JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 18:
Progs 804-829 / Megazine 2.12-2.26
(1992-1993 / Mega-City One 2114-2115)
Case Files 18 continues the Dark Age of Dredd but without any epic stories like Judgement Day in Case Files 17.
On the bright side, that should make it quicker to get through, but there are some highlights despite the absence of an epic.
Mechanismo introduced a longer story arc which had its debut in the Megazine and continued in the episodes in subsequent volumes. It also provides the cover image for the Case Files 18 volume but doesn’t really grab me. More like Meh-chanismo, amirite?
It seemed too drawn out over too little, particularly from the perspective of current episodes where robot Judges are routine in MC-1, so it’s hard to see what all fuss was about for Justice Department attempting to introduce them here.
We see a return of Irish Judge-Sergeant Joyce as it’s his turn to visit MC-1 (as opposed to Dredd visiting Murphyville in the Emerald Isle storyline in Case Files 15). It’s an entertaining heist-type story – or rather post-heist shenanigans, as Joyce is there to retrieve some Irish perps seeking sanctuary with their gangster brother in the Big Meg. Sadly, after having boosted Joyce into a cooler character in Judgement Day, Garth Ennis brings his own creation back down to being the butt of the joke here.
We also see a return of the recurring epic storyline of PJ Maybe, as he resurfaces in PJ & The Mock Choc Factory. Yes – PJ does Willy Wonka, and as, ah, homicidally as you’d expect. Well, more so than the original Willy Wonka.
Otherwise there’s some entertaining or interesting episodes. Kinda Dead Men fleshes out – heh – the aftermath of Judgement Day. A, B or C Warrior is my favorite single episode in Case Files 18, with the usual absurdist black comedy I like and Dredd as deadpan snarker.
JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 18:
INNOCENTS ABROAD (progs 804-807)
“Go to Mega-City One…bring back them O’Dilligan brother hallions”
That pretty much sums up the post-heist shenanigans of Innocents Abroad. That and “a couple of Emerald Isle scumbags are on the run in the Big Meg”.
Essentially the reverse of the Emerald Isle arc, except now it’s Judge Dredd escorting Irish Judge Joyce around Mega-City One to retrieve two Irish perps – the Sons of Erin they ain’t.
At least Case File 18 starts with a bang – my favorite longer arc (4 episodes) in this volume, although the competition is not particularly stiff for that accolade here. It’s a good romp – a bit of a Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels vibe to it before that film’s time – essentially involving three Emerald Isle elements on collision course.
The first of those elements is Judge Joyce, assigned the mission because of his previous involvement with Dredd back in the Emerald Isle arc in Case Files 15. Sadly, Joyce is not having the luck of the Irish – the running gag of this arc with Joyce as butt of the joke, and after all that work writer Garth Ennis put into boosting up Joyce, his own creation hailing from his homeland, into something more than a joke character in Judgement Day…only to return to Joyce as the punchline of his own Irish joke here.
Anyway, as one can see from the panels here, Joyce’s bike breaks down in the Black Atlantic tunnel, which sees him literally hitch a lift to Mega-City One, arriving three hours late for Dredd waiting for him at Customs.
Meanwhile, it doesn’t get much more Irish than O’Dilligan’s Nightclub – used by Mickah O’Dilligan as cover for his “shady little racket”. Also – add McSod’s Syndrome to the list of diseases you do NOT want to get in MC-1.
And McSod’s Syndrome is what Mickah O’Dilligan, second of the three Emerald Isle elements on collision course in this arc, is looking right down the barrel at in the test results from his doctor “Davy”.
“It’s non-contagious, but it accelerates and mutates your cell growth to a drastic degree and your body undergoes certain…er…changes”.
I love Mickah’s incredulous response at seeing those “changes” in some sort of medical text – where the subject’s torso is transformed into a monstrous lump partly swallowing up their awkwardly protruding limbs and head:
“Changes? You’re telling me!”
As, ah, Doctor Davy tells him though, there is a cure – and one that completely nullifies the virus. The only problem is it’s gold – not easy to come by in MC-1, and worse he only has a few hours to get it before his disease manifests itself.
On the bright side, Mickah does at least outlive his doctor – “Davey, this is terrible bad news…so I’m shootin’ the messenger” – but as for that gold, Mickah has the luck of the Irish. Enter the third of our three elements from Emerald Isle…
“Did…did you say gold?”
The luck of the Irish as Paddy and Francie O’Dilligan just happened to rob a bank of the gold their brother Mickah needs right now. And I mean right now – as in the next few hours.
Yes – it’s the third element from Emerald Isle on collision course in this arc, Mickah’s prodigal brothers on the lam from Emerald Isle in the Big Meg.
Mind you, Mickah is initially not pleased to see them, having just learnt that McSod’s Syndrome is about to turn him into “a lump of boke” – yes, I looked it up and apparently boke is a Scottish word for vomit – and now his prodigal brothers turn up out seeking sanctuary. It doesn’t help that they used to beat him up “when we were wee”.
