JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:
BOOK OF THE DEAD (progs 859-866)
Judge Dredd vs the Mummy!
That’s right – we’re in the highlight of Case Files 20 and arguably the entire Dark Age of Dredd from Case Files 17-23, the eight episode story arc of Book of the Dead.
I mean – it’s just good pulp horror fun. Judge Dredd vs the Mummy – what’s not to love?
It’s also our introduction to Egypt’s mega-city, Luxor – and what an introduction! The Luxor Judges may rank as yet another mega-city of villains but you have to love their uniforms – absolutely top tier, with their pharaonic chic.
Yes – it’s the usual stereotypical depiction of foreign mega-cities and doesn’t particularly make much sense as to why post-apocalyptic 22nd century Egypt and its Judges have reverted to imitating ancient pharaonic Egypt in implausible ways. Which just so happens to include an actual supernatural Mummy. But when it looks this good – who cares?
It helps that it is illustrated throughout by artist Dermot Power, with some of his best art – or indeed, some of the best art featured in the Judge Dredd comic.
Don’t worry too much about the paper-thin plot and its tenuous premise of Dredd’s diplomatic exchange with Luxor. Like any good horror film, it’s all just part of the ride to get to what we all came to see in the first place – the showdown between Judge Dredd and the Mummy. Indeed, as we learn in something of the twist – spoiler alert – Dredd’s whole diplomatic exchange was set up at its Luxor end for that very purpose. Of course, that just raises further questions but just go with it, okay?
So strap in for eight episodes of glorious art and your ride, courtesy of Morrison and Millar, to yet another showdown between Dredd and the undead. We’ve seen him take on zombies in Judgement Day, various forms of vampires (although technically none of them so far have been of the supernatural undead variety), and the Dark Judges who are arguably a form of lich. Now it’s time for Dredd to meet his Mummy.
JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:
BOOK OF THE DEAD 1 (progs 859)
“I am Rameses, scourge of criminals and nemesis of the lawless.”
Here’s the introduction to Egypt’s mega-city Luxor – or more precisely its Judges. Luxor itself will have to wait until a little later in the episode.
As I said, you have to love those Luxor Judge uniforms – absolutely top tier with their pharaonic chic. In fact, I’m calling it now – I’m ranking them just below the Sovs in my mega-city Judge uniform rankings.
Dermot Powers’ art is on full display in this opening episode – so much so that I’m going to slow down and go almost panel by panel, firstly because of that gorgeous art and secondly because of the key story details in this episode. We’ll pick up the pace after this episode to the more usual panel per episode (or thereabouts) in the balance of the story arc.
As for that introduction, Dredd is literally dropped off in Luxor – “Judge Dredd, on board a Mega-City One Justice Department shuttle, has just landed at the north African city of Luxor, part of a cultural exchange program instigated by Chief Judge McGruder.”
Well, firstly, technically he hasn’t landed at Luxor but presumably their airport or spaceport facility some way from the city proper, as it is announced later. Secondly, McGruder seems to be coming up with all sorts of crazy plans lately – the Mechanismo project, that business initiative which gave us Roadkill in the preceding storyline, and now this cultural exchange. Of course, there’s method to her madness here – after their clash over the Mechanismo debacle, McGruder is keen to keep Dredd out of the city. Despite a reputation that seems to be worldwide, Dredd is not the best pick for cultural exchange or diplomacy.
And he gets quite the curt introduction to Rameses, apparently Luxor’s best Judge who is being exchanged with Dredd in Mega-City One for the week – and chose to take it personally. As we see at the conclusion of the story arc, he takes it quite a bit more than that. Judge Kamun is much friendlier – “I welcome you to Egypt with a joyful heart”.
Despite that friendly face, let’s just say that I don’t know how Kamun’s heart would fare against a feather on those divine scales of justice in Egyptian mythology…
JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:
BOOK OF THE DEAD 1 (prog 859)
“Halt, sinner!
Be thankful I only took an arm, thief! Next time, I will not be so merciful!”
As I said, this first episode has one awesome art panel by Dermot Power after another – and they also set up so much of the later story or atmosphere of Luxor – that one almost has to go panel by panel. And yes – I know these are technically two panels!
