity. At least when Garth Ennis warmed up his leftovers of the Apocalypse War, you very much had the impression he was a fan of the epic.

Not so much here. It makes no sense, not even as a weird play on Frankenstein. The Sov Judges who oversaw the project – Yeltsin and Andropov (sigh) – explain it to Chief Judge McGruder and Dredd.

But first – Yeltsin can’t even get the Apocalypse War right when fawning over Dredd. “It’s an honour to meet you, Judge Dredd. Though our mega-cities were once at war, you are a much respected figure in East Meg Two”.

Not so – at least with respect to East Meg Two and Mega-City One being at war. That was East Meg One – which was nuked by Dredd. There was a whole plot point in the Apocalypse War about East Meg One’s sister city not being involved in the war – it was how East Meg One kept Mega-City Two and Texas City out of the war.

I suppose it’s possible that Yeltsin could have been speaking as or on behalf of the East Meg One veterans who went to East Meg Two after the war – it was another plot point how Dredd just had the Sov Judges who surrendered and were taken prisoner dropped off at the site of their former city (with at least one Sov Judge announcing his intention to head to East Meg Two). But you’d think he’d say something more along those lines.

Anyway, it’s all downhill from here – and we didn’t even start high up. I’m talking the ridiculous plot of surgically combining the body parts of Sov Judges killed in the war into a literal superhuman Judge. How does that even work? How does it make him apparently invulnerable, since his body parts literally came from Judges who were killed?

When did the Sovs even ship back the bodies of their Judges killed in the war? And to East Meg Two, since any they shipped back to East Meg One would have been destroyed? And did they just put them on ice for all the years before Project X?

Drokk – even Dredd has a better explanation than the actual story. “So what’re we dealing with, Yeltsin? Some kind of robot?” That would have made for a better story – and perhaps help tied in with the dormant Mechanismo storyline, even reviving it to deal with the new threat. Or just cloning or genetic engineering.

Anyway, it’s “synthi-brain” malfunctioned and the Soviet Frankenstein escaped, with the single-minded pursuit of vengeance against Dredd for killing the Sov Judges making up its body. What – all of them? And yes, I know the story says so but come on. Did Dredd singlehandedly kill every Sov Judge in the Apocalypse War? Or just the “best” ones they just happened to use for Frankenstein Division.

Also – how do its body parts “remember” being killed by Dredd? The story kinda says they do – “Judge Dredd. The name on the badge. The last thing the Sov Judges saw when they died in the Apocalypse War – but again, come on. Surely that would at least have to involve the brain from those Judges. And if the Sovs created a “synthi-brain” for their Franken-Judge – then unless that too used the brains of fallen Sov Judges killed by Dredd – why is it consumed with the desire for vengeance against Dredd?

And yes – it’s Dredd vs Frankenstein for the showdown in the finale. Dredd wins when the creature stops to monologue, which serves it right for being a wordy monster – perhaps somewhat at odds with the inarticulate monster of the Frankenstein films, but on point for the monster in the book, which met its fate from going around quoting Paradise Lost.

Okay, okay – I’ll admit I’m a fan of the epilogue, where Dredd executes Yeltsin and Andropov after their Franken-Judge wreaked havoc on Mega-City One, with the endorsement of the Sov Chief Judge from East Meg Two disowning them and their Frankenstein Division. Dredd echoes the notorious scene from the Lethal Weapon film. Diplomatic immunity? It’s just been revoked.

British sitcom Oh No, It’s Selwyn Froggit is name-dropped for a Mega-City One block Dredd attends at the outset of the storyline.

And I skipped over the episode of I Hate Christmas in prog 867 – another Dredd Christmas episode with Dredd being grumpy about Christmas, notable only for another Judge going futsie (and Dredd having to take him out). Oh – there is a brief interlude at Gus Grissom Spaceport, named for an American pilot and astronaut, where Dredd cold-heartedly sends a stow-away from Simba City straight back, despite the man’s pleas about fleeing famine in the African Dustbowl.

