Top Tens – History: Top 10 Wars (7) Hunnic Wars – Hun Invasion of the Roman Empire

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Total War Attila game box art

 

(7) HUNNIC WARS –
HUN INVASION OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE (440-453)

Yet another horse blitzkrieg of mounted nomadic tribes from the Eurasian steppes and the most formidable one prior to the Mongols, founding an empire that should be ranked as the fourth great empire of late antiquity and menacing the other three – Persian Empire as well as eastern and western Roman empires – in turn.

To be honest, purely on their own merits of military conquest, I’d rank the Mongols over the Huns. It’s hard to argue with the world’s largest contiguous land empire – and second largest empire in all history. While both shared the historical infamy of being extremely barbaric and ruthless towards their adversaries, albeit almost a millennium apart, the Mongols seemed to rely more on strategy than savagery. Both the Huns and Attila acquired such a reputation for savage barbarism that Kaiser Wilhelm sought to invoke it for his German soldiers in the Boxer Rebellion – which of course backfired as the Allies happily used it as a pejorative term for the Germans in the world wars. Although I have to admit Attila being identified as the Scourge of God earns him badass points. The Mongols also seem more diversified in the number of their skilled leaders and commanders beyond Genghis Khan and his death – while the success of the Huns seems largely focused through the charismatic leadership of Attila himself, with the Hunnic empire rapidly disintegrating after his death.

On the other hand, I have this chronological ranking going among the top tier entries of my top ten – and the Huns do predate the Mongols. However, it’s more than a matter of mere chronology – the Hunnic Wars also overlap with the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, itself ranking as god tier special mention to my top ten, arguably more so than any other war. To pit the Mongols against the Romans is often the ultimate fantasy match of military history – I always recall that very proposal in a pulp science fiction novel of my youth – and the Hunnic Wars is the closest you get to that scenario, albeit the Roman Empire in terminal decline rather than its prime. (Spoiler – the Mongols actually did overlap with the Roman Empire, as in the surviving eastern Roman Empire or Byzantine Empire, but more as allies). And from a Eurocentric perspective, the Hunnic Empire was more in Europe itself, with both a seat of power and range of penetration much further west than the Mongols ever did.

I also have a romantic soft spot for the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains in Gaul or France as the heroic last stand of the Roman Empire, although that may be more legend than history – on par for me with the final battle of King Arthur against Mordred at Camlann, particularly as depicted in the film Excalibur, to the stirring choral music of Carmina Burana and Arthur thankful for the mist so that their enemy “may not see how few we are”. Aetius as Arthur, yo! Although in fairness, that was few in Romans, with Aetius relying less on mystical mist and more on his Visigoth and other Germanic allies to make up numbers.

Although truth be told, the real heroic stand and final battle that doomed the Hunnic Empire was the Battle of Nedao in 454, where they were defeated by their former Germanic vassals. The Huns took one last shot at the eastern Roman Empire under one of Attila’s sons in 469, vanishing from history with their defeat.

Their origin is even more mysterious – with some theories resembling an extent almost as wide as the Mongols, particularly those theories that linked them to the Xongniu and other nomadic peoples that menaced China, often stylized as Huns, such as in the Disney version of Mulan. They are also often linked to other nomadic tribes, sometimes also stylized as Huns, that menaced the Persian Empire and even India.

The only clear history of the Huns seems to be that they emerged east of the Volga from about 370, soon conquering the Goths and other Germanic tribes to forge a vast dominion essentially along the Danube on the borders of the Roman Empire – ironically driving the fall of the Roman Empire even before they invaded it, as the various Germanic tribes that invaded or settled in the Roman Empire were fleeing the Huns.

Ultimately however the Romans had to face off the fearsome Huns themselves – and that is where my romantic soft spot for last stands come in, as the Romans managed to mobilize themselves one last time to hold off the Huns. Firstly, however, the Huns turned on the more robust eastern Roman Empire, invading the Balkans and threatening the capital Constantinople, with little to stop them until the emperor opted for the pragmatic policy of paying tribute for peace. The Huns then invaded the western Roman Empire in 451, with Attila claiming the sister of the western Roman emperor as his bride and half the empire as his dowry – with some fairness, as she had swiped right on him in preference to her betrothal to a Roman senator. However, there the Huns encountered the general Flavius Aetius, often hailed as “the last of the Romans”. That’s right – this is an Aetius fan account.

Ironically, Aetius had effectively risen to power by relying on the Huns as his allies. Now he had to face off against his former allies as Attila invaded Gaul, drawing on the waning resources of an increasingly vestigial empire to field one of its last major military operations in alliance with the Visigoths and its other Germanic allies – and won, defeating the Huns at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains.

