Judge Dredd: The Citadel - the most recent 2000ad story from Dredd co-creator John Wagner - is a strange beast. It came with promises of some earth-shattering secret that would rock Dredd's world, and while it doesn't really deliver on those promises, there is something very interesting going on with the interpretation of the main character.
Drawn with unmistakable clarity and great action by Dave Cornwall, the story is an extended flashback to the Apocalypse War, and a small untold chapter of Dredd's involvement in it. The war took place decades ago - both in the real world and in Dredd's beloved Mega-City One - but its shadow of the fallout and consequences still hangs heavy over the story.
Rarely for a contemporary story looking back at the war, it doesn't hinge on the actual outcome, with most Apocalypse-related tales rightly focusing on Dredd's total and utter destruction of his enemies, and the enormous cost that untold billions have paid and are still paying for it.
Instead, it's all about the initial guerilla stages of the war, before Dredd's final mission, where there is plenty of room for untold chapters.
That - and the fact that Wagner is making unfortunately rare appearances on the main Dredd strip these days - means The Citadel is automatically an event, but what really makes it interesting is that it features a Dredd that is not quite right.
It's definitely him - harsh and driven and an absolute killing machine - but he's also just the wrong side of cruel and nasty. Just a bit meaner than he needs
to be, even in wartime.
Dredd has become an infinitely complex character over the years, but even this flashback to a simpler time jars with the character as he was presented during that era (especially when it's the same writer involved).
There is an obvious in-story explanation for it all, because it's told by the most unreliable narrator possible, (you can tell he's unreliable because he keeps trying to bite people's faces off), and you can't trust a single thing he says.
But what is Wagner saying? His scripts are as beautifully raw and stream-lined as ever, but are saturated with hidden meaning, built up over decades of work on the character. And this version of Dredd is oddly reminiscent of some of the other Dredds we've seen over the years, when good writers who never quite got the character right were given the reins.
It's entirely possible that Wagner doesn't mean anything of the sort, but it's also possible that he really is saying something about doing the character right. That it's a delicate balance that is a lot harder than it looks.
Because Dredd is an old man who shows no sign of quitting yet, but you've got to keep his voice right. It's the law.
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1 comment:
Interesting perspective but fwiw personally I thought The Citidal was very good partly BECAUSE it was a good character study of Dredd! I liked the way it was entirely consistent with the original story while showing Dredd in a subtly different light. His behaviour seemed entirely plausible to me given the desperate stakes and Dredd's utterly relentless determatination to do whatever it takes to save his city. Yep, he made some pretty brutal threats at points during the story, but that sort of thing does sometimes happen in warfare and, unlike comparable real life situations like, say, Stalingrad, he didn't actually carry them out! Moreover, one of the things I most like about Wagner's Dredd is that you're not necessarily supposed to like or agree with him!
As for other Dredd writers, they're a mixed bunch but I do think Rory McConville does a decent job of nailing Dredd and telling decent stories that don't rely on 'continuity porn'
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