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Dredd Epics Ranked - Better! Vote for positions 28 - 21

Started by Colin YNWA, 22 March, 2021, 06:32:42 AM

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Colin YNWA

Pretty straight-forward this one. We need to slot Epics 17 through 24 into positions 28-21 but there are some good thrills here that deserve your vote to get them positioned as high as possible.

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


17 Block Judge - Progs 1900-1909

18 Served Cold/The Cop - Progs 1718-1725; Megs 356-361

19 Dead Zone - Megs 350-355

20 Every Empire Falls - Progs 1973-1990 and Megs 371-373

21 Krong Islands - Megs 376-377, 386, 392-395

22 Fetish - Megs 3.25-3.29

23 Dark Justice - Progs 1912-1921

24 Beyond the Call of Duty - Progs 1101-1110

Voting will close on the morning of Friday 26th 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.

broodblik

1. Every Empire Falls
2. Dark Justice
3. Krong Islands
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.

abelardsnazz


SmallBlueThing(Reborn)

1. Every Empire Falls
2. Fetish
3. Beyond the Call of Duty

SBT

sintec


IndigoPrime

1. Served Cold
2. Every Empire Falls
3. Beyond the Call of Duty

Barrington Boots


1. Every Empire Falls
2. Block Judge
3. Beyond the Call of Duty

Block Judge gets my vote here over Beyond.. because although it's not an epic, I liked it more.
Fetish I've never been a fan of, personally. Dark Justice looks great, but it's a bit light, isn't it? Starts off so well, and then bleh.




You're a dark horse, Boots.

Magnetica

1 Beyond the Call of Duty
2 Block Judge
3 Served Cold

HM Dark Justice.

AlexF


Tomwe


The Enigmatic Dr X

1 Dark Justice
2 Block Judge
3 Beyond the Call of Duty
Lock up your spoons!

GoGilesGo

Beyond the Call of Duty
Every Empire Falls
Block Judge

Bolt-01


Rogue Judge


Funt Solo

1st: Every Empire Falls *
2nd: Block Judge
3rd: Dark Justice


---

*I had a lot of fun writing this one up, so I'm going to paste it in here just in case anyone's interested in reviewing my review.

++SPOILERS AHOY!++

Judge Dredd: The Grindstone Cowboys
(1973-1977)
Script: Michael Carroll, Art: Colin MacNeil, Colours: Len O'Grady, Letters: Annie Parkhouse


An odd fish here as we get Carroll's first foray into chained mega-epic territory. On the one hand, there's the impeccable timing of a prog-shattering climax in prog 1977 and on the other there's some confused storytelling as Dredd and Rico get sent on a mission together and it ends up being quite difficult to tell them apart. Prog 1975's cover suggests a Judge's death that's not apparent in the story itself.

The grander scheme of political machinations (seeming to foreshadow difficulties to come) plays out well against the foreground of the mission against raiders in the Cursed Earth who are threatening the city's supply lines. The main villain - a masked giant who seems to have stepped out of a computer game (Splatterhouse from 80s arcades) - is a characterless foil who continually lumbers away around corners like a faceless McGuffin.




The end clearly isn't, and we're told to keep reading in the Megazine, giving us our first prog / meg crossover since 1999's War Games / Doomsday. In summary: we have some storytelling flaws in a very compelling deeper plot that seems set to shake the foundations of Dredd's world.



Judge Dredd
Script: Michael Carrol, Letters: Annie Parkhouse

Dust to Dust (M371-M373), Art: Henry Flint
The Lion's Den (1978-1985), Art: PJ Holden, Colours: Adam Brown
Reclamation (1986-1990), Art: Colin MacNeil, Colours: Len O'Grady
From the Ashes (M374), Art: Carlos Ezquerra

In the opening salvo of The Grindstone Cowboys, Dredd & Rico tracked a group of marauders who were threatening MC-1's Cursed Earth supply lines, but the leader (the protagonist from 80s arcade classic Splatterhouse) kept evading them. At the climax Dredd is first badly wounded and then his medivac shuttle mysteriously explodes! All the squaxx are like "Michael! You can't kill the title character!"

Publishing order, by the way, goes like this:




The meg's Dust to Dust sees Rico join up with Major Eazy Judge Koburn and some stereotypical native americans (feathers, savage nobility, mystic powers: check!) to track Splatterhouse: only to find that he's a pawn of ... but wait!




In The Lion's Den, Judge Joyce is handed over to Brit-Cit to stand trial for the Murphyville Spaceport massacre (clue: he's innocent) and finds himself a target of some shady undercover types. Turns out Brit-Cit has a rogue high level cadre bent on the destruction of MC-1. Oh, and Dredd's alive! He was teleported out of the med shuttle! Armitage gets roped in on the goodies side while in MC-1 Hershey does a deal with Texas City to bring some of their Judges in to shore up their strength. She's like Lando in The Empire Strikes Back, because the deal keeps getting worse. Turns out that Brit-Cit are just acting as the pawns of ... but wait!




In Reclamation it's revealed that Texas City has planned the entire debacle in an attempt to run a quiet coup on MC-1 and commit mutie genocide (and beat up on Judge Giant). He's having none of that, and (see title) the fight back begins:




Finally, From the Ashes provides an interesting denouement to the saga, where *new psi-Judge I don't recognize* is going to get installed as the new CJ of TC. It's been a grand old saga with some impeccable timing, but this part seems weak: just because their coup fails I don't see why they're going to accept Hershey installing a new CJ in TC (from MC-1). I mean: why?

++ A-Z ++  coma ++