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Things that went over your head...

Started by ming, 09 January, 2012, 11:00:01 AM

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positronic

Quote from: JOE SOAP on 03 May, 2017, 09:49:22 PM
Quote from: positronic on 03 May, 2017, 03:42:04 AMYet there are also flashback sequences that show him with a badge that reads RICO, so someone chose to retcon that appearance in subsequent flashbacks. The original panel makes more sense, so why they didn't leave it that way... is probably what TordelBack says, that it would be too confusing having 2 Judge Dredds who look identical (until Rico's incarceration on Titan).

Hindsight is 20/20, but they could have avoided those problems by just giving both of Judge Fargo's clones different last names.

Of course, but no one thought there'd be lots of debatin' a 'one-off' comic character's name 4 weeks, let alone 40 years, after he met his contemporaneous end.

I read that it was written as a quick fill-in story (Progs 29-30 being all Mills wrote of Dredd until the longer Cursed Earth saga from Progs 61-70, 81-85), so obviously no thought was given to the lasting ramifications, never mind that it would become a cornerstone of the Dredd mythos. This being the very first hint we get of Dredd's origins, though, maybe it ought to have been more foreseeable.

I've wondered if Pat Mills might have gotten the idea from Rich Man, Poor Man, which would have still been fresh in people's minds at that time.

positronic

I must admit you have to adjust that perception a little when you consider that as of Prog 30, Dredd might still be being viewed as of less significance to 2000 AD than say, M.A.C.H. 1 or Dan Dare.

JOE SOAP

Quote from: positronic on 04 May, 2017, 12:47:53 AM

I read that it was written as a quick fill-in story (Progs 29-30 being all Mills wrote of Dredd until the longer Cursed Earth saga from Progs 61-70, 81-85), so obviously no thought was given to the lasting ramifications, never mind that it would become a cornerstone of the Dredd mythos. This being the very first hint we get of Dredd's origins, though, maybe it ought to have been more foreseeable.


Comics rarely lasted more than 5 years so it was all rather fluid – Dredd almost had an ex-girlfriend.

Tony Angelino

Someone might have pointed this out before but I was reading the Wally Squad story from 1984 (Wagner/Grant/Ewins) in the Mega Collection recently and noticed that the two undercover Judges surnames are Pino and Shea.

I don't know whether this is some play on Pinochet, the former ruler of Chile, or just a coincidence.

positronic

#859
Quote from: JOE SOAP on 04 May, 2017, 01:00:30 AM
Quote from: positronic on 04 May, 2017, 12:47:53 AM

I read that it was written as a quick fill-in story (Progs 29-30 being all Mills wrote of Dredd until the longer Cursed Earth saga from Progs 61-70, 81-85), so obviously no thought was given to the lasting ramifications, never mind that it would become a cornerstone of the Dredd mythos. This being the very first hint we get of Dredd's origins, though, maybe it ought to have been more foreseeable.


Comics rarely lasted more than 5 years so it was all rather fluid – Dredd almost had an ex-girlfriend.

Well, nominally 2000 AD was a part of the boys' comic group of IPC, and past standards held that boys outgrew the comic-reading habit after a few years. That was the common wisdom, but they were proven wrong by people like us, and by the types of editors and creators working for comics like 2000 AD, or a symbiosis of those two things.

That said, a lot of the older strips are based on action-adventure fantasy premises that don't really bear close scrutiny in terms of realism. There's a kind of tension between the older-style treatment of Dredd as almost inhuman or superhuman, to the more modern approach of wanting to deal in a thoughtful way with real-world concerns for a older audience, and have an interesting depth of characterization. As it happens, I just read the trade collection Mutants in Mega-City One, and you couldn't ask for a better study in contrasts between the older and newer Dredd stories in it, and how they treat not only the mutant characters, but the sea-change in attitudes in Dredd in the intervening years.

Of course, what's not alluded to at all in the trade paperback is what came in-between the mostly-older reprints in the first half of the book (and aside from just a couple of stories in the first half, they aren't mostly what you would call "gems"). The second half, representing the book's title story, mostly tells one long tale (in the aftermath of Origins), where Dredd has discovered his mutant "cousins", descendants of Eustace Fargo's twin brother, now low-level mutants living in the Cursed Earth. It's a very good, and very powerful story, another feather in John Wagner's cap, as are the follow-on stories which carry on the main thread (how I wish the entire book had been stories from this particular run!)

And yet the story raised so many questions in my mind about what would happen if Dredd would apply the same philosophical/ethical/moral questioning to many of the laws he's enforcing on a daily basis (and a certain percentage of other judges could be expected to follow suit) regarding The Law vs. true Justice, that I realized that sort of realism carried to its logical conclusion would ultimately completely undermine the basic fantasy premise that the Judge System is based on.

It also raised a whole host of questions about Dredd himself -- where is his conscience/ethics/morality coming from, if he's entirely a product of institutional conditioning from birth to adulthood? Did they teach him to question the law and higher authority at the academy?? Dredd (and Rico) had no parents, no leisure time, no hobbies or interests, almost zero freedom of choice compared to any normal person, NO social or emotional ties to anyone outside of the justice system, and they'd both been raised entirely as a tools of the state, with the sole purpose to preserve that state, as part of an experiment.

Knowing how differently Joe and Rico turned out, even though they were both genetically identical, and also both subject to the exact same influences of indoctrination from birth, turns the whole "nature or nurture" conundrum of psychiatry and sociology on its head. It makes me think there's got to be a huge past continuity story waiting to be told somewhere explaining just how it is that the two turned out so differently -- when you stop to consider that they originally fit the old expression "like two peas in a pod" more closely than any two individuals (even identical twins) EVER have in the real world.

Greg M.

