JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 21

Mega-City One 2116

(1994: progs 888-915 / Megazine 2.57-2.68)

 

We’re still in the Dark Age of Dredd but we’re starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Most of that light is from the end of Chief Judge McGruder’s tenure in office and the whole Meh-chanismo robot Judge storyline in The Tenth Planet and Wilderlands. I mean, I liked McGruder as CJ in-universe but she was beginning to drag down the Dredd comic.

However, some of the light comes from the issues collected in this volume. For one thing, these issues had some of my favorite covers from the comic – which are collected in this Case Files volume. For another, there’s two standout story arcs – Time Machine and Rad Blood.

Time Machine was a fun take on the gentleman time traveller of time machine stories such as that by H.G. Wells, albeit from the end of the twentieth century rather than the nineteenth. Not surprisingly, Mega-City One and the Law are not kind to time travellers.

 

“Come to us, friends. Come to us! Our love is in the blood! We will give you such succour that –”

“Speaking of suckers, Amaranth…”

 

I always love a good Dredd one-liner – and whenever vampires pop up in Judge Dredd. Rad Blood gives us both. Yes – they’re not your traditional fantasy vampires but the SF variant of vampires as they usually are in Judge Dredd, mutant ones in this case, and that’s good enough for me!

 

Oh – and Rogue Trooper pops up in the Casualties of War story arc.

Yay!

Except it’s the Friday version of the character…

Um – yay? Maybe not.