(1992/2008) John Wagner & Peter Doherty et al, 2000AD, trdpbk, £12.99 pp??. ISBN 978-1-905-4-3765-8
Judge Death is a long-standing foe of the 2000AD comic's Judge Dredd. He is a supernatural parody of a Judge who, as a walking skeleton garbed in a macabre lampoon of the Judge's uniform, dispenses only death as judgement. His origins are in a parallel universe that saw the rise of Judge Death and his equally supernatural Dark Judge compatriots. On their own parallel world the Dark Judges had wiped out the population but in discovering our parallel Earth they had a whole new population to be judged and cleansed with the purity of death. The Dark Judges had a couple of forays into our Earth (recounted in Judge Dredd featuring Judge Death) and then a big invasion (as told in Judge Dredd: Necropolis). Following this Necropolis invasion Judge Death survives by hiding out in suspended animation/hibernation among one of the Mega City One citizen mass grave pits (the Necropolis resulted in too much death and destruction for the usual dead resyk). He is disturbed by grave robbers and so returns but wants to have his life story immortalised in print. To this end he advertises for a journalist who, sensing a scoop, begins to interview Judge Death.
The story that unfolds is one of how Judge Death started out as a normal human on his parallel Earth who joined the Judges as he relished in their brutality combating crime. However for him even petty crimes deserved the harshest punishment. How his transformation comes about is revealed.
The artwork in this graphic novel is very good (looks like a combination of inks and pastels) and the story lives up to Wagner's standards. This story was first serialised in the Judge Dredd Megazine back in 1990. This is at least the third time these adventures have been collected: in 1992 there was a Mandarin edition and in the late 1990s a Hamlyn edition, but this 2008 edition is in the new, more compact, 2000AD, graphic novel format. Though Dredd (as well as Judges Hershey and Anderson) only feature peripherally this story is a Dredd classic.
Jonathan Cowie
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