Quote from: positronic on 08 May, 2017, 08:30:08 PM
It makes me think there's got to be a huge past continuity story waiting to be told somewhere explaining just how it is that the two turned out so differently

It's called 'Blood Cadets'. It's extremely good. You'll get it in the 'Brothers of the Blood' TPB.

Dark Jimbo

Quote from: positronic on 08 May, 2017, 08:30:08 PM
It makes me think there's got to be a huge past continuity story waiting to be told somewhere explaining just how it is that the two turned out so differently -- when you stop to consider that they originally fit the old expression "like two peas in a pod" more closely than any two individuals (even identical twins) EVER have in the real world.

One word - bloodline. As soon as the concept of the bloodline flaw was introduced it's as much explanation as you ever really need for Fargo/Rico/Kraken/Nimrod.

@jamesfeistdraws

positronic

Thank you Greg and Jimbo. As it happens, Brothers of the Blood was one of a handful of outstanding story arcs that Doug Wolk (of the Dredd Reckoning blog/review) picked as one of his worthy-of-recommendation titles, so it was already on my list.

Anyone want to weigh in with bouquets or brickbats for the Tour of Duty and Day of Chaos storylines, which are also tentatively on my list?

Dark Jimbo

Quote from: positronic on 08 May, 2017, 08:57:11 PM
Anyone want to weigh in with bouquets or brickbats for the Tour of Duty and Day of Chaos storylines, which are also tentatively on my list?

Both great - make sure to read them in order, is all. DoC riffs a lot on much of what happened in ToD. Also a very good idea to be up to speed with PJ Maybe's shenanigans before then, as he plays a pivotal role in both epics, one way or another.
@jamesfeistdraws

Dandontdare

Seconded - defo read the complete PJ Maybe before ToD and DoC

positronic

So far the reading list of post-Necropolis Dredd TP collections I've got is this:

[X] - The Garth Ennis Collection (Not bad, enjoyed the Emerald Isle/Judge Joyce stories.)
[X] - Judgment Day (Purchased long ago; wanted it for the Strontium Dog crossover. Didn't know any better!)
[  ] - The Pit
[  ] - The Carlos Ezquerra Collection
[X] - Origins (Absolutely amazing! They should all be this good.)
[X] - Mutants in Mega-City One (1st half, fair/poor; 2nd half, excellent!)
[  ] - Brothers of the Blood
[  ] - The Complete PJ Maybe > https://shop.2000ad.com/catalogue/GRN279
[  ] - Tour of Duty (2 vols.)
[  ] - Day of Chaos (3 vols.)

I've also heard Trifecta is good, but I figure the list is long enough for now. Then again, I could probably add anything that was predominantly Wagner and/or Ezquerra stories without too much persuasion!


Dark Jimbo

I'd maybe prioritise Trifecta over the DoC:Fallout volume, which is by no means essential and mainly a case of Carroll and Williams setting things up for ongoing storylines that aren't actually resolved in that book. That said, I suspect you ought to be au fait with both The Simping Detective and Low Life before tackling Trifecta*, so that's just adding even more to your reading list...!

Titan is maybe the best call for a post-DoC volume, but once again you really will need some familiarity with Low Life for that one...

*Also, given the scripters' very strong 'voices', SD and LL are just that bit more subjective than your average Dredd script - you may love 'em, they may fail completely to be your cup of tea.
@jamesfeistdraws

positronic

Quote from: Dark Jimbo on 10 May, 2017, 06:20:37 PM
I'd maybe prioritise Trifecta over the DoC:Fallout volume, which is by no means essential and mainly a case of Carroll and Williams setting things up for ongoing storylines that aren't actually resolved in that book. That said, I suspect you ought to be au fait with both The Simping Detective and Low Life before tackling Trifecta*, so that's just adding even more to your reading list...!

Titan is maybe the best call for a post-DoC volume, but once again you really will need some familiarity with Low Life for that one...

*Also, given the scripters' very strong 'voices', SD and LL are just that bit more subjective than your average Dredd script - you may love 'em, they may fail completely to be your cup of tea.

Okay... according to Dredd Reckoning, Trifecta includes:
QuoteTrifecta
(Judge Dredd stories from 2000 AD Progs 1803 and 1806-1812, The Simping Detective stories from 2000 AD Progs 1804-1811, and Low Life stories from 2000 AD Progs 1805-1811)

... should I need more than that to understand what's going on in Titan? I don't need to read all three Mega-City Undercover volumes first, do I?

Also, I've read a couple of chapters of Insurrection, and found the basic premise of that spinoff (space mining colonists decide to secede from Mega-City One) to be pretty interesting. I know the story's been collected in a couple of volumes, which I'm presuming require no real background reading... Any thoughts?

The other spinoff series (besides Judge Anderson) that I like is Hondo City. I read Hondo City Law (because it was easy to get) before realizing that there had been another volume of earlier stories (Shimura) released some years ago (and now out-of-print). Trying to find a copy of that one now, while I await the copy of Hondo City Justice that I ordered last week.

sheridan

Quote from: positronic on 11 May, 2017, 12:35:07 PM
Also, I've read a couple of chapters of Insurrection, and found the basic premise of that spinoff (space mining colonists decide to secede from Mega-City One) to be pretty interesting. I know the story's been collected in a couple of volumes, which I'm presuming require no real background reading... Any thoughts?


You don't need any background reading for Insurrection, though Insurrection itself is background reading for another, more recent series.  But I'm not going to tell you what that series is as it's a surprise appearance ;-)

JudgeJudi

Quote from: sheridan on 11 May, 2017, 12:53:15 PM

You don't need any background reading for Insurrection, though Insurrection itself is background reading for another, more recent series.  But I'm not going to tell you what that series is as it's a surprise appearance ;-)

I must confess I'm puzzled by this - another megazine strip?