Villordsutch reviews Insurrection: Liberty…
Mega-City colonial space, 2135AD. Mining colony K Alpha 61 renamed itself Liberty after cutting loose from the Big Meg. Furious at this dissent, and in a bid to stop the revolt spreading to other colonies, the SJS launched a blistering attack on Colonial Marshal Kerel Luther’s forces. Now the alien Zhind have been defeated, and the SJS are turning on the insurrectionists
Insurrection: Liberty is written by Dan Abnett who in the introduction of this book tries to explain where this story fits into the world of Judge Dredd – as this book appears to be an anti-Judge book but not a “Criminal” perspective book. The “Bad Guys” aren’t common crooks whose goals are to gain and prosper from the tears of others, they are the grey people of Justice; those who are wrong in the eyes of the right, but at the same time they are the right. Dan places this tale slightly ahead in Dredd’s future, though unspecified in the timing of whether Dredd has passed or he’s still rolling the streets of Mega-City One, complaining about too many stairs and telling cadets about how good the Lawgivers were in his day.
From the opening page of Insurrection: Liberty there is an ominous opening bell clanging in the background of approaching doom. We begin with our protagonist Colonial Marshal Willard Gallows sending his family a message of joy, as they are finally leaving Mega-City One and joining him on a showroom of a planet called, “Gateway”, before they then go off to a clean-aired Colony planet to start their better chance at life. They arrive on this beautiful planet with its amazing planetary security and they really couldn’t be safer, but then as expected comes their fate, out of the murky black appears a major Zhind armada. At the same time Mega-City One declares that the Gateway defence ships need to protect a valuable asset from the traitor called Luther, thus leaving the planet below defenceless; all except for eight vessels that refuse to leave, who are now considered to be insurgents – and as such – in league with Luther himself.
Our following two stories unfold with Gallows and the remaining crew meeting up with Luther buried deep in a moon, hiding from the oppressive forces of the SJS. Then faced with destruction, Luther and the Insurgents join up with those they were rebelling against, to battle against an all-out attack from the Zhind – as the attempt to destroy all of humanity – it’s here our tale strikes it’s final bell, revealing that this book is a set to be a very powerful one-shot. It’s a fairly brutal ended too.
It’s a combination of the writing skills from both Dan Abnett, along with the power of Colin MacNeil’s artistic talents that have delivered such and excellent piece of work here. At just under a hundred pages you’re delivered an unbelievably rapid, emotional punch that at the end you’ll either feel anger towards this new breed of Judges or you’ll mouth an expletive to yourself, in my case both.
You need to buy Insurrection: Liberty as it needs to sit on your shelf as one of the classics.
Insurrection: Liberty is released on the 12th March; order it via Amazon UK and Amazon US.
Villordsutch likes his sci-fi and looks like a tubby Viking according to his children. Visit his website and follow him on Twitter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONsp_bmDYXc
Originally published March 12, 2015. Updated January 18, 2020.
