Top Tens – History: Top 10 Empires (4) Macedonian Empire

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Alexander the Great’s route and empire at its largest extent in 323 BC – map by Generic Mapping Tools for Wikipedia “Macedonia (ancient kingdom” under license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

 

(4) MACEDONIAN EMPIRE (336 – 30 BC)

“There are no more worlds to conquer”.

The Macedonian empire may have been essentially the empire of one man, but that man was Alexander the Great and his empire changed the world.

“Alexander the Great was the king of Macedon during the 4th century B.C. who saw the Mediterranean, the Middle East, and Asia and decided they would make a really bitchin’ backyard.”

Alexander’s empire was essentially the former Achaemenid Persian Empire, but also with the Macedonian hegemony of Greece – which he had led as a coalition of Greeks in his conquest of the Persian Empire (except the Spartans, because screw them – THIS ISN’T SPARTA!). Of course that was because it involved one of the finest fighting forces in history, honed (like his kingdom and its predominance in Greece) by his father Philip before him, the Macedonian phalanx, and led by Alexander as one of the finest military leaders of history, undefeated, usually against heavy numerical odds. That’s right – I’m an Alexander the Great and Battle of Gaugamela fan.

Alexander was nothing but audacious, as befitting a god among men – as he literally saw himself or came to do so. The feats of his life and conquests became legend. And genuinely funny, worthy of television deadpan snark at times – where is the Alexander sitcom series?! They could even call it Who’s The Greatest? That would be a hoot – as opposed to the unfunny snorefest that was Oliver Stone’s 2004 film.

Unable to untie the legendary insoluble Gordian knot of which it was prophesied that whomever untied it would conquer Asia? No problem – just cut it with your sword and go on to conquer Asia.

Faced with threat of the Persian navy which can strike at Greece behind your lines? No problem – just conquer the coastline of the Persian empire. Where’s your navy now, Persia?

The Persian emperor offers to surrender half his empire to you and your wimpy general Parmenion says you should accept? Sneer at him “I would too, if I were you”, then proceed to demonstrate you’re Alexander the Great by conquering the other half as well, while showing the Persian emperor he can run but he can’t hide.

Although my favorite story remains Alexander’s famous meeting with Diogenes – known to history as the Cynic philosopher but to contemporaries as that weird homeless naked guy sleeping in a barrel, although the only man to beat Alexander in an agora slanging match. (No one could beat Alexander in a ‘ýo mama’ slanging contest because his mother was the insanely hot Olympias, member of an orgiastic snake-worshipping cult of Dionysus – Alexander was something of a Dionysian himself). But I digress.

His empire may technically have only lasted as long as his reign, thirteen years from his succession to the throne of Macedonia in 336 BC to his death from fever in 323 BC at only 32 years of age. However, I’m reckoning it by the duration of the dynasties of his generals who succeeded him with their rival claims and Hellenistic kingdoms, until the last of them – Cleopatra, heir to the dynasty founded by Ptolemy in Egypt – fell to the Romans.

 

The “Vergina Sun” (as named after archaeological excavations around the town of Vergina in northern Greece) – tentatively interpreted as historical Macedonian royal symbol

DECLINE & FALL

Yes and no.

Yes – Alexander’s empire fell apart upon his death. It was hardly the only empire to fragment among the successors of its original conqueror, and three of those fragments, roughly corresponding to a third of Alexander’s conquests or the former Persian empire each, were powerful states of themselves – Egypt under the Ptolemaic dynasty of Ptolemy, Anatolia and the Levant under the Antigonid dynasty of Antigonus, and Mesopotamia and Persia under the Seleucid dynasty of Seleucus.

The Ptolemaic dynasty was most content to keep to Egypt, but they all took shots at each other – with the Antigonus and the Seleucids taking their best shots at reclaiming all the empire, the latter at their height coming close to Alexander’s empire.

These states and other successors warred endlessly among themselves in the Macedonian Succession Wars or Wars of the Diadochi, depleting themselves until the Romans – also fans of Alexander – swallowed them up, with the legion displacing the phalanx as the finest fighting force of the classical world. Of course, that’s a massive over-simplification of what is often regarded as the “single most complex and tangled succession crisis in history”.

THE MACEDONIAN EMPIRE NEVER FELL

Apart from the Hellenistic kingdoms and legacy he bequeathed the world, all the way to India, Alexander’s empire also persisted in the twenty cities or so he founded that bore his name, the most famous and enduring of which remains Alexandra in Egypt. Well, not quite the most enduring – that will always be the Alexandria he founded in our hearts. Next year in Alexandria, as we say.

THE SUN NEVER SETS

Alexander’s empire may not have been global, but it was an empire of the known world in Greek eyes. And it can rightly be regarded as one of history’s world empires, a turning point in European and Asian history that spread Greek culture – Hellenization – in its wake.

EVIL EMPIRE

Alexander could be a little, ah, bipolar but his empire tended to avoid the evil tag – except among the Persians – as he tended to be magnanimous in victory and seek to reconcile his conquests rather than simply subdue or destroy them, the key word being tended as he was also prone to bouts of (alcoholic) brutal violence

The kingdoms of his successors…not so much. The Seleucids in particular achieved enduring infamy with the successful Jewish revolt of the Maccabees against them. After all, you need a certain evil chic to go down in the Bible as the abomination of desolation – looking at you, Antiochus IV Epiphanes…

RATING: 4 STARS****
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Top Tens – History: Top 10 Wars (4) Persian Wars – Greek-Persian Wars

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Spartans fighting against Persians at the Battle of Plataea – illustration in Cassell’s Illustrated Universal History 1882 (public domain image)

 

(4) PERSIAN WARS –
GREEK-PERSIAN WARS (499-449 BC)

The classical Persian Wars – when the Greeks fought for their very existence as independent states against the imperial Persian superpower of the Achaemenid Empire, as an uneasy coalition of Greek city states fighting off two Persian invasions of Greece against the odds in the archetypal battles of classical Greek heroism.

That is not to overlook the Macedonian conquest of the Persian Empire featured in another top ten entry, or the longer Roman-Persian wars – through to the twilight of classical history, for nearly seven centuries from 54 BC to 628 AD, when the Romans fought their relentless slogging match against two successive Persian empires, the Parthians and the Sassanids.

Ultimately, however, the Roman-Persian Wars lack the existential significance of the Persian invasions of Greece, both to the classical Greeks and by extension Western civilization itself. It is difficult to imagine the shape of Western civilization, had the Persians succeeded in their invasions of Greece, particularly their second invasion, but it would have been immeasurably different.

Greek victories in the Persian Wars were certainly a defining moment for Athens and its democracy, as well as the Greeks as a whole – “their victory endowed the Greeks with a faith in their destiny that was to endure for three centuries, during which western culture was born”.

The Persian wars were also among the first wars in history to be written as history – by the creators of history as a genre, foremost among them Herodotus, styled as the father of history. They might also be argued to be the origin of Western military strategy and tactics – or at least the feature that was to recur so decisively as part of Western military superiority, the drilled formation, in this case the hoplite phalanx.