 

 

JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:

CRIME PREVENTION (prog 872)

 

“Standard psycho test revealed Stubbs to be a potential perp. 87% probability. Better we cube him now…” Judge Dredd does Minority Report by psych profiling.

That pretty much sums up this episode, although the Minority Report psych profiling thing MC-1 has got going in it doesn’t pop up again. That’s not surprising, since you’d imagine they’d have to pre-emptively cube almost all their citizens. I mean, who in MC-1 isn’t a potential perp?

There’s a interesting titbit in the opening of the episode – apples or at least apple trees would seem to be extinct, as Dredd recovers an apple stolen from the “Fresh Fruit Museum”, which suggests that enough fruit is functionally extinct to have a museum. Dredd’s reference to apples not growing on trees any more suggests that apples may originate from other synthetic sources, perhaps like the munce that is the main meat product in MC-1.

Anyway, one of the juvenile onlookers to Dredd arresting the apple-stealing perps is a fan. He tried out to enrol as a cadet Judge at the usual intake age of five but failed. Now he’s applying for the second round intake at age twelve – again a feature that seems to pop up in this episode but I don’t recall elsewhere. In fairness, that second round intake doesn’t qualify as street-Judge cadets, but does qualify for off-world Judges or Judges in the lunar colonies.

“All we had to do is pass a stringent psychological profile test”.

No prizes for guessing that test is just the cover story for the one to pre-emptively profile potential perps – or one for me for that alliteration. Needless to say, Dredd’s young fan – Ricky Stubbs by name – is sorely disillusioned about his hero. “Now I think he’s a monster”.

He has a point – the whole thing seems massively unfair, which may be why it never popped up again. Dredd doesn’t pass any sentence, which he does even for the worst actual perps, so it’s unclear what term of encubement Ricky has to serve. It may even be indefinite. Also, MC-1 does distinguish between juvenile and adult offenders, so 12 year-old Ricky should be in juvenile detention.

 

 

 

 

JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:

THE SUGAR BEAT (prog 873-878)

 

I’d say Case Files 20 is giving us a treat with a second foreign mega-city after Luxor…but it’s the Pan Andes Conurb.

Sigh. It’s not that bad – spoiler: okay, it’s still pretty bad – but it can be goofy fun if you look at it just right and ignore some of the worst stereotyping of a mega-city. And since stereotyping is the point of mega-cities, that’s saying something.

The Pan-Andes Conurb and its Judges had much potential – even if the latter were essentially just glorified security guards for the criminal sugar cartels – but instead that potential is squandered by what is arguably the laziest and most blatant stereotyping in the Judge Dredd comic. And we’re talking about that period of time in the comic’s history when stereotyping was most on the nose – after all, they had a Sov Judge named Traktorfaktori.

We’re talking literal flies buzzing about the Pan-Andes Conurb Judges – which is more the pity as they actually have one of the better uniform designs of foreign mega-city Judges, with condors instead of the eagles used in Mega-City One uniforms.

Now we get it – the Pan-Andes Conurb Judges are meant to be in the same casually brutal and corrupt category as the Judges of the only other surviving South American mega-city, Ciudad Baranquilla, the latter otherwise mimicking Mega-City One in their use of eagles in design. However, at least the Ciudad Baranquilla Judges have a genuine edge of menace and cunning to them, not to mention get some sly digs in at Mega-City One’s expense whenever there are dealings between the two mega-cities. The Pan-Andes Conurb Judges are just pathetic – literally fat and lazy in the case of their Chief Judge, seemingly in perpetual siesta but for when they are roused by corruption.

Grud knows how these bozos made it through Judgement Day when two other Latin American mega-cities – Brasilia and Chile’s South-Am City – did not and Ciudad Baranquilla just barely scraped by. Even Ciudad Baranquilla has a certain brutal ruthlessness – these guys are just hopeless

Oh – and the premise of this arc involves growing sugar, classed as an illegal drug in Mega-City One, as an analogy for cocaine, although you wonder why they don’t just grow cocaine. Anyway, Judge Dredd is sent there to sort out the sugar trade from the Pan-Andes Conurb to MC-1 – and given that the PAC “Judges” are all in the pocket of the sugar cartel, that means sorting both the cartel and the PAC Judges as well.

