Preview: ‘Dreadnoughts’ Vol 2 Is The Brilliant But Worryingly Prescient Fall Of Democracy Tale

by Richard Bruton

Dreadnoughts takes us back to a time very near our own, a pre-Dreddworld where democracy isn’t falling so much as being surrendered…

Dreadnoughts is taking us right back to the very beginnings of the Judges and the Justice Department, giving us a first-person view into the events that would lead to the fall of the USA, the surrendering of democracy, and the rise of fascism that leads to the world we see, week in and week out, with Judge Dredd.

Drednoughts Vol. 2 brings us back into that world, on the ground with Judge Glover in Boulder, Colorado, where she’s in the midst of the fallout from a crime blitz that results in anti-Judge riots and the Hemlock cartel exploiting the ensuing chaos.

Here’s what the 2000 AD PR has to say about this one…

‘A quest for justice turns into a personal crusade in the second volume of the critically acclaimed Judge Dreddprequel series.

‘After a crime blitz in Boulder leads to riots against the Judges’ excessive use of force and violation of human rights, the Hemlock Cartel takes advantage of the chaos to declare all-out war against the Justice Department. It is up to Judge Glover to eradicate their threat – even if her crusade could risk revealing the long-buried secrets of her past.’

It’s every bit that and so much more.

With Dreadnoughts: The March Of Progress, we have the end, perhaps, of Glover’s story, full of action, full of the politics of the changing of the system of law. Then we get a four-part shift to another Judge and another town in Dreadnoughts: Nothing To Fear. Full of all the same problems, as this Judge takes down a corrupt little town of powerful rich men with the law in their pocket, one one hand a simple tale familiar to anyone who’s ever watched a cowboy movie, yet Carroll and Higgins make it so much more, cast in the shadow of all that we know is to come in Dreddworld.

Such is the brilliance of Dreadnoughts.

Dreadnoughts: Book Two — The March Of Progress by Michael Carroll, art by John Higgins, colours by Sally Hurst, letters by Simon Bowland.
(Originally serialised in Judge Dredd Megazine 456-461, 468-471)

Published by 2000 AD & Rebellion on 4 December 2024

Right then, time for a preview of both tales in this second book…

Dreadnoughts: The March Of Progress….