What does help (after a brief segue to Judge Joyce getting the hang of a Mega-City One Lawmaster – or rather not getting it) is when they tell Mickah they didn’t just rob the bank, but they robbed of it of gold, just what the late doctor Davy ordered as cure for Mickah’s McSod Syndrome. And just in time too as Mickah only has a few hours before onset. Well that’s convenient – and conveniently timed. It really is the luck of the Irish for the O’Dilligans but it’s all downhill from here…
Yo Ennis! Why are you doing your boy Joyce dirty like this, turning him into the recurring butt of the joke here after boosting him in Judgement Day?
Ennis makes him a complete horn-dog here, including the obligatory cracking on to Hershey that every foreign Judge seems to do. Looking at you, Sov Judge Brylkreem.
Mind you, it only makes Joyce more legendary to me, particularly as he proves to be quite the ladies’ man. Not so much for Hershey of course – “are you for real?” – but certainly in the MC-1 club scene at O’Dilligans. It’s the accent, you see – “Where’d you get an accent like that, handsome?”
Dredd and Joyce are at O’Dilligans to hunt down the O’Dilligan brothers on the run from Emerald Isle, but that’s where the club owner Mickah steps in and hides them – not for any brotherly love, but for their promises of the gold they robbed from the bank and Mickah so desperately needs to cure his McSod’s Syndrome.
It doesn’t take a lie detector for both Dredd and Joyce to see that Mickah is lying to them about not seeing his brothers – not that Dredd uses one anyway but instead is waiting to catch all three brothers, Mickah included for the criminal racket he runs from the club.
That’s when Dredd spies a trivial infringement of the law – drinking from cans rather than plastene cups – and goes to town on a group of rowdy male patrons, while Joyce gets up to his shenanigans with the ladies. Sadly, Joyce is interrupted when Dredd shots one of the patrons for pulling a gun, blasting his headless body on to the table Joyce is sharing with the ladies.
Dredd’s almost as hard on Joyce as he is on the patrons when Joyce apologizes “Ah! Sorry, mate — just meetin’ folk, y’know?” – “Around here we call it dereliction of duty, Joyce. Lucky for you, you’re not on the force.”
Sheesh – lighten up, Dredd! Around here, we call that c*ckblocking!
Anyway, that sees Dredd and Joyce return to the Justice Department sector house, which is where Joyce cracks on to Hershey and Dredd plans his sting for the O’Dilligan brothers – just as they are going to pick up the gold…
One does not simply wade through Innocents Abroad without special mention for the Oxypool. I love these snippets of 22nd century life in MC-1 – a swimming center with water so oxygenated that human lungs still work in it.
Apart from yet another future fad in Judge Dredd, it’s also where the O’Dilligan brothers hid their gold from their bank robbery – although how they smuggled the gold through the notoriously draconian Justice Department Customs into Mega-City One, let alone into the Oxypool, is not answered. Although I can’t help but agree with their answer to Mickah’s question as to why – “Why not?”. The Oxypool is cool.
And here is where it all goes down for our boys from Emerald Isle – Dredd executes his sting to snare all the O’Dilligans, while Mickah O’Dilligan shoots open the locker where they stashed the gold but for which they had forgotten the combination. “Let’s try number forty-five , shall we?”
Mickah then pulls a fast one on his brothers to shaft them of their share of the gold, even though they’d already agreed to give him 80% for helping them escape. “What’s all this we business?”
Really, Mickah? Apart from shafting your brothers, you’ve already talked them down into giving almost all the gold anyway and you don’t have time for fight over the rest as your McSod’s is about to pop…
“It’s the Law, creep!”
I just can’t resist a good panel featuring Dredd using a variant of his catchphrase, featured here as he brings the sting on the O’Dilligans to its conclusion.
Paddy and Francie take the opportunity presented by the Judges descending on the Oxypool to get away from their brother Mickah with a good kick in the groin (from Paddy) – “pick the bones outta that one, Mickah!” – prompting Mickah’s McSod’s Syndrome to explode into full grotesque deforming bloom. What did I tell you Mickah about trying to screw over your brothers? You knew you only had a few hours and you wasted time with your shenanigans. Also…after shooting your doctor, did you actually know how to use the gold to cure your McSods? I mean, presumably you can’t just rub the ingots on you or ingest them in that form. Really, Mickah may mock his brothers for their stupidity but he didn’t seem to go about any of this the smart way. It’s like they’re all one big Irish joke…
“If they won’t leave quietly, they leave in a bag! Blow ’em away!” – Judges Dredd and Joyce finally corner the O’Dilligan brothers and their gang.
And it’s time for Innocents Abroad to wrap everything up in this fourth episode. Let’s just say it doesn’t end well, at least for everyone from the Emerald Isle, although Judge Joyce gets to go back home, if somewhat worse for wear.
Mickah O’Dilligan comes out the worst. Already transformed into a monstrosity by McSod’s Syndrome running rampant in full stage – “Holy dear blessed mother of Grud” as Judge Joyce exclaims, the good Catholic lad that he is, or “Oh…my…drokking…Grud!” as a female poolgoer recoils at the sight of him – Dredd takes him out with an incendiary round. Mickah throws himself into the oxypool – but the fire “positively thrives in the highly oxygenated water”.
Oh – and as the three O’Dilligan brothers are caught between two Judge units (the second headed by Hershey), not to mention each other, they fumble the gold into the Oxypool. It was probably a little late for that cure for McSod’s by then – although we never see what happens to the gold after that. One might hope the Judges retrieve it to return to the Irish bank Francie and Paddy O’Dilligan robbed it from but the odds are just as good for those Mega-City One citizen swimmers in the pool to have swiped it.
