Judge Dredd, Volume 3

Judge Dredd (IDW) #3

by Duane Swierczynski, Nelson Dániel (Illustrations), Antonio Fuso (Illustrations)

As chaotic and violent as things can be in Mega-City One, it's all unicorns, ice cream, and rainbows compared to what you'll find beyond the outer walls... in the CURSED EARTH! In the wake of the devastation of "The Long Fail," Dredd is forced to lead a small team of Judges into the scariest stretch of irradiated wasteland to recover the very soul of the city.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Science Fiction, Fiction, Dystopia, Graphic Novels Comics, Comic Book

104 pages, Paperback

First published January 29, 2014

About the author

Duane Swierczynski is an American crime writer who has written a number of non-fiction books, novels and also writes for comic books.

Reviews

[Sam Quixote · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hmm. I am NOT having much luck picking out good comics this week! I’m not a huge fan of Duane Swierczynski’s but he’s written some ok books in the past. Unfortunately I seem to have managed to grab two of his worst comics efforts with Birds of Prey Volume 3 and now Judge Dredd Volume 3 - and I’m gonna be avoiding any books with his name on going forward!

Dredd’s wandering the Cursed Earth looking for a hovercraft that might save Mega-City One somehow and gets kidnapped by mutie hillbillies running a deathtrap carnival (is there any other kind? Hyuk yuk). Then he squares off against the Angel Gang once again.

Believe me when I say I read A TON of 2000AD when I was a teenager so I’m very familiar with Dredd and his world which is probably why I was so unimpressed with this bland book. It’s Dredd by-the-numbers. It certainly feels like classic Dredd with the broad, stereotypical characterisations and the overly-silly celebrity chef talking to the reader, but there’s nothing new here and Dredd predictably and easily gets out of all of the dreary situations he lands in (mostly through punching).

Neither the stories nor the characters are interesting, Nelson Daniel’s art is unremarkable, and the book overall is a flat and boring read. Maybe completely new Dredd readers would enjoy this more but I can’t imagine any seasoned fans will be even remotely engaged with this forgettable, totally worthless volume.

[Petr · Rating 3 out of 5]

This volume was a little weaker than theprevious one. All the time in the wasteland did not seem that interesting to me and just seemed for me to be too linear.

[Logan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good! So this volume we have Judge Dredd, go across the cursed earth, where he actually fights that classic gang that he always fights, and are...classic villains! (I totally forgot their names!) But anyway this was a pretty good volume too, its also the most violent volume, so no kids allowed! However this book continues the point i brought up in my vol 2 review, that what happened in vol 1, is still carrying on, and is still a plot device in this volume! Seriously get over it!

[Adam Lobbins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Get a grokking prog here.

It is kind a like a Good Dredd storyline. The typical off to save the MC1 and the Judge gets sidetracked. Wild characters and even old enemies but not enough to hit all the right storylines of A.D. 2000. IDW can have the props of giving an American Dredd, but just shy of that true Judge Dredd.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dredd leaves Mega-City One and heads into the Wastelands?!?

Normally taking a well-defined character out of their element is a hack-y attempt to boost sales with a novel setting, DS pulls it off by keeping the tone and actually using the setting to advance the tale.

[Andrei · Rating 1 out of 5]

Overview: I loved Volume 1, had misgivings about Volume 2, and was completely uninterested in Volume 3. What a waste of time! The mind behind this book has created a big gap in the narrative, putting Dredd in the most bizarre conditions beyond the gates of Mega-City One, in the so-called Cursed Land.
Dredd journeys into a radioactive wasteland to regain the city's spirit after the events of "The Long Fail" in book two. What kind of soul is this, after all? They talk about the city as if it were a real being. It has nothing to do with the series.

Pros: Only the graphics that are still excellent.

Cons: The narrative is terrible, completely out of pace with the prior two volumes. It was a meaningless psychedelic experience.

[Brandon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Judge Dredd returning to the Cursed Earth, what more could a Dredd fan want; How about more content for one? It seems that this volume contains the complete adventures of Dredd in the wasteland outside of Mega-City One. And it was a short trip. There are only two stories in this volume. One concerning a mutant run carnival with macabre rides and another about a group of outlaw cannibals and a primordial ooze. The stories were fine and what I expected but after Dredd sorts them out his excursion in the Cursed Earth is over. He then returns to the Mega-City to take down the pesky robots. I was expecting a much larger story of his travails in the Cursed Earth than two rather fun but violent stories and the backstories that support them are less than convincing. this book was a letdown and I hope the series up again with the next installment.

[Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Judge Dredd, Vol. 3 continues straight on from the previous book with Dredd having to deal with being out in the Cursed Earth due the 'The Long Fall'! :D Judge Dredd, Vol. 3 has cool nods to the original Dredd movie interpretation with the return of a certain gang! :D At the same time the grim chinned humour is all there on the page with other nods and winks to previous adventures! :D At the same time the story set things up for the next book in clever ways and some of the deals that Dredd makes are bound to come back to roost! :D

The art style is sharp and clear as ever and really enhances the script brilliantly! :D The art and the panels really jibe excellently with the scrip really conveying the feel of events not to mention stomach churning actions and really enhance the Dredd delivered justice! :D

Judge Dredd, Vol. 3 is a excellently crafted adventure out in the Poisoned Earth and really captures the feel of the story from cover to cover! :D It is full of Chins, adventure, social experiments and Dredd justice delivered in a action packed way brilliant and highly recommended! :D

[Matt · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought IDW were doing a good job with Dredd. I liked Year One, and thought Vol 1 was impressive. Vol 2 started to lose me, and Vol 3 has lost me. The art is nice, but the story has just degenerated into filler. Dread works best when it sticks to smaller stories, only expanding into multi part affairs when there's a good plot to tell (not the Judge Child though, what the hell was that about?!?)

