Blood and Omens?

[satchmo]

Blood and Duty,Blood Cadets,Bloodline.Three of the very best Dredd stories,all with important developments in Dredd's life.We dont know how important Cadets and Duty will turn out to be,but the consequences of Bloodline were apocalyptic.I'm not saying Vienna will be back,or Rico will swap bodies with Dredd,but how will Dredd react to the fallout to Sin City and Vienna?What will happen at Orlok's trial?
Long term I think we have a lot to look forward to.

[synapse]

Hmm here's my bet. I may really be John Wagner so...:)

Orlok will be sentenced to life in iso, yet will escape on the way to prison or soon after incarceration.  He will then go on another killing spree, only this time he will be prepared.  Let's just call it 'the final solution'.  It all ends messy with Hershey facing up to her very oblivion. Can she stop Orlok in time?

Vienna will not be back. The storyline was written just to tie up the loose ends.

Long term Dredd will have Joe coming off second best to Rico.  Dredd shows traces of envy, feelings he has never felt before.

Rico becomes arrogant, yet still flawless in his application of the law.  However we see that his tainted bloodline comes to the surface.  Other judges sense this arrogant side in Rico and they become weary of him.  Rico starts to get a bad reputation.

Dredd dismisses these baseless accusations out of hand.   He believes his own subconscious feelings of envy will impair his judgement so decides it's time to retire once and for all.  Why be upstaged by his own clone he asks himself. But before that....

Rico and Dredd team up for a major story.  Rico senses Dredd's feelings towards him and confronts him.  There is an argument. Rico disobeys Dredd's orders on the mission and Rico's arrogance takes over.  He refers to Dredd as "old man", as did Kraken.

Dredd feels an icy chill in his heart.  Could history be repeating itself?

Well the rest of the story is for another day...

[W. R. Logan]

>Rico and Dredd team up for a major story.  Rico senses Dredd's feelings towards him and confronts him.  There is an argument. Rico disobeys Dredd's orders on the mission and Rico's arrogance takes over.  He refers to Dredd as "old man", as did Kraken.
>Dredd feels an icy chill in his heart.  Could history be repeating itself?

Can't see this happening myself. Kraken for all his flawless brilliance had been brought up by the Judda and the 'your time is up old man' feelings were pure Judda as Morton Judd had been preparing his forces to take over MC-1.

Rico has spent his whole life in the process of training to become a judge and being prepared for the streets.

They may have the same 'Bloodline' but Kraken was corrupted from birth by Judd's policies and beliefs, Rico's life so far has been for one purpose only and that's to be a Judge.

I've said this many times but I don't think Wagner will ever kill off Dredd or replace him with Rico, do a body swap, put Dredd's brain in Rico's body or any of the ideas that have appeared here.

La Placa Rifa,
W. R. Logan.

Link: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theclassof79" target="_blank">Class Of '79 Yahoo Group

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[satchmo]

I don't think Rico will go bad,he is after all a clone of Dredd,not Fargo,and the whole story has been done before with Kraken.I don't think Vienna will be back either,but the point of the story was surely to show that Dredd never forgot her and kept an eye on her when he could from afar.In his own way Dredd is clearly heartbroken when he misses Vienna in the play.These feelings and his sorrow from the Sin City affair,I'm just wondering what he's going to say at Orlok's trial.Something he shouldn't?

[Slippery PD]

Im with you guys on Rico.  I dont think hell go bad either.

Vienna on the other hand I believe will be back, Dredd spoke to her "friend" at the end of Blood & Duty.  He may pass on the message if he does Vienna will be back.  Or that at least was my intepretation.

I too think the trial will be a turning point for Dredd, but Id like to see him getting involved in the politics of the Justice Dept and his closeness to Hershey could also be an Advantage.  Th pit showed a new way of doing dredd, I think altho the story is old maybe Joe should go downb this route, rather than the old man on the streets.  At least for a while anyways.

Kraken was always set up to be bad, this was pretty obvious fromn the start and he shouldnt cloud our judgement of rico, IMHO.

_ yer Slippo  

[JimBob]

 Er I could be wrong here but Kraken didn't go bad did he? He was controlled by Death in necropolis but then so were most of Justice Dept. apart from annpying Dredd the "Old Man" who thpught he would go bad in the future, which llets face it he could have done by simply growing a 'tache, what did he do that was bad?

 Jim, always wondered about this, never got round to asking.

[synapse]

Jim.

Kraken never went bad in the true sense of the word.  Dredd believed the evil Judda bloodline was still inherent within Kraken and didn't trust him.

As you correctly post, the dark judges turned Kraken bad.  He did try to resist them, but with the Sisters of Death helping them, he soon become the fifth dark judge.

I think you lot misunderstood my original post.  I didn't want to give the impression Rico goes bad like the original Rico Dredd. He just becomes more arrogant. We have already seen the seeds of this storyline sown in the Sector House tale. Remember when that female judge says, "I don't like you Rico."

So my guess is Rico will become so perfect, he will look down on everybody.  Think he is so superior.  This could work as variation on the theme.  Rico isn't corrupt as such, but we still see a flaw to his character.

Dredd has his own doubts about his self worth regarding Rico as this great new judge and wants to retire for good.  But in the long run, Rico is killed in a spectacular story and Dredd decides to continue as a judge.  I think that could work.

I doubt Rebellion would ever kill Dredd off, so this could be the next best thing.  Dredd was going to retire but circumstances forced him to remain a judge.

[Devons Daddy]

rico and joe team up, ricos arrogance, anyone remeber dredd many years ago. he has never been mr popular,
a decent the pit style epic with both of them in it would be superb i must agree,though i reckon we will see the jioning of joe and rico in some way, young body the lawmans mind and history, the abilty to carry off a reasonable time line and another twenty five great years of dredds world.

something is brewing though, so many little things in the last four years,  
im enjoying the ride and i dont see rico letting the us down, every family has a black sheep, rico 1 was it,.
but i would enjoy a decent low key epic with them both,what a story that would be with wagner scripting it, i believe sin city was only the opening chapter, its end was too simple for a wagner story arc, it was the first act,after i read it again, im sure thats all it was,

[O Lucky Stevie!]

>I doubt Rebellion would ever kill Dredd off, so this could be the next best thing. Dredd was going to retire but circumstances forced him to remain a judge.

you mean like skid solo's retirement after that car crash in tiger?

i've wet my knickers!
steven l'enfant terrible

[paulvonscott]

On thing I am certain of is that time spent trying to second guess John Wagner, is time wasted.  Even when he does what you expect, he does it in a way you didn't.

As for the original post, yeah it could be that blood always heralds something important.

Dredd, in continous story mode (not just one offs) is utterly compelling.  If all the edgar, rico, orlok stuff was in reprinted volumes as one coherant story, that would be marvellous.

Anyway, I'm off to work on my theory of what will happen at the trial.  So far Orlok pleeds he is a banana and as an endangered plant species he must be allowed to go free.  But knowing John (which I don't) he'll probably make him a kiwi fruit or some sort of exotic tuber.