Speaking of Francie and Paddy O’Dilligan, Judge Joyce is hot on their tail as they flee the Oxypool, less one brother and all their gold – but they still have some fighting Irish spirit left as they jump him on his Lawmaster on loan from Mega-City One Justice Department. Joyce is very much a beginner on a Lawmaster and quickly loses control of it.
That sees the Tek Judges “still scraping bits of the O’Dilligans off the sked” – and while Joyce comes out of this whole Emerald Isle fiasco best, he’s still going home in plaster casts and a bad mood towards MC-1.
“As far as I’m concerned, you can stick your mega-city up your – ” and fortunately the last boarding call of the flight to Murphyville cuts him off.
“So much for friendly international relations” Dredd muses as they watch the flight depart from their Lawmasters – something of a recurring gag whenever Dredd is sent on a mission to or involved with another mega-city, which strangely enough often includes diplomatic missions given that Dredd is perhaps the last person Justice Department should choose for skill in diplomacy.
Hershey observes the obvious – “Yeah. Old Joyce didn’t exactly have the luck of the Irish”. To which Dredd characteristically replies – “Tough”. See what I mean about that diplomacy?
JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 18:
THE KINDA DEAD MEN (prog 816)
The Magic Mellow Out (progs 808-809)
Raider (prog 810-814)
Christmas with Attitude (prog 815)
Surprisingly, the only episode to directly deal with the immediate aftermath of Judgement Day’s global zombie apocalypse. Also Happy New Year 2115 -” and so, the Meg begins a year in which the dearly departed may not have actually departed…and the workers at resyk find themselves issued with pump-action shotguns”.
In this case, we see Sabbat’s head still on the lodestone where Dredd stuck it – fortuitously “not much left of his mind” at this point – but “energies will inevitably leak from the stone and cause…um…unusual phenomena on a planetary scale” – “though this should only occur infrequently”.
This begs a few questions. Well, a few more than the question posed by the obvious reference for the MC-1 Justice Department’s Chief Tek’s name, Oppenheimer.
Although that prompts one of the questions – given Oppenheimer’s role in the Manhattan Project, one wonders why there isn’t something similar here? That is, why isn’t Mega-City One trying to harness – or weaponize – this mystical energy “on a planetary scale”? Of course, that might be what Oppenheimer’s preliminary report to Chief Judge McGruder is about here.
Also in fairness McGruder and Mega-City One are probably wary of screwing with something that caused the global zombie apocalypse that almost overwhelmed them and everyone else. Although it does beg another question of why the other mega-cities seem content to sit back and don’t want in on this, if not to monitor Mega-City One studying the stone then at least as some joint international (or rather inter-city) project to monitor the stone itself and its potentially dangerous energy, including the leaks that occur in this episode. Particularly as the lodestone is in the middle of the Radlands of Ji, essentially the Asian mystical badlands equivalent of the Cursed Earth beyond any mega-city – a neutral no-man’s land or no-city’s land.
One would have thought at least Hondo City – the nearest mega-city and the one most intimately involved in Judgement Day – would have been involved in a joint project with Mega-City One, if not also East-Meg-Two or Sino-City Two, the other major powers both wary of Mega-City One and also close to the Radlands of Ji. (There’s also teasing references to other minor cities in proximity – Kathmandu, Lhasa, Samarkand – and I think there may be some Mongolian polity).
Oppenheimer introduces his report by noting that “Sabbat is still secure”, which begs the question of why they just leave his head on the lodestone. Surely he’d be more secure elsewhere – or even better off dead without the mystical energy of the lodestone keeping his head alive – particularly as who’s to say his apparent mindlessness isn’t just some magical dormancy or trance on his part, waiting his opportunity to strike again? I mean his head shouldn’t be alive anyway but it is – I’d say you couldn’t be too careful with a galactic time-travelling necromancer turned demi-lich. It at least begs the question of how and why he is apparently mindless after what at most is a few months when he survived by magic without needing his body for years. Or at least why they don’t have some more security measures, such as a remote-activated bomb in his head like they do with the Suicide Squad.
For that matter, it begs the question of why Mega-City One hasn’t tried to flip the center of earth’s mystical power back from the lodestone to Mega-City One itself – which is where it was as few years back and where they could either study or secure it at more convenience to them. Remember that was the whole point of that Warlord storyline back in Case Files 9 (set about seven or so years previously), with the Warlord coming to Mega-City One for that reason – the center of earth’s mystical energy was in Mega-CIty One. Chief Judge McGruder at least should remember – it was why she resigned for the Long Walk in her first term of office.
Anyway, you guessed it – at least one of the effects of those energies leaking from the stone is to reanimate the dead, albeit on a more limited basis. You’d think that might have something to do with the necromancer’s head still on the stone so all the more reason to remove it. Perhaps they did, as I don’t recall it or these energy leaks in subsequent episodes.
So the storyline involves a citizen, who alternates between retaining something of his former consciousness and being a flesh-hungry mindless zombie, both as a result of those energy leaks as he should be neither, having had a fatal heart attack about two weeks back. He attends a New Year’s Eve party but fortunately Dredd is present to stop him chowing down on the guests – although Dredd is sadly too late to have stopped him chowing down on his wife and pet dog before going to the party.
