Should Dredd ever be killed off?

[Richard]

I'm not convinced that it has to inevitably lead to "all the fudging, ret-conning, early years stories, flash-backs, re-inventions etc." They could do it and just move on. No need to keep harking back to it.

Like pulling off a plaster.

[Spikes]

Yes, i too bought the re-launched Eagle for a while. I can well remember the flash and the bang heralding the return of "Dan Dare". And to be fair, it originally wasnt too bad - some nice art, if memory seves, but retconning/different writers/new directions soon came into play.

I'm not convinced that it has to inevitably lead to "all the fudging, ret-conning, early years stories, flash-backs, re-inventions etc." They could do it and just move on. No need to keep harking back to it.

Like pulling off a plaster.

Agreed, it doesnt have to lead to all that, its just that, unfortunately, it generally does. Would Dredd be immune to all of this? And in comics - noboby stays dead.

[BPP]

Do you think Wagner has to give Tharg assurances MC1 is still standing after the DoC? Right now the city being abandoned and Dredd going down with the ship would be the right time to answer the Dredd / Age conundrum.

Otherwise its going to be some sort of Sam Slade affair OR they simply don't mention it and abandon the 'real-time' ageing angle. Lets face it if you are new to Dredd with the movie or IDW or a lapsed reader from the 'golden' age then you don't really care too much about the ageing.

[Richard]

Maybe, but I think the ageing in real time thing, a year in real life is a year in the comic, is indispensable. It is a hallmark of Judge Dredd that makes it stand out from pretty much all other comics. As a long term fan I would feel pretty let down if the next ten years of stories were all set in 2134.

[Frank]

nobody will mind too much that it is not the original Joe Dredd  ... After all it is not as if the new Dredd would always be mentioning his roots in every single story.

Rico II has been around for 12 years now, he first appeared in 2000. By the time this happens (if it does) he will have been on the streets for nearly as long as Joe Dredd had in 1977 / 2099.

When-in the late Eighties- Tharg held a competition asking for suggestions for what the comic should be called in the 21st century, one sharp cookie mocked up a cover with the subtitle 'featuring Judge Rico'. If that does turn out to be the way Wagner and Matt Smith flop, I'm sure the earthlet in question will get back in touch.

[JOE SOAP]

Right now the city being abandoned and Dredd going down with the ship would be the right time to answer the Dredd / Age conundrum.

Mega City isn't being abandoned. It's being Balkanised.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkanization

[Frank]

Yes, i too bought the re-launched Eagle for a while. I can well remember the flash and the bang heralding the return of "Dan Dare". And to be fair, it originally wasnt too bad - some nice art, if memory seves, but retconning/different writers/new directions soon came into play.

I'm not convinced that it has to inevitably lead to "all the fudging, ret-conning, early years stories, flash-backs, re-inventions etc." They could do it and just move on. No need to keep harking back to it.

Like pulling off a plaster.

Agreed, it doesnt have to lead to all that, its just that, unfortunately, it generally does. Would Dredd be immune to all of this? And in comics - noboby stays dead.

Even if Dredd is allowed to leave the stage alive (i), I don't think Taggart's such a ridiculous comparison (ii); but only in the sense that the producers didn't directly replace the titular lead- opting instead to portion out the narrative burden among an already well established cast of younger characters. Beeny, Giant, Rico et al are up to that particular task.

Placing an impossible weight of expectation on a single Dredd replacement character only has one (dramatically interesting) way to go, and Kraken's taken us down that road before. I was rooting for that kid- who hasn't, as a son or lover (iii), felt the frustration of trying to compete with the memory of your predecessor- but 'and everything worked out just fine' has never seemed like an option for any Fargo clone.

A ludicrous aside. Assuming Wagner's personal pension provisions are based around the state retirement age, there's time for him to take the cloning and family aspects that have emerged as a major theme of his late work to their (il)logical extreme and write a response to all those objections to Dolly the sheep; what if someone (usually Hitler) got hold of the technology and decided to create an army of himself (iv)? That could leave not just Rico, but a host of Fargo clones on the streets of MC1; Dredds, anyone?



(i) My preferred option. However long Dredd lies dead, some hack's going to disinter his corpse; as long as Wagner's alive someone's going to be asking him when he's writing another Dredd. Having Dredd head off somewhere else lets Wagner's replacements (and Dredd's) get on with their jobs unimpeded, and allows Wagner to write the odd story about his own character whenever a particularly large vet's bill lands on the doormat.

(ii) "there's been a mutie incur-r-r-r-sion". Bringing the name of the strip into line with the singular title of the new film would help emphasise that the focus was (as ever) more on the life and fate of the city than any one particular character. Dredd seems more of a tone title, free of any specific referrant.

(iii) DH Lawrence; get me!

(iv) Hinted at already with Sinfield/March

[TordelBack]

As a long term fan I would feel pretty let down if the next ten years of stories were all set in 2134.

There's an interesting precedent for this in Patrick O'Brian's 20-or-so Aubrey/Maturin novels, which I love almost as much as I love Dredd. 

Leaving aside the fact that his own personal history was a complete fabrication, O'Brian's novels of the Royal Navy at the end of the Napoleonic Wars drew much of their charm and acclaim from their rigid historical accuracy, with time and events marching on regardless of his characters, who would frequently find themselves just missing famous engagements because they were on months-long cruises elsewhere, or spending whole books becalmed by periodic outbreaks of hateful peace. 

