Andy Naylor reviews Judge Dredd #16…
“Twelve street judges have been slaughtered by a masked maniac with a dimension-jump machine. He has the thirteenth in his gun sights right now, and the only Judge who can stop the killer—Dredd—is a billion miles away. But it’s not so much the number of dead judges in the morgue. It’s what’s going to happen to their bodies very, very soon…”
The last few issues of Dredd have been addictive reading, each new comic leaving little breadcrumbs of hints sprinkled on top of a juicy cliff-hanger. Finally, all that we suspected, and hoped for, has happened, Judge Death has returned.
Arguably, Dredd’s biggest foe, the return of the Dark Judge is an exciting prospect and will no doubt have old fans flocking to read this latest story. Personally, I found this particular issue a little disjointed. The plot seems to leap and jump into the next phase without any flow, at times I found myself re-reading previous pages to make sure I hadn’t missed anything – I hadn’t. I found the use of Dredd’s character to be disappointing too. He seemed to give up too quickly, grasping at defeat and that made me disappointed in him, to see him used in an almost pathetic manner. The Judge Dredd we all know and love has a hell of a lot more fight him than this particular issue would imply.
Dredd’s foes in issue 16 are easily identifiable and have a nice variety of dislikeable traits. Judge Cal is the very embodiment of modern day sleazy, self-serving politicians, while Tarjay is ruthless, motivated and frightening. Both are very different characters but very easy to route against.
There’s a good level of gruesome art throughout Judge Dredd #16. In some recent Dredd issues I’ve felt like I was reading a young child’s comic rather than the style of art that more mature readers usually associate with Dredd. There’s some fantastic use of gore, graphic (and satisfying) and the lack of bolder colours gives Mega City One a nice oppressive and despondent feel. Going back to a previous point, I don’t think the layout of all the panels helped with the flow of the story, it was too easy to become lost and get ahead of where you needed to go.
Overall it was a good read, with a satisfying, if not hinted at too early, ending. But even known it was coming some readers will not help but do a mental fist pump, perhaps even a real one. Roll on the next issue!
Andy Naylor – Follow me on Twitter
Originally published February 26, 2014. Updated April 11, 2018.