 

 

 

JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:

THE SUGAR BEAT 1 (prog 873)

 

Dredd’s stopping the sweet stuff hitting the streets of MC-1 at its source – the Pan Andes Conurb. “It’s high quality refined glucose, primo stuff”.

That’s the premise of the Sugar Beat, sugar as illegal drug in MC-1 being a stand-in for cocaine. Ah – can sugar grow at that climate? Why not just grow and traffic cocaine? Of course, this is a world in which the potato – the potato, originating in the very location of the Pan Andes Conurb – has gone extinct!

It amuses me that Dredd’s introduction to this new flood of sugar on to the streets of Mega-City One is the speed with which a mugger attempts to flee him. Attempts, as in Dredd shoots the mugger with a heat-seeker bullet, killing him. However, as Dredd observes during pursuit – “he’s fit, I’ll give him that” – and after shooting him – “kid was fast, too fast” – before solving the mystery with satchels of sugar. Um, I don’t think sugar works like that. It’s not a performance-enhancing drug or anything. Although maybe this twenty-first century sugar is, perhaps with genetic engineering?

Anyway, that’s where that primo stuff line comes in – from Chief Judge McGruder of all people, albeit quoting the “tech boys”, as she assigns Dredd his mission to stop the sugar trade at its source. Of course, as Dredd queries her, she has an ulterior motive for getting Dredd out of the city, reflecting the simmering tension not only between Dredd and her, but with other senior judges as her mental faculties continue to deteriorate.

Dredd touches down – presumably on one of the Justice line of official space shuttles. And that’s where we’re introduced to the Pan Andean Conurb judges in all of their stereotyped glory, lazy and corrupt, down to the flies buzzing around them. As I said, it’s a pity because despite the offensive portrayal of the Judges themselves, I actually like their uniform design.

The shoulder condors in substitution for the American eagles are a nice touch. They’re not top tier by any stretch – they seem to be from military fatigues rather than biker leathers and have non-standard footwear – but they beat the Ciudad Baranquilla uniforms, which wouldn’t look out of place in a Mardi Gras parade.

Dredd gets only bad jokes from the Pan Andes Conurb Judges – despite the promised “full diplomatic cooperation from the Pan Andes Conurb Justice Department”. When he asks them where his official transport is, they joke about Yankee’s pony (as well as calling him gringo) – presumably a reference to the pony in the lyrics of Yankee Doodle Dandy.

They’re not off to a good start with Dredd – and it only gets worse from here…

 

 

JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:

THE SUGAR BEAT 2 (prog 874)

 

I guess Dredd just had a thing for pyramids at this time – he’s only recently back from Luxor but here he is checking into Sector House 12 in Pan Andes Conurb

However, the interior of the Sector House 12 pyramid is not as impressive – just Pan Andes Conurb Judges clubbing their hapless citizens

Also Judge Guacamole? Sigh. That’s pretty much as bad as Sov Judge Traktorfaktori. It’s like Judge Dredd doing Asterix.

The Sector House reception Judge tries to stall Dredd by having him wait for the Chief Judge but Dredd isn’t having any of it and just asks for the quickest route to the docks. Although I’m not sure why – does he know the cartels literally ship their sugar? It is the twenty-second century after all – although given how antiquated the Pan-Andean Conurb is, maybe they do.

And yes – Dredd does ask the name of “the freighter that’s been illegally transporting sugar to Mega-City One”, so I suppose he does know that. The criminals at the dock also knew he was coming, as the Sector House reception Judge tipped them off immediately that Dredd was out of earshot. So no surprise that Dredd is set upon by one of the heavies at the dock – although I am surprised that the heavy rebukes Dredd for his lack of jurisdiction. And impressed – they obviously have a high quality of mob muscle in the Pan-Andes Conurb docks, such as to dispute a legal point with Dredd. What’s more, as far as I can tell, the heavy is right – Dredd indeed does not have jurisdiction and just pulls his gun on the heavy. “This is all the jurisdiction I need”. The heavy swipes away Dredd’s Lawgiver and a melee ensues.

