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Got to say I just plain don't like hardback, to the extent that if I can't have it in softback I probably won't get it at all.
Although I might make an exception for Button Man & Zenith.
No! Be strong, man!

>>Or, more seriously, Burt Lancaster, who was a trained circus acrobat before he became one of the all-time genuine greats.

Perhaps I should have said "the only muscley guy who went on to make films while never actually successfully acting"... but I think you knew what I meant.
Lancaster made the transition to actor; he was talented. van D and Arnold are not, or at least not in the way Vinnie Jones appears to be.
("What?" they all wonder, "Is he being ironic?")

And what's with all this dissection of Van Dumb et al and their careers?
The only muscley actor to ever make as much as 2 great films was Arnie (Terminator and Predator) and he's long lost his "touch."
Nevertheless, crap as Van D and his career are, bet he still makes at least a half a mil per crap vid.
Not that I'm bitter.

>>I think most of the people giving it a high vote are those that have strong loving glowwy nostalgic feelings about it...

I take your point, but I would like to hear from those who still rate it highly. I also hate the way Mills has just about set everything he's ever wrote within the same universe. Judges in Nemesis, tsk.

Thanks for the welcome Proudhuff. My problem with the stub guns was they looked so damn silly, and that shot of the judge falling and slicing through an entire, giant overpass was something Ezquerra just couldn't pull off.

>>My favourite scene in The Apocalypse War has to be the guy with the guitar singing "Apocalypso apocaylso" just before that TAD hits him.

I love the tsunami sweeping in and one feuding blocker saying to another - mid-punch: "Only Jack Cousteau Block could have done this!" Classic, witty Dredd.

But, see, these are all basically my points: it was clearly a pretty juvenile tale - but, and I think this can be quickly verified on this very site, it is STILL highly regarded now.
Secondly, I am suggesting that early Dredd was pretty poor; good for its day but not to re-read. For my money, the first semi-decent Dredd epic was The Judge Child (the scripts had almost lost the kiddie element) and things were really rolling (though not without some problems - the Stub guns are poor) by The Apocalypse War.

Thanks for you speedy replies and input.

Hello, I?m a first-time poster, though I?ve lurked for a bit. Seems like a good place. And there is something that?s been really bugging me:

Apparently ? and please correct me if I?m wrong ? The Cursed Earth is still one of the all-time favourite Dredd stories. Now what?s going on with that?
I remember as a boy of 12 in 1987 finally getting my hands on a Titan Book One collected edition. I was so keen; I?d been aware of its basic plot for some time (there?d been a synopsis in ? I think! ? the 1986 Dredd annual), and it sounded great ? y?know, dinosaurs and all.
Oh, the disappointment!
Firstly, the daft, daft plot. Okay, the crazies had taken over the spaceport, but do you mean to say that in a city of MC2?s size there?s only one landing zone? L.A. today has maybe half a dozen, not to mention the possibility of privately owned runways.
And how would a bunch of crazed goons be able to stop a landing of highly trained, awesomely equipped Judges? Even if it was going to be bloody and costly, it couldn?t have been as arduous as the actual journey Dredd took.
Indeed, why not simply fly to the edge of the city and drop Dredd & the boys outside, or ? even easier ? paradrop in supplies and/or men?
Fuck, we can do it today, have been doing it for 50 years.

Secondly, the awful dialogue: ?Nothing impresses the judge,? said by another judge, odd.
And ? my memory is a little sketchy here: ?Farewell Spikes, you were THE GREATEST BIKER EVER!? Or something. There were other examples; the bottom line being this was ropy, early Dredd, scripted by Mills who history has, in my perhaps controversial opinion, not looked kindly on.

Now, I suspect what some of you might say in rebuttal ? and please say it! I welcome debate ? that it?s only a comic, you shouldn?t look for too great a plot, realism has no place in a pulp medium etc.
I disagree; surely the better a story is told the more enjoyable it is, the more we can immerse ourselves in it?
In short, as far as great Dredd stories go, look to ?The Pit,? ?America,? ?Midnight Surfer? ? hell, I even like ?City of the Damned.?

Finally, as a wee child I had a matchbox toy that was the Killdozer, detachable front and all. What happened there? Did Mills, McMahon, Bolland nick the design?

"I think the worst writer unleashed on Dredd had to be Mark Millar."

Yep, am totally in agreement with you there, Ratty. Far as I'm concerned he was the worst writer 2k ever had - and yes, that includes Mike Fleischer.