Or not, as historians dispute how conclusive a victory it was. Certainly Attila and the Huns withdrew from Gaul, only to invade Italy the following year – with there was little Aetius could do to stop them there, except for the Pope to ask Attila nicely if he would leave without sacking Rome.

Surprisingly, it worked – Attila left Italy (albeit more for lack of supplies and expectations of tribute), never to return as he died the following year, aborting his plans for a further campaign against the western empire – as with the Mongols, Europe was saved from invasion by a fortunately timed death (from Attila partying too hard celebrating his latest wedding to his hot new bride)

ART OF WAR

Certainly the Huns demonstrated the art of war, despite their reputation for savage barbarism. At a tactical level, they had the usual mobility, speed, surprise and shock of the steppes horse blitzkrieg – while strategically, they also sought out ways of winning without fighting through tribute and political alliances.

As for the Romans, they might have excelled in the art of war at the height of their empire, perhaps even retained their tactical skill towards the end, but just had too few legions as they struggled to mobilize any army.

WORLD WAR

The decline and fall of the Roman Empire – and the Migration Period or barbarian invasions – might be considered to be on the scale of a world war, but is a little too piecemeal in space or time.

I also like to think the Huns might also qualify as precursors of the Mongols on a similar world scale, but their origins – and links – to people identified as Huns in China, central Asia, Iran and India is not clear

STILL FIGHTING THE HUNNIC WARS

Well, not so much the fighting the Huns, vanishing as they did from history, but perhaps still living in the decline of empire…

GOOD GUYS VS BAD GUYS

Sorry Huns – that reputation for savage barbarism may be unfair and overstated, but when it comes to classical history, I usually side with the Romans, particularly in the fifth century

RATING: 4 STARS****
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Top Tens – Top 10 History Books: (7) John Ellis – Brute Force: Allied Strategy & Tactics in the Second World War

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Cover as published by Viking 1990

 

(7) JOHN ELLIS –

BRUTE FORCE: ALLIED STRATEGY & TACTICS IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR (1990)

 

Quantity has a quality all of its own.

Stalin is reputed to have said this, aptly enough about the Soviet armed forces in the Second World War. It’s probably apocryphal but I like to think that the fact it and other zingers are attributed to him implies an ability to drop one-liners unparalleled by any other war leader than Churchill – and certainly far exceeding Hitler. It amuses me to think that above all else, the Allies won the war of one-liners, the most important war of all. In modern internet parlance, you might say the Axis couldn’t meme.

More relevantly, if you were to sum up this book’s theme and thesis in one line, Stalin’s would do nicely, except that for both his Soviet forces and those of the Allies, it was a somewhat poor quality – the brute force of the title, grinding to a slower and more costly victory than might otherwise have been the case. In other words, war by attrition – and often not too different from the bloody attrition of the First World War for which that conflict’s military leadership is often faulted.

I obviously like Ellis as a historian – his Social History of the Machine Gun was similarly illuminating and insightful – although sadly his books seem somewhat neglected these days and can be elusive to find.

This book remains my favorite by Ellis – as well as one of my favorite general or thematic histories of the Second World War, exceeded only by my entry in top spot, which might arguably be paired together as alternatives (or correctives) to each other.

It certainly was an eye-opening look at Allied strategy and tactics in the war – and his critiques of their lack of finesse, proficiency or skill are persuasive, as for example with RAF Marshal Sir Arthur Harris’ area bombing dogma, a common subject of historical (and moral) criticism.

On the other hand, such critiques are easy to overstate in hindsight, particularly as opposed to the contemporary reality where each theater competed with the others, demanding troops and resources in very different ways and that could not be used elsewhere – or planning or production line decisions well in advance but which took substantial periods of time to change to battlefield requirements.

As opposed to my top spot entry (as something of an antidote), the book does lean into a historical pet peeve of mine – that tendency, dubbed in some internet circles as ‘wehraboo’ (a play on Wehrmacht and ‘weeaboo’ as slang for excessive or obsessive anime fandom), to disparage the Allies compared to so-called German military ‘excellence”.

While I would accept arguments that the Germans were the most consistent in their tactical proficiency throughout the war, albeit not so much in their strategy, much of the critiques Ellis makes about Allied “brute force” might also be made about German military successes.

In fairness, Ellis does make much of the same critiques about the Germans, particularly as the wheels started to fall off their blitzkrieg. However, the book overlooks the extent to which initial German successes relied not just on good luck and timing in a somewhat narrow window of opportunity, but also on significant advantages over their adversaries at the outset – advantages which arguably weren’t effectively matched by the comparable advantages in manpower and materiel by the Allies against them until 1944, at which point the Germans collapsed in a rapid manner similar to their own initial adversaries.