 

 

 

 

JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:

THE SUGAR BEAT 3 (prog 875)

 

“The Cuba Libra, Condor Wharf, Pan Andes Conurb…a few of the locals are helping Dredd with his enquiries”

I love that opening panel – and I always love Dredd putting the smackdown on a gang of thugs trying to put the smackdown on him, as here in a classic bar brawl at a lowlife dive bar. I mean the low life gets pretty low in MC-1 – but it’s even lower here in the PAC

To give them credit, these street thugs are better antagonists against Dredd than are the PAC Judges, although everyone else in this storyline is as well. It’s why the PAC Judges just tip off everyone else to do their dirty work for them.

One of them even does the impressive feat of picking up a piano – yes, a literal piano – as a weapon to throw at Dredd. He might have done better picking up literally anything else as a weapon against Dredd or even just punching him with that strength.

As it is, Dredd questions him further as to the name of the freighter transporting sugar to Mega-City One, using the persuasive technique of dunking his head in the water off the docks – “hundreds of years of pollution have turned the Black Pacific into a deadly chemical cesspool”.

I know that’s the case for the Black Atlantic, which is almost as iconic a geographical feature as the Cursed Earth, but I seem to recall the Pacific faring better. In the Song of the Surfer prelude to the Oz epic, the Pacific was shown to be unpolluted – with Chopper even playing with unmutated dolphins. And in Babes in Arms, Mega-City Two was shown as having a beach life with its coastline on an unpolluted ocean.

Also, hundreds of years? Well, perhaps two hundred at most, from 1900 or so.

Anyway, the Pacific does the trick, polluted or otherwise – the thug fesses up with the name of the freighter, the Crazy Hoolio Ingracias, which I’m sure is a play on Spanish singer Julio Iglecias.

 

 

 

 

JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:

THE SUGAR BEAT 4 (PROG 876)

 

“Count yourself lucky, Gonzalez. Think what I could’ve done if I HAD jurisdiction”

Judge Dredd – he is the Law! Even when he doesn’t have jurisdiction.

“Acting on intelligence from a concerned citizen, I had reason to believe that the freighter Crazy Hoolio Ingracias was involved in illegal sugar peddling”.

I love Dredd’s journal entries – it’s part of the humor of this story arc how his deadpan journal entries contrast with what we see in the comic, which in short is Dredd as one-Judge army descending on the Pan Andes Conurb and its sugar cartels.

The first casualties of Dredd’s one-Judge army, apart from the injured thugs at the docks (we later hear of fifteen civilian casualties of this episode), are the crew of the Crazy Hoolio – after they make the mistake of firing upon him in answer to his request to board them. Impressively, Dredd takes them out with one armor-piercing shot.

“The Crazy Hoolio ignored a clear warning to heave-to. I was forced to insist. Regrettably, I hit the ship’s magazine and my key evidence sank with all hands in the lethal waters of the Black Pacific”.

Dredd has no choice but to return to the Sector House of Pan-Andes Conurb Chief Judge, where Duty Judge Gonzalez remonstrates with him as to the casualties of his one-Judge war against the sugar cartels – ironically as it was Duty Judge Conzales who tipped off the dock thugs to Dredd in the first place.

Dredd has to call Chief Judge McGruder to get her to pull diplomatic strings with her counterpart in Pan-Andes Conurb – counterpart in title only that is, as Chief Judge Garcia is effectively a henchman of the sugar cartels. En route to the Chief Judge Garcia’s office, Dredd inflicts another casualty – slamming a door into an eavesdropping Pan-Andes Conurb Judge spying on his call with McGruder.