They also featured two of the landmark battles of history, won against the odds – Marathon and the naval battle of Salamis – as well as the heroic last stand of Thermopylae, the Spartan Alamo. Of course, as an Athenian loyalist, I’d point out that Marathon and Salamis were Athenian victories, as opposed to all that pro-Spartan agitprop of the 300 film, in which Leonidas breezily dismissed Athens.

Salamis was a particularly impressive Athenian victory, since they won it from exile after evacuating Athens itself, which was captured and razed by the Persians – choosing to carry on fighting from exile rather than submit to the Persians. This feat might be compared to the scenario if France had not surrendered to Germany in 1940, but had fought on with its fleet from north Africa – and won.

In terms of historical narrative, the first Persian invasion from 492 BC to 490 BC, under Darius the Great, was inconclusive with their defeat in the battle of Marathon…for the time being. Darius had to postpone a further invasion of Greece to fight strife within his own empire. When he died, his son and successor Xerxes took the second swing at Greece in earnest in an invasion from 480 to 479 BC, which was ultimately defeated at the battles of Plataea and Mycale.

After that, the Greeks were able to go on the offensive against the Persians in the Persian Empire itself, particularly in its formerly Greek fringes, but the Greek-Persian wars largely fizzled out from there with a return to the pre-war status quo by 449 BC, not unlike the persistent stalemate of the subsequent Roman-Persian Wars, although Greece was freed from the threat of Persian invasion. Of course, a lot of that was undone as the Persian Empire then learned to sit back and exploit the Greek city-states fighting among themselves, most notably in the Peloponnesian Wars.

ART OF WAR

The Greeks in the Persian Wars were almost exact contemporaries of Sun Tzu on the other side of the world, as the Persian Wars commenced a few years before the traditional date given to Sun Tzu’s death in 496 BC – and I’m inclined to favor the Greeks over Sun Tzu when it came to demonstrated art of war in actual history. Winning without fighting is all very well, but sometimes you have little choice but to fight – and to fight in desperate defence against numerically superior forces.

Hence the genius of Greek strategy, consistently fighting at geographical bottlenecks or chokepoints, including the straits of Salamis. Beyond that, the Greeks won because “they avoided catastrophic defeats, stuck to their alliance, took advantage of Persian mistakes” and possessed tactical superiority with their hoplite forces.

WORLD WAR

Sadly, I think it would be stretching things too far to call the Greek-Persian Wars a world war, even though the Greeks often styled it as the war of one continent against another or East against West, harking back to the legendary Trojan War as its predecessor – a continental front line that was replayed in the Roman-Persian Wars and beyond, as the Persians were replaced by Arabs and Turks.

STILL FIGHTING THE PERSIAN WARS

Well perhaps not in the style of the Greek or Macedonian Persian Wars, but Americans might feel they’ve been replaying the Roman-Persian Wars since 1979…

GOOD GUYS VS BAD GUYS

Sorry Persia – I know you’re not the weird mutant army featured in the film 300 and indeed one of the great civilizations of ancient history, but the Greeks will always be the good guys to me

RATING: 4 STARS****
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Top Tens – History: Top 10 Books (4) Paul Johnson – Modern Times

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(4) PAUL JOHNSON –

MODERN TIMES: A HISTORY OF THE WORLD FROM THE 1920S TO THE 1980S (1983)

 

“A latter day Mencken, Johnson is witty, gritty, and compulsively readable”.

 

Probably the most divisive entry in my top ten, in part because Johnson is the sole entry without a background as an academic historian (possibly except Ellis for whom I’m unable to find any biographical detail) – except perhaps for undergraduate study.

 

Instead, Johnson was a journalist and popular historian – although it makes you sit up and pay attention when you read that as a journalist he interviewed some of the historical figures in this book, as for example he states in a footnote he did with Kerensky (obviously in the latter’s exile as former leader of the Provisional Government of Russia overthrown by the Bolsheviks).

 

In part that explains the divisive nature of this entry – but perhaps mostly it’s the strength of his opinions and the prose style with which he expressed them, both of which (as well as that divisive nature) were reflected in this book.

.

Yes, yes – I know this book has been updated and reissued with various subtitles to reflect that (such as the one in my feature image) but I’m going with the original title.

 

It was the first book of history that I read from Johnson although afterwards I avidly read others by him as it was a huge influence on me in my youth. Not so much now as I’ve receded somewhat from him as I’ve perceived some of his more idiosyncratic opinions, albeit I still rank him highly enough for this entry.

 

For example, I can agree with his assessment of Eisenhower as the twentieth century’s most successful president (although he also ranks Reagan highly, perhaps even higher in the later editions) but not so much some of the other presidents he ranked highly (or badly). Sorry, I will never see Nixon as anything but crooked, even if he demonstrated a certain amoral competence.

 

From the above one may divine his opinions to be conservative, of a distinctly Catholic and anti-communist kind – interestingly enough as he originally was left-wing before his ideological reversal on the road to Damascus, a metaphor I think he would have particularly liked given his beliefs and name.

 

Whatever one may think of his opinions, the virtuosity of his prose style was undeniable – perhaps the best of any of my top ten entries, with a particular talent for turns of phrase and chapter titles, as illustrated by those for this book:

 

1 – A Relativistic World

2 – The First Despotic Utopias

3 – Waiting for Hitler

4 – Legitimacy in Decadence

5 – An Infernal Theocracy, a Celestial Chaos

6 – The Last Arcadia

7 – Degringolade

8 – The Devils

9 – The High Noon of Aggression

10 – The End of Old Europe

11 – The Watershed Year

12 – Superpower and Genocide

13 – Peace by Terror

14 – The Bandung Generation

15 – Caliban’s Kingdoms

16 – Experimenting with Half Mankind

17 – The European Lazarus

18 – America’s Suicide Attempt

19 – The Collectivist Seventies

20 – The Recovery of Freedom (in later editions – formerly Palimpsests of Freedom)

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

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Top Tens – History: Top 10 Empires (5) Spanish Empire

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The Spanish Empire at its greatest extent in 1790 (albeit with claims exceeding its control) by Nagihuin for Wikipedia “Spanish Empire” and licensed under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

 

(5) SPANISH EMPIRE (1492 – 1976)

The first global empire and the original “empire on which the sun never sets”.

The Pope literally divided the world up between them and the Portuguese in the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas, although only after Portugal nudged the line further west to party it up in Brazil. Other European nations disagreed with the papal division of the world.

The Spanish Empire owed its global extent to its ‘discovery’ and conquest of the Americas from 1492 – a perfect storm of history as the Spanish royal sponsorship of Columbus coincided with the template for conquest from the Reconquista retaking the last Islamic stronghold in Spain.