And this sets up the Luxor Judges as another mega-city of villains comparable to Ciudad Baranquilla in corruption and casual brutality. Sigh – their uniforms might rank as top tier but their quality of life rankings is going down to fail-tier on a par with Ciudad Baranquilla.
I mean, Mega-City One Judges are trigger-happy but at least they don’t amputate arms. Although I suppose that puts the Luxor Judges up there with the limb-lopping lightsaber-happy Jedi.
And…is Judge Kamun just going to leave the criminal walk away to wander the streets without any sort of administration of justice or even patching him up? Does he at least get to pick up his arm? Is the penalty for petty theft – it was an apple from a street stall – really amputation? I’d prefer the cubes in Mega-City One.
As usual Dredd can’t resist a dry quip – “spare the rod?” – although I wouldn’t have picked him as one for Biblical or really any literary allusion, as in “spare the rod and spoil the child”.
JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:
BOOK OF THE DEAD 1 (prog 859)
Well, I guess there goes that sarcastic pun about denial is not a river in Egypt, since the Nile is no longer a river in Egypt either.
Some nice Judge Dredd casual worldbuilding here in Book of the Dead, courtesy of a tight script and Dermott Powers’ art of the Luxor aircraft – nicely resembling ancient Egyptian art of a solar barque of the gods in design – as it overflies the canyon that “used to be the Nile”.
Used to be, that is, until the Atomic Wars “dried up its source”. Luxor “now pumps its water from hidden wells deep beneath the ground”.
Whoa – does that accord with the actual geology of Egypt? A cursory Google search suggests there might be something to it, but I suspect nothing close to the Nile itself.
And come on – who nuked the Nile? Can you nuke a river at source? I know the Atomic Wars were all out – but it still seems a frivolous use of nuclear warheads to little purpose. Who had it out for Egypt like that? Of course, it could be the sweeping environmental effects of global nuclear war – although that begs the question of whatever causing it was big enough to dry up the Nile…but leave the urban centers and population of Egypt unaffected enough to form a mega-city.
JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:
BOOK OF THE DEAD 1 (prog 859)
“One of the four wonders of the modern world…the city of Luxor.”
Dredd is unimpressed by the sights of the canyon formerly known as the Nile, sneering from the corner of his mouth – “I’m not here to see the sights, Judge Kamun.”
You’d better get used to Dredd curling up the corner of this mouth to sneer in this storyline.
Judge Kamun tells Dredd he’s just warming up to the main attraction – “But up ahead is the greatest sight of all, my friend”.
Enter the glorious art panel of the city of Luxor, with Kamun’s line about it being one of the four wonders of the modern world.
But what are the other three?! Inquiring minds want to know! No, seriously – as far as I know, they have never elaborated on those other three wonders in the comic. I’d like to think Mega-City One has at least one of them.
And yes – the whole city appears to be under some sort of pyramid, whether of glass or the futuristic plastics they have in the twenty-second century (boing or plasteen among others), or perhaps some energy force shield. They never elaborate on it either.
The episode wraps up with another Luxor Judge on street patrol, Judge Khafre, being ambushed by a shadowy ghoulish figure – although we see enough of its bandaged arms to assume it’s that classic Egyptian undead stereotype, the Mummy. Conveniently, while the Mummy is chowing down on one of Khafre’s arms – which it appears to have torn off – it’s within eyesight of Dredd arriving into Luxor with Kamun. And strangely, it not only seems to know who Dredd is, but is also enthused to sibilance upon seeing him – “Yesss, Dredd…yessss”.
It’s nice to know that Dredd is so famous he’s known among the undead of Luxor.
JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:
BOOK OF THE DEAD 2 (prog 860)
Whatever else you think of Luxor, you have to admit they have the most pimped out Chief Judge. The tiger really ties the room together.
Although to be honest, they might have gone a little too far with the whole pharaoh thing they’ve got going. I also would have thought that tigers were extinct in Dredd’s post-apocalyptic 22nd century.
Anyway, you’d also be forgiven for not thinking very much of Luxor, at least in terms of the quality of life for its citizens, placing it down there with Ciudad Baranquilla, the most dystopian of mega-cities in the twenty-second century.