McGruder’s diplomatic string-pulling works quickly, albeit effectively sabotaged by the Pan Andes Conurb – as Chief Judge Garcia finds an antiquated twentieth-century helicopter as transport for Dredd, although that does come with its pilot Juan, the best character in the whole Pan Andes Conurb storyline. That’s not the only sabotage – as Chief Judge Garica personally calls the sugar cartel to tip them off “the eagle is on the wing”.

 

 

 

 

JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:

THE SUGAR BEAT 5 (prog 877)

 

Okay – I’ll admit I’m a fan of this panel where Dredd finds himself massive outgunned in his derelict chopper by the Pan Andes Conurb sugar cartel air-gunship. As in, completely outgunned, because I’m pretty sure Dredd’s chopper doesn’t even have guns.

This episode introduces us to the other best character in this storyline (apart from Dredd’s pilot Juan) – Dredd’s antagonist and sugar cartel queenpin of the Pan Andes Conurb, Senora Testarossa. She takes her henchman, Chief Judge Garcia, to task because he remonstrates her that killing a Mega-City One Judge is insane. Testarossa points out to Garcia that if he’d covered his tracks, “we’d never be in this ludicrous mess”. She has a point but I’m not entirely sure how Garcia was meant to do that.

Not surprisingly, the Testarossa airship guns down Dredd’s chopper into one of the sugar fields, but Dredd manages to bail out with Juan at the last moment.

Dredd and Juan find one of the sugar refineries, which has a bomb set to blow up the intruders – somewhat inconsistently, as Senora Testarossa was complaining to her airship crew about the damage to the sugar crop from Dredd’s helicopter crash. I’m prepared to bet the sugar refinery is much more expensive to replace than a small area of sugar cane fields.

 

 

 

 

JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:

THE SUGAR BEAT 6 (prog 878)

 

Dredd does a plea bargain with Senora Testarossa, sugar cartel queenpin of the Pan Andes Conurb.

Of course, she tried to kill him first. The explosion of the sugar refinery didn’t take – Dredd and Juan survive it, although implausibly Dredd leaves his Lawgiver behind for Juan to retrieve. Instead, it blows a hole in the cartel’s own defenses, such that Dredd is able to infiltrate their command bunker.

There he faces off with Senora Testarossa’s two bodyguards, dispatching them with a little help from Juan – although when I first read it, I thought Juan was helping one of them, tossing him Dredd’s gun. To be honest, I’m still not clear about that. Sure, a Justice Department Lawgiver is palm-printed to its Judge to avoid unauthorized use…but did Juan know that?! Anyway, it has the effect of incapacitating the bodyguard, as the Lawgiver blows up in his hand as it is designed to do from unauthorized use – maiming him with the loss of his hand.

Anyway, Dredd simply has to invoke what will happen to Testarossa at the hands of her own customers when she defaults on their sugar purchases – which makes me think he deliberately blew up the Crazy Hoolio – for her to agree to a plea deal. In this case, involving incarceration for her own protection.

 

 

 

 

JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:

THE SUGAR BEAT 6 (prog 878)

 

“That GIVES me jurisdiction”.

The Sugar Beat wraps up as we all knew it would – with Dredd arresting most of the Pan-Andes Conurb Judges for corruption, based on the testimony of Senor Testarossa.

Dare I say it, it all works out pretty sweet for Dredd. He gets to return to the Pan-Andes Conurb in style, flying back in the Testarossa air-gunship. He even gets back at the two PAC Judges who joked to him about a pony when he arrived, arresting them for corruption and commandeering their vehicle – “there’s always the pony, pal!”.

And returning to Sector House 12, he arrests Chief Judge Garcia and most of the other Judges there, which he quips will keep the Mega-City One penal colony on Titan busy for a year. Sadly, he also arrests Juan – “piloting an unlicensed obsolete aircraft for personal gain”, “failure to file preservation order for said aircraft” and “unauthorized handling of official Justice Department weapon”.

Really, Dredd? The only person to actually help you – well, not under your duress – in Pan Andes Conurb?