Dredd solves the problem in his usual manner – with a bullet through the walking dead man’s brain, making him a fully inert dead man for resyk, hence the episode’s closing narration.
As for the episodes I skipped over:
- The Magic Mellow Out (progs 808-809) – apparently a parody of a famous 1960s British children’s TV show The Magic Roundabout, Dredd be tripping when he has to secure the titular amusement park after its guests became violently deranged from a leak of hallucinogenic gas in much higher quantities than authorized. Eric Thompson, the creator and narrator of the TV series, is name-dropped for the block near the amusement park
- Raider (progs 810-814) is a five-episode story arc featuring the titular ex-Judge (it’s his surname) and former Academy of Law classmate with Dredd (or more precisely the Dredds, Rico and Joe). Ex-Judge that is, as he left the force for a woman (and also as Dredd reminisces, he was “a bit of a dreamer”). Sadly, she died in his arms in the Apocalypse War. However, knowing his weakness, Dredd reintroduces undercover Judge Lola Palmtree to ensnare him. He proves a little too wary for that but by this time has become caught up in vigilante justice of his own against one of Mega-City One’s ganglords, a little like that Cadet turned rogue in The Executioner and ending in the same way, a lost gunfight with Dredd – although here Raider had previously equalled Dredd as a fellow cadet at the firing range but is outdrawn by Dredd in this gunfight. As Raider sadly says, probably expecting to be bested by Dredd with the latter’s forty years as a street Judge, “what else have I got?”
- Christmas with Attitude (prog 815) replays Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol, but here the attempts of Eb Skrooj at redemption after a supernatural vision sees his goose cooked instead – or more precisely him cooked as the Christmas goose by the McKratchit family.
JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 18:
SNOWSTORM (prog 819)
The Craftsman (prog 817)
Ex-Men (prog 818)
“Sweetex! Those spugging drokkers cut this with sweetex!”
Yeah – that’s my reaction to artificial sweeteners as well.
It’s more of a big deal in the Meg as sugar is, well, a big deal – a big criminal deal as analogy for cocaine.
I have a soft spot for these sugar as cocaine stories in Judge Dredd, although it begs the question of what happened to actual cocaine (or any other contemporary illicit drug). Sugar even shares one of the same nicknames as cocaine – snow, hence the titular snowstorm for a big shipment in “a city desperate for the sweet taste of a snowstorm”, with the suppliers known as snowman or snowmen. Consistent with the cocaine analogy, we get a reference to the Andean Conurb as the ultimate source of the snowstorm here. There’s been a reference to the Andean Conurb before – at least as the home city of Hector and Dave, the Flying Gonzo brothers in Supersurf 10 back in the Oz epic – but here we see it tied more closely into the illicit sugar trade. We’ll see a much closer and unfortunately stereotyped look at the Andean Conurb before the Dark Age of Dredd is over in The Sugar Beat – let’s just say Grud knows how it survived Judgement Day when other mega-cities did not.
Anyway, the story writes itself. Up and coming snowman Vinnie Touretto does a deal, tasting the product, interestingly in porridge, an “old trick” as the “only way to be sure” – “that’s primo drokkin’ cane, alright”. Unfortunately, his suppliers also did the old trick of giving him a good bag among the rest of their cut product – but Touretto took another old trick as precaution of putting a tracer in their cash payment. So he prepares to hunt them down but Judge Dredd gets him first and uses the tracer to get the Andeans too – but “there’s still a hell of a lot of snow to be shovelled off the streets”.
As for the stories I skipped over
- The Craftsman (prog 817) is a somewhat ho-hum episode about yet another serial killer in Mega-City One. Seriously, I think the Meg has a disproportionate number of these serial killers popping up among its citizens, possibly just as a hobby from the sheer boredom and brutality of their everyday life. Although in this case the killer – Nigel Bland – does have some sort of gainful career or hobby as a “vidder”, host of “Hey – Let’s Make Things” for plasteen carving, which I can’t help but feel was some sort of British TV reference at the time, same for the name reference of Steve Atkinson for the block where Bland resides.
- Ex-Men (prog 818) features not so much a pun on X-men but are essentially hitmen as suicide bombers, usually conscripted from citizens driven to desperation with nothing to lose (as here from terminal illness and a need to provide financially for their families). We saw exploding hitmen before in the Emerald Isle epic, but there it was to stop them being captured rather than the actual means of assassination as here.
JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 18:
PJ & THE MOCK-CHOC FACTORY (progs 820-822)
PJ Maybe does Willy Wonka! Or rather – PJ Maybe kills Willy Wonka. And once again runs out of luck with Judge Dredd catching up with him – and punching him in the face now that he’s turned 18.
Yes – everyone’s favorite juvenile genius serial killer is back in this three-episode arc. One of Dredd’s most enduring and successful antagonists – particularly in terms of going undetected by Dredd or giving him the slip – PJ Maybe owes much of that success to his genius, even if that genius tends to be a three-trick pony of robotics, face-changing machines, and the hypnotic drugs SLD 88 or 89. But as engaging as he is as a character, you have to admit that he owes a lot of his success to being one lucky SOB. (Metaphorically that is, his parents were very nice people, totally oblivious to his evil nature – and it was sad to see them go in Necropolis, even the psychopathic Maybe felt their loss).