Alexander the Great was reputed to have lamented that there were no new worlds to conquer (likely apocryphal) – the Spanish discovered one and conquered it. And whatever else one may think of the conquistadors, they exceeded Alexander and anyone else for a feat unparalleled in military history – remarkable in just how few Spanish forces conquered such large areas and populous empires numbering in the millions, crowned by their conquest of the Aztec and Inca Empires.

From there, they were the first to circumnavigate the world with Magellan’s expedition in 1522, although Magellan himself died en route from a nasty overdose of native spears and swords in the Philippines. So of course the Spanish claimed and conquered the Philippines as well, along with other Pacific Ocean islands.

However, they did claim more than they actually controlled in some places such as North America. Much of the modern United States was originally part of the Spanish Empire as attested by place names, but their claims extended well beyond that along the north-west Pacific coastline to Canada and Alaska, where they were ultimately contested by the British and Russians. Even so, the Spanish Empire still ranks as the fifth largest empire by area in history.

The Spanish Empire seemed to rise from one glittering height to another – with a lot of all that glitter indeed as gold and silver from the Americas, propelling it to the first world maritime superpower, and after the naval defeat of the Ottoman Empire at the Battle of Lepanto, arguably the greatest power of the world.

Of course, it was all downhill from there. Part of that was a result of pursuing dynastic Habsburg claims in Europe – it’s odd to think of the Netherlands and parts of Italy as former Spanish territory. Pro tip – you can have a maritime empire, or you can try to dominate Europe, but you can’t do both.

Still, Spain retained its empire, despite being eclipsed by other European powers, until the nineteenth century when it began to decline in spectacular fashion as a casualty of one war after another.

 

 

DECLINE & FALL

And how!

You could argue that Spain parallels the Romans in their tenacious decline and fall. Despite what might be called its crises of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries – and despite its waning power, at sea against England or Britain, and on land against France – it retained its empire until the nineteenth century.

However, the bell then tolled for the Spanish Empire, with the American Revolution (which it supported) and the French Revolution (particularly in the person of Napoleon). The Spanish Empire faced its own American revolution, losing the crown jewel of its empire with most of Spanish America winning independence.

Still, Spain was left a modest mid-tier empire as a nice beachside retirement nest egg, particularly in Cuba and the Philippines – arguably its parallel to the Byzantine continuation of the Roman Empire but skipping past a couple of centuries to that smaller rump Byzantine empire. It even briefly regained the Dominican Republic, as its parallel to the reconquests of Justinian or Basil.

And then it fell foul of the American Revolution again, this time in the form of the United States all grown up as the rising world power at the dawn of the twentieth century. The United States was looking around at empires and decided to take Spain’s for a test drive in the Spanish-American War.

Spain lost the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Guam to the United States, as well as Cuba to quasi-independence (effectively as an American colony). Reading the writing on the wall with respect to retaining any Pacific territory, Spain sold its other Pacific island territories to that other rising power of the twentieth century, Germany.

That left Spain with just the bottom-tier empire of its African territories – small outposts in Africa like Fernando Poo in Equatorial Guinea, although it did also expand into the territory known as Spanish Sahara. Pro tip – if your empire consists of places like Fernando Poo and anywhere with the Sahara in it, it’s time to get out of the empire game.

And so Spain did, albeit like Portugal only in the 1970s

THE SPANISH EMPIRE NEVER FELL

On the other hand, Spain technically retains some overseas possessions – the Canary Islands as well as some tiny islands and weird enclave cities in Morocco

But more so, the endurance of Spanish language and place names in the Americas demonstrates that, at least in some cultural sense, the Spanish Empire never fell

THE SUN NEVER SETS

The Spanish Empire was the original empire to make this claim – and mean it literally, although the claim was more memorably (and definitively) made by the British Empire. In influence, it was also a true world empire, reshaping Latin America in its own image.

EVIL EMPIRE

And how!

The Spanish Empire would be one of the leading contenders people would advance for an entry if one were to compile a Top 10 Evil Empires, primarily due to its apocalyptic destruction of the Americas – although in fairness that was mostly down to one horseman of the apocalypse, pestilence. The death toll is usually tallied in the tens of millions – with many native tribes and their cultures wiped out.

Even setting aside death from disease, the Spanish conquest of the Americas involved atrocity, brutality and cruelty by any standard, including contemporary opinion at the time.

However, many point to what is often called the Spanish Black Legend – a tendency to demonize or vilify the Spanish Empire, as well as Spain (and Catholicism) more generally in history – with at least some fairness to it. After all, it was Spanish advocates such as Friar Bartolomé de las Casas who documented so many of the evils of its empire for history – and Spain was the first in recorded history to pass laws for the protection of indigenous peoples, although the Crown often found it difficult to enforce those laws on its distant and unruly colonists.

And one can’t help but observe the far more substantial mix of indigenous population and culture in the Americas south of the Rio Grande as opposed to north of it – although again in fairness North America had more sparse populations and had higher European immigration

RATING: 4 STARS****
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Top Tens – History: Top 10 Wars (5) Persian Wars – Alexander’s Conquest of the Persian Empire

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Alexander the Great on his horse Bucephalus in the Battle of Issus against Darius III – from the Alexander mosaic in the House of the Faun, Pompeii (public domain image)

 

(5) PERSIAN WARS –
ALEXANDER’S CONQUEST OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE (336-323 BC)

The Macedonian-Persian Wars of my namesake, Alexander the Great – the one exception to actually defeat and conquer the Persian Empire among the various Persian Wars, those recurring definitive wars of classical history fought by Greeks and Romans against successive Persian Empires over a millennium.

Of course, that was because Alexander’s conquest of the Persian Empire involved one of the finest fighting forces in history, the Macedonian phalanx, led by one of finest military leaders of history, without a defeat to his name, usually against numerical odds. That’s right – I’m an Alexander the Great and Gaugamela fanboy.

In fairness, Alexander was lucky, particularly in the opening of his campaign against the Persian Empire – narrowly escaping death at the Battle of the Granicus River. As the saying goes however, fortune favors the bold and Alexander was certainly bold, indeed to the point of personal recklessness, while the Persians were unlucky with their emperor, Darius III, who seemed cautious to the point of cowardly, notoriously fleeing his two big set-piece battles with Alexander at Issus and Gaugamela.

In fairness, Alexander was also legendary. Unable to untie the legendary insoluble Gordian knot of which it was prophesied that whoever untied it would conquer Asia? No problem – just cut it with your sword and go on to conquer Asia.

Faced with threat of the Persian navy which can strike at Greece behind your lines? No problem – just conquer the coastline of the Persian empire. Where’s your navy now, Persia?

Darius offers to surrender half his empire to you and your wimpy general Parmenion says you should accept? Sneer at him “I would too, if I were you”, then proceed to demonstrate you’re Alexander the Great by conquering the other half as well, while showing the Persian emperor he can run but he can’t hide.

