Preview: ‘Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files’ Volume 45 — More Of The Law, In Order

by Richard Bruton

Another collection of the law in order, bringing every Judge Dredd, from the Prog and the Megazine, complete and in order…

These regular Complete Case Files are a complete reprinting of every Judge Dredd tale through the years – absolutely the law in order – every 2000 AD story, every Judge Megazine story, nothing missing, all the law, in your face, all present and correct. And I reckon they’re the best way to read Dredd.

If you go for just the big stories that get their own collections, you’ll have some absolutely epic tales for sure, but there’s a lot more to enjoy with Mega-City One’s finest lawman than just the big sagas.

The heart of Dredd is really what happens in-between those epics. That’s where you get the total Dredd, the important day-to-day dispensing of the law, Dredd on the streets and, perhaps even more importantly, seeing just how Dredd and the Justice Department affect the lives of the everyday citizenry and make their lives full of never-ending paranoia and fear from the very system that’s meant to make their lives better.

The makeup of each volume is different, there’s no cherry-picking here so you might get a volume that’s packed with plenty of short tales, with some really fine writers giving you perfect storytelling in blocks of six pages, your standard length Dredd episode in 2000 AD these days. Or, like here, you might get a volume that’s stacked towards the big multi-parters.

Mandroid: A doomed Romeo and Juliet love story, where Romeo’s a near psychotic ex-soldier driven mad by having his body replaced with tech and Juliet’s his dead wife with what’s left of her personality struggling to exist with a slave module chip in her head. Art by Carl Critchlow.

Volume 45 is one of those that’s busy with the longer stories. Fortunately, every one of them has something good going for it – whether it’s being able to sit back and enjoy John Wagner doing what he does best with the 12-part opener, ‘Mandroid: Instrument of War’ with Simon Coleby and Carl Critchlow on art for a story that mixes plenty of ultraviolence with a pitch perfect tale of love, loss, and the inevitability of life being predictably shite for so many Mega-City cits.

The second bit multi-parter comes with the more than welcome chance to see the always incredible visuals of the unique John Hicklenton and a rare Pat Mills-written Dredd with the nine-part ‘Blood Of Satanus III‘. No-one, absolutely NO-ONE drew Dredd that way, and damn, he was another one who left us way too soon.

John Hicklenton really was something so special, wasn’t he? Damn, that’s good. From Blood of Satanus III

Finally, a multi-parter that’s actually one of those great, interconnected John Wagner things. This time it starts with a one-off in the great ‘The Spirit of Christmas‘, where Wagner has Dredd doing the whole Christmas reflection thing and then pivots us to a return to the Mutant problem and Dredd’s continued push for revoking the Mutie Laws. That’s followed by a three-parter, ‘The Gingerbread Man‘, a single, ‘What I Did For Crissmas‘, and then the seven-part ‘Emphatically Evil‘. All of them have Wagner doing his usual greatness with arch-psycopath PJ Maybe, thorn in Dredd’s side for so many years. These are just the sort of perfect procedurals with a twist that no one writes like Wagner. But then he goes and threads in the storyline of the Mutie Laws vote as well, just to really show us all how great a writer he is.

PJ Maybe finds he’s got copycat trouble – from Emphatically Evil by John Wagner and Colin MacNeil

And of course, all this is happening alongside plenty of other great one-, two-, three-parters as well. The range of storytelling and art on show really does show off just why Dredd has been so successful for so long. I was going to tell you a little about those but then I realised that this had become WAY too long, even for one of my previews, so I’ll save my praise of those for a review later on.

But if you don’t see that one, trust me, The Complete Case Files really is the only way to get the complete Dredd experience, and that’s an experience well worth the price of admission.

John Wagner – writes so well AND does great gags to boot – genius!

Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files Volume 45

Writers – John Wagner, Alan Grant, Robbie Morrison, Pat Mills, Gordon Rennie.

Artists – Simon Coleby, Carl Critchlow, Colin MacNeil, David Roach, Mike Collins, Cliff Robinson, Ian Gibson, John Hicklenton, Henry Flint, Tan Eng Huat, Boo Cook, Simon Fraser, Paul Marshall, Smudge

Letters – Annie Parkhouse and Simon Bowland

Originally serialised in 2000 AD Progs 1555-1576 and Judge Dredd Megazine 257-268

Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files Volume 45 is out now, after giving you just a hint of what’s in here… how about a preview of all that Dredd brilliance that awaits you?