Dredd: The Complete Case Files

[Jim_Campbell]

He started out in Mega-City One, but moved to Brit-Cit later.

Was the city Slade originally from ever explicitly named as MC-1, or did we all assume that it was when he relocated to Brit-Cit?

(Actually, I'm pretty sure I just assumed it was a generic name for a large urban conglomerate on the island of Britain at the time, since there appeared to be no real similarity between the Robo-Hunter universe and the Dredd one...)

(EDIT: Ninja-ed by Funt with the exact same point, there. Sorry, Funt!)

[nxylas]

I wasn't aware that Sam's location in the US was ever given as MC-1. Are you 100% on that?

There's very little I'm 100% sure about these days. My name, address and date of birth, and that's about it. I no longer have the comics or reprints to check, but I have a vague memory of one episode (the first, I think) starting with a shot of Sam's business card, giving his address as being in MC-1.

[Tjm86]

I've always thought it was Fargo talking about how the Judges seizing power was only meant to be temporary - the country was in ruins, Booth had destroyed the credibility of the Presidency, the Judges had to step in to hold things together... but they would eventually step back and hand power back to the people. You know, once things were back to normal.

But Fargo was a product of his time, when law officers were servants of the people (well, in theory at least). Dredd's generation of Judges and the ones after him had a very different view of things.

That was where I thought Fargo was coming from.  I would agree as well, the world Fargo grew up in had a very different idea of the relationship between the law and the public.  Dredd's generation have been brought up very different.

We've seen Dredd grappling with doubts before to one degree or another.  At the most extreme it led to him taking the long walk and Necropolis.  That event seems to have cemented in his mind the idea that the world is too dangerous for the Judges to let go.  Yet ironically much of that danger appears to be generated by the Judges.

It's also worth considering Fargo's iconic status for Dredd.  As the creator and architect of the Judicial system, there has always been a sort of reverence there.  For Fargo to suggest that something is not quite right with his creation and that he disapproves of what it has evolved into ...

Again though it comes back to this question of different worlds, doesn't it?  Fargo created the Judicial system in a world that still retained many of the sensibilities we are familiar with.  Democracy as a normative political structure, the law to serve and protect.  Even with the breakdowns in society evident in the pre-War era, Fargo would have been trying to square that circle.

By contrast, the Judges were striving to cope with a post-civilisation world (almost).  The environmental damage of the nuclear war, massive reduction of the world population and lethal pollution of so much of the environment.  Dealing with those challenges in addition to the massive (presumably) influx of refugees into the Mega-cities in search of some degree of safety must have forced the Judges to take the Judicial system to its logical (and current) conclusion as a Fascist state.

I'm trying to remember how much of this has been covered down through the years directly or indirectly in the strip.  We have hints in tales like Cursed Earth and Lake Eyrie.  Even Origins is incomplete in its recall, told from Dredd's partial knowledge and potentially biased with its portrayal of Booth.

Dreadnoughts and the early novels cover some aspects too.  I've not read enough of those to be able to comment on how far they explore this.  Something I could probably do with looking at.

What I do wonder though is whether and how Wagner or other writers might tackle this.  There's no guarantee, I know.  We've seen ideas floated and then dropped before.  This one seems a bit more of a serious one, albeit potentially challenging.

[IndigoPrime]

Pat Mills can try to retcon as much as he likes, but I'm not going to forget that scene in Nemesis Book 5 when a mega-city judge was tortured and killed by Thoth and Satanus.

Timey-wimey dimension wibbly wobbly etc. That's how my brain thinks of all this stuff, when it can be bothered. (See also: Fr1day rocking up in Mega-City One.)

[IndigoPrime]

I don't think there's any likelihood of major change occurring to the foundational aspects of Judge Dredd, because that would kill 2000 AD's biggest strip. Even the Garfield aspect of Dredd's age is being punted away with "oh it's fine, because technology", even if that doesn't align with what's happened previously in the strip. (Although perhaps Dredd and a handful of others get special treatment not even afforded to other judges.)