Alexander’s conquest of the Persian Empire is also one of those wars that I style as adventurous wars – wars that resemble or evoke a tale of epic adventure, charismatic leaders and small heroic bands of warriors fighting against the odds to win. Indeed, Alexander and his conquests became just that – a historical and legendary source for tales of epic adventure

“Alexander became legendary as a classical hero in the mould of Achilles, featuring prominently in the historical and mythical traditions of both Greek and non-Greek cultures. His military achievements and unprecedented enduring successes in battle made him the measure against which many later military leaders would compare themselves, and his tactics remain a significant subject of study”.

Other wars in my Top 10 Wars that might be similarly styled as ‘adventurous’ wars are the Mongol Conquests and the Spanish Conquest of the Americas – to which one might also add my special mentions for the Arab Conquests and Viking Invasions.

Of course, this sets aside the distinctly unadventurous nature of wars to those at the pointed end of their destruction, usually on the other side, but also those who end up as casualties on the same side. Alexander’s conquests were no exception – infamously, he personally killed Cleitus the Black in a drunken altercation, the man who had saved his life at Granicus.

Of those wars I’ve styled as adventurous wars, I’d have to rank the Spanish conquest the highest in terms of just how lopsided or overwhelming the numerical odds were against it (for the Aztecs and even more so the Incas), victories unparalleled in history, even by Alexander. That said, Alexander did face overwhelming odds against him and his Greek or Macedonian forces, both in individual battles and the conquest of the Persian Empire as a whole.

In fairness, Alexander also probably started in the best position of all the leaders in those adventurous wars, having inherited the Macedonian state and its phalanxes honed to one of the finest fighting forces in history by his father Philip – although on the other hand, it is hard to imagine that Philip or any other Macedonian leader had the audacity or acumen to achieve Alexander’s conquest of the whole Persian Empire.

ART OF WAR

Let’s face it – Alexander the Great would have kicked Sun Tzu’s ass, cutting through all that mystic Taoist poetry like the Gordian knot. I know it and you know it. Did I mention this as an Alexander the Great fan account?

WORLD WAR

I think it would be overstating to it to claim that Alexander the Great fought and won the first world war, but you know he would have kept going through India if his army hadn’t wimped out on him.

STILL FIGHTING THE PERSIAN WARS

Alexander’s conquests might be done and dusted – indeed, pretty much after he died as so much relied on his personal charisma. However, the Persian empire was replaced by Greek kingdoms founded by Alexander’s generals, which would cast a long shadow in history even as they ultimately crumbled and the Persian empire rebooted against the Romans.

GOOD GUYS VS BAD GUYS

Sorry Persia – I know you’re one of the great civilizations of ancient history, but the Greeks and Alexander the Great will always be the good guys to me.

RATING: 4 STARS*****
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Monday Night Mojo – Top 10 Music (Mojo & Funk): (7) Ben Harper – The Woman in You

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Burn to Shine album cover

(7) MOJO: BEN HARPER –

THE WOMAN IN YOU (BURN TO SHINE 1999)

B-side: Glory & Consequence (The Will to Live 1997)

ALBUMS:

The Will to Live (1997)

Burn to Shine (1999)

Diamonds on the Inside (2003)

 

“Love carved sorry in his face

The woman in you is the worry, the worry in me”

 

A voice like smooth smoky honey with a soft sad blues aftertaste – Ben Harper is an insanely talented singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, playing an eclectic mix of blues, folk, soul, reggae and rock.

Ironically my entry here, “The Woman in You” from his fourth studio album Burn to Shine in 1999, was effectively a B-side as inexplicably it was never released as a single.

 

As for the B-side of my entry, “Glory and Consequence” was a single from his third album The Will to Live in 1997 – the lyrics just have that hauntingly evocative resonance for me.

 

“I would rather me be lonely

And you have someone to hold

I’m not as scared of dying

As I am of growing old”

 

That hits me right in the heart – perhaps a little too hard.

 

And as for the balance of my Top 10 Ben Harper songs:

(3) Faded (The Will to Live 1997)

(4) Mama’s Trippin’ – Freedom Mix (The Will to Live 1997)

(5) Sexual Healing (Live from Mars 2001)

(6) Burn to Shine (Burn to Shine 1999)

(7) Steal My Kisses (Burn to Shine 1999)

(8) Diamonds on the Inside (Diamonds on the Inside 2003)

(9) Brown-Eyed Blues (Diamonds on the Inside 2004)

(10) Everything (Diamonds on the Inside 2003)

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

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Top Tens – History: Top 10 Books (5) Geoffrey Blainey – A Short History of the World

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(5) GEOFFREY BLAINEY –

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE WORLD (2000)

 

“The most prolific, wide-ranging, inventive, and, in the 1980s and 1990s, most controversial of Australia’s living historians” – that last epithet was for his commentary on public affairs, so naturally I like him.

Geoffrey Blainey is Australia’s leading historian – and the leading historian of Australia itself, coining the definitive phrase for that history in the famous title of his book The Tyranny of Distance.

Wide-ranging indeed – upon graduating, Blainey initially eschewed academia for the private sector as a freelance historian, studying and writing the history of a mining and railway company in Tasmania.

He subsequently ranged through Australian history, with a focus on thematic history “organized around the exploration of the impact of the single factor (distance, mining, pre-settlement Aboriginal society)”.

Of particular interest to me, his range extended to the “rhythms” of global history – “two centuries of conflict in The Causes of War (1973)”, “examining the optimism and pessimism in Western society since 1750 in The Great See-Saw”, the history of Christianity, and the “tempestuous” 20th century.

And of course this book – which with my interest in global history I tend to regard as his magnum opus, apologies to The Tyranny of Distance.

What distinguishes Blainey in my eyes, both generally and in his book, is his eye for theme – especially themes outside the usual political or military history to which history is slanted, particularly global history.

A single volume history of the world must necessarily be compact yet Blainey not only achieves this but also seamlessly works in chapters on themes that elude other such histories.

For example, a chapter on the historical impact of the night sky on humanity. Or a chapter on the conquest of night by artificial lighting. Or of time itself by mechanical clocks in western civilization.

Or such resonant images or phrases that stick in the mind like Venice as the Silicon Valley of Renaissance Italy – through its glass-making as the cutting edge of technological innovation such as lenses for telescopes or microscopes, which I’m tempted to add to the conquest of time and night as the conquest of light.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

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Mega-City Law – Top 10 Judge Dredd Girls (Special Mention)

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Compiling special mentions for my Girls of Judge Dredd…

Unlike special mentions for my Heroes of Judge Dredd and Villains of Judge Dredd, I’ve yet to compile my usual twenty special mentions, given the paucity of distinctive female characters that captured my eye or enduring interest up to Volume 19 for special mention. I was able to squeeze out a Top 10 Judge Dredd Girls as at Volume 19 but only ten special mentions – and technically only six or seven from the regular progs or episodes, as I got creative with the other three or four special mentions (one from the Dredd film, one also from the film but as an alternate version of a top ten entry, one as another alternate version in the comic of a top ten entry, and one which features in her own storyline from the Megazine).