Even with his luck, PJ’s problem is like that of a gambling addict – he just doesn’t know when to walk away in a winning streak but instead keeps coming back to the table expecting to keep winning against the house. And in Mega-City One, the house is Justice Department – with Dredd as its chief enforcer.
PJ Maybe’s luck ran out with Dredd before when he killed one person too many – rival of his parent’s billion-dollar business (that they unknowingly inherited from him killing his mother’s family members), Alger Hoss, ironically by accident rather than design as he was attempting to frame Hoss for criminal business dealings using a robot double. Dredd caught up with him – having failed to detect him due to his youth and his playing dumb – and detained him in a psych-cube.
PJ bounced back with another lucky streak during Necropolis – managing to escape the psych detention facility as Justice Department collapsed into chaos and the Judges were controlled by the Sisters of Death. Just when that luck seemed to run out with his parents killing themselves from their despair of the Dark Judges, he had even more luck when their billionaire family friends, the Urchinsons, took him in. Naturally, PJ killed Junior Urchinson and Mrs Urchinson (the latter with some more luck given her suspicions of him) before assuming Junior’s identity courtesy of a face-change machine and Junior’s father being increasingly unhinged by grief. So PJ once again found himself the heir of a billion dollar company and fortune, having swapped out that of his parents for the Urchinsons – even managing to go undetected by Dredd.
However, that luck is again about to run out in this arc, with Dredd once again catching up to Maybe – Maybe having drawn the attention of Justice Department because he couldn’t stop killing people, ironically even as his opening narration states his first rule of killing as “don’t get careless”. In fairness, while he clarifies this rule to involve not “killing any more than I needed to”, he then goes on to say that he was “needing to quite a bit recently” – and for the most petty or trivial reasons, not that he expresses it with quite that insight.
For that matter, it’s not even clear why he bought the Wonker candy corp, involving as it did killing MC-1’s version of Willy Wonka, transparently named Willy Wonker. It’s not like he needed to, having inherited 60 billion after finally disposing of his new “adoptive” father to assume control of Urchinson Inc. Yes – he does seem to use the mock-choc factory to dispose of bodies (mixing them into the mock-choc – eww!) but surely he had other means at his disposal. It does make for the black comedy gold in the opening of the Wonker company exec Brad Gleem discovering a human nose in a candy bar, but it’s not like that plays a part in Maybe coming undone as Urchinson, except for now having to kill and dispose of Brad as well. Justice Department was already on his trail and sent Dredd after him for the preceding four suspicious deaths or disappearances surrounding him in a short timeframe.
Once again it’s all downhill for Maybe from there as Dredd joins the dots, despite the brief illusion of escape on a flight to, you guessed it, the conveniently corrupt Banana City where Maybe had squirrelled away 20 billion of his fortune in an account. Man – they’ll take in anyone if there’s enough money involved.
And having turned 18 on that very flight, Dredd is finally able to punch Maybe in the face – a curious line that Justice Department doesn’t cross despite its routine brutality against Mega-City One’s adult citizens that seems to be something of their only right (and rite of passage) dealing with Judges. And I have to admit that as much as I like PJ as a character – it was as satisfying to see as a reader as it was for Dredd.
JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 18:
PJ & THE MOCK CHOC FACTORY (prog 820)
“It’s not like I was killing anymore than I needed to…it’s just that I was needing to quite a bit recently”.
That’s our PJ, with a rather elastic definition of need when it comes to killing people.
Indeed, it’s quite obvious that by needing or needed he means for the most petty and trivial reasons – something that would increasingly come into play as his ongoing storyline unfolds over the next quarter of a century or so. That’s obvious from his opening narration and the first person he refers to killing, his girlfriend Lili – I suppose that would be ex-girlfriend now – because she laughed at a pimple he had. Hmm – I was wondering why he never looked up Liana, his first girlfriend and still a heartthrob for me (as drawn by Liam Sharp), but now I’m glad he didn’t (assuming of course that she survived epic crises like Necropolis or Judgement Day, let alone the everyday brutality of life in MC-1).
I mean at least he started out targeting people who were unsympathetic, albeit of course not deserving their fate at his hands – people like his mother’s family who bullied his parents or himself, with the obvious exception of his two innocent neighbors he used as a test run or the innocent bystanders killed by his uncle’s crash that he engineered.
That sets up that black comedy of the opening reveal of the Wonker company exec Brad Gleem discovering a human nose in a candy bar while guiding a juvenile tour through the factory. Well, technically he doesn’t discover it – one of juveniles on the tour points it out to him but he’s quick on the draw to snatch it up to pass off as nothing in front of the juveniles. Compounding the black comedy, the juveniles become suspicious that he then doesn’t eat it, if Mock-Chox are indeed the “scrummiest mock-chox around” as he said in his tour guide spiel.
So you can guess where that goes – he has to eat the chocolate (including the nose) in front of them to keep up the masquerade that there was nothing wrong.
As he then tells PJ – who is of course still impersonating Urchinson Jr and running the Wonker company after Urchinson Inc bought it – “It was horrible, Master Urchinson. I was sick for an hour.”
Unfortunately for Brad, that’s the least of his health problems now that his discovery and cover-up of the nose in the candy bar has unknowingly placed himself at the top of PJ’s kill list – and PJ doesn’t waste any time about it either.