They’re doing much better in terms of the preservation of Egypt’s ancient monuments, as we see the Great Pyramid and Sphinx at Giza – even if the latter is used as Luxor’s prison. Or more precisely, the maze beneath the Sphinx is used as the prison, although they execute the prisoners anyway after serving their terms.
Wait – there’s a maze under the Sphinx?! Looking it up, I found out that there was a legendary Hall of Records or library purported to exist somewhere underground near the Sphinx – and by legendary, I mean a modern legend apparently originating with American “clairvoyant”, Edgar Cayce. I guess Luxor decided to build it.
While looking that up, I also found out the Sphinx was built for Pharaoh Khafre – the namesake of the Luxor Judge killed by the Mummy at the end of the first episode. I’d note that Judge Kamun, Dredd’s Luxor escort, has a similar hame to Khamun – as the suffix of Tutenkhamun, which I understand to be derived from the god Amun.
Speaking of Kamun, he tells Dredd as they walk through the citizens of Luxor – seemingly left out of Luxor’s twenty-second century technology as they look much the same as contemporary Egyptians – “Look at the fear in the eyes of our citizens. The respect they show us. They know that even the wrong kind of look will mean a public flogging”.
So there you go – even looking at a Judge in Luxor wrong gets you a flogging.
Judge Kamun continues in the same vein as they enter what appears to be Luxor’s Grand Hall of Justice, resembling a palace or temple in ancient Egypt with the apt inscription He Who Weighs the Heart of Men – “There is no conflict in Luxor. There is only blind obedience.”
Kamun escorts Dredd to Luxor’s Chief Judge Giza (sigh) – although the lazy name is more than made up for by that art panel of the pimped out Chief Judge. Pimped out like a pharaoh, that is, down to a male and female servant whose only role appears to be sitting at the pharaoh’s feet to show how, ah, pharaohly the pharaoh is. The same goes for the tiger but it is a tiger after all – pretty cool.
Chief Judge Giza tells Dredd that something is rotten in the state of Luxor. We know this having seen the Mummy chowing down on a Luxor Judge, but the Chief Judge tells us that this is only one of many Judges killed by this undead thing. Indeed, thirteen as Chief Judge Giza tells Dredd.
Ah, better make that fifteen as the episode wraps up. Two Luxor Judges find what appears to be a pile of rags – but you guessed it, that pile of rags is the Mummy, although it’s not clear whether he was taking a nap or setting a trap.
And of course he chows down on them too. Or is that two? Or, for that matter, slurps them down – “Juicezzz! I need your juicezzz! Need to drink themm…and mmake me ssstronnng!”
Although that “juices” thing may be some unfortunate phrasing…
JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:
BOOK OF THE DEAD 3 (prog 861)
Judge Dredd vs the Mummy: Round 1
I’m going to call this round a draw.
This episode opens with Judge Dredd and Luxor Judge finding the corpses – sucked dry – of the two Luxor Judges killed in the last episode. That description of sucked dry was used by Chief Judge Giza for the other thirteen Judges killed by the Mummy – which was somewhat surprising as when we saw it killing Luxor Judge Khafre, it appeared to actually eat one of his limbs.
Anyway, the Mummy has a bigger target in mind – indeed, the biggest. No, not Dredd – at least not yet, as foreshadowed by the Mummy apparently recognizing Dredd on seeing him – but Chief Judge Giza.
Either from a sense of opportunity, or dare I say it, toilet humor, the Mummy targets Chief Judge Giza in the most undignified position possible – on his throne. No, not his royal throne – that other throne of toilet slang. Nice gag though of Chief Judge Giza thinking the Mummy’s bandages were toilet paper being passed under the door at his request.
Needless to say, the Mummy makes quick work of Giza – and the two Anubis-like Judges standing guard outside the stall beforehand, although you only see their slain corpses in passing.
Fortunately, Dredd and Kamun are in the vicinity – although it’s not clear why, other than plot convenience – and overhear Giza’s screams coming from the Chief Judge’s quarters. They arrive at the scene in time for the first round between Dredd and the Mummy, as Dredd takes an incendiary shot at the Mummy as it runs away.