However, it is a running list which I will update for each volume as I refresh myself of characters I missed – or art I couldn’t otherwise locate except by screenshots from the episodes. There’s some big names coming up in future volumes for top ten entries or special mention.

 

 

(1) MA-MA (2012):
(DREDD – FILM)

 

“Peach Trees, this is Ma-Ma. Somewhere in this block are two Judges. I want them dead. Until I get what I want the block is locked down.”

That pretty much sums up the plot of the 2012 Dredd film – and its antagonist, Madeline Madrigal or Ma-Ma played by Lena Headey, “a scarred, psychopathic prostitute turned drug kingpin with a trademark for excessive violence”.

She was an original antagonist for the film – and that film features a somewhat alternate version of Dredd in any event – but she did get her own origin comic.

 

 

(2) PSI-JUDGE CASSANDRA ANDERSON (2012):
(DREDD – FILM)

 

Yes – I already have her as the obvious top spot in my Top 10 Judge Dredd Girls but that was the version from the comics. This is the version from the 2012 Dredd film, played by Olivia Thirlby. Although she of course is based on the character in the comics, I feel she is sufficiently different – not least in her origin as Dredd’s rookie – to earn a special mention.

 

 

 

 

 

(3) FATHER EARTH GROUPIES (1979):
(CASE FILES 3 – FATHER EARTH: prog 122)

 

The two flower maidens that follow the mutant messiah Father Earth and literal embodiment of flower power, watering and pruning him. Surprisingly healthy and wholesome given they come from the Cursed Earth

 

 

(4) DOCTOR RODNINA (1979)
(CASE FILES 3 – BATTLE OF THE BLACK ATLANTIC: prog 129)

 

Disappointingly, Doctor Rodnina was a one shot character from The Battle of the Black Atlantic two-episode storyline.

Fortunately for Dredd, this hot Sov doctor – Doctor Rodnina, her name adapted from the Russian word Rodina for homeland – takes her Hippocratic Oath seriously and intervenes to save him from Black Atlantic poisoning

And is that Dredd getting frisky? Don’t worry it’s a ruse – his uncharacteristic attempt at seduction, admittedly framed in more political terms of defection are simply a ploy to steal her scalpel for his escape.

And escape he does, just in time to thwart the more belligerent Sov commander Judge Molotov’s more, ah, terminal diagnosis and treatment, as well as to make good on his declared arrest of the ship and its crew – not least saving Mega-City One from Sov attack. But only for now – as the Sov Judges will prove to be Mega-City One’s most effective recurring adversaries…

 

 

(5) JENNO MATRYX (1981)
(CASE FILES 4 – PIRATES OF THE BLACK ALTANTIC: prog 197)

 

“Nuke boffin” (as Chief Justice Griffin calls her) captured by the Pirates of the Black Atlantic. She chose poorly…

“You had a hard choice to make, Citizen Matryx. You made the wrong one. Take her away”

 

 

(6) THE EXECUTIONER / BLANCHE KOMINSKY (1982)
(CASE FILES 6 – THE EXECUTIONER: prog 291)

 

Ex-cadet turned vigilante to avenge her husband’s death in a tragic tale told without black humor or satire.

Part of her drama and tragedy revolve around its central plot and theme of vigilantism – something which seems to strike at the heart of the Law in Mega-City One, which as I have commented previously, seems to have an awful lot of limitations when dealing with organized crime or criminals. It always strikes me as odd that any self-respecting fascist police state can’t simply act against citizens who are well-known (or highly suspected) figures or even leaders of criminal organizations by, you know, just arresting them without awaiting such inconveniences as evidence or legal process. It goes to show that the characterization of Mega-City One’s Justice Department and Judges as fascist may not be quite so straightforward or without nuance.

Anyway, in this case the vigilante is female, as both the narrative reveals to the reader and the evidence surrounding her actions to the Judges. Indeed, the narrative drops a clue to her motive when we first see her, although the significance of it is only revealed later – she tells a restaurant that she is waiting for her husband, effectively a cover as she excuses herself before scaling the walls to the penthouse and killing her criminal targets, only to depart that her husband won’t be coming. And as the story reveals, the female vigilante – dubbed the Executioner – is seeking her justice against the organized crime figures that killed her husband (albeit indirectly as he committed suicide to avoid loan sharks) and left her two children without a father.

Unfortunately for her, Judge Dredd surmises – correctly – that the Executioner has the professionalism of training consistent with a Judge. Initially – and incorrectly – he reviews female Judges as suspects, before correctly realizing that the Executioner is not a Judge but a former rookie or cadet Judge. And so he narrows it down to ex-cadet Blanche Kominsky, expelled for an “unauthorized liaison with a male citizen”.

And so we come to the tragic part of the tale. As the saying goes, when you plan revenge, first dig two graves – one for your enemy and one for yourself. Of course, Blanche had more than one enemy in mind, but otherwise knew that she was doomed when pitted against both her criminal targets and the Judges, yet can’t let it rest nor wants to live afterwards. As she tells her children goodbye (and that she loves them before sending them to their grandmother) as she knows she is seeing them for the last time, “I have to…I have a job to finish”. And finish it she does, executing the last crime figure responsible for her husband’s death, but not without evading the Judges – including Dredd – who rush to the scene. But she had planned even for this, drawing her gun on Dredd with an apparent threat “It’s all over, all right”, forcing him to shoot (and kill) her. As one of the other Judges exclaims – “Her gun, Dredd – it wasn’t loaded. I guess she wanted to die”. To which Dredd responds, with it seems a touch of pity – “She got her wish”.

 

 

(7) VAMPIRE HERSHEY (1984)
(CASE FILES 8  – CITY OF THE DAMNED: prog 395)

 

Yes – like Anderson, I already have Judge Hershey in the equally obvious second top spot in my Top 10 Judge Dredd Girls, but this is vampire Hershey. Mmm…vampire Hershey. The alternate future version of her in 2120 that has been transformed by the Mutant along with all other Mega-City Judges into vampires.

 

 

(8) JUDGE BLUE (1989)
(CASE FILES 13  – THE CONFESHUNS OF PJ MAYBE: prog 632)

 

Stop the press! Who’s that?

Yes – I noticed Judge Blue, the headbanded Tek-Judge (I think) assisting Dredd with his interrogation of PJ Maybe, even though we saw only a few glimpses of her in this storyline, including one of her badge naming her as Blue.

That’s her on the right in the panel above – and as a treat, I’ll throw the other anonymous antennaed Tek-Judge on the left of the panel into this special mention as well.

 

 

 

(9) XENA LOWTHER (1990)
(CASE FILES 14  – NECROPOLIS / DEAR ANNIE: prog 672)

 

I have to give special mention to poor Xena, as well as feature this panel again – that’s her in the upper right being confronted by Judge Death. She…takes a turn for the worse from here.

That’s the happiest (and prettiest) we see her from here onwards – although she narrowly escapes death at, well, Death’s hands, she’s left gravely psychologically and psychically injured, deteriorating into a corpse-like Death fangirl and ultimately conduit for the Sisters of Death to invade Mega-City One.

