Preview: Going Out On The Dealiest Roads — ‘The Helltrekkers’ Head On Out Into The Cursed Earth!

by Richard Bruton

The Helltrekkers was one of the very first Dreddverse spin-offs from way back in 1984, telling of the insane few who hated Mega-City One life so much that they’d make the 200km trek in 28 cramped Rad-Wagons to a new life in the New Territories.

Written by Judge Dredd co-creator John Wagner and his writing partner Alan Grant, with classic art by José Ortiz (episode 1) and Horacio Lalia, (episodes 2-29) The Helltrekkers is something of a lost epic of 2000 AD, and the latest to benefit from the company’s ongoing reprints.

Inside, you’ll find a tense and tightly written survival epic as the initial 111 desperate MC-1 citizens become Helltrekkers as they set off across the Cursed Earth’s rad-lands to seek a new life.

Without spoiling anything, you can bet that not many of them are going to make it.

They’ve all got their own reasons for making the near-suicidal trip, some to escape the law, others to find a place where they’ll be accepted, some just have had it with MC-1 and the Judges. But all of them have one thing in common – they’ve got 2,000km to go before they even hope for anything like a sanctuary. 2,000km of the worst landscape imaginable – the Cursed Earth.

Along the way, Wagner and Grant seemingly delight (as readers did) in throwing everything at these poor souls – acid rain that strips away the skin, killer viruses, mutants out for flesh and blood, even dinosaurs – anything Wagner and Grant could think of to whittle down the numbers in ever more imaginative deaths.

And of course, these Helltrekkers are finding out along the way that it’s not just the enemies without that they have to be wary of – there’s plenty in their own (ever-decreasing) ranks who would wish them harm as well.

It’s the first time this has ever been collected, which is rather ridiculous given just how much enjoyment there is to be had here, writing and art are just perfectly on point all along. It’s super fast, as was the way with earlier 2000 AD works, with so much happening every episode.

But it’s also super-readable, with the Wagner-Grant team on fine form and the art from Lalia just perfect (Ortiz might get top billing with the art, but he was there for just the first episode), with the print quality of the time actually adding a sort of grubby texture to it all that worked.

But, just as Wagner and Grant must have had so much fun writing it, the real thrill probably comes from the morbid enjoyment you get as a reader in seeing the deaths coming thick and fast with ever-stranger and more inventive methods of losing yet more Helltrekkers.

And then there’s the ending to it, one that’s still mentioned in Brit comics as one of the most downbeat, depressing, and just generally miserable endings to a series there’s ever been. Sure, they may have made it to the New Territories eventually, but it’s hardly a triumph, with so many loved ones dead along the way.

For the time, and still today, that ending absolutely destroys you as a reader. All this work, all these deaths, all the struggle… and this. Wagner and Grant really did push it every chance they got.

The new collection comes out on 7th December 2023 with a standard edition paperback and a special 2000 AD webshop exclusive hardcover edition, whose specially designed cover evokes the famous Haynes Manuals.