The Mummy turns back and gets a blow in as Dredd’s about to up the ante with a high-ex shot, throwing Dredd out the window for that cinematic cliché of Dredd’s fall being broken by successive canopies.
Dredd calls out (from the ground floor stall where he landed in a pallet of fruit or vegetables) for Kamun to pursue the Mummy – but Kamun replies “It’s too late, Judge Dredd. The beast has escaped!”
Hmm – something seems to be not quite right going on here…
JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:
BOOK OF THE DEAD 4 (prog 862)
In Luxor, they even pimp out their resyk in pharaonic style.
I love how they threw a camel in there.
I can’t imagine there’d be many camels in Luxor but there’s one on the Luxor resyk conveyor for you.
And shame on you, Dredd, for that stereotypical crack – “Always figured the Egyptians would wrap their stiffs in bandages. As Kamun corrects him, “only the rich are allowed to be mummified…the rich and senior judges”.
In Luxor, resyk is for the plebs and proles – “the ordinary citizens” as Kamun calls them. Although you have to love the Luxor resyk motto, that they recycle “everything but the scream”.
JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:
BOOK OF THE DEAD 4 (prog 862)
Luxor sending out its Chief Judge in sarcophagus style.
As Judge Kamun tells Dredd, “Our Chief Judge will be sent to the afterlife with all the ceremony his rank demands”.
Although I’ve nicknamed this story as essentially Dredd vs the Mummy, I suppose technically Dredd does see more than one mummy in it. Chief Judge Giza’s mummy is a lot less lively than the main Mummy though.
It is somewhat jarring that the 22nd century Egyptian megalopolis has reverted to much to its ancient predecessor – including mummification of its rich citizens and senior Judges, even more so that this is presided over by its “Tek”-Judges. (Tek being the more simplified phonetic spelling adopted in the 22nd century for tech, itself abbreviated from technology – not unlike resyk for recycling).
There have been some advances – as Kamun tells Dredd, “In ancient times, the mummification process took seventy days” but “now the whole ceremony is over in a matter of minutes”.
Why, though, since the story painstakingly shows the steps of the process that seems essentially the same as in ancient times? It seems a missed opportunity to have shown robots doing it.
Luxor even has revived the sacrificial interment of servants with the mummy of Chief Judge Giza – as an “honor guard” of “the Tek Judges of Anubis”. As Judge Kamun intones, “the Chief Judge will need servants when he awakens in the afterlife’ – which just strikes me even more that this whole mummy business should be done with robots.
Dredd is unimpressed as he accompanies Kamun for the funerary ceremony – “You don’t believe all this superstitious stuff, do you?”
What impresses me is that Chief Judge Giza is being interred in a pyramid – and indeed, one of the old pyramids, not a new one that Luxor has built for its Chief Judges. That seems to beg the question of how much room is there in those old pyramids for new mummies and their sacrificial guards? Do they just toss the old mummies out?
Dredd tells Kamun that he “feels kinda out of place here, Kamun” as they attend the funerary chamber. Kamun reassures him while standing behind him with a distinctly unnerving grin “Please, do not feel uncomfortable here, Judge Dredd. You are our guest of honor!”
Well, that’s unsettling. That choice of phrase – and Kamun’s slasher smile – bode nothing but trouble for Dredd. And sure enough – trouble is only two panels away…
JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:
BOOK OF THE DEAD 4 (prog 862)
Things go pyramid-shaped as Dredd is betrayed and laid out as meat for the Mummy.
No, seriously.
“I wanted you here as meat! Sustenance for my master! A feast for he who will never die!”
That’s said by Judge Kamun after he’s zapped Dredd in the back with his Luxor lawgiver rod – phrasing! – but it may as well have been said by the writers Millar and Morrison themselves.
As I said in my introduction to this story at the outset, its paper-thin plot and tenuous premise is all contrived for the showdown between Judge Dredd and the Mummy. And here we learn the big twist – Dredd’s whole diplomatic exchange was set up by Judge Kamun at its Luxor end for that very purpose.