It also overlooks that the Germans owed their endurance in defense, at least in part, to the improvements in defensive firepower from that at the outset of the war, as well as their undoubted tactical proficiency in defense that enabled them to outfight numerically superior enemies until 1944.

I also took away from the book something else from the “brute force” of its title about Allied superiority – just how foolhardy the three major Axis nations in general were and Germany in particular was to decide on war in the first place, resembling nothing so much as a twentieth century version of the ghost dance seeking to conjure victory out of “triumph of the will”.

Germany and Japan even sought to make a virtue out of necessity by vaunting their so-called martial and psychological superiority over the material strength of their adversaries. History generally has a name for nations that do so – losers.

It also overlooks that Allied superiority was hard-earned. Material strength doesn’t just, well, materialize but takes a very real achievement in mobilizing manpower and materiel – one in which the Allies massively outclassed the Axis and one which is highlighted further by the fact that Germany had managed to occupy a productive potential in Europe to rival the United States but was still massively out-produced by the latter.

Italy is often disparaged for its performance in the war, particularly compared to Germany, but the underlying reality was not too different between them, albeit kept at bay for longer by Germany’s greater industrial base and tactical proficiency – such that I like to adapt the late Cold War quip about the Soviet Union being “Upper Volta with rockets” to Germany being “Italy with rockets”, in a very literal sense.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

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Monday Night Mojo – Top 10 Music (Mojo & Funk): (8) Lana del Rey – Summertime Sadness

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(8) MOJO: LANA DEL REY –
SUMMERTIME SADNESS (2012)
B-side: Blue Jeans (2012)

 

“I got that summertime, summertime sadness”

You and me both, Lana del Rey, you retro pop queen – “self-styled gangsta Nancy Sinatra” and “L0lita lost in the hood”.

The music of Lana del Rey – or Elizabeth Woolridge Grant – has been noted “for its stylized cinematic quality; its preoccupation with themes of tragic romance, glamour, and melancholia; and its references to pop culture” Also – Hollywood sadcore, baroque pop, dream pop and “about music as a time warp, with her languorous croons over molasses-like arrangements meant to make clock hands seem to move so slowly that it feels possible, at times, they might go backwards”

And somehow all of this seems infused in her 2012 trip hop ballad hit, “Summertime Sadness” – so melancholy!

Also something of a crush of mine, although perhaps more as an idea

And as for my B-side, I’ll go with her characteristically mournful love song, Blue Jeans.

Love, like life, is the long lost last look back…

“I will love you till the end of time
I would wait a million years
Promise you’ll remember that you’re mine
Baby can you see through the tears?”

As for the balance of my Top 10 Lana Del Rey songs:

(3) Ultraviolence (2014)
(4) Video Games (2011)
(5) Born to Die (2011)

(6) Ride (2012)
(7) National Anthem (2012)
( 8 ) West Coast (2014)
(9) Did You Know There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd (2022)
(10) A & W (2023)

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
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Top Tens – History: Top 10 Empires (8) Ottoman Empire

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Map of Ottoman Empire in 1683 by Chamboz for Wikipedia “Ottoman Empire” licensed under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

 

(8) OTTOMAN EMPIRE (1299 – 1922)

The empire that conquered Constantinople and besieged Vienna – twice.

As the latter, the last non-European empire to invade and conquer significant parts of Europe (unless you count the Americans or Soviets), although Vienna was their high water mark – and as the former, the power that finally conquered (and saw itself as inheriting) the last of the Roman Empire.

Ironically, the Ottomans often resembled the Roman Empire, firstly in its rise from one of numerous non-descript warring tribes on a peninsula, albeit the Anatolian rather than Italian peninsula (although as further irony, the Romans traced themselves from that peninsula as well, with their mythic origin from Troy). And secondly, in its tenacity in decline.

It is also intriguing how much of the origins of modern history might be traced to the looming presence of the Ottoman Empire in Europe and the Mediterranean – such as the discovery of the New World from seeking to find alternate trade routes to Asia and so on.

The rise of the Ottoman Empire rivals the conquests by the Arab caliphates it ultimately replaced in predominance in the Middle East – and indeed replayed much of the same history. The Ottoman Empire may have lacked the range and speed of the Arab conquests, although it made up for that in the extent to which it invaded and conquered within Europe.

With its conquest of the Byzantine Empire (as well as Constantinople as its newly conquered capital) and control of the Mediterranean basin, the Ottoman Empire was a transcontinental empire at the crossroads of Europe, Asia and Africa for six centuries.

Egypt was of course the jewel in the crown of their African empire – but it extended westwards from Libya to Morocco (and briefly into the Atlantic with the Canary Islands), becoming the basis of the fabled Barbary corsairs or pirates which even fought the United States, although these were only nominally under Ottoman control. The Ottomans also extended southwards to the Horn of Africa – and into naval wars in the Indian Ocean.