Anyway, the story concludes with Dredd implying that he will stick around as the interim system of justice for the Pan Andes Conurb as “most of your Judges are now in the cubes”, in the fine tradition of Mega-City One imperialism. Actually, we see MC-1 do a fair bit of what we might describe as imperialism in the Judge Dredd comic. However, Dredd seems to get back to Mega-City One quickly as we see him there in the very next episode. In fairness, while a year of the Judge Dredd comic corresponds to a year in real time (only, you know, 122 years ahead of us), the passage of time between individual episodes can be somewhat amorphous – not necessarily the week implied by their weekly publication.

 

 

 

 

JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:

TOP GUN (prog 879)

 

“Drokk! Check the size of that gun!”

“Neat wheels, Judge Dredd!”

Tek Division designs a prototype Lawgiver and Lawmaster like that car by Homer Simpson. The Lawgiver – the standard Justice Department gun – was not as bad, but the Lawmaster – the standard Justice Department motorcycle – was clearly overblown.

Needless to say, it does not too work out too well with Dredd – and in similar terms to Homer’s costly over-designed car. It gets the Tek Judge responsible for it “doing twenty for criminal negligence” on Titan.

In contrast to Homer Simpson’s car, the new Lawmaster looked okay in the shop so to speak – even Dredd said so at first glance:

“Tek Division are just applying the finishing touches, Dredd. This model comes with ground-to-air missiles and jet-ski option. Boys reckon it’s capable of anything up to six hundred kilometres an hour.”

On second thoughts, I don’t know how any of those options are going to be useful in hyper-urban Mega-City One. Where are they going to use the jet-ski option? The Black Atlantic?! Also, note the influence of the British writers over the American setting – kilometres rather than miles and spelt the British way as well!

It’s soon put to the test – a full on iso-cube breakout, hijacking three Justice Department vehicles no less – and fails almost straight away, with the engine catching fire. Strangely, the Lawgiver gun also catches fire. Dredd calls in for a burns unit to be on standby – “I may need medical attention”.

As it turns out, Dredd takes out each of the hijacked vehicles – and their escaped perp hijackers – with the Lawmaster’s missiles or the Lawmaster itself, on kamikaze autopilot, without needing medical attention. “Forget it – wasn’t as bad as it looked.”

Although perhaps Dredd should not have dismissed that burns unit, as he lays down some major burns on Tek-Judge Stone – “Lousy. Their malfunction cost an estimated three hundred dead – extensive public and private damage.”

I’m assuming those casualties and that damage is from the over-destructive effect of the explosions from the missiles or the Lawmaster. I don’t know, Dredd, I’m not sure all of that can be blamed on Tek Division, given you fired those missiles and commanded the Lawmaster as effectively another kamikaze missile…

 

 

 

 

 

JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:

THE MANCHU CANDIDATE (progs 881-883)

Under Siege (prog 880)

 

Justice Department turns on itself as the Wally Squad or undercover Judges send one of their own as an assassin to take a shot at Chief Judge McGruder, in what seems like a potential Wally Squad coup.

I’m shocked! No, seriously. I normally would have expected it to be the SJS or Special Judicial Squad – the Slytherins of Justice Department. But they’re loyal to McGruder as she used to be SJS, rising to its head position and seat on the Council of Five.

Not that there is a Council of Five anymore, since McGruder did not reinstate it when returning to office after Necropolis. That’s the actual subject of argument between McGruder and Dredd when both are officiating at an Academy of Law graduation of cadets as rookies. Dredd proves loyal enough though when foiling the assassination attempt at the graduation, although the assassin manages to escape through disguising himself as a cadet Judge. That tips Dredd off to the identity of the assassin as a Judge, while he and McGruder deduce it to be a Wally Squad Judge.

Dredd gets a lucky break as he is further tipped off by a violent incident at Laurence Harvey Block – named for the actor who played the brainwashed US soldier in The Manchurian Candidate film – and soon traces it to the one Wally Squad operative in that block, who is indeed the assassin, Landslide Otis.