Yes – it has been foreshadowed through Kamun’s shady conduct throughout, most of all the Mummy’s convenient “escape” after its first round with Dredd, but also his constant smile that bordered on predatory grin. We got a good example of that smile at its most predatory as Kamun reassured Dredd about the latter being their guest of honor.
It was also foreshadowed in the very first episode as the Mummy spied on Kamun escorting Dredd into Luxor – when the Mummy not only seemed to know who Dredd was, but was also enthused to see him, as if the Mummy had been expecting him.
However, as I also said in my introduction, it all raises further questions. We’ll get to more of them in the next expository episode but for now Judge Kamun monologues to Dredd – while the latter is unconscious because Kamun just can’t help himself gloating – that he had “brought” Dredd here.
Here – as in the pyramid, for Chief Judge Giza’s funerary ceremony? Or to Luxor itself? Given what we learn next episode, Kamun is in league with the Mummy, essentially playing the role of Renfield to its Dracula, one would assume the latter – and that the Mummy killing Chief Judge Giza was setting it up.
Although that would imply that Kamun was in a position to pull strings to orchestrate a diplomatic exchange of Judges between Luxor and Mega-City One – that or a senior Luxor Judge or Judges in positions of power also in conspiracy with the Mummy – and also for himself to be the Judge assigned to Dredd in Luxor. However, the story itself doesn’t tell us that.
Also, lucky for Luxor that they happened to get Dredd himself from Mega-City One. Of course, Dredd is Justice Department’s most iconic figure, both in Mega-City One itself and in the 22nd century world, but that makes Dredd being picked for the exchange rather than any other Judge in Mega-City One rather remote. Of course, Chief Judge McGruder has issues with Dredd at this time and prefers to assign him on missions outside the city – but did Kamun or his co-conspirators know that? Or was it just more luck?
Anyway, as usual, the art is outstanding throughout, including the final panel of the Mummy lurching towards the pyramid to dine on Dredd. To quote the poet Keats, who are these coming to the sacrifice?
JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:
BOOK OF THE DEAD 5 (prog 863)
“Drokk!”
Says it all really – like sands sealing the pyramid, so are the days of Dredd’s life…
Things aren’t looking too good for Dredd in this final panel, about to be buried alive by the sand sealing the pyramid to entomb the Chief Judge. It’s also the same fate as that for the Tek Judges as sacrificial attendants for Chief Judge Giza in the afterlife.
They at least have taken poison for a painless death before being swallowed up by sand, but it does lead to a nice exchange with Dredd as he looks for a way out of the pyramid chamber only to be told there is none – “What? Are you people crazy?”
In short, yes – for this insane level of verisimilitude in imitating ancient Egypt but that’s about to get worse.
But wait a minute, I hear you say – wasn’t Dredd zapped into unconsciousness as Kamun’s captive on the menu for the Mummy? How did he escape?
Well, this is the final panel of the episode, which indeed open with Dredd in chains as Kamun’s captive for the Mummy. As to how he escaped, Dredd did it like he always does – with an apparently superhuman feat of strength to break his chains, killing Kamun and an unnamed co-conspirator Luxor Judge.
But not before Kamun gives Dredd an exposition dump on the Mummy. Kamun tells Dredd that while most of the city follow the one god Yud – presumably like Grud for God, 2000 AD’s publication-friendly way of referring to Allah – he is part of a cabal following the “old gods…those ancient beast-faced gods”. Within this cabal, there were legends of “the return of a dreadful redeemer…Ankhhor, the dead-in-life, who found a method whereby his physical body could survive beyond death”.
You guessed it – that’s the Mummy. And luckily, Luxor dug him up. Yes, literally – when drilling for Luxor’s subterranean water. “I made sure I was part of the team of Judges sent down to investigate”.
And to fully restore himself, Ankhhor needs to suck Dredd’s ka. No, get your minds out of the gutter – his ka, “the genetic essence of men”, which sounds a lot different (and awfully advanced) for what I understood to be the ancient Egyptian concept of ka as the soul (or one of them anyway).
Which begs a lot of questions of why Dredd is contrived as the missing piece of the puzzle for an ancient undead entity to revive itself, even if he is one of Justice Department’s finest clones – but just go with it, okay?
