Dredd Epics Ranked - Better! Round 9

[Colin YNWA]

There's a thread explaining about what's going on this week as the Tourney prepares to move into its knockout phase. One thing that seem certain however, given the Epics entering this round is we won't have the same four thrill marching on. We now enter the realm of Epics that have the power of nostalgia, as well as being fantastic stories, on their side... can any of the 'unstoppable' 4 survive?

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

Advanced from the previous rounds:

City of the Damned - Progs 393-406

Mechanismo - Megs 2.12-2.17; 2.22-2.26; 2.37-2.43

Trifecta - Progs 1804-1812

Tour of Duty - Progs 1649-1693

Next four from Dredd Epics Ranked:

Oz - Progs 545-570

The Pit - 970 - 999

The Small House - Progs 2100 - 2109

Necropolis - Progs 662 - 699


Voting will close on the morning of Wednesday 24th March and the 4 Epics with the most votes will progress to the next round.

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.

[broodblik]

1. The Small House
2. Necropolis
3. Trifecta

[abelardsnazz]

Wondering whether my previous top 3 will now fall by the wayside...hmmm...ok then:

1. Necropolis. As this includes The Dead Man, it had to take the top slot. Wagner expertly bringing together numerous threads, King Carlos drawing the whole main epic, and a huge impact on Dredd and the city. A timeless classic.
2. Oz. The variety of artists suits the episodic nature of the story, the race itself is exhilarating, and Brendan McCarthy's designs of the Judda are fantastic.
3. Tour of Duty. I did think about The Pit here, but again ToD's tying together different threads and its impact give it the edge.

I do like The Small House, but for me it isn't as big a hitter as those above.

[SmallBlueThing(Reborn)]

1. The Pit
2. Tour of Duty
3. Mechanismo

SBT

[Magnetica]

So the big hitters are now entering the fray.*

1 Tour of Duty
2 The Pit
3 Necropolis


Tough call not to vote for Trifecta, but I guess there are a load of tough calls coming soon.


* I'm surprised to see the Small House so high in Alex's listings; I liked it, but it's not better than some placed much lower IMO. Buy hey I guess it's stuff like that, that inspired this tournament in the first place.

[IndigoPrime]

1. Tour of Duty: Dredd out of his element, but without the excesses and episodic direction of those earlier epics (Judge Child; Cursed Earth). Properly epic, too, given the number of episodes.
2. The Pit: the one that redefined Dredd. Some unfortunate art switches, but on the whole one of the best things Wagner's done.
3. Necropolis: Harrowing at the time, with the city in the gloom for so long. A few dodgy script moments, but did 'Dredd as action movie' really well, and it was a breath of fresh air when those final scenes happened.

Finally, some change!

[sintec]

• Tour of Duty
• Necropolis
• The Pit

[Barrington Boots]

First time for ages I've been conflicted on a vote as there's some real crackers here.

1. Necropolis. I was a kid reading this in the weekly prog and it was the greatest thing ever at the time. The Dead Man reveal, the tying up of so many subplots, and then the amazing sequence with the city under the thrall of the dark judges all drawn by Carlos... it's immense. I'm sure there's some nostalgia in play but I feel this and Zenith redefined comics for me.
2. The Pit. Another landmark Dredd for me, having binned off the Prog after I went to university, with occasional purchases finding it full of rot like Outlaw, I acquired the Hamlyn collected edition and was hooked. As IP says this redefined Dredd, and I think this could potentially be my favourite Dredd story. Only let down by some shonky art changes.
3. Tour of Duty. Already discussed, still great.

Hurts to leave out Oz, and that's before I even get to Small House (or Trifecta)

[Dark Jimbo]

Tour of Duty still riding high for one more round, at least.

The Pit changed the strip for ever. We'd have action-adventure stories again, but no longer was Dredd 'just' an action-adventure strip. Now it was a sci-fi crime procedural, and the Judges themselves were positioned well and truly as the main characters. It isn't perfect (some of the art is awful, and Craddock's colours do it zero favours) but for legacy alone it scores high.

And Necropolis nudges its way in, too. Gorgeous peak-period colour Ezquerra. Also the last time the Dark Judges felt vital - taking over the whole city felt like a natural, and terrifying, evolution for them, an escalation of all their past appearances to date; it'd be diminishing returns from here on, as they struggled to feel as threatening as they do here without actually repeating themselves. Add in all the Oz/Judda/Bloodline threads (much more interesting than the DJs, to be honest) and a legacy second only to the Apocalypse War, and you've got a winner.

[TordelBack]

1. Necropolis.
2. The Pit.
3. City of the Damned.

[The Enigmatic Dr X]

1 City of the Damned
2 Necropolis
3 Pit

[AlexF]

Staggered not to see more love for Oz here! I think I must be a sucker for endings - a lot of epics got lower scores than they might have because of slightly limp endings, despite being amazing (Necropolis and the Pit, I'm looking at you.) But Oz is killer - shame it only became real using a bajillion mis-matched artists.
But yeah, this is where the big hitters come in.

1) Oz
2) Necropolis (and NB from my ranking 'the Dead Man' is a separate entity, because my my blog my rules)
3) The Pit

I find the Small House to be solid all the way through, and it does tie up some old Rob Williams / Al Ewing plot threads really nicely, I think with a clever ending - but perhaps because I didn't read it when I was 12 it hasn't lingered in my brain as much as the older stuff. But it got a lot of points on my ranking by not doing anything wrong, and doing a few things very right (mostly using Henry Flint as a deadly weapon on art).

[BPP]

Oz - the only thing to come close to the apocalypse war in pre-1000 progs
City of the dammed - classic prog 400 era goodness
The small house  - Rob Williams trying up a ton of threads he'd laid down over the previous 10 years and killing off a slew of his characters. Genuinely exciting weekly read.


Big round of votes.

Oz needs more votes
- choppers greatest tale
- McCarthy judda
- simpsons uluru nuke splash page
- dillons chopper and the dolphin
- Dredd tossing the pigskin nuke
- Dredd thwarted in oz
- McCarthy's birdmen
- brilliant fusion of two great stories (chopper / judda)

Just an amazing story from the golden age of 2000ad.

[Bolt-01]

Tour Of Duty
Necropolis
The Pit

[Magnetica]

Yeah not much love for Oz from me. It's not a patch on stuff like the Judge Child or the Day the Law Died for me, which is what I was compact to when I first read it.  I know Jim Baikie has his fans, but I'm not really one of them and the art in Oz doesn't compare to Bolland, McMahon and Ron Smith. So right from the start I had it down as not a top tier story.

And it's not better than what  I voted for here either:

Tour of Duty took epics to a whole other level and seem to really turn Dredd's world upside down....at least until it went back to normal.

The Pit is possibly the story that saved 2000AD, not just Dredd, in a much as it was a shining beacon of brilliance in what was otherwise a period filled with many mediocre strips.  And it showed a different type of Dredd story was possible.

Necropolis was 6 months of mayhem with brilliant Carlos art and the culmination of a lot of build up.