Villordsutch reviews Predator vs Judge Dredd vs Aliens….
“DREDD IS THE MOST LETHAL of the highly trained and obscenely well-armed law enforcement agency known as the Judges, tasked with keeping the sprawling metropolis of Mega-City One from descending into chaos and anarchy. But now Dredd and the other Judges are all that stand between the universe’s most efficient killing machines and the annihilation of every living being in the city—criminal or innocent. Dark Horse Comics and 2000 AD team up to bring you a collection of the two classic stories Predator versus Judge Dredd and Judge Dredd versus Aliens!”
Dredd vs AvP! Now I was rather excited to be picking this up to review. Seeing Joe go against two of science-fictions greatest space creatures is going to be a fantastic read and to see how he deals with both foes at once in Mega-City One; however I quickly discovered upon opening this book our title is a bit of a fib! What we have here is a re-issue of Predator vs Judge Dredd (1997) and Judge Dredd vs Aliens (2003) from Dark Horse and 2000AD. Still I’ve still got Joe fighting them both in two separate bouts so I’ll crack on even if I slightly down-hearted.
Predator vs Judge Dredd
Our first tale from the pen of John Wagner feels on the whole rather short and out of the two tales given it is the weakest. This isn’t to say it’s bad I just didn’t find it as good as the following Aliens tale.
The Predator drops from the sky and after quickly dispatching of two lonely souls, it discovers the Judges are in the throws of distributing some justice against the lawbreakers; with that it finds its latest prey. However, the Judges aren’t stupid and due to not being able to see the hunter they switch their visors to IR and up pops the Predator and they get a hit in straight away; it’s from this hit they get a blood sample and find in computer records that the sample comes from the alien species called the Predator. After this the comic becomes a game of cat and mouse with the Predator being cornered, dismembering a few Judges and the Judges in-turn retaliating with nastier weapons. The story alone would have been fine on its own but a frustrating element was added which was that the Great, Great Granddaughter of Dutch is added, who is a contracted Psi-Officer brought in to attempt to “tune-in” to the Predator. Quite frankly her role wasn’t needed at all. She seemed to be used to help people remember the franchise of Predator which at this point was happily brilliant in its own Aliens / Predator comics which I was buying at the time.
The artwork from Alcatena throughout the story was extremely enjoyable though the look of the Predator itself wasn’t overly imposing; I can overlook this as the rest of the art does look splendid. Another art standout is from Brian Bollard with his chapter art breaks which look magnificent – especially his opening “Judge Predator”. Completely pointless and not really in-keeping with the story but they do look splendid.
Judge Dredd vs Aliens: Incubus and Other stories
The stronger of the two stories and a very enjoyable read. Both John Wagner and Andy Diggle must have gone back to the original Alien and Aliens and rewatched both films before they attempted to write this as the opening of this story builds in tension brick by brick and when this wall they’ve built explodes it’s extremely messy.
Our story starts with a man called Jimmy, with pains in his chest, being chased into a hospital by another man, called Lenning, with a gun. Dredd quickly issues an Execution order to Lenning and they witness and chest buster erupt from the recently pursed Jimmy; this then escapes into the vents and Dredd leaves the clean-up crew to take care of it as they investigate the recently deceased home. It’s here our story becomes interesting also it begins to expand, growing very messy as our Judges discover what’s inside an Alien and what it can do to a human body. What starts at breeding an Alien for pit-fitting soon becomes a swarm of Aliens tearing the Grand Hall of Justice to pieces.
The art from Henry Flint and colours from Chris Blythe delivered in this collection are both excellent and go perfectly with the story from Wagner and Diggle, from the opening blood drenched chest burster or later the acid washed Judge; it’s gruesome and looks brilliant.
If you don’t already have both these Dredd tales in your collection now would be a good time to go and pick them up.
Villordsutch likes his sci-fi and looks like a tubby Viking according to his children. Visit his website and follow him on Twitter.