However, after a half dozen novels O'Brian found himself in a hole: having started his tale in 1800 and never expecting to do more than one book, he realised he was going to run out of any meaningful naval warfare sharpish around 1814, long before his readers' appetites waned. 

His solution was to stop the clock and begin the 'long year of 1813', sending his characters rambling around the world for years (including successive seasons, Christmasses and childbirths) without ever actually getting to 1814.  Eventually, near the end of his own life, the characters rejoined 'real' time again with Napoleon's escape from Elba.

Did it work?  Did fundamentally altering the precepts of a fiction which derived so much of its character from its realism matter?  Well, for my money, yes and no.  I was delighted to get another dozen books of amputations, broadsides and amusing the enemy, but there's no denying that they lost an urgency or perhaps more importantly a sense of consequence. 

It became hard to sympathise with Jack Aubrey's frustration at the endless delay in his being made an Admiral when he'd been dismissed from the service and served as master of a privateer earlier that same year, or when the characters' various children become active participants, despite the chronology suggesting they're all still about 2. 

So it's a double-edged sword. You fudge the timelines and it all goes a bit Franklin Richards, but on the plus side, you get a lot more of the what you like.     

[JOE SOAP]

A ludicrous aside. Assuming Wagner's personal pension provisions are based around the state retirement age, there's time for him to take the cloning and family aspects that have emerged as a major theme of his late work to their (il)logical extreme and write a response to all those objections to Dolly the sheep; what if someone (usually Hitler) got hold of the technology and decided to create an army of himself (iv)? That could leave not just Rico, but a host of Fargo clones on the streets of MC1; Dredds, anyone?

He all ready did that with the Judda and a little bit with Sinfield.

Mutant Judges are the next phase: Enter...Mutant Judge Fargo of the Cursed Earth Clan.

[Emperor]

We've seen body transplants and the like before, it's no big deal. This wouldn't make Dredd invulnerable, he'll still be in constant danger from snipers, terrorists and the like but it'd solve the ageing problem and, potentially, throw up new challenges for him.

I can see it now - Dredd on the operating table with the donor body next to him.  Suddenly, Judge Death appears, inhabits the cadavear and escapes.  "Get me a body!" growls Dredd with his dying breath.  "I've got to stop that creep."

Unfortunately the only other readily-available corpse is a midget.  Now Dredd is the toughest and shortest cop on the beat.  He can't even reach the pedals on his Lawmaster.

Stay tuned - more new challenges for Joe next week!

"He can still kick ass, just not literally any more"

[BPP]

Nobody kills the goose that laid the golden egg. This Tharg is clearly very accepting / indulgent / informed on letting the creators of characters do as they wish but there is no assurance the next one will be. However even Tharg might get a word in his ear should he sanction the death of the key IP of the company. Rebellion bought 2000AD for its IP, its not going to green-light the death of Joe in the hope that Rico et al can carry the comic.

Even if its applauded as brave etc for doing so any short-term PR would be outweighed by the fact that the hard-ass Joe Dredd is no longer there and that the strip, regardless of theories about it being 'about the city, about the citizens etc' has been about Joe Dredd for 30 years.

And if the movie is a success, a big success, then Dredd, you know the titular character as played by a name actor strolling around the screen with 'DREDD' written on his chest, is worth a lot more money than worrying what the old fanboys think.

Lets say that it is a success, and IDW's comic is a moderate success based on the name-recognition spreading, is the weekly Prog really going to be the one place where the movie's main character isn't around?

Dredd already travels in time, fights dimensional beings and exists in a galaxy far weirder than MC1, some age-reducing fudge based on tech / weird world or silence are the only two options.

[TordelBack]

However even Tharg might get a word in his ear should he sanction the death of the key IP of the company. Rebellion bought 2000AD for its IP, its not going to green-light the death of Joe in the hope that Rico et al can carry the comic.

You're almost certainly correct there BPP, but the question remains: what would be the best case resolution to the ageing/death problem from a story point of view, leaving aside 'real world' concerns. 

I'd personally love to see the Taggart solution, an ensemble piece with no-one in the titular role.  I can't imagine ever accepting Rico or Dolman or Clone 37 as an actual replacement (although I was prepared to give Kraken a chance) - the whole thrust of Dredd on this issue since as far back as Return of Rico has been that clones are different people.

However, I'm prepared to accept the near-inevitability of (another) re-juve, possibly mandatory across the whole of Justice Dept in response to lack of numbers 

[Frank]

Mega City isn't being abandoned. It's being Balkanised.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkanization

That means the NW Hab Zone's never going to vote for Sector 260 in the Megavision song contest.

[BPP]

Well if the do insist on the Dark Judges doing a cover of The Crazy world of Arthur Brown's  'FIRE!!' every year then what can they expect. 

[a chosen rider]

Even if he eventually transitions off the street into more of the sort of role he had in The Pit, it's not at all implausible in Mega-City terms for Dredd the character to live another fifty years or longer in a relatively healthy and compos mentis state.  The strip's been happily humming along for over a decade now doing ensemble cast stories with Dredd as the focal point, and there's no particular reason why he has to be out doing the more physical parts of the job personally for that setup to continue.  I think there's more character mileage in Dredd having to come to terms with a behind-the-scenes role than there is in a death story anyway.