Judge Dredd: Democracy Now! (1992)

Authors: John Wagner / Garth Ennis  |  Illustrators: Jeff Anderson / John Burns  |  Page Count: 48

"You're dangerous, Dredd.  You have to be removed."

Dredd’s world gets shaken or burned often but very little change occurs within the establishment.  Once the blood is cleaned off the streets and the Meat Wagons take the bodies to a Resyk centre the Judges carry on as normal.  The oppressed citizens, most of them oblivious to the inner-workings of the Hall, lose more freedoms without realising it and the 'fascist' system perpetuates.

The Democracy storyline shines a light on that situation by turning the focus toward the judicial system, by making it the villain, similar to how the Megazine had portrayed the Judges in the America (1990) storyline.

There are a few pages of text to get you up to speed with what’s been stirring in the cities before the story begins, because you don’t just wake up one morning and decide to have a referendum.

Dredd believes the benefits the eight hundred million citizens receive from Judge protection far outweigh the drawbacks, but not everyone agrees.  Will the vote go in Joe’s favour?  Or will the citizens throw a collective middle finger at the system and return to a red tape Democracy?

It’s a short book and only a small snippet of a larger whole.  Going into it without some Dredd knowledge isn't advisable.  You’ll miss the subtleties of his actions and reactions to a threat that he can’t kneecap nonchalantly with a gun.

2½ redecorations out of 5

Judge Anderson: Childhood's End (1995)

Author: Alan Grant | Illustrator: Kevin Walker | Page Count: 64

‘There was a simple method of finding out our worth.  Every year, they locked one hundred of us in a Gulag with food for only fifty.’

PSI Judge Cassandra Anderson had a rather severe crisis of faith in the events leading up to this book.  The incident left her unsure of her role in the Justice system, and equally unsure of the system itself.  To distance her from the system that made and fears her, she’s shipped off-world to explore the famous Head of Mars.  For half a million years the head has held mysteries, and it’s time for them to be revealed.

The important moments in Anderson’s development have been handled almost exclusively by Alan Grant.  He took her to dark places within herself that weren't light reading.  Childhood's End is a critical step in that evolution; it’s the step that takes her over the line.  It feels as if it was written to contain one hugely significant act that would go on to shape Anderson from that point onward, but the story that’s built around that act isn't sufficient to carry the weight of it.

I loved Kevin Walker's work on ABC Warriors but his Anderson has a sinewy and overly masculine physique.  Judges are required to be at the peak of fitness at all times but she’s a bit too chunky for my liking.  I prefer Arthur Ranson’s approach, where her strength is more reliant on the ferocity of her convictions.  I think she works best when contrasted with a more traditionally skewed male view of what femininity ought to be, as the seemingly weaker female, so when she revels her true self and crushes those preconceptions it’s much more dramatic.

The book collects together Anderson: Childhood's End from Judge Dredd Megazine: Vol II: Issues 27 - 34.

2½ intelligent apes out of 5