In Asia, they inherited the caliphate and its predominance in the Middle East, extending south through the Arabian peninsula, although held at bay by a resurgent Persia under their own Turkic Safavid dynasty.

And in Europe, they conquered the Balkans, extending to Crimea with the Crimean Khanate or Tatars, successors to the Mongol Golden Horde, as their vassal state, and also reached to the heart of Europe to besiege Vienna. Although apart from its defeats when besieging Vienna, it encountered significant holdouts or resistance elsewhere – Croatia, Dracula or Vlad the Impaler, Venice and the naval Battle of Lepanto.

It faced its waning tide of decline in the aftermath of its second defeat at Vienna, steadily losing its conquests in the Balkans even as it was propped up by Britain against Russia, resulting in it being styled as the “sick man of Europe” in the nineteenth century – somewhat overconfidently, as the Allies were to find out in WW1, although ultimately it collapsed in that war.

 

DECLINE & FALL

Ironically, the Ottomans might be compared favorably to the Romans they supplanted in their tenacity in decline. They did not endure for so many centuries as did the Romans – but then modern history moves a lot faster.

Of course, they were helped by European powers propping it up against each other, particularly Britain propping it up against Russia.

And against the apparent odds, they and their predominance in the Middle East endured until the First World War – and they might well have endured beyond that if they had remained aloof from that war and not chosen the losing side. Even in that war, they proved a resilient adversary, and even in defeat, they cast a long shadow – historian J.M. Roberts refers to most wars in the Middle East thereafter as the wars of Ottoman succession, up to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.

THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE NEVER FELL

On the other hand, their imperial core Turkey, to which they were shorn after the First World War, has also had a remarkable resurgence, rebounding almost immediately after its defeat from that war against further incursions, and newly emerging as a regional power in the Middle East, extending its influence and military presence through much of its former imperial territory

THE SUN NEVER SETS

Well, the sun did literally set on the Ottoman Empire in pure geographic terms – for example, it did not extend as far eastwards into Asia as its Arab caliphate predecessors. However, it can properly be ranked as a world empire in its influence, extending across three continents and reaching even further beyond that.

EVIL EMPIRE

As I said, the Ottomans get a lot of historical hate from certain circles – but sadly, I do have to rank them highly in the evil empire stakes. To be honest, I don’t know quite how brutal they were in maintaining their conquests, but they were notorious for their patronage of piracy and slavery, particularly through the Barbary corsairs.

What earns them their high ranking in evil empire stakes is their actions against ethnic minorities in the empire’s dying days – notably the Armenians – that gave the definition to genocide in the twentieth century

RATING: 4 STARS****
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Top Tens – History: Top 10 Wars (8) Mongol Conquests – Mongol Invasion of Europe

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The Battle of Legnica (Liegnitz or Wahlstatt) on 9th April 1241 during the first Mongol invasion of Poland – copper engraving by Matthäus Merian the Elder 1630 (public domain image – Wikipedia “Mongol Invasions and Conquests”)

 

(8) MONGOL CONQUESTS –
MONGOL INVASION OF EUROPE (1236-1242)

The Mongols were essentially a horse blitzkrieg across Eurasia, achieving a mobility and speed on land, exceeded only by modern mobile warfare using the internal combustion engine.

The horse blitzkrieg was a recurring feature mounted (heh) by nomadic herding tribes, particularly by those from the steppes of central Asia, to such devastating effect against more sedentary or settled agricultural states throughout history. I can’t resist the memorable quote by the Pax Romana Youtube channel that “history is mostly a matter of hoping those psychos on horseback don’t attack this summer, steal the grain and take the slaves”.

None were more supremely effective at it than the Mongols, one of the most proficient and versatile military forces in history – one that was also supremely adaptable at coopting its conquered people for further conquests and for strategies of war beyond their horse blitzkrieg. It’s surprising how small the actual Mongol component was of their forces.

The founder of the Mongol Empire – Temujin, better known as Genghis Khan – was the best military and political leader of his era, or arguably any era. He succeeded in unifying the Mongol tribes as the nucleus of his empire, which at his death stretched from northern China through Central Asia to Iran and the outskirts of European Russia. In doing so, the Mongols conquered glittering states along the Silk Road in central Asia that barely anyone remembers because the Mongols wiped them out so thoroughly – the Khwaraziman Empire of Iran and the Qara Khitai.

However, it is the wars of his successors that are particularly fascinating to me as they advanced into almost every corner of Eurasia.