But first, Brad continues to explain the gravity of the situation – “I mean, Wonker’s is the top candy-corp in the Meg – that’s why you bought us! We’re launching the new Krunchblok tomorrow! But if this gets out, we’re sunk!”
Yes – I’d tend to agree that finding human body parts in your mock-chox would be a critical marketing and public relations problem.
However, PJ calmly offers Brad one of the Krunchbloks. Firstly, I’m surprised that Brad is not too traumatized to eat any mock chox, at least right now. Secondly, I’m surprised that he hasn’t tasted a sample before.
Anyway, PJ continues to calmly clarify Brad’s statement that the nose had a pin in it. “That’ll be Mr Grizz.”
Brad asks incredulously – “You know him?” – to which PJ replies “I killed him”.
PJ then launches into what seems an extraordinary spontaneous confession – confessing that he also killed Wonker because Wonker wouldn’t sell the factory to him, he killed Grizz because Grizz criticized his spelling (which in fairness is atrocious – despite his genius, PJ can’t spell), he killed his father to inherit the Urchinson billions, and that Urchinson wasn’t really his father as he had killed Junior Urchinson before changing his face to look like Junior.
He even confesses that he is PJ Maybe – and it says something of Maybe’s notoriety that Brad recognizes the name. “Drokking Jeez – you were on the news years back! P.J, Maybe – the psycho juve!”
But then, PJ does like to brag. And as you might have guessed, Brad is already a dead man walking, killed by the Krunchblok – “The hemorrhaging agent I put in it should kick in any second”. Which begs the question – did PJ have a Krunchblok already laced with a lethal hemorrhaging agent in case of just such an emergency? And what would have happened if Brad had declined?
Meanwhile, Dredd is assigned by Justice Department to clear up the Judgement Day backlog – “Go to Urchinson Inc. offices. Interview CEO J. Urchinson – four missing persons among associates / employees”.
And with that, the bell begins to toll for PJ Maybe’s lucky streak impersonating Junior Urchinson – or as PJ himself puts it, when you’re a psycho killer in Mega-City One, you can’t afford to be careless…
JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 18:
PJ & THE MOCK CHOC FACTORY (prog 821)
“Me and old Dreddy had met before, when he arrested me for murder. I was getting to like him. He’s a pussycat…Okay, he’s not”.
Of course, that was when PJ Maybe had his original name and face – not that of Junior Urchinson. And of course, PJ is not being a reliable narrator here – he corrects himself that Dredd is in fact not a “pussycat” but I’m skeptical that he was “getting to like” Dredd. What PJ seems to like is playing cat-and-mouse games with Dredd.
Which is what he does here – after warmly reminding Judge Dredd that they’d “met” (“You pulled my Dad and I out of a nuke shelter after the big Nec”), he brazenly lies that he knows nothing about the four people he’s killed in the last six months. His “father”, his girlfriend Lili Solo, Wonker the former “chok boss” (not only transparently named for Willy Wonka but appears like him too in the flashback and statue we see in this episode), and his accountant Sam Grizz. Not to mention his fifth victim Brad Gleem just before Dredd arrived but that’s too soon to be reported missing.
You might be wondering about the standard issue lie detector or “birdie” that Judges use and that we see Dredd use here, but as PJ narrates – “if you’re going to lie into a judge’s lie detector, you can either get used to a broken jaw…or you can jam that sucker”.
What I was wondering about was whatever happened to that voiceprint identification which Dredd used to identify a perp way back when they introduced face-change machines way back in the second ever Judge Dredd episode – “The New You” in prog 3. That sure would’ve come in handy right about now.
Anyway, even without voiceprint identification, Maybe’s only slightly ahead of the curve as Dredd is suspicious from his instinct that something didn’t feel right against Maybe as Urchinson checking out completely on the birdie. So he requests Control scan all Urchinson’s associates and business contacts. Sure enough, that scan turns up “the only thing unusual” – the Maybe family as associates of the Urchinson family, which immediately triggers Dredd, with a “Drokk!” thrown in for good measure. Dredd requests Control call units to arrest Junior Urchinson. “You think he’s picked up some tricks from Maybe?” queries Control. “I think he IS Maybe!” Dredd replies.
Meanwhile, PJ has gone to the mock-choc factory to dispose of Brad’s body as the special ingredient in the latest batch of mock chocolate, treating us to some entertaining musings about having some standards as a serial killer. “All these people who won’t be satisfied with a poisoning here, a decap there – these people with body-counts in the millions…Call-Me-Kenneth…Ol’ Cal…Mad Dog Kazan…Judge Death…and that lunatic Sabbat! I mean the whole world! Just look what happens to people like that! One at a time, that’s my motto.” Well, I suppose that is the definition of a serial killer.
Unfortunately for PJ, Dredd arrives at the factory to apprehend him.
JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 18:
PJ & THE MOCK CHOC FACTORY (prog 822)
Judge Dredd punches PJ Maybe in the face mid-flight to Banana City and has a confession of his own – “Gotta admit it…I’ve been wanting to do that for years”.
We’ve all been wanting you to do that, Judge Dredd, we all have – and I say that as a fan of PJ Maybe.