 

 

(10) AIKO INABA (1993)
(MEGAZINE 2.37)

 

Okay – she just squeezes into my special mentions as at Case Files 19, as she featured in a separate storyline in the same Megazine episodes as those with Dredd compiled in Case Files 19. It’s also special mention because as far as I’m aware she doesn’t feature in any regular Judge Dredd episode as far as I’m aware, although Dredd does mention her in one so he must have crossed paths with her or at least know of her.

Hondo City’s first female Judge Inspector – one could see her as the Hondo City predecessor and equivalent of Judge Beeny, wanting to change the system from within.

Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Subjects of Mythology (Special Mention)

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Free “divine gallery” sample art from OldWorldGods

 

 

But wait – there’s more!

Yes – I’ve done my shallow dip into the Top 10 Subjects of Mythology but there’s yet more subjects for my usual twenty special mentions, albeit also with my usual wilder entries the further I go.

Indeed, there were enough subjects that I could do my first round of special mentions (from first to tenth special mention) entirely by alliteration with the letter m from mythology – mmm! I even had a couple to spare so I threw them in as well.

So here we go with my first round of shallow dip special mentions in one go or on the spot.

 

(1) MAGIC & MIRACLES

 

Yes – I have a separate special mention for magic for my Top 10 Mythologies, but magic seems such a definitive quality of mythology that it earns special mention as subject of mythology as well. That flows from mythology being so intimately intertwined with the supernatural, for which magic is a quintessential trait.

Mythology typically has a magical setting – or at least backdrop – of an otherworldly or supernatural realm, beyond time and space with their natural laws. It also typically is populated by supernatural beings – including gods. Hence magic in mythology overlaps with miracles – the supernatural intervention of gods or other such beings into the natural world.

Which perhaps overlaps with…

 

(2) MYSTERY

 

My myth and mystery

By its nature, mythology is mystery. It is what it is. It may be seen or spoken at its surface but at its heart it is mysterious.

That can be seen in the Greek origin of the word mystery in the various religious denominations known as mystery religions, mystery cults, sacred mysteries, or mysteries that proliferated throughout the Greek-Roman world, most famously the Eleusian Mysteries.

Sometimes I feel we would be better off if we still called our religions mysteries – and even more so kept to their essential nature as mysterious with beliefs as somewhat loose rather than to something to be defined with endlessly more precision from which others are excluded.

For example, if Christianity proclaimed itself as the Christian mysteries – perhaps aptly enough as the Greek-Roman mysteries are sometimes argued to be an influence or source for no less than Christianity itself, “a Greek hero cult for a Jewish messiah”.

The mystery religions are also sometimes delineated as one of the three main types of Hellenistic religion, along with the imperial cults or ethnic religions of particular states or tribes, and philosophical religion – a tripartite classification that still holds for mythology or even more so religion today.

Which brings me to…

 

(3) MYSTICISM

 

God-tripping!

The natural expression of the inherently mysterious quality at the heart of mythology or religion. Mysticism is typically known as becoming one with the divine or supernatural – at-one-ment as it were – but more generally “any kind of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness”, “attainment of insight into ultimate or hidden truths”, and “human transformation” or apotheosis.

 

(4) MYSTIQUE

 

Mystery and mysticism lead by alliteration and theme to mystique, that combination of mystery and charisma.

Mythology might well be summed up as mystique or supernatural charisma, but I intend it here also to connote mythology as aesthetic or art.

On the flip side, there is also mythology as…

 

(5) MORAL

 

As in the moral of the story, that definitive quality of fable – but also of morality. Mythos is ethos. All too often the defining trait of mythology is the morality it codifies, implicitly or explicitly.

Which is perhaps a subset of mythology as…

 

(6) MEANING & METAPHYSICS

 

Yes – arguably the primary subject of mythology is its expression of the search for meaning of life, the universe and everything.

Or dressed up in fancy philosophical terms – its metaphysics.

Although that can often lead to the sense of the world as illusion or ‘veil’ or…

 

(7) MASKS & MASQUERADE

 

The world as masquerade – a common trope used also in fantasy in which the fantasy ‘world’ is hidden from our own by various degrees of masquerade, as demonstrated by the trope of Masquerade in TV Tropes.

The mythic world – the divine or supernatural – often has the same quality of masquerade in mythology.

For that matter, it’s intriguing how often masks or being masked occurs as motif in mythology, literally or figuratively. The former tends to overlap with at ritual and drama in my top ten. Joseph Campbell used the latter in his magnum opus The Masks of God

 

(8) MATTER

 

As in The Matter of Britain – Arthurian and other British legend – and the various ‘Matters’ as that term is used for foundational legendary history of various nations.

The Matter of Britain is the most famous but there’s also the other two classic Matters – the Matter of Rome, and the Matter of France.

 

(9) MYTHOPOEIA

 

Leading on from fantasy as subject of mythology in my top ten, there’s the term coined as mythopoeia or mythopoeisis – “a narrative genre in modern literature and film, where an artificial or fictionalized mythology is created by the writer of prose, poetry or other literary forms…the authors in this genre integrate traditional mythological themes and archetypes into fiction. Mythopoeia is also the act of creating a mythology”.

Although it preceded him, it was famously popularized by Tolkien – in a poem of that title but even more so in his legendarium that became The Lord of the Rings, written as a modern mythology for England.

There’s even a Mythopoetic Society, which also awards annual Mythopoetic Awards in fantasy and SF.

Which leads me to…

 

(10) MYTHOS

 

To an extent synonymous with the previous entry but with a focus more on delineating the elements or motifs of a mythology, typically a fictional mythology or universe – for example the Cthulhu Mythos.

Also used as a modern synonym for myth or myths because of the latter’s contemporary usage in a pejorative sense.

Mega-City Law – Top 10 Judge Dredd Girls

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Counting down my Top 10 Girls of Judge Dredd for the episodes compiled up to Case Files 19 – it’s a running list which I will update for each volume, with some of the best entries yet to come from future episodes…

Like my Top 10 Heroes, Judges tend to predominate the entries, with six of my Top 10 Girls of Judge Dredd as female Judges – and half of those are Psi-Judges, not surprisingly given the prevalence of female Psi-Judges in the comic. Of course, it helps that Psi-Judges don’t wear helmets, but I’d be willing to bet that Psi Division might have the highest proportion of female Judges, perhaps reflecting a higher proportion of females in the psi-active population.

 

 

(10) BABES IN ARMS – TIGER HUNTER NEE MARLOWE (1992)
(CASE FILES 17 – BABES IN ARMS: prog 776)

 

For my Judge Dredd top tens, I tend to draw my wildcard tenth place entry from the most current or previous Case File volume in my Mega-City Law reviews. However at present there are slim pickings from Case Files 18 or 19 so I’ve gone with the titular Babes in Arms of the four episode roaring rampage of revenge in progs 776-779 from Case Files 17.