The story takes a bizarre twist. When the assassin dies in a shootout with Dredd as Dredd apprehends him, he’s revealed to be a Sino-Cit plant or sleeper agent – hence the title Manchu Candidate. What’s more – he tells Dredd in Chinese “I was only a patsy”

But how? How did he infiltrate Mega-City One, let alone the Judges? And presumably as a child cadet – apparently with “massive facial reconstruction” to disguise his Chinese appearance

Also but how was a patsy? Is Sino-Cit trying to assassinate McGruder? But…it seems to be a genuine conspiracy by the Wally Squad gone rogue? We actually see the would-be assassin’s Wally Squad superior (and handler) giving him the orders

So did the Wally Squad know he was Sino-Cit or was it just coincidence? Was the Wally Squad using Sino-Cit or vice versa? What’s more, it’s a Chekhov’s Gun – or the Sino-Cit equivalent, obviously set up to foreshadow conflict between Sino-Cit MC-1…but it never went off

I think the writers were planning or working towards just that, some conflict between Sino-Cit and MC-1 as the next crisis or epic storyline – remember War Games in prog 854? – but it just fizzled out and they abandoned it.

I skipped over the episode Under Siege in prog 880, which involved a storyline we’ve previously seen in Judge Dredd – the computer running Michael Portillo Block for the super-rich (with the block apparently named for a British journalist and member of Parliament) goes berserk and starts killing its residents with its own security systems.

 

 

 

JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:

SCALES OF JUSTICE (progs 884-885)

 

Judge Dredd does Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. No, not the cool part with the Thunderdome. The part with the lost tribe of children – or cadets in this case.

That’s pretty much it. Dredd is sent to investigate a distress signal from the Cursed Earth. It’s from a Justice Department H-wagon that went down with cadets on board, although weirdly Dredd refers to that occurring in the Apocalypse War and elsewhere the story refers to it as 18 months earlier (which makes more sense). So unless it’s a flashback story or the reference to the Apocalypse War was meant to be a reference to something else, perhaps Inferno or Judgement Day…?

Anyway, there’s two rival factions within the lost cadets – one hardline faction effectively seeking to set itself up as Judges in the Cursed Earth, blaming Justice Department for abandoning them, and the other that seems to be holding to the standards of Justice Department until rescue. They both lose, although a girl from the latter saves Dredd’s life from the former – and the mutie raiders who gatecrash the party.

 

 

 

JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:

THE ENEMY BELOW (progs 886-887)

 

Few 2000 AD artists depicted abominations quite so eldritch as Clint Langley.

This particular eldritch abomination is a mutant creature that seems to have infiltrated the iso-cubes under the Grand Hall of Justice that Dredd had ordered to be flooded during Inferno. So Dredd takes it out when he goes diving in the flooded iso-cubes to manually activate or work the pumps to clear out the flooding.

 

 

 

 

 

JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:

IT’S A DREDDFUL LIFE (Meg 2.44-2.45)

Bury My Knee at Wounded Heart (Meg 2.46)

You are the Mean Machine! (Meg 2.47)

Freefall! (Meg 2.48)

Do the Wrong Thing (Meg 2.49)

Giant (Meg 2.50-2.52)

Howler (Meg 2.53-2.56)

 

And we wrap up Case Files 20 with my favorite Megazine episodes in it – as the title indicates, it’s Dredd doing It’s a Wonderful Life in a two-episode storyline.

Dredd appears to be transported by the ghosts of his past to an alternative world in which he never lived, narrated by Judge Death as host. “Judge Dredd. This is not your life. Come hither, enter the lawless zone – a world where you never existed!”

(That’s not an exact quote – I edited Death’s sibilant hissing).

It’s a fun tour through the history of the Judge Dredd comic, a dark alternative timeline without Dredd but which remains eerily familiar to the one we know. Technically speaking, there is a Judge Dredd in this timeline – but it’s Rico, not the Joe we know.

