Well, I didn't actually start on the Hondo City Justice TP today, after all. Instead, I got a couple of packages in the mail, one of which contained that Life and Death of... Judge Death TP I was waiting on, and the other contained Judge Dredd: The Carlos Ezquerra Collection TP, so I decided to start on that one, which collects a couple more Garth Ennis stories to begin with ("The Taking of Sector 123" and the longer "Helter Skelter" from Progs 1250-1261), then a couple of John Wagner shorter stories ("The Girlfriend" and "Phartz!"). "Sector 123" is more-or-less part of the direct aftermath of Judgment Day, so having read that, I fell right into it. A typical sort of situation in the wake of another Big Meg disaster that was well-handled here by Garth, I thought.
I thought both of the Ennis stories were pretty good. In fact, as far as plot/concept goes, I thought "Helter Skelter" was so much better than "Judgment Day" that it would have benefited from being expanded (to at least twice the length), so that we could have gotten more than just cameo appearances (or less, mere mentions) of the various dimensional visitors from other 2000 AD strips. The whole thing just seemed to beg for more space, to be drawn out somewhat for greater drama, as it barreled along a bit too quickly when I wanted to savor it a little longer. Hershey could have used more panel time in the story, and I would have liked to see Cass Anderson in there too (maybe prohibited by her status at the time in her own strip).
That probably would have had a downside in that Carlos couldn't have drawn the whole thing (and he didn't, either, with Henry Flint filling in for the penultimate chapter, although he did a good job -- his earlier work reminds me quite a bit of Mick McMahon). I quite liked the character of D-warp scientist Darian Kenzie, and her relationship to Dredd in the story was an unusual one. Telling the story from her perspective was a great choice on Ennis' part.
Of course it was great seeing all the old foes come back for revenge (one might question the basic logic of going dimension-hopping to get revenge again on someone you've already killed, but it's a comic, so I give it one "gimme" for free, to get the plot rolling), including Fink Angel, Rico, Don Uggie Apelino, Sov War-Marshal Kazan, Morg, Grampus the Klegg, Captain Skank, and of course Judge Cal.
Sure it's a total "comic-booky" idea (not unlike Crisis on Infinite Earths or something, and the cliche arch-villain team), but that's what I liked about it. It just seemed a little cramped at 72 pages and needed more breathing room, as Dredd polishes off his old foes a bit too quickly and neatly in the showdown -- it needed some more dramatic build-up.
From a story perspective, the character of Darian Kenzie and her feelings about Dredd was the strongest bit about it (especially her realization about him on the last page of the story), and she was well-developed enough, but I longed for even more depth and there was just so much you could pack into so many pages. There should have been more of an epic scope to the thing, but it was such a great basic idea, I thought.
The two shorter John Wagner stories were real old-school style stuff (which isn't bad), and seemed about perfect for their length. "Phartz!" was just a fun, goofy idea, and I always hope that there'll still be a place for those kind of stories, as long as then don't run on too long. And of course, what can you say about Carlos Ezquerra? He's the greatest (and the reason I wanted this now out-of-print collection in the first place, thank you ebay). It's great to see his color work.
I decided to save the rest of the book (all Cursed Earth Koburn stories written by Gordon Rennie) for tomorrow.
