Dredd epics ranked

[BPP]

He was very publicly angry about its reception (negative) at the time - likely in part because hicklenton was either near his end or had recently passed. Emotional times.

I think hicklentons version of Dredd is very visually divisive but boy can he draw the shit out of a dinosaur. 


Btw - ridiculous almost criminal placing of City of the Dammed. It's fine as a sci-fi tale and has brilliant dillion and Gibson art. Sure it's not as good as what immediately preceded or succeeded it epic wise but compared to some of the non-wagner snorefests coming up the list it's bloody outstanding. Saying 'don't bother' with it is a joke.

[Tjm86]

I'm not sure I would agree with the idea of Lunar City as a Mega-Epic.  Then again I can sort of see the logic.  I mean in some respects stories like the Judge Child Quest and Cursed Earth saga following similar structures.  Whereas the likes of the Day the Law Died and Apocalypse War are more unified stories (AW in particular).

I guess that is just me being pedantic.  At least we can all agree on Crusade ...

[AlexF]

Super glad to get people riled up in defense of their favourites here. Personally I keep wanting to like City of the Damned but it just goes nowhere, all too quickly.

Anyway, next entry up this morning:
https://dreddepicsranked.blogspot.com/2020/08/epics-46-44-actually-these-are-quite.html

-and we've already reached the point where I'd say these stories are good and well worth reading. Longform Dredd is a reliably good time.

[TordelBack]

Never would have thought of including Chief Judge's Man,  but good call! The art on that, throughout, is gorgeous.

My own fondness for the Mega-Rackets comes from picking them up bit by bit, out of order, as back-progs. In that format, they seemed vast, and a gradual insight into a more complex MC-1 than I had previously imagined (as well as making sense of the JD Boardgame!). Their exoticism was increased by my general ignorance of the gangster tropes they were playing with.

I absolutely loved Wilson's SF environments, an order 'harder' than the Ron Smith/Ezquerra era I was getting weekly downstream in 1983, and all the more captivating because Wilson had vanished from the Prog completely by that time.

[Colin YNWA]

I'm having as much fun playing with my nerd rage about what's being counted as an epic as the actual positions of the stories listed here!

I've never thought of the Luna 1 stuff as an Epic, but certain see why folks might. I can kinda see the argument for Chief Judge's Man though it really is interconnected short stories. BUT the Mega Rackets no surely not I won't stand for this outrage... except of course I will... and I'll eat it up as:

1) Its your list so my childish fan rage can do one.

2) Including these here means we just have more of your fun write ups in this wonderful Blog - so nerd rage Colin will just have to bloody well get over it!

[AlexF]

No rage like nerd rage.
Pretty sure today's trio would all be considered as epics without much quibbling...

Part of what makes the selections feel right is if they've ever been bound up in their own collection - which is very much not true of Luna 1 or the Mega Rackets.
https://dreddepicsranked.blogspot.com/2020/07/epics-43-41-these-stories-are-real.html

[Colin YNWA]

Pretty sure today's trio would all be considered as epics without much quibbling...

Well actually Mechanismo I've never thought of as a... okay, okay I'll let it go now...

More great write ups. I'm a fan of Doomsday - the double header of Wilson and Kennedy in the Prog story is just wonderful. I also defo take on board the idea that Narcos is a rubbish villain - but that's almost his charm for me. At the end when he's all but won there's a wonderful moment when he kinda says "Yah me I won... but this is all a bit rubbish... what did I do that for I hate the fact I'm now in charge... bugger...".

[TordelBack]

The prospect of Kennedy and Wilson on Dredd was what drew me back to the prog in 1999, so I'll always have a soft spot for Doomsday (although tellingly I don't own a collection of it). Issues with mixed results from the artists aside (despite being a massive SBD fan, I can't get along with his largely leg-free work here), my main objection is how often this still gets billed as Robot War II.

It really isn't.

Not only is the instigator just another fleshy-one brain in a cybersuit, rather than a robo-messiah, the premise of MC-1's legion of robots being turned on the Judges by a gangster is ditched immediately in favour of an army of purpose built Assassinator droids, which for me makes a nonsense of Narcos's scheme. You don't really need to have a brilliant plan if you can just buy enough wardroids to take over, as the denouement shows all too clearly.

This leaves the MkII booby-trap as the only clever bit, but in a way it's too clever - it shouldn't have been a matter of street judges just losing a hand (never really mentioned again), they should have all been killed outright by whatever war-robot they were drawing against. This might not have been true if they were fighting vending-machine butlers and block-painting droids, but against Assassinators none of them should have survived.

There's a lot to like in the story,  especially the DeMarco bits, and Narcos' anti-climactic resignation, but ultimately I don't think it lives up to its considerable promise

[AlexF]

Yeah, I think it's one of those ideas that sounds more interesting on paper than it is in execution - what if a villain was in a position to basically buy his way to domination but didn't actually have any reason to want it, and no idea what to do after he'd won? Turns out, he doesn't do much except wait to get beaten.

And you're right that this is a lot less Robot War-y than I made out. It did feel like it was referencing that story when I read it, though - I wonder if Wagner had meant to do more with the idea of Narcos becoming more robot than man, perhaps? Given how good AI is in MC1 times, it's a wonder more robots aren't granted personhood - or that more people haven't transferred their minds into robot bodies.

[TordelBack]

And you're right that this is a lot less Robot War-y than I made out.

Didn't mean you were doing it there, you're quite right that Wagner is having another go at the concept, more that it's literally referred to as the Second Robot War in some later stories, when it's actually a crimelord putsch, and not an AI uprising. 

(A bit like when characters refer to Day of Chaos as "the Chaos Riots", as if that was the significant event, rather than the death of 80% of the population from a bioweapon).

[Magnetica]

I only read Robot Wars decades later as an adult, so maybe my view is clouded by that, but for me it's very much a strip still finding its feet at that point. It's quite basic: bad guys do stuff, mayhem ensues; Judge Dredd stops them.

The Mega Rackets is one of my all time favourite Dredd strips. I would love to see more stories like this. There must be a lot of special stuff to come if this is down at 43.

It's especially impressive given (as I understand it) it was commissioned as filler to give Bolland more time to complete Judge Death Lives.

[Andy B]

This blog is excellent: keep it up!

Trying to figure out what counts as an epic is good nerdy fun. I can just about get to Blood of Satanus III at 35, but struggling to get to 52 from there.

One thing's for sure: you must be including a ton of stuff that isn't anywhere near as good as 'Doomsday' 

All together in Case Files 30, it's a cracking read with some really great art from some of my all-time favourites. Plus, it's fun to try to figure out a reading order if you were to remix the Prog and Meg stories in story sequence.

[AlexF]

Another set of three 'epics' up this morning:

https://dreddepicsranked.blogspot.com/2020/08/epics-40-38-youd-be-forgiven-for.html

[broodblik]

Another set of three 'epics' up this morning:

https://dreddepicsranked.blogspot.com/2020/08/epics-40-38-youd-be-forgiven-for.html

Great blog AlexF

Epic 37 you listed as Progs 2055-1069, I think it should have been Progs 2055-2069

[AlexF]

The epic so epic is travels back in time!
Good spot, Broodblik, have fixed it now.