What They Say:
Mega-City One, 2130 AD. This vast urban nightmare on the east coast of post-apocalyptic North America is home to 400 million citizens, every one a potential criminal. With lawlessness rife, only the Judges can prevent total anarchy. These future lawmen are judge, jury and executioner. Toughest of them all is Judge Dredd – he is the Law!
The Review: (please note that content portions of review may contain spoilers)
The current slate of Program offerings include 5 different worlds to explore, each with its own charms and unique touches that provide their own atmosphere, though perhaps not every tale will be for all. Leading off the charge is perhaps the most recognized (at least abroad) character as Judge Dredd finds himself having to investigate and pass sentence on a fellow judge who appears to have fallen from the strict and unforgiving path that is part and parcel with the power that have been granted to them. The man, Judge Heller, has been acting in a way that has raised suspicions- and not without just cause- and now he will have to survive a 24 hour review by a peer who already has his mind made up and whose uncompromising nature will make for a most uncomfortable performance review. In Savag, the war against the Volgans is ready to take a brand new step forward as a robot known as the Mark II is passing its final tests of being shown off to clear it to be able to enter the battlefront and allow for the English resistance, including Bill Savage, to make their stand against their occupiers and begin to reclaim their land.
Ampney Crucis Investigates story line brings the dimensionally misplaced investigator and his man servant Eddie Cromwell into a situation where they are investigating the most bizarre train robbery of all time- and that may be literal as the murder weapon appears to have been a prehistoric creature which on the one hand makes for an impossible situation but on the other may allow Crucis and his friend a path home. And just in case this wild premise isn’t enough the chapter still has some amazing surprises that are yet to be reveled about this alternate world that makes it most different from the rality the pair had known. In The Red Seas the war on hell is about to heat up as the survivors of the Red Wench look to take on mankind’s oldest enemies while trying not to lose themselves in a place where the world seems to play by its own rules. Finally in Strontium Dog Johnny Alpha lets a number of the mutant population know that certain parts of humanity have declared an end to them and through the actions of a few, including the captured Pelham, they have engineered the mutants eventual demise through sterilization thanks to poisoned food. But of course with so few knowing about this revelation it probably would be easy for a government that has decided to move to a quiet genocide to remove those who know the truth through a much faster means and so Alpha finds himself hunted by a powerful force and now the chase is on as Alpha looks to regroup and press forward on a new front.
After getting to read 2000 AD’s amazing Program 2013 I was thrilled when the opportunity to continue reading and reviewing issues was presented as I found some titles there that just blew me away and I was chomping at the bit to revisit the worlds. As I paged through this book though I feared that I might be in for some disappointment as a few of the titles that I had fallen in love with at first sight from the special were missing and this volume contained a mix of titles that included some I had not been as taken with.
And I was wrong for the most part.
While coming in I pretty much figured I’d love Judge Dredd given the (limited) exposure I had with him the fact that the story didn’t disappoint was a tremendous bonus as watching Dredd treat a Judge who was suspected of falling off the path the same way he does almost any other criminal he suspects but has yet to gain full proof on is a welcome sight. In a world where the idea of “the thin blue line” exists and even some of the most honest cops are willing to compromise themselves for the most corrupt members among them because they both wear a badge seeing the character of Dredd refuse to turn a blind eye actually provides a moral stand in some ways that reality often lacks I places. In Dredd’s world you are either on the right side of the law or wrong and Judges who no longer follow all the rules are worthy of contempt as he knows the power they have and that part of the controls on that power is instituted by a ridged discipline that helps keep them on a moral path that once strayed from almost inevitably places Judges firmly on the wrong side, and in this case he is just waiting for proof to do something about one Judge who has strayed.
Savage on the other hand felt like a step back from the previous entry as a majority of the chapter focused on a new type of robot that is going to help the English resistance is a bit of a departure for me having only this and the Program 2013 special as an introduction to this world that has more than a little history. In addition the dialogue of how these robots are so well designed to distinguish friend from foe and even “feel bad” if they take out the wrong target (to say nothing of a not inconsequential similarity in appearance to some of the designs of the X-Men’s Sentinels) feels like a good deal of foreshadowing just how things will go wrong and the somewhat political nature of the second half of the story just felt hanging as it came across as more a filler than a solid device driving the momentum of the plot.
On the other hand Ampney Crucis Investigates brings a title I initially felt a little cold to and creates a brand new sense of life and interest as the world starts to feel both familiar and alien and it offers some amazing encounters that feel fantastic and yet realistic in this strange new reality. Strontium Dog largely kept the pace with the special as the intrigue gets kicked up a notch and the action gets a chance to go wild when the military leaders decide that Johnny Alpha needs to be silenced and the artist brings the flurry of events to life in a most spectacular way. About the only title here that did nothing for me was The Red Seas but as it is a title that has been running for over a decade I fully admit that it may be more me than it as neither this chapter nor the special’s are exactly set up to be a jumping on point for new fans as they don’t give a lot of flavor for the characters as they cast builds up for a war with the fallen Morning Star.
Taken as a whole the comic is a tour-de-force in taut writing with many of the authors knowing how to quickly ingratiate –or repel- the readers from the characters and situations with a minimal of time given the few number of pages most chapters get yet still provide enough of a payoff in those pages that one can come away feeling they got their money’s worth, as opposed to a title either saving all its energy for a big finish or which is just treading water to fill out a trade paperback collection, something not all American comic companies seem to understand that it is important to make individual comics worth reading to keep fans interested in returning. Watching the various authors spin their skills in such an economical fashion is a breath of fresh air when I consider the number of comics I have read where an issue has far more space to tell its tale and yet does an inferior job to the works here, even those works contained here that aren’t quite resonating with me. While the book may not be for everyone as a whole, comic fans looking for something different would be advised to pick this title up and see if perhaps there isn’t some whim here that meets a want they didn’t even know they had.
In Summary:
A new year brings more adventures from 2000 AD’s Program and this follow up to the special makes good use of many of the comics that chose to use that special to provide a platform for new readers to hop aboard the train. Not all of the series included here chose to do so though and so new readers may find that certain tales aren’t immediately accessible yet even if one or two of them doesn’t strike one’s fancy there is still enough wonder and drama in the other titles to make this one more than worth adding to a comic pull list. Recommended.
Grade: A-
