Comics - The Mayor of Mega-City One
The London Mayoral contest runs on, and on, with eccentric personalities Red Ken and Barmy Boris both vying for control of one of the biggest cities on early 21st century Earth.
Meanwhile a much more competent Mayor is currently presiding over 22nd Century Mega City One, in futuristic comic strip Judge Dredd, appearing weekly in 2000AD.
Charming, intelligent, and governing wisely a city that always teeters on the brink of madness and disaster. Mayor Ambrose is popular with the people and the judges, with ratings as high as perhaps any mayor save Dave, the orangutan a disillusioned Mega City voted into office some years back. And who knows what Mayor Grubb, a previous office holder could have achieved if a mutated fungus hadn't turned him into a living mushroom?
But there's a problem with Mayor Ambrose, he is in fact sychopathik (sic) dyslexic serial killer PJ Maybe, who first pitted his criminal brain against Judge Dredd when he was a mere child. Having convinced the world that PJ Maybe is dead, he now governs Mega City One's civil authority, and it's tempting to overlook his terrible crimes as he's doing such a marvellous job.
This is just one thread in John Wagner's multi-layered Judge Dredd storyline. While the strip arguably had its classic decade in the eighties satirising our present and (to the terror of us all) predicting our future all too accurately, it seems like the strip has reached a new high. In this comic strip, Judge Dredd is a complex figure, not the fascist bully he is sometimes protrayed as, but a man who believes first and foremost in justice. He also has his own doubts over the system he has become the figurehead for.
Other elements in the strip include terrorist organisation Total War, dedicated to destroying the Mega Cities of post apocalyptic Earth, the issue of Mutant rights and Dredd's own genetically warped Cursed Earth kin 'The Fargos', his niece Vienna (actually the daughter of his clone brother gone bad, Rico) and young Judge Beeney, daughter of political activist and pro-democratic voice, the martyred America.
It's exciting stuff, and far from Judge Dredd coming to a natural end with Origins, last years retelling of Dredd's history, John Wagner instead seems to have used it as the impetus to produce some of his best work with the character. This is exciting relevant stuff, all told with the usual seemingly effortless storytelling skill we've come to expect from the author of 'History of Violence' and 'Buttonman'.
You can catch up on some of these fantastic story lines through some of the reprinted graphic novels. Essential reading includes Origins, Brothers of the Blood, The Complete PJ Maybe and Total War. And of course the comic is available weekly at your local newsagents and now online (with some back issues) through clickwheel.com.
Meanwhile a much more competent Mayor is currently presiding over 22nd Century Mega City One, in futuristic comic strip Judge Dredd, appearing weekly in 2000AD.
Charming, intelligent, and governing wisely a city that always teeters on the brink of madness and disaster. Mayor Ambrose is popular with the people and the judges, with ratings as high as perhaps any mayor save Dave, the orangutan a disillusioned Mega City voted into office some years back. And who knows what Mayor Grubb, a previous office holder could have achieved if a mutated fungus hadn't turned him into a living mushroom?
But there's a problem with Mayor Ambrose, he is in fact sychopathik (sic) dyslexic serial killer PJ Maybe, who first pitted his criminal brain against Judge Dredd when he was a mere child. Having convinced the world that PJ Maybe is dead, he now governs Mega City One's civil authority, and it's tempting to overlook his terrible crimes as he's doing such a marvellous job.
This is just one thread in John Wagner's multi-layered Judge Dredd storyline. While the strip arguably had its classic decade in the eighties satirising our present and (to the terror of us all) predicting our future all too accurately, it seems like the strip has reached a new high. In this comic strip, Judge Dredd is a complex figure, not the fascist bully he is sometimes protrayed as, but a man who believes first and foremost in justice. He also has his own doubts over the system he has become the figurehead for.
Other elements in the strip include terrorist organisation Total War, dedicated to destroying the Mega Cities of post apocalyptic Earth, the issue of Mutant rights and Dredd's own genetically warped Cursed Earth kin 'The Fargos', his niece Vienna (actually the daughter of his clone brother gone bad, Rico) and young Judge Beeney, daughter of political activist and pro-democratic voice, the martyred America.
It's exciting stuff, and far from Judge Dredd coming to a natural end with Origins, last years retelling of Dredd's history, John Wagner instead seems to have used it as the impetus to produce some of his best work with the character. This is exciting relevant stuff, all told with the usual seemingly effortless storytelling skill we've come to expect from the author of 'History of Violence' and 'Buttonman'.
You can catch up on some of these fantastic story lines through some of the reprinted graphic novels. Essential reading includes Origins, Brothers of the Blood, The Complete PJ Maybe and Total War. And of course the comic is available weekly at your local newsagents and now online (with some back issues) through clickwheel.com.
posted by paulvonscott at 10:47 PM
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