Anyway, back to the final panel, time is running out – or rather the sand is running in – for Dredd…
JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:
BOOK OF THE DEAD 6 (prog 864)
Dredd vs the Mummy – Round 2!
Nice of Ankhhor to save Dredd from being smothered by sand in the burial chamber first.
Of course, if you had just waited a little longer, Ankhhor, Dredd probably would have been smothered into unconsciousness and not put up a fight.
I suspect Ankhhor couldn’t risk Dredd dying as he has to suck Dredd’s ka au naturel as it were. No, not that – phrasing! – ka means soul or one of them anyway, as ancient Egyptian mythology had numerous soul components
It doesn’t matter since Book of the Dead adapts ka as genetic essence – which seems remarkably well informed for an ancient undead entity. It’s also why Ankkhor wants to suck Dredd’s sweet cloned genetic Judda juice. Hey – phrasing!
Anyway, Dredd literally headbutts Ankhhor and escapes through the passage from which Ankhhor burst into the burial chamber, before escaping the pyramid entirely with an Indiana Jones roll under the stone door sealing off the pyramid (until the next Chief Judge burial, I guess).
There’s a nice double take as Dredd thinks to himself that the stone door will stop Ankhhor for some time at least, but Ankkhor just bursts through it anyway – “I have waited three thousand years to be reborn as the lord of all the earth. Give me your fleshh!”
Eww.
Also – three thousand? It’s 2115 – so that would mean Ankhhor mummified himself in…885 BC or so. Well after the peak of ancient Egypt and well into its decline, shortly before being conquered by the Assyrians, Babylonians and Persians.
Dredd hits Ankhhor with a blast from Kamun’s rod – phrasing! At least, I’m presuming it’s Kamun’s rod but it would have to be a spare one as Kamun and his rod are back in the pyramid, after Dredd choked him out – hey, phrasing! It could be one that Luxor lent Dredd but the storyline made a point of Dredd using his own Lawgiver and its ammunition.
Dredd then flies away on one of those Luxor Lawmaster sky-chariot things that was outside the pyramid. I’m also presuming that it’s Kamun’s sky-chariot Dredd takes. Luxor definitely lent him one of those as we see him flying it side by side with Kamun to the pyramid for the burial, but the storyline seems to have forgotten that as we only see one sky-chariot outside the pyramid. If there were still two of them, Anhkhor could also have simply flown the other one after Dredd instead of leaping on the one flown by Dredd.
Fortunately for Ankhhor, he obviously was the long jump champion of ancient Egypt and makes the leap. Unfortunately for both of them, he and Dredd are thrown clear and fall from the chariot as they struggle over the Luxor skyline.
JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:
BOOK OF THE DEAD 7 (prog 865)
“Grud! Guess I oughtta be grateful for the soft landing” Dredd’s got guts as he ends up in one of the worst parts of Luxor’s resyk.
Well, that was lucky – as was not being too high up that the intestinal soft-landing doesn’t injure or kill him.
That luck doesn’t last as Ankhhor plunges into the guts after him…
JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:
BOOK OF THE DEAD 7 (prog 865)
“In defiance of death and all the ancient godsss of judgement, I will live again and rule! YOU ARE SSSIMPLY FOOD!”
Ankhhor explaining the rules in Round 3 of Dredd vs the Mummy – or the continuation of Round 2. It’s a little hard to tell – he’s worse than the Terminator and absolutely will not stop ever until he’s devoured Dredd’s ka.
Note to self – I really should do a list of antagonists Dredd has faced which see him as only food. There’s probably enough for a top ten – Ankhhor for one, but I can think of Satanus, the Black Plague spiders, and Nosferatu off the top of my head…
Anyway, back to Round 3 of Dredd vs the Mummy, it doesn’t start off too well for Dredd. The chain we see Ankhhor pulling here is connected to the gangway Dredd is on, breaking the gangway – and Dredd’s arm as he falls to the resyk conveyor belt.
Which prompts to mind the saying about costing an arm and a leg – as Ankhhor soon adds a broken leg to Dredd’s broken arm as Round 3 continues.