“They say hell hath no fury like a woman scorned…Tonight, Mega-City One and Judge Dredd will feel that fury.”

Of course, there are four of the titular Babes in Arms, four ex-wives from Mega-City Two seeking out their former husbands in Mega-City One – who, let’s be honest, have it coming. A collective entry may do for a special mention but I have to pick one for a top ten entry. Fortunately, again that’s an easy choice – the first of the babes in arms we see, who also is the best, Tiger Hunter – or Tiger Marlowe prior to her marriage . Yes, that’s her actual name – and I must confess I fell a little in love with Tiger when I first saw her, striking quite the figure (somewhat reminiscent of this episode’s artist Greg Staples’ art of Niamh in Slaine), a blue-eyed wild redhead with a calm tone of voice but fire in her eyes as she confronts her cad of a husband. The other babes in arms didn’t quite do it for me but Tiger…

Sadly, the Babes’ roaring rampage of revenge can only end one way when it comes up against Judge Dredd. Even poor Tiger looks spooked to see Dredd is involved. Fortunately, she doesn’t end up dead but in an iso-cube, although unfortunately I don’t recall any subsequent appearance.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
X-TIER (WILD TIER)

 

 

(9) PSI-JUDGE KARYN (1991)
(CASE FILES 16 – RAPTAUR: Megazine 1.14)

 

Introduced as a Psi-Judge hotshot in the Megazine Raptaur story.

I suppose that’s ex-Psi Judge Karyn now, as her hotshot career was cut short when she became host to the vampiric Shadow King

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

 

( 8 ) PSI-JUDGE KIT AGEE (1990):
(CASE FILES 14 – NECROPOLIS: prog 676)

 

Poor empath Psi-Judge Kit Agee – served up by Kraken Dredd to be used as a conduit for the Sisters of Death and kick-start Necropolis

Bonus points for being gal pals with Anderson and nicknaming Dredd “His Majesty”.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

 

(7) WU WANG (1989)
(CASE FILES 13 – ON MEETING YOUR ENEMY: prog 622)

 

Wu Wang (or so she calls herself) was introduced all the way back in Case Files 13 prior to Necropolis, as a female disciple of Stan Lee’s dojo, bent on vengeance for Dredd’s defeat of Stan Lee, a.k.a Deathfist, “the best martial artist to ever come out of the radlands of Ji” who ended up in an iso-cube courtesy of Dredd.

In that episode, she was not named – although she should have been dubbed Lady Deathfist – and despite her obvious enthusiasm for her training in destroying a robot duplicate of Dredd, bided her time for three years until we saw her again.

In fairness, Dredd did unexpectedly take the long walk and then there was the whole Necropolis thing the next year.

Anyway, she returned for a four-episode story, Art of Geomancy, in progs 762-765 compiled in Case Files 16.

Funnily enough, he just happens to be doing airport border control duty when she arrives on her flight, presumably from Sino-Cit 1 or Sino-Cit 2. She could have got her vengeance there and then but to paraphrase one of my favorite lines from American Dad – sure she could have killed him immediately with her knowledge of pressure points, but she wanted to try something much more elaborate and unnecessary. In this case, that involves literally sticking a paper with her calling card on his back, the character for Deathfist and the character for rolling thunder…or wu wang. Apparently the character can also convey surprise or the unexpected – which is ironic as she’d now lost any element of that.

She also has a curious choice of ninja stealth outfit – a swimsuit design not unlike that of the Marvel comics character Psylocke, and worse, in white, but as terrible as it is for ninja stealth, it’s what gets her this entry in the top ten, albeit as something of a placeholder until the likes of Demarco or Oola Blint come along.

Anyway, she springs the trap and captures Dredd – sure, she could just kill him but she wants him to break him first, to have him apologize, for honor or ‘face’. Ironically, Dredd uses surprise or the unexpected – his back-up Judges arriving = to get the jump on her. No iso-cube for her either – he just kills her, snapping her neck, although to be fair his options were very limited from a single opportunity. Still, it seems like a double standard compared to what happened to Stan Lee.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

 

(6) VIENNA DREDD (1979)
(CASE FILE 3 – VIENNA: prog 116)

 

You must have seen this one coming. Or perhaps not since she vanished as a young girl from the comic for 23 years, returning as an adult. Yes – she gets in my top ten up to Case Files 17 on a technicality, as she appeared as a child in a single episode, but I’m taking it, with an eye ahead to her reappearance as an adult in future episodes.

That’s right – it’s Dredd’s niece, daughter of his corrupt clone-brother Rico.

She was introduced all the way back in prog 116, the first episode collected in Case Files 3 – the same episode that saw Dredd send her away for 23 years. It was worth it just to see “Uncle Joe” pushing Vienna on a swing – adorable!

The plot of the episode is driven by Vienna being kidnapped by someone seeking revenge against Dredd – a recurring plot point for Vienna when we see her again as an adult.

As a final venomous sting, her kidnapper tells her that Dredd killed Rico, something Dredd had kept secret from Vienna, for obvious reasons of the therapy THAT would involve. Yet Vienna forgives him for killing her father, because “Uncle Joe” must have had a good reason.

Seriously, I wiped away a tear at that. Even more so as Dredd tells her guardian, Mrs Pasternak, that he will see even less of Vienna – and hopes that Mrs Pasternak will help Vienna forget him. As he thinks to himself as he walks out of Vienna’s life, “I’m a judge. Someday I, too, will be killed. Vienna couldn’t take that again, not a second time. She’s suffered enough because of me. Let it end here”.

And indeed we did see less of her – nothing – until those 23 years later, when she was to return into Dredd’s life on a more enduring basis. After all, she was too good a character to let lie, as a reflection of Dredd’s humanity, with all the conflict that brings with the Law

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
B-TIER (HIGH TIER). At least for now until we reach those episodes where she reappears but I’m counting her from her first appearance.

 

 

(5) JUDGE DEKKER (1984)
(CASE FILES 7 – SUPERBOWL: prog 370)

 

A promising female Judge – whom Dredd thought to be his best rookie – blazing through a few episodes before fading out of sight, until being revived as a character (by writer Garth Ennis in the 1990s) only to be killed off (by Ennis in Judgement Day). Talk about women in refrigerators…that old trope in comics of female characters being routinely killed off (named for one such character stuffed into a refrigerator).

Dekker was introduced with somewhat more fanfare than the similar Judge Perrier – a rookie Judge assigned to Dredd for her final field evaluation to qualify as full Judge, and one whom Dredd muses to be his best rookie ever. She passes with flying colors – attributing her success to Dredd’s own text on comportment. Dredd you magnificent bastard, she read your book!

In appearance and role, she resembled the more enduring Judge Hershey, although Hershey was not formally Dredd’s rookie – probably because the writers hoped to reuse that character formula.

