While it always helps when they are largely drawn by Ezquerra - with a healthy dose of our hero John Higgins - the Dredd stories in this annual really are top stuff.
None of them are particular original plots - one has a low-level perp left tied up on the wrong street and losing everything, the second story has a Citi-Def squad going a little futsie and attacking the city, while the third is a bog-standard hostage situation.
But each story is packed with incident, metaphor and dark humour. Mega-City One is a metropolis with breathtaking technology, but it's also a city where an armed militia might kill hundreds of people in some mad training exercise, or you could be murdered by somebody who just wants to get on TV, or you could be cut up by organ leggers who steal everything but your soul. And that's just a Tuesday in MC-1.
These stories have a lot to say about culture and society, with a healthy dose of commentary on the state of modern media, while also delivering wicked twists and balls-out action. This is classic Dredd, in all senses of the word.
The 1986 annual also comes with a Judge Anderson story drawn by Ian Gibson, and this might be a controversial opinion, but I genuinely believe Gibson is the best Judge Anderson artist, so that's also always welcome.
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