The episode closes out with things not looking too good for Dredd – with Ankhhor crouched over Dredd and poised to suck Dredd’s ka or life-force. Of course, being a comic, Ankkor can’t resist monologuing about sucking Dredd’s ka – and showing his surprising knowledge of genetics for a three thousand year old undead entity who has spent almost all of that time in a sarcophagus.
“I can almost tasste the honeydew of chromosomes, genes, the rich wine of your being”.
Which begs the question of why Ankhhor is almost tasting it as opposed to, you know, just tasting it rather than talking about it.
JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:
BOOK OF THE DEAD 8 (prog 866)
“See, I figure there’s only one way to stop someone who can’t die. The Resyk way”
Would it work, though? An automated assembly line breaking down a body into its organic or even chemical components would seem hard to beat for killing an undead entity like the Mummy – or your average lich or vampire for that matter.
But what if the Mummy can regenerate from that? Luckily again for Dredd, it seems the Mummy can’t – but things might have been different if, say, it could regenerate from a single cell, like Junji Ito’s Tomie. Now there’s a match-up I’d like to see!
Wait, I see you say, what happened? We closed out the last episode with Ankkhor poised in victory over Dredd, the latter with a broken arm and leg.
Well, Dredd uses his good arm to pull out Ankkhor’s tongue in a scene I was sorely tempted to feature here – and then his good leg to kick Ankkhor into the automated resyk mechanism that dissects bodies into their components, hence my feature line and image.
And Dredd wins Round 3 – and the match – against the Mummy by resyk knockout.
Of course, it would have been more satisfying if Dredd’s victory had been less by chance than design – the happenstance that he and Ankhhor fell into Luxor’s resyk plant, rather than, say, Dredd deliberately luring Ankhhor to it. If they had fallen anywhere else, then Dredd would have been toast with his broken arm and leg. Having already quipped about Ankkhor as the Terminator, I suppose it’s not unlike the happenstance showdown of the automated assembly line at the end of the first film (or the smelting plant of the second film).
JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:
BOOK OF THE DEAD 8 (prog 866)
“Shut it down! In the name of Grud, shut it down!”
These anonymous Luxor resyk workers don’t get enough credit as the true heroes of the story saving Dredd.
Dredd may have won his match against the Mummy – but it’s out of the frying pan and into the fire as Dredd is dragged into the same resyk automated mechanism that dissected the Mummy to its destruction.
Fortunately, the Luxor resyk workers overhear his cries for help and shut down the mechanism – which is particularly impressive as they don’t speak English and apparently ‘wake-up’ cases occur enough that the workers usually ignore them. Amusingly though, the note to the panel has “translated from the Egyptian” when it should be Arabic.
That wraps up Book of the Dead (except for a few panels effectively by way of epilogue). I also can’t help but think that Dredd’s quote reflected the reaction of fans to this story – as well as Morrison and Millar writing Dredd in general – at the time.
I can see where they’re coming from but I like Book of the Dead – as well as odd moments of Morrison and Millar writing Dredd – if only for Dredd vs the Mummy and Dermot Power’s sumptuous art of Luxor’s 22nd century retrofuturistic version of ancient Egypt.
JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 20:
BOOK OF THE DEAD 8 (prog 866)
“What’s the matter, Rameses? Cut yourself shaving?”
And Dredd sees out the epilogue to Book of the Dead with his usual one-liners.
I suppose arguably that would make Rameses the third “mummy” Dredd encountered in this storyline, at least in appearance – the actual Mummy Ankhhor, the mummified corpse of Chief Judge Giza (killed by Ankhhor), and now the heavily bandaged Rameses.
Rameses was of course the Luxor Judge trading places with Dredd for this cultural exchange – I guess the streets of Mega-City One are tougher than Luxor. What puzzles me is how Dredd got speed-healing and Rameses didn’t – Dredd broke an arm and a leg during his fight with Ankhhor.
Also – I’m digging Hershey’s appearance here. Dredd of course has another characteristic one-liner to her asking him what happened with Luxor trying to feed him to one of their gods – “I didn’t agree with him. Now how about pointing me in the direction of some real action?”
And that’s a wrap on Dredd vs the Mummy in Book of the Dead.