In the Middle East, they besieged and sacked Baghdad, the center of Islamic power for half a millennia, occupying as far as parts of Syria and Turkey, with raids advancing as far as Gaza in Palestine, where they were stopped in the battle of Ain Jalut by the Mamluks of Egypt.

In East Asia, the Mongols did not face a unified China but two warring states, the Jin in northern China and the Sung in southern China. Genghis had largely defeated the former – his successors finished it off and conquered the Sung as well. The latter was most famously by Kublai Khan – and in Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree.

The Mongols also invaded Korea, Burma and Vietnam. It’s interesting to think of the Mongol Vietnam War, which as Vietnam Wars usually go, resulted in defeat for the Mongols. It’s also interesting, given the definitive horse blitzkrieg of the Mongols, that the Mongols launched naval invasions of Java and Japan, but perhaps not surprisingly neither did well – the latter giving rise to the Japanese word kamikaze or divine wind for the storms that scattered the Mongol invasion fleets.

However, I’m giving this entry to the campaigns of his successors most familiar to me from my Eurocentric perspective – the Mongol invasion of Europe, commanded in the field by one of the best Mongol generals, Subutai. The Mongols rolled over European Russia – over much of which they would remain ruling as the Golden Horde until the fifteenth century – and invaded central Europe, decisively defeating Poland and Hungary.

They were poised to strike into the heartland of Europe and the Holy Roman Empire, indeed raiding the latter (and the Balkans), with little to stop them but the English Channel – but fortunately for Europe, the Great Khan Ogedai died, so the Mongol armies withdrew back to Russia while their leaders returned to Mongolia to select the new Great Khan. Or so the story goes – historians vary on whether that was the true cause for the Mongols to desist from their invasion.

Even so, the Mongols continued to cast a long shadow of terror into Europe, reinforced by further raids in the thirteenth century (such that the raids of the 1280’s are sometimes styled as the second Mongol invasion) and fourteenth century.

And traumatizing Europeans with steak tartare, based on the popular legend of Mongol or ‘Tartar’ warriors tenderizing meat under their saddles and eating it at night after it had been ‘cooked’ by the heat and sweat from the horse.

ART OF WAR

Forget Sun Tzu – the true Art of War was written by Genghis Khan and the Mongols…in conquest. A friend and I used to observe the irony of Sun Tzu’s Art of War originating in China – a country that historically has gotten its ass kicked as often as not. (The same irony for Machiavelli’s The Prince originating in Italy – a country known for its political chaos).

But seriously – an army that conquered the world clearly excelled in the art of war. Ruling their conquests on the other hand…although in fairness any empire that size at that time was doomed to fragmentation.

WORLD WAR

The Mongol Conquests were nothing short of what should be described as a world war to create the largest contiguous land empire in history, and one that is still only exceeded by the British Empire – perhaps the most serious contender for the first true world war.

STILL FIGHTING THE MONGOL CONQUESTS

One of the few wars we’re not still fighting, even though we live in a Mongol-made world. The rising Russian state, with long memories of the Golden Horde, saw to that by conquering the steppes and various residual khanates (into the nineteenth century), but arguably inheriting their legacy and former territory as the new horde.

GOOD GUYS VS BAD GUYS

History has tended to overlook the positive or even progressive aspects of the Pax Mongolica – but it is also difficult to cast them as good guys, given the destruction they wrought, exceeding even the Second World War relative to world population.

RATINGS: 4 STARS****
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Mega City Law – Judge Dredd Case Files 18

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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

Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Subjects of Mythology

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Free ‘divine gallery’ sample art from OldWorldGods

 

TOP 10 SUBJECTS OF MYTHOLOGY

 

So many topics for top tens, so little time – hence my top tens on the spot, shorter shallow dips as opposed to my longer deep dives.

And what better topic for shallow dip than the Top 10 Subjects of Mythology? Although that prompts the obvious retort that’ll be a shallow dip indeed – it’s mythology, innit? There – done!

Well, yeah nah – as mythology meaningfully overlaps with or includes many other subjects that are interesting in themselves.

So here we go all in one go – my Top 10 Subjects of Mythology.

 

(1) MYTH

 

Well, obviously – and such that it also obviously had to be in the top spot, although defining myth or mythology is less obvious, except perhaps at their core, for example as with the Olympian gods in classical mythology.

Partly that’s because of the extent that myth or mythology overlaps with other subjects – particularly with…

 

(2) LEGEND

 

Legendary!

A subject so intertwined with myth and mythology that it tends to be virtually synonymous with them – although funnily enough calling something a myth often is dismissive in contemporary usage while calling something a legend or legendary usually is a term of acclaim.

That might be because of the usual distinction drawn between myth and legend – that the main characters in myth are usually non-human, such as gods or other supernatural beings, while legends involve everyday humans in historical settings.