Although it’s a little concerning that the only line stopping Mega-City One Judges from gratuitously punching citizens in the face (or beating them with a daystick) when arresting them is that the citizen is of the age of eighteen years or over.
That is of course how the episode ends – with PJ Maybe under arrest again, albeit unconscious after Dredd punched him in the face.
How it started was with PJ absconding from the mock choc factory, setting a giant version of his robot bug he routinely used to kill people – including his very first victims, and Wonker himself as we saw in flashback in the second episode – on to Dredd. “I thought Dredd might appreciate using the bug on him, for old time’s sake. I’d been gone for a good five minutes by then, of course. I was off to Banana City, with twenty bil’ waiting in a numbered account”.
Dredd did not, in fact, appreciate it, but the giant robot bug gives him a good fight before he finally manages to defeat it. That’s enough time for Maybe to escape the city – “Little creep hopped a flight to Banana City – Customs boys got the APB a little too late!”
Not on Dredd’s watch, however, as he directs Control – “Then get me a fast h-wagon”.
And sure enough, as Maybe is musing happy thoughts mid-flight – “South of the border, down mekzone way – that’s where I was off to. There was bound to be a place for a smart kid with plenty of creds – and a talent for murder.” – Dredd’s h-wagon intercepts the flight, pulling it over so to speak. “Don’t worry sir, that’s just a Justice Depart h-wagon locking on to our hull”.
Dredd arrests Maybe, who smugly reminds Dredd that he’s a minor – only to be corrected by Dredd that it’s past midnight and he’s just turned eighteen. And you know how the rest goes.
JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 18:
A,B,C WARRIOR (prog 824)
Last Night Out (prog 823)
“Well, citizen Colon. Can you guess what happens now? Is it a) we let you go? b) you get off with a five cred fine? or c) we lock you in the psycho cubes and throw away the key?”
A, B, C Warrior is easily my favorite single episode in Case Files 18 – involving yet another citizen gone mad in Mega-City One, or ‘futsie’ as Mega-City slang goes for people suffering from ‘future shock’, who have snapped from the pressure of just living in “a society where every single thing has become monstrously overwhelming” (quoting Chris Sims summing up the essence of Judge Dredd’s world).
In this episode, the futsie is a citizen with an unfortunate surname, Mori Colon – and the even more unfortunate madness from losing his job as a pollster. Although given the nearly universal automation of jobs in Mega-City One, I’m not sure how he ever had it in the first place since it would seem a job where a robot would be first in line.
Anyway, he’s adapted his former occupation as pollster to his new preoccupation as serial killer. As one Judge observes – “It’s incredible, Dredd. He’s killed over fifty people – all so he can ask them these insane questions!”.
That is of course after Colon is apprehended by Dredd. We’re introduced to him at the opening of the episode “polling” a resident of Frank Hovis block, as usual named for a character in a British television comedy series contemporary to the date of publication rather than someone you’d expect it to be used for a block in a twenty-second century American megalopolis. And by “polling”, I mean asking some of those inane questions – as multiple choice between options a, b, and c, hence the title – before shooting his victim. As in what will the victim do when confronted with a gun – a) try to jump me b) beg for mercy or c) run for it. (The answer in this case was b).
The sound of gunfire is reported by neighbors – which is how Dredd is called to the scene. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have much to go on for clues at the scene, particularly given the insane polling that is Colon’s modus operandi, but fortunately for Dredd’s detection skills, Colon decides further “research” is needed at a local club (where Colon laments that he should have thought of “polling” a crowd further). Research such as whether on learning of their impending deaths they will a) pray to Grud…b) pray to Satan…c)start to cry. (In fairness, Colon is researching whether religious belief is declining in Mega-City One because of the reactions of previous victims).
So as nearest Judge, Dredd is called to the club when Colon’s latest disturbance is reported and catches Colon in mid-massacre. Colon even polls Dredd which ammunition he will use. (Dredd choses an option that wasn’t on the poll, shooting through a table – and Colon’s arm – with an armor-piercing round). Although I do have to give Colon mad props for his justification to Dredd – “but I’m conducting an opinion poll!”
And that leads to us to the line I quote at the outset Dredd’s deadpan snark with his facetious “poll” to Colon after he recovers from med-bay treatment. And like the readers, Colon easily guesses the answer – “at a wild guess…c?”. Which if you recall was throwing him in the psycho-cube without a key – “You got it. Take him away.”
And yes – I skipped an episode, Last Night Out in prog 823, although perhaps I shouldn’t have because it’s a pretty decent example of an episode played (mostly) straight for tragic drama rather than the more usual absurdist or black comedy. Judge Cahill – “a forty year man” (ie with forty years on the streets) has six hours to live from a rad cancer he got in turn from a zombie bite during Judgement Day. So naturally he uses it to bust perps and kick heads with Dredd (at Dredd’s suggestion). Cahill gets in one last heroic shot and then – “I’m gone, Joe”.
JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 18:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JUDGE DREDD! (prog 829)
Blind Mate (prog 825)
Unwelcome Guests (prog 826)
Barfur (prog 827)
A Man Called Greener (prog 828)
That’s right – it’s the big man’s birthday as the comic premise for this episode, although it’s not quite as fun or funny as you might think. Still, I can’t let it go past without celebrating – happy birthday, Joe!