In this timeline, Rico does the Cursed Earth mission to Mega-City Two – but uses the serum to extort to become Chief Judge of Mega-City Two, with a little help from his friends, which strangely includes tyrannosaur Satanus as his loyal pet. There’s a nice gag in which Spikes, seemingly Rico’s companion for the Cursed Earth mission as he was for our Dredd, is riding Satanus while dangling a bound Tweek as carrot for his “horse”.

Chief Judge Cal comes to power back in Mega-City One, as he did after our Dredd’s return from the Cursed Earth mission, but harmlessly chokes on a bone from Deputy Chief Judge Fish after ordering Fish on the menu in a tantrum towards his beloved pet.

Psi-Judge Anderson died, presumably in her encounter with Judge Death in their mutual introduction in the comic – and we also see a “victorious” Death grappling with the futility of exterminating all life as a solitary Dark Judge. Even at the rate of one cull per minute, it will take 800 years to eradicate the existing human population – setting aside the birth rate and other living creatures.

We see Judge Hershey as an honorary angel in the Angel Gang – angel in the sense of Victoria’s Secrets angel, serving them up drinks in cowgirl lingerie – with the Judge Child held captive in a jar. Back in Mega-City One, Otto Sump has some bizarre business partnership with P.J. Maybe, while Radlands of Ji ninja assassin Stan Lee is a film star (aptly enough, given the influence of Bruce Lee and Stan Lee for his name).

Judgement Day still happens, ending Chief Judge Rico’s racket in Mega-City Two – and sending him riding Satanus away from the nuclear sunset. And Judge Death’s quest to judge life as a crime become even harder when the dead come back to life.

So not surprisingly the other Judge Dredd villains aren’t too happy with Sabbat and gang up on him – in the art we see Rico, Judge Death and the Angel Gang, as well as a Klegg (presumably Cal’s Deputy Chief Judge Grampus), an East Meg One Judge, renegade Judge Grice, Black Atlantic pirate Captain Skank, and Call-Me-Kenneth. It’s something of a premonition of the Helter Skelter storyline to come.

It also turns out to be a hallucination – from an illegal hallucinogenic substance in a vendor’s pie, although I’m not sure why Dredd took a bite from it in the first place, other than plot contrivance. The vendor is outside Frank Capra Block – a nod of course to It’s a Wonderful Life.

As for the other Megazine episodes:

• Bury my Knee at Wounded Heart (Meg 2.46). The title is of course a play on Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee. It involves a citizen with the surname Knee trying to bury his wife – died from old age – at Wounded Heart private cemetery, burials of course being a rarity with Mega-City’s Resyk
• You are the Mean Machine (Meg 2.47) is a Choose Your Own Adventure style as Mean Machine Angel. Of course, the only correct answer involves your signature headbutt
• Freefall! (Meg 2.48) involves the tragic thoughts of a leaper as she plummets to her doom
• Do the Wrong Thing (Meg 2.49) is an obvious play on the Spike Lee film Do The Right Thing, featuring a heatwave at Danny Aiello Block, a nod to the actor in that film
• Giant (Meg 2.50-2.52) sees Giant – that’s young Giant or Giant Jr – graduate from rookie to Judge, in a case involving the return of Walter the Wobot gone wogue, I mean rogue, advocating Call-Me-Kenneth’s robot revolution.
• Howler (Meg 2.53-2.56) involves an overpowered alien trying to take over Mega-City One or at least the Sump Tower Hotel. Funny – I was today years old when I realized that Otto Sump was (or adapted to) a parody of Trump. Also, overpowered alien tries to take over Mega-City One – or at least take on Judge Dredd – is a storyline that recurs surprisingly often.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, I note that I was unable to play my usual drinking game of matching the Case Files volume cover art to the interior panel art – and that’s because, after using Google Image search, I was able to match it to the cover of prog 853 as featured. That prog was actually an episode collected in Case Files Volume 19 – indeed, three episodes before the ones collected in this volume – as the final episode of the Inferno storyline (so the cover art did not relate to that episode either). Still, since I did end up matching the Case Files Volume cover art to its origin, I suppose that counts for a shot in my drinking game…?