Unfortunately, she vanished from the comic until a decade or so later, as writer Garth Ennis was fanboy of the 1980s Dredd comics and revived her character, but even more unfortunately Dekker went out with a bang during the Judgement Day epic

RIP Judge Dekker

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

 

(4) JUDGE PERRIER (1982)
(CASE FILES 5 – APOCALYPSE WAR: prog 255)

 

Yes, last entry was something of a spoiler for her in this entry but Judge Perrier deserves to be memorialized within the Judge Dredd comic as the unsung hero of the Apocalypse War. She was introduced as a tough as nails street Judge and member of the Mega-City One resistance force in the Apocalypse War. And as has been pointed out by Judge Anon’s A Short History of Female Judges, she singlehandedly turned the tide of an entire battle (and much of the fighting within Mega-City One) by turning over a powerful new weapon – the stub guns – to Judge Dredd and his guerilla force.

Sadly, she only featured in a few panels in that epic and dropped out of sight until writer Garth Ennis took a liking to the character and used her in the 1990s. (Judge Anon opines that was because Ennis was a huge Dredd fanboy and an even huger Apocalypse War fanboy). Even more sadly, Ennis killed her off in the Judgement Day epic, albeit in quite moving fashion

RIP Judge Perrier

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

 

 

(3) LIANA (1989)
(CASE FILES 12 – THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF PJ MAYBE, AGE 14: prog 599)

 

Yeah – I’d kill for her too, PJ.

Briefly the girlfriend of PJ Maybe, Liana earns her place in my Girls of Judge Dredd from this pose alone in prog 633, looking fine after her morning swim – although she was first introduced as his love interest back in prog 599. Like his parents, she was completely oblivious to his “psychopathic tendencies” as a juvenile serial killer.

In fairness he did actively try to avoid killing his targets when she was his girlfriend, although that was more to avoid suspicion – but that slipped up through sheer bad luck, ending up with him apprehended by Judge Dredd and detained in a psych cube.

Sadly, we only caught a few glimpses of Liana like this in these episodes – and while PJ was to return, we didn’t see Liana again. But she’ll always have a place in my heart (and probably PJ’s) from this pose alone.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

 

(2) (CHIEF) JUDGE BARBARA HERSHEY (1980)
(CASE FILES 4 – JUDGE CHILD QUEST: prog 161)

 

Judge Hershey was memorably introduced, not quite as Dredd’s rookie, but as a rising new Judge picked for Dredd’s deep-space planet-hopping Judge Child Quest – shortly after her graduation from the Academy of Law in 2102 at age eighteen. She so impressed Dredd that she returned in the Apocalypse War, where she was part of Dredd’s hand-picked elite squad to take down the Soviet mega-city East Meg One. For nearly two decades thereafter, she regularly appeared as Dredd’s junior colleague, before being promoted to become his superior.

Barbara Hershey – or Judge Hershey to you, punk – is one of the two primary female judges in the Judge Dredd comic, the other of course being Psi-Judge Cassandra Anderson. Dare I call her the brunette Judge Anderson?

In appearance, Hershey shares Anderson’s preference for not wearing helmets, characteristic of a Psi-Judge for the latter but unusual in a street Judge for the former, although Hershey’s sci-fi bob was drawn to resemble a Judge’s helmet. They also share their preference for the occasional high-heeled boots. Otherwise, Hershey was drawn for a sterner, more – ah- judicial appearance than Anderson’s characteristic softer appearance (originally modelled on singer Deborah Harry), as befitting the latter’s more empathic nature as a Psi-Judge. That isn’t to say that Hershey is not of similarly striking appearance – she even has her fans within the comic’s storyline, although that often overlaps with something of a fetish for female Chief Judges. Well, female Chief Judges that weren’t McGruder. Notably Hershey’s face is apparently a highly sought after model among dominatrix s€xbots. Yes, Chief Judge!

The strongest comparison is in their narrative importance within the comic, although Hershey would rank below Anderson in character focus (and lack of her own spinoff title, until recently). And of course, each had very different destinies. As Psi-Judge, Anderson has followed the road less travelled (although the stuff of Psi-Judges makes for more interesting stories, hence the spinoff title). Hershey was the street Judge par excellence – and as noted above, rose to THE top spot as Chief Judge, rising through the ranks to the Council of Five and appointments as acting Chief Judge and Deputy Chief Judge.

And one of the best features of Chief Judge Hershey is her sass – she doesn’t take crap from anyone, least of all Dredd himself. As Chief Judge, she continues to have a good relationship with Dredd, but let’s face it, Dredd has his issues from time to time (and from writer to writer).

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

(1) PSI-JUDGE JUDGE CASSANDRA ANDERSON (1980)
(CASE FILES 3 – JUDGE DEATH: prog 150)

 

Judge Dredd’s – and anthology publication 2000 AD’s – most iconic and enduring female character, something which may be related to her status as the comic’s primary pinup girl. A status that may also be in the actual narrative or ‘in-universe’ in the comic as well, depending on how seriously we take the advertisements with her as model for Yess Trousers, the contractor for those judicial leather uniforms.

She was introduced in 1980, along with the comic’s most iconic and enduring supervillain, in the Judge Death story arc, as the primary female character in Judge Dredd – in both senses of the first major female character and the most substantial one, even spinning off in storylines in her own name.

She also served as the introduction to Mega-City One Justice Department’s ‘psychic’ judges against such supernatural threats as Judge Death, although they use the characteristically science fiction nomenclature of ‘psi’ for the Psi-Division or Psi-Judges. Anderson is introduced as Psi Division’s leading telepath (and precognitive), with her appearance originally modelled on contemporary singer Debbie Harry.

She was also introduced as something of a foil to Dredd, albeit not in the same villainous way as Judge Death – as opposed to Dredd’s laconic and taciturn expression, she has a cheery disposition (regarded by Dredd as flippant), which lends itself to cracking jokes, often at Dredd’s expense. Then again, this is part of her nature as a Psi-Judge, as they all tend towards eccentric personalities by Justice Department standards (and tolerated as part of their useful abilities). In Anderson’s case, her ability earned her the enduring trust of Dredd – and she remains one of the few people who regularly calls him by his first name Joe or that he trusts enough for his most important missions. It wasn’t just her ability that earned his trust, but her strength of character and courage, however hidden under her ‘flippant’ disposition – demonstrated in her introductory story arc by her heroic self-sacrifice to save the city, sealing herself and the villainous Judge Death within a protective encasement Mega-City One’s ‘miracle’ plastic boing.

Of course, both she and Judge Death were far too interesting and popular characters to remain wrapped in plastic…

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****
S-TIER (GOD-TIER)

 

 

 

 

S-TIER (GODDESS TIER)

(1) PSI-JUDGE CASSANDRA ANDERSON

 

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

(2) JUDGE BARBARA HERSHEY

 

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

(3) LIANA

(4) JUDGE PERRIER

(5) JUDGE DEKKER

(6) VIENNA DREDD

(7) WU WANG

(8) PSI-JUDGE KIT AGEE

(9) PSI-JUDGE KARYN

 

X-TIER (WILD TIER)

(10) TIGER HUNTER NEE MARLOWE – BABES IN ARMS