The joke is, that IDW have actually made the same mistake that 2000ad themselves made with the Judge Child storyline. A decent premise, that then just goes off on tangent. The worst thing is, Dredd just doesn't feel like Dredd.

Avoid this, and stick to 2000ad

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

It had been a long time since I'd read Judge Dredd. I think that the two failed movies turned me off, since the second one was actually a good, low-budget attempt. The first one was just awful in many ways, with a bad choice as the lead being given a bad script, directed badly.
In any case, this felt a lot more like what I remembered from the old 2000 AD stories. Weird mutants in the Cursed Earth, weird artificial intelligences, mad chefs, sentient butter, and a host of other things that made it a Judge Dredd story.
Of the pinups and alternate covers, I can only say that Phil Postma should never, ever, ever be allowed to draw Judge Dredd, ever again.

[Mike Jozic · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yeah, this third arc just kind of stumbles and falls and breaks it's nose on the pavement. Just nonsense.

I was excited to see Dredd leave Mega City-1 and hit the Cursed Earth in this arc but this ended up being more of a left turn from previous books than what I was expecting. Entertaining, sure, and mostly sticking with the slightly more cartoonish, satirical tone established in the first two volumes, but it's a bit jarring; almost too cartoony. I just didn't care much for it.

2.5 Stars.

[Gav451 · Rating 3 out of 5]

I note this has had mixed reviews and there were aspects of it and I was not sure about but...it is a good Dredd Story, nicely written and very well drawn.

I liked the art a lot. It was clear and action packed. It dealt with the pace and the movement very well and had its own style. It was a high point of the book for me.

I liked how silly and grim the setting and characters were at the same time. There were parts of the story that make me grimace and I liked that. The Angel gang are well realised and the other people in the crazy carnival are suitably out there.

I liked some of the plot and I liked the writing. I was never bored within the paged and it was very readable.

The way the story ended seemed a little quick and a little easy for me. It is only a quibble but it felt too quick and too easy. Having set all of this up I sort of expected more and the Big Fail just seemed to fade. A bit of an anti-climax perhaps.

That is not to take away from the rest of the book. The writing is good, the action fantastic and the art wonderful. It captures the essence of Dredd and we should remember that the Dredds in 2000ad had their share of less stunning stories as well. Those that were just 'good'.

[Xavier · Rating 4 out of 5]

While a bit of a detour from the main story, it's still fun with unpredictable characters and choices. It's good that Dredd is still a vulnerable man. There's always a chance he'll be hurt. It's good to have a protagonist that gets shot and breaks bones every once in a while

[Jason Ward · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good read.....

Good read, always has been, been reading 2000AD since I was a wee pain in me ma's arse, as well as all the Judge Dredd books and magazines etc. Just love them, all of them. 😋

[Jesse A · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great fun volume. This time in the cursed earth, which of course leads to all manner of mutants and freaks. Great stuff!

[Микола · Rating 3 out of 5]

Кішечка втягнулась.

[Jeremy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one was weird. But I liked it. 3/5.

[Derek Moreland · Rating 2 out of 5]

A dull, overlong take on The Cursed Earth.

[Waldo Parra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hasta el momento este tercer volumen es el que más he disfrutado del run de Swierczynski. Dredd se encuentra fuera de MC-1 y en el exterior la cordura es casi inexistente. A diferencia de los números anteriores acá no existen esos relatos cortos entre las historias centrales y Nelson Daniel es el encargado de realizar el arte de los cuatro números lo que permite disfrutar de la calidad y estilo de Daniel en su máximo esplendor.

[Lucas · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Cursed Earth setting this takes place in is a lot less interesting than Mega City One.

There are many contemporary Dredd graphic novels available for digital checkout through the Seattle Public Library Hoopla site (which is distinct from the Overdrive site, for whatever reason), I read this and the others in the series on a tablet.

[Neil Sarver · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been enjoying this IDW series that Duane Swierczynski is writing reasonably well, but this one is my favorite so far. The turn into the desert with insane hillybilly mutant carnies was just right for me.

[Brendan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Volume 3 finds Dredd in the wastelands, trying to track down criminals to save Mega-City one from "The Big Fail." Think of it as "Dredd visits The Hills Have Eyes." It's a delightful, if goofy, adventure for everyone's favorite Clint Eastwood doppelganger.

[Simon · Rating 1 out of 5]

Uhm.

No. Just no.

[sixthreezy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not exactly the setting you'd think you would find Dredd in... Strange.

[Kam Yung Soh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Vol 3 of the IDW issues of Judge Dredd. In this volume, Dredd has walked out into the Cursed Earth in pursuit of robots who have taken away the key to the survival of Mega City One after The Long Fail. He stumbles into a weird mutant fairground, taken prisoner and thrown into an alien hall of mirrors from which there does not seem to be any escape.

But escape he somehow does, with the help of a precognitive mutant who can see multiple futures. But just when he believes he can continue his pursuit of the robots, he runs into the Angel Gang. Escaping from them would require him to agree to work with an alien being who would then aid him in overcoming the robots and returning to Mega City One with the means of restoring it to working order.