I'm not sure it matters all that much. Mega-City One makes no logical sense once you peel away even the first layer or two. It's just a mechanism for telling stories. And the Fargo line was likely written by Wagner with a big grin on his face, because he knew it would be a talking point for a long time – even if the sentiment from Fargo would never fully be acted upon. (My guess is we will see a thread from that play out with whatever Maitland does, and she will – for whatever reason – 'fail'. Dredd may well end up saying "no blame attached" and that it wasn't a bad idea – just the world they live in that couldn't let it happen. But there's no way her ideas will be allowed to stick, both from an in-universe standpoint AND an editorial one.)

[Tjm86]

TBH I don't think there is likely to be anything massive happening.  I agree, Dredd is too much of an anchor strip for the prog.  It's a bit like when Eagle finished the original Mekon strip, the comic lost itself to some extent.  The only time Dare really shined was when the Mekon was in play which kind of shows the limitations of the character.

Where Maitland is going is another interesting one.  Again, you raise some fair points there IP.  The narrative tendencies of Dredd mean that in all likelihood it is going to blow up spectacularly.  Either through direct sabotage or some surrounding-sector backlash.  The numbers may not lie but they also don't show what works on a larger scale. 

It's possible that Wagner threw that line in for jollies.  It wouldn't be the first time he has done that or put something out there and then realised it doesn't really work all that well after all.  Still think the best 'solution' to this problem is the idea that while the Judicial System wasn't meant to last forever, it was designed in a pre-apocalypse world.  The constraints of the current Dredd-world are such that it is unavoidable if things are to be 'managed' to any degree. 

Of course this does also pose a question for consideration; is totalitarianism inevitable?  Given how much of what Dredd has 'predicted' as a strip, together with things like the 'climate catastrophe', is this the only possible solution to managing populations? 

[Dash Decent]

Well, at least the trains will run on time.

Even if we all do have to eat munce.

[Max Headroom]

A little confusion over what will be in Dredd Case Files 43 (due to ship in January 2024): the blurb says that it will feature stories from Progs 1485 to 1504 and Megs 245-257 but it also says it will include the 'Origins' storyline which runs from Prog 1505 for 23 episodes. Will 'Origins' make the final cut or not? What is also not clear is whether the story 'Cadet' (Megs 250-252) will be the final offering from the Megazine in this volume?

Something slightly amiss in what we are being told to expect!

[nxylas]

A little confusion over what will be in Dredd Case Files 43 (due to ship in January 2024): the blurb says that it will feature stories from Progs 1485 to 1504 and Megs 245-257 but it also says it will include the 'Origins' storyline which runs from Prog 1505 for 23 episodes. Will 'Origins' make the final cut or not? What is also not clear is whether the story 'Cadet' (Megs 250-252) will be the final offering from the Megazine in this volume?

Something slightly amiss in what we are being told to expect!

42 episodes plus 12 Megazine stories sounds about the right length.

[IndigoPrime]

The cover in the press release has Meg 245–257.

[Richard]

42 episodes plus 12 Megazine stories sounds about the right length.

No it doesn't. None of the recent case files have had as many as that. For example, Case File 42 covered progs 1465 to 1484 (and nine Megazines), which is typical.

The story in progs 1500 to 1504 was the prologue to Origins, which is probably what the blurb is referring to.

[Richard]

So in Case Files 42, page 143, there has been some kind of error where some words in bold type have been left out of a speech bubble:




Here is the original from prog 1482:

[IndigoPrime]

How bizarre. Hard to know how that happened. And just for one bubble. (This is also in the digital file, FWIW.)

[Jim_Campbell]

How bizarre. Hard to know how that happened. And just for one bubble. (This is also in the digital file, FWIW.)

I'd bet hard cash that's font substitution. The original is, I suspect, un-outlined text in Tom Frame's own font which has been substituted for Comicraft's MarianChurchland font in the new one, hence the reflow in the first balloon. Somehow, the bold/bolditalic hasn't been substituted at all in the second and the words have dropped out entirely...

[The Enigmatic Dr X]

How bizarre. Hard to know how that happened. And just for one bubble. (This is also in the digital file, FWIW.)

I'd bet hard cash that's font substitution. The original is, I suspect, un-outlined text in Tom Frame's own font which has been substituted for Comicraft's MarianChurchland font in the new one, hence the reflow in the first balloon. Somehow, the bold/bolditalic hasn't been substituted at all in the second and the words have dropped out entirely...

Why would they do that, Jim? It didn't need improving. The new "E"s are worse, with their shortened bottom line, and the "M" is all curved and too big for its boots.