“Myths are sometimes distinguished from legends in that myths deal with gods, usually have no historical basis, and are set in a world of the remote past, very different from that of the present.”

So while we’re taking a step down from myths to legends as it were, that brings me to…

 

(3) FOLKLORE

 

In a sense you could say I’ve got this ass-backwards as myth and legend are more properly genres of folklore – and that I really should (or could) be doing a top ten subjects of folklore.

It’s just that folklore is so broad as to encompass the entirety of “the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture” – including oral traditions of myth and legend as well as many more besides.

Also, I tend to see folklore (and legend) in a more ‘low church’ sense involving figures or narratives closer to humans and nature, as opposed to the ‘high church’ sense of myth or mythology involving divine beings or sacred narratives.

 

(4) RELIGION

 

Probably the most obvious overlapping subject with mythology apart from legend or folklore – and perhaps even more obvious than those.

“Myths are often endorsed by secular and religious authorities and are closely linked to religion or spirituality”.

And while mythologies without a religion tend to come to mind – such as classical mythology, alas! – it is harder to think of a religion without its mythology, even such apparently atheistic religions as Buddhism or Taoism.

The link between mythology and religion brings me to…

 

(5) RITUAL

 

Given how much religion overlaps with or is comprised by ritual, it’s not surprising that mythology does as well.

For one thing, you have the depictions of ritual in mythology, which are then followed by the community that holds that mythology to heart.

For another, there’s the theory of mythology that holds that myth is tied to or even originates in ritual – to the extent “that every myth is derived from a particular ritual”. It even has a school of thought named for it – the “myth and ritual” school or “ritual school of myth”, based in Cambridge (and sometimes styled as the “Cambridge Ritualists”, conjuring up images of lurid secret societies in that university).

For example, animal-headed gods or beings like the Minotaur originate in masks worn by priests or priestesses – and so on

 

(6) HISTORY

 

Wait – what? Isn’t mythology the antithesis of history, as the latter is concerned with verifiable evidence of factual events?

Well yes – but also no.

For one thing, communities that hold mythologies also tend (or tended) to hold them to be true in a historical sense, at least in part – although fortunately for those communities myths also tend or tended to be ahistorical, as occurring in a realm outside historical time or space.

For another, legends as opposed to myths tend to have a historical setting – which have a surprising tendency to turn out to have more historical truth to them than skeptics give them credit. People believed Troy was a myth until they found it.

And for yet another, communities often have historical myths about themselves and their history – origin myths or national myths.

 

(7) POETRY

 

The gods speak in verse.

No, seriously.

From the Iliad and the Odyssey to substantial parts of the Bible, it’s striking how often myths or legends are written (or spoken or sung) in verse. Even when in prose, it often has a lyrical resonance to it.

Speaking of which…

 

(8) EPIC

 

“Do you have it in you to make it epic?”

Closely resembling legend in popular usage, originating from its origin in long poetic narratives, “typically one derived from ancient oral tradition, narrating the deeds and adventures of heroic or legendary figures of the past history of a nation”.

Obviously overlapping with poetry, it’s striking how much poetic epic is at the core or origin of myths and mythology. The Epic of Gilgamesh. The Iliad and the Odyssey. The Hindu epics. Much or even most of the Bible.

Speaking of poetry and epic, particularly in classical Greek literature, brings us to…

 

(9) DRAMA

 

Particularly that originating in classical Greece – most strikingly with tragedy, a name that literally translates from the original Greek as “goat song” and seems to originate in or overlap with religious festivals, especially for Dionysus, hence the goats (or satyrs). Don’t dismiss comedy however, which also originated in or overlapped with the same religious festivals, translating as (drunken) “revel song”. Funnily enough that prompts to mind something I always recall reading (in some sort of dictionary of Christian thought) that the gospels of Christianity are ultimately comedy, effectively reversing tragedy into a happy ending – further prompting to mind the Christian passion play, yet more mythic drama (albeit Greek drama might also be described as pagan passion plays – Euripide’s Bacchae for example).

It’s striking how much classical drama (or the passion play) reenacts mythology – to the extent that it might be regarded as similar to ritual as the reenactment of myth (or vice versa).

 

(10) FANTASY

 

On the one hand, the term that perhaps best reflects the pejorative contemporary usage of myth – dismissing myths as fantasy or fantastical.

On the other, the modern genre of fantasy comes closest to being like our original mythologies or their literal and figurative enchantment of original mythology – deliberately so with founding figures of literary fantasy such as Tolkien, who wrote The Lord of The Rings as a modern mythology for England.

