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Dredd Epics Ranked - Better! Vote for positions 44 - 37

Started by Colin YNWA, 08 March, 2021, 06:09:25 AM

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Colin YNWA

Here's the next 8 Epics (well there's a whole thread about that with some fascinating thoughts there) to be slotted into their final positions. Let's see how things land and while I appreciate votes have been made many times for some of the thrills here, just one more time gives us our precise (well as much as this format will allow) positions. One more time my friends.

Look at the list of 8 Dredd stories below and tell me your top three:

1 (your favourite of the 8) will get 3 points
2 (your 2nd fav) will get 2 points
3 (your 3rd fav) will get 1 point

34 Blood Trails - Progs 1440-1449

35 The Ecstasy - Progs 1617-1626

36 Judgement Day - Progs 786-799; Megs 2.04-2.08

37 Cold War [The Adventures of Judge Dredd in the Land of the Soviets] - Progs 2055-2069

38 Darkside - Progs 1017-1028

39 Mandroid 2 - Instrument of War - Progs 1555-1566

41 The Hunting Party - Progs 1033-1049

42 Doomsday - Progs 1141-1164; Megs 3.52-3.59

Voting will close on the morning of Friday 12th March and we'll have our next 8 positions sorted

All links go through to AlexF's simply brilliant Dredd Epics Ranked blog. You may need to scroll to find his write up of a particular story - but I'd suggest just reading the whole thing anyway - it's fantastic stuff.

Baffled by what's going on here - well we have a a thread for that - though that might leave you more confused than anything.

Rules for what they are worth.

Not sure about anything just ask and I'll blag it.

Rogue Judge

1. Hunting Party
2. Judgement Day
3. Doomsday

HM. Cold War - This didn't read like an epic,  but I enjoyed these stories in recent progs. I fish a lot so especially enjoyed the story of using humans as bait for ice fishing monsters (If I'm recalling that right)

abelardsnazz


broodblik

1. Mandroid 2 - Instrument of War
2. Blood Trails
3. Cold War
When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.

Old age is the Lord's way of telling us to step aside for something new. Death's in case we didn't take the hint.

Dark Jimbo

Blood Trails top for me here as it offers something a bit different - a personal-stakes thriller for Dredd and his loved ones, and it's amazing we haven't seen more of this type of story. Loved it at the time; the art leaves something to be desired though, and in retrospect it'd have been better, and maybe loomed larger in the memory, f Guthrie had died (given turning him into Robo-Guthrie was just a different, more ignoble kind of end for the character).
Hunting Party is certainly a bit flawed - it doesn't quite all work, and it's a classic Wagner rushed ending - but I love the bits that do work. The art's great, the dune sharks are immense, and some of the characters introduced here were with us for ages. Great fun.
Switched out Doomsday, which I'd been consistently voting for up til now, for Darkside, which I hadn't - on the basis that I'd much rather sit down and actually read Darkside. Doesn't set the world on fire, but is a classy continuity-heavy Dredd thriller - and in space, no less!
@jamesfeistdraws

Magnetica


SmallBlueThing(Reborn)

1. The Hunting Party
2. Mandroid 2
3. Judgement Day

SBT

Barrington Boots

I've enjoyed reading people's thoughts on Judgement Day and been wondering if I'd vote for it here. It's got some cool stuff - Carlos's lovely art, that final panel (all the stuff with Alpha really) but I also think it reads like Dredd fanfic - a lot of it doesn't make sense, the nuking of the cities is rubbish (I get MC1 being overrun by zombies after Necropolis, but why is everyone else swamped with them?) and the killing off of Dekker, Sadu etc is a misstep. And the Dennis the Menace stuff...  :(
So I'm voting:

1 Doomsday - messy old epic but it's certainly epic.
2 Hunting Party - it's a mixed bag but Dredd's interactions with the supporting cast make it for me.
3 Mandroid 2 - I just really like this story.
You're a dark horse, Boots.

BPP

If I'd known it was harmless I would have killed it myself.

http://futureshockd.wordpress.com/

http://twitter.com/#!/FutureShockd

IndigoPrime


Tomwe


TordelBack

1. Doomsday.
2. The Hunting Party.
3. Judgement Day.

I've stated my case for Doomsday in earlier rounds, and while I'm not fussed by the trial sequence (a rare misfire for SBD), and I don't think it quite pays off on its wonderful setup, there's just so much there to enjoy,  and the Prog/Meg split actually works for the first time, that it deserves best-of-the-rest status.

Hunting Party is good fun, and a fine example of the NYPD Blue period of Dredd (The Pit to Doomsday) where a recurring supporting cast of non-family is being gently developed. It doesn't really hang together, and some chapters (Camp Demento) just don't bring much, but elsewhere it's chock full of early Flinty goodness and I'm a complete sucker for a Hotdog Run (and Dune Sharks).

Judgement Day should rate higher, it's epic with a capital E, it's got guest stars galore,  a Hotdog Run (see above), Ezquerra magic, great setpieces and images but it's just so wasteful and nonsensical, and flipping between entirely different species of (great) art in the Meg and Prog murders any hint of cohesion or momentum.


Bolt-01


AlexF

1. Judgement Day
2. Doomsday
3. Mandroid 2

I'm doing a lot of my voting based on the art here - not a big fan of Paul Marshall or Andrew Currie on Dredd.

Confession time - at one point I had Judgement Day quite a bit higher up in the blog but knocked it down  after it got a thorough kicking from the boys on the Drokk! podcast. Objectively, I can understand the many complaints. Subjectively, the fun lingers in the mind more than the bad plotting and weird art mismatches.

sintec


  • Doomsday
  • Madroid 2
  • Judgement Day

I've not read Blood Trails... given the comments here I'm gonna add that one to my list of Dredd tales I need to track down at some point.