Preview: ‘Essential Judge Dredd: Tour Of Duty’ Book 2 — A Dredd Epic So Essential It Takes Multiple Volumes

by Richard Bruton

Tour Of Duty is the Dredd epic so important it runs to multiple volumes – and yes, they’re all essential, hence the reprint…

So far, all of these Essential Judge Dredd volumes have been self-contained things, short enough to fill just the single volume. But that’s not the case with Tour of Duty. This is one that ran essentially long – long enough to run to not just two volumes but three – this is one of those key Dredd tales, well deserving of this ‘Essential’ labelling and special reprinting.

Tour of Duty saw Dredd coming up against his city’s own laws over Mutant rights, a critical moment in the history of Dredd and Mega-City One.

The start of Hershey’s downfall – Backlash – by John Wagner and Carl Critchlow

It’s John Wagner’s baby of course, even though both Al Ewing and Gordon Rennie put in sterling shifts. But Wagner’s stuff – oh, it’s just a stunning piece of extended storytelling in the Dredd universe that’s typically hard-hitting but also incredibly politically relevant, perhaps never more so than in these troubling times of immigration, segregation, discrimination.

The backstory to this is complex, all coming out of Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra’s Origins, where Dredd uncovered a previously unknown mutant branch of his clone family, a family banned from even entering Mega-City One despite their close links to the Fargo clone line. All of this means that Dredd, so singular of purpose usually, begins to have thoughts of just why the Justice Department has treated these innocents so badly, discriminating against them as a whole, driving them out into the wastes of the Cursed Earth.

Of course, when Dredd attempts to do anything about these prejudices and the injustices of the Mutie Laws, it’s met with resistance from the Council of Five, just the same way any political and societal change of this scale always will.

Packing up… Hershey deposed – Under New Management – by John Wagner and Carl Critchlow

As I said for the first volume, this storyline is just a perfect distillation of how Wagner’s writing has evolved over the years. Yes, he’d always written scathing political and socially relevant satire in Dredd, but here he took it to another level. The multiple storylines of Tour of Duty all build and build to paint the bigger picture, all illustrated by a top-notch selection of Dredd artistic talent, including Carl Critchlow, Colin MacNeil, PJ Holden, Mike Collins, Cliff Robinson and many more.

Here’s the 2000 AD PR for this one…

“After Dredd and Hershey’s decision to restore mutant access to Mega-City One is confronted with widespread criticism, Dan Francisco – a reality TV star who holds the people’s favour – challenges Hershey’s leadership as Chief Judge. Under his rule, the conditions of mutants across the Big Meg would be worse than ever. But when Judge Francisco is gunned down on camera in an alleged mutant attack, Dredd begins to suspect someone else might be masterminding the rushed election…”