 

Friday Night Funk – Top 10 Music (Mojo & Funk): (9) The Weeknd – Can’t Feel My Face

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MUSIC (MOJO & FUNK): TOP 10

(9) FUNK: THE WEEKND –
CAN’T FEEL MY FACE (2015)
B-Side: I Feel it Coming (2016)

 

“I’m a m***********g starboy!”

Of course, that’s the titular chorus from his song Starboy (featuring Daft Punk because they make everything funkier), but it encapsulates Abel Makkonen Tesfaye a.k.a The Weeknd. Also, it is funky – but my funk favorite still goes to this 2015 single from his Beauty Behind the Madness album, my introduction to The Weeknd.

The Weeknd has been so consistently funky through the 2010s to the 2020s – and so ubiquitously funky, as each time my ears prick up for any funk recently, it’s usually The Weeknd – that I’ve had no choice but to rank him in my Top 10 Mojo & Funk (and also ultimately compile my Top 10 Weeknd songs). And how can you not like the Weeknd? We all love the weekend!

“I can’t feel my face when I’m with you
But I love it, but I love it”

Anyway, I can’t resist this tagline for “Can’t Feel My Face” from Billboard – “The Weeknd’s irresistible, Michael Jackson-esque “Can’t Feel My Face” is so perfectly crafted that it’s impossible to imagine a world or alternative reality in which this song isn’t number one”. And it’s not every music video that ends in the immolation of its singer.

As for my B-side entry, I have a soft spot for “I Feel It Coming” (once again featuring Daft Punk, again making it funkier).

“You’ve been scared of love and what it did to you
You don’t have to run, I know what you’ve been through
Just a simple touch and it can set you free
We don’t have to rush when you’re alone with me”.

As for the balance of my Top 10 The Weeknd songs:

(3) Starboy (2015). Obviously
(4) Blinding Lights (2019)
(5) Take My Breath (2020)
(6) Ariana Grande / The Weeknd – Love Me Harder (2014)
(7) The Hills (2015)
( 8 ) Save Your Tears (2020)
(9) Swedish House Mafia ft The Weeknd – Moth to a Flame (2021)
(10) Sacrifice (2022)

 

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

Top Tens – History: Top 10 Books (8) Felipe Fernandez-Armesto – Civilizations: Culture, Ambition & The Transformation of Nature

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Cover 2002 Free Press edition

 

(8) FELIPPE FERNANDEZ-ARMESTO –

CIVILIZATIONS: CULTURE, AMBITION & THE TRANSFORMATION OF NATURE (2000)

 

A book on the suject of human civilization – or rather, civilizations, arranged by environment, consistent with the definition of civilization in the subtitle as the transformation of nature.

The book essentially treats all human societies as civilization, or at least a civilization – eschewing attempts at ‘checklist’ of criteria that define a civilization, given the problems of previous attempts to do so for any that are universally agreed, instead looking at human societies in classic Toynbee terms of challenge and response to their natural environments, at least in origin.

While such an approach may have flaws in its lack of distinction between a ‘civilization’ and other human societies, the book does have much to offer from its thematic history of human civilization from a geographic and environmental perspective.

Firstly, it vividly impresses on you the extent to which human history and societies have been shaped by nature, at least in origin – including the most basic or stark features which one might otherwise overlook from a different thematic perspective.

This is most striking when it looks at those environments it groups together as the wasteland, worlds of ice or sand deserts, which can only support the most minimalist societies – minimalist that is, beyond surviving in them, prompting to mind the lines from the poem “Australia” by A.D. Hope, about men whose boast is not “we live” but “we survive”. There’s a similar quality

Perhaps its most insightful feature – which it states in its introduction – was its comparative history of civilizations, “arranged environment by environment, rather than period by period or society by society”, thus yielding comparisons across time and space that might not otherwise occur to the reader.

The evocative part and chapter headings (or subheadings) illustrate those environmental classifications:

  • Part 1: The Wasteland – Ice Worlds & Tundra, Deserts of Sand
  • Part 2: Leave of Grass – Prairie & Grassy Savannah, the Eurasian Steppe (the Highway of Civilization)
  • Part 3: Under the Rain – Postglacial & Temperate Woodland, Tropical Lowlands
  • Part 4: The Shining Fields of Mud (alluvial or river floodplains in the ancient Near East, China and India)
  • Part 5: The Mirrors of Sky – the Highland Civilizations of the New World and the Old
  • Part 6: The Water Margins (Civilizations Shaped by the Sea) – Small Island Civilizations and Seaboard Civilizations such as the Seaboard Civilizations of Maritime Asia or the Greek and Roman Seaboards
  • Part 7: Breaking the Waves (the Domestication of the Oceans) – the Rise of Oceanic Civilizations, the Making of Atlantic Civilization, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific – from the Pacific to the World

I was particularly fascinated by its comparison of grassland societies – prompting to mind, as such things tend to do, whether other grasslands might have produced the horse blitzkriegs that the Eurasian steppes did in other circumstances.

