Judge Dredd vs Judge Death

The thing about Metal bands are that they're not able to tap into the wealth of love, i'm in love or i'm out of love content most bands draw from.  To compensate, they delve into writing songs about all the things they geek out about in absence of relationshiops.  Things like Metal Music (Whiplash-metallica); Literature (Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner – Iron Maiden);  Post-Apocalypse Fantasy (Post Apocalyptic City – Testament); Wars (anything by Slayer), Doin It (anything by Motley Crue) and Comics (I Am The Law – Anthrax). 

 And due to my interest in metal in the late 80’s, this song by Anthrax introduced me to the world of Judge Dredd and my introduction to Dredd was through an anthology on his adventures with Judge Death, a Judge from another dimension who declares that all crimes are committed by the living and therefore living is a crime and punishable by death.

I’m not sure what happened to my copy of this comic, I mean graphic novel, maybe it wasn’t even mine to begin with but a loaner that I kept for an insanely long time. At any rate it vanished and just recently as I was ebaying I gave a search (I think also because I recently watched that Big Four DVD which contained a set by Anthrax) and purchased  Judge Dredd vs. Judge Death.  After receiving it, I noticed a couple of things.  This wasn’t the same thing I had back in the early 80’s although it contained the same stories plus a few more and two, I thought the copy I had was in full-color but this is only black and white and three I guess I don’t really dig the comic format as a storytelling device.  The art was cool and Dredd was kicking ass as per usual but Death and the other Dark judges really steal the show and are under utilized.  While I guess most people seem to get introduced to comics via Marvel or DC, 2000AD titles like Dredd and Bad Company were the ones that caught my attention and maybe I'm judging the entire comic world based on their work primarily, what I noticed is that I require a bit more depth to enjoy a story and the comic world just leaves too much up to the imagination or comes across as shallow if you don't fill in the blanks yourself.  For me I think it’s inability to really portray emotions realistically is what keeps me from being engaged.   It was fine when I was a teenager  when just the cool artwork was enough but I’m just not into it anymore, despite still digging the art and general idea of the book.


A brief run down of the plot line:  As hinted above, Judge Death skips over to MegaCity-One to lay down the law of his world which is Guilty of Life, Sentenced to Death hard line  stance.  The Judges of MegaCity-One have to figure out how to stop him and fast.  A Psi-Ops Judge, Judge Anderson, traps Judge Death in her mind and Judge Dredd uses some futuristic bonding spray called Boing to seal both her and Judge Death in a capsule of some sort.  Fast forward to Judge Death Lives, his three compadres from his dimension sneak over, Judge Mortis, Fear & Fire and con some Megacity Dweller into cutting a hole in the capsule for Death to escape.  This goes off without a hitch but the Judges are of course alerted and take on Judge Death again eventually following the Dark Judges back to their dimension to make sure they don’t return.  In the end it wasn’t Dredd that saved the day but the souls of all of Judge Death’s victims on his own world using Judge Anderson as a medium to exact their revenge.   Cool huh?  When I was 16 definitely but not so much now.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying this is a bad comic just that comics aren’t really my cup of tea.  1 for Nostalgia 0 for me. There’s also a few more stories added at the end, like the War Games against the Sovs.