That comic premise is Dredd being his usual hardcore self despite it being his birthday – probably even more so. Then again, when you’re getting on like Dredd is, birthdays aren’t much reason to celebrate – and that was thirty-odd years ago when I write this in 2024 with Dredd still going. Thank Grud for rejuvenation treatment!
Curiously, Dredd’s birthday seems to be a matter of widespread public knowledge, perhaps even city-wide. The episode opens with kids from the elementary school at Andy Crane block – named for a British television presenter, aptly enough best known for presenting Children’s BBC shortly before the episode’s publication date – singing happy birthday to Dredd. Needless to say, he’s not impressed as they sang eight points above the legal limit. Yes – Dredd pulled a sound meter on them.
He’s even less impressed with some tap-tax bandits – citizens who essentially pull a Robin Hood as resistance against paying for water. They too have heard of his birthday, and except for one foolhardy tap-tax bandit who gets an incendiary round for his trouble, they don’t want “to mess with the big man on his birthday”.
Then it’s off to the Grand Hall of Justice where Chief Judge McGruder has called him – for a surprise birthday party. It gets a “what the drokk” from Dredd – before the episode’s last gruff punchline with Dredd telling the Judges to give the gifts to charity. Although I am intrigued what anyone – let alone other Judges – would actually buy Dredd for a gift. Something suitably judicial, I hope.
I skipped some more middling episodes:
- Blind Mate (prog 825) features a game show, which from its imported dotty Brit-Cit host I am presuming is based on a similar contemporary game show Blind Date but could not be bothered to look it up. Anyway, a perp – a member of the Chipperdull Gang of contract killers modelled on the Chippendale male strippers, down to their shirtless appearance which would seem a little conspicuous for contract killers – on the run from Dredd ends up in the studio as a contestant. The host is so impressed with Dredd after his shootout with the killer that she invites him on as a guest – and is of course arrested for improper suggestion
- Unwelcome Guests (prog 826) features the SJS, the House Slytherin of Justice Department, up to their usual tricks – RPA or random physical abuse assessment – which does not go down to well with a jumpy street Judge with post-traumatic stress from a zombie tearing her shoulder off in Judgement Day. She shoots the two SJS judges – Dredd gets her a suspension for a year as opposed to a sentence on Titan and gives the SJS Judge a smackdown for his trouble.
- Barfur (prog 827) features the titular alien bear-kangaroo or grizzly broo, who gets to snack down on some animal rights activists. Dredd is called to the disturbance – one animal rights activist survives and gets twenty years in the cubes
- A Man Called Greener (prog 828). Yes – Mega-City One has underground spitting or gobbing contests. Yes – they’re as disgusting as they sound. Also dangerous, resulting in a traffic pile-up – which is where Dredd comes in and arrests them.
JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 18:
MECHANISMO (Megazine 2.12 – 2.17 & 2.22 -2.26)
A Christmas Carol (Megazine 2.18)
Warhog (Megazine 2.19)
Resyk Man (Megazine 2.20)
Deathmask (Megazine 2.21)
“Trial by machine is here!”
It’s Judge Dredd vs Robo-cop! Or rather, since Dredd essentially is Robo-cop (as one of its influences), Judge Dredd vs the ED-209 from Robo-cop.
That’s essentially the plot in a nutshell of the Mechanismo storyline. With the number of Judges stretched thin after Judgement Day, McGruder is advocating robot Judges. Unfortunately, Dredd is adamantly opposed – not being too progressive when it comes to robots either as Judges or citizens in Mega-City One. He changed his mind when a much better model of Robot Judge was permanently introduced thirty or so years later – although it does make one wonder what this fuss is about here – but Dredd is right at this time, as the Mechanismo models were flawed in a similar way to the ED-209.
While Dredd was one of the influences for Robo-cop, this storyline of course comes after the latter – and acknowledges it with Peter Weller, Robo-cop’s actor, named-dropped for a block.
The story arc is also the source of the image used for the Case Files cover – a rare image not of Dredd himself – and my standing rule for Case File reviews is that I have to feature it as my drinking game equivalent of taking a shot on the title drop in a film.
There’s actually two parts to the storyline – Mechanismo in Megazine 2.12-2.17 in which the Mechanismo robot Judges are introduced but malfunction (and Dredd has to shoot it out with one of them) and Mechanismo Returns in Megazine 2.22-2.26, which sees one of the units reactivate to cause more trouble. It’s the number five unit – a play on the Short Circuit films – and it’s still out there in the sewers as the storyline ends…for now.
Of the other Megazine episodes:
- A Christmas Carol (Megazine 2.18) is the most interesting – a Christmas episode as an obvious play on the titular story by Charles Dickens, with Dredd getting a case of concussion and the Ghost of Christmas Past in the form of Rico
- Warhog (Megazine 2.19) features the titular war-bike – not exactly sure which war – that uses illegal biomechanics powered by a dead man’s brain and of course he wants revenge against his ex-gang
- Resyk Man (Megazine 2.20) features a man whose consciousness survives his apparent death and Resyk, as he too is used for biomechanics, fortuitously as he is able to save his widow and their child from a mutant gang
- Deathmask (Megazine 2.21) – Dredd does The Dead Zone (heh – the Dredd Zone) as a citizen becomes psychic and helps Dredd track down the titular serial killer