Or its subject of the oceans – how maritime navigation has been shaped by the distinctive currents and wind patterns of each ocean, with the Indian Ocean proving the most ”precocious’ for long distance navigation (indeed from the dawn of human history), the Atlantic being somewhat more tricky, and the Pacific trickier still (Polynesian island-hopping aside).

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

Mega-City Law – Judge Dredd Case Files 2 (Epilogue)

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JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 2
Mega-City One 2100-2101
(1978-1979: progs 61-115)

Judge Dredd gets epic!

Judge Dredd: Complete Case Files Volume 2 essentially consists of the back-to-back Dredd epics, The Cursed Earth (progs 61-85) and The Day the Law Died (progs 86-108).

I consider these two epics to be Dredd’s first true epics – and more fundamentally, where the Judge Dredd comic came of age. This is classic Dredd.

Of course, the two epics had their precursors in the two longer story arcs (or mini-epics) of Volume 1 – The Cursed Earth in Luna-1 and The Day the Law Died in Robot Wars. Each of the epics (and their precursors) respectively set up the essential Judge Dredd epic plotlines – Dredd confronting some threat, usually existential, to Mega-City One (Robot Wars, The Day the Law Died), and Dredd venturing to some other, usually exotic, location (Luna-1, The Cursed Earth), or a combination of the two, Dredd venturing to some other, usually exotic, location TO confront some threat, usually existential, to Mega-City One (arguably The Cursed Earth, although it involved an existential threat to Mega-City Two, at least in the immediate sense).

Yes – there’s a few episodes at the end of Case Files 2 which serve as something of an epilogue to the epics, particularly Punks Rule as an epilogue to The Day the Law Died. It also effectively replays the very first episode with Dredd taking on the punk street gang that has arisen as a law unto themselves – with Dredd’s characteristic schtick of taking them on alone, to restore the authority of Justice Department that had lapsed in The Day the Law Died.

Otherwise, Case Files 2 is almost entirely the two epics – each of which deserve its own consideration in depth.

 

THE CURSED EARTH

 

THE DAY THE LAW DIED

 

 

JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES 2

PUNKS RULE (prog 110)

The Exo-Men (progs 111-112) / The DNA Man (progs 113-115)

 

“I’m a cheap punk!”

And here we are with those episodes at the conclusion of Case Files Volume 2 that are not part of either epic, although the first and best of these, Punks Rule, is effectively an epilogue to The Day the Law Died.

As the new Chief Judge Griffin explains in this episode, the war against Cal allowed street gangs to come back in force, with the worst of them – the Cosmic Punks, led by Gestapo Bob Harris – setting themselves up as ‘judges’ in Sector 41 and declaring it a no-go zone to the real judges. One judge proposes that they stamp it out by sending in a fifty man squad, but Dredd disagrees – “The street gangs have lost their fear of us. It’s time we gave it back to them…Let’s show them one judge is worth a hundred punks”. As I’ve said before, Dredd’s always doing this – going in as the ‘one judge’ to demonstrate the strength of the law against any number of potential antagonists. He did it in his very first episode and he’ll do it again – it’s kind of his shtick.

And so, Dredd heads into Sector 41 alone, with an automated garbage truck for prisoners. A nice symbolic touch – and sure enough, he fills it with the punks who are smart enough to surrender, gunning down those who prefer to take a shot at him. Ultimately, Dredd takes even Gestapo Bob prisoner – after making Bob declare himself a cheap punk.

It’s an episode with Brian Bolland art, always a delight to behold – and Bolland did the best Judge Dredd punks!

 

And yes – I skipped two storylines:

  • The Exo-Men (progs 111-112) featuring the titular gang that use demolition workers’ exo-skeleton powered suits for a bank robbery. However, the real fun in the story comes with two representatives of a citizen action group – the citizen’s committee for compassion to criminals (or CCCC) – who are monitoring Dredd as he pursues the exo-men. It was almost fun enough to feature in more detail, except that I think “Watchdogs” in Case Files 16 replays the same premise better.
  • The DNA Man (progs 113-115) replays Frankenstein but with the mad scientist character – literally named Frankenstein, Milton Frankenstein (with his first name perhaps a nod to Milton’s Paradise Lost featuring in the original book by Shelley) trying to recreate himself from one DNA molecule taken from his blood. It’s a little weird since the world of Judge Dredd has cloning – indeed, Dredd himself is a clone. Here, however, Frankenstein succeeds only in creating monstrous versions of himself – which he unleashes on Dredd as Dredd is on his trail for killing his lab assistant.