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Judge Dredd (IDW) #13
Judge Dredd: The Blessed Earth, Vol. 2
Mega-City One is gone. Everything is a desolate wasteland. Nothing is as it was. Nothing, that is, except for Judge Dredd!
- GenresComics
96 pages, Paperback
First published April 3, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
November 30, 2019
A very poor ending to a promising series. Confused in many places, and with Dredd equally confused. A lot of people saying a lot of things they weren't likely to say, groups being fought for and over but not given any real voice. The whole thing feels rushed and disorganised.
November 11, 2018
(I wrote this review considering the entire arc, not just this second volume. I've included my review of the first volume after this one.)
Well, I think this story was exactly what it needed to be in today's political climate. Unlike most Dredd stories before it, this one is a straight ahead, stone faced repudiation of everything the fascist Judges and Justice system represent. Reading this story, I had the impression that this was attempting to be Judge Dredd's Dark Knight, or Reign if you prefer the Spider-Man version. This is an end-of-the-story story. And, for a Judge Dredd book, I think it succeeds.
While Judge Dredd has been an unflinching satire from the start, always with a lowbrow punk rock humor, horror levels of gore, and indie comic style, the reading of the extreme fascistic police-state world is necessarily different in the changing political climate in which the stories have been published over the last decades. So, I hoped that in times like these, Dredd creators would have the wisdom to make their satire baldly clear, and the courage to illuminate the rising fascism in the world today. Both of these things, this book certainly did do. Putting lines straight from the mouths of the current U.S. president and his cabinet members, not to mention cult ultra-right personalities into judges and other characters in this book makes perfectly clear who the bad guys are in this ultra macho dysfunctional world.
The book still suffers from changing artists, not an unusual problem for IDW books, nor for Judge Dredd. I would have happily seen Irizarri do all the interiors from the nine books in this series. Unfortunately, between the two volumes, there are seven illustrators. This may have worked for readers buying issue by issue. As a bound volume, it made the tone and pacing choppy and inconsistent to a degree that was pretty devastating to sustained tension. Also, some complicated twists at the end were quite rushed, and some included elements strained believability, even for a Dredd comic.
In all, I think this is a welcome addition to the continuing story of Dredd and the Judges. I do not know, but hope that this story is accepted as canon, for reasons I can't disclose without spoilers. It is fair to point out, though, that the in-canon Dredd has always had the unique attribute among comics "heroes" that he actually ages in real time. So this story, written as an end-of-the-story story (but not really - it is a comic, after all) could very well be in canon, and showing Dredd at the age he should now be.
Anyway, great story for fans of Dredd. If not already a fan, I think there might be a lot to miss in this one, since it relies heavily on the reader's understanding of the lore of the world. But it wouldn't be the worst introduction to Dredd's world. So, if you like science fiction dystopian satire like Robocop and Starship Troopers, maybe check this guy out.
☠
Judge Dredd: The Blessed Earth Volume 2
Ulises Farinas & Erick Freitas
Art by
Daniel Irizarri
Jason Copland
Trade Paperback
IDW, 2000AD, 2018
Four Stars
November 9-10, 2018
☠
P
☠☠☠
Judge Dredd: The Blessed Earth Volume 1:
~~~
Here is a review of an unfinished story, because graphic novels are often published in two skinny trades instead of just one, for some reason.
Satire like this can be hard to parse. It can get so incredibly on the nose sometimes, that I'm not sure if this is like Starship Troopers, the film by the director of Robocop, a hard sendup of fascist propaganda, or if it is like Starship Troopers, the book on which the film was based, which is straight faced fascist propaganda.
It's also such a trip to read this right after The Communist Manifesto.
So far, this might be brilliant, or it might be offensively bad. I'm weirdly thankful for the obvious lifts straight from the mouth of Donald Trump that indicate the intentionality of the book, even as they also add to the difficulty I am having with the book.
So, I give a middling rating for questions and serious potential problems I feel under the surface of this story, but also recognize that the second volume may prove these feelings of tension to be a result of brilliantly crafted story. We will see.
☠
Judge Dredd: The Blessed Earth Volume 1
Ulises Farinas & Erick Freitas
Art by
Daniel Irizarri
Jason Copland
Dan McDaid
Pablo Tunica and
Ulises Farinas
Trade Paperback
IDW, 2000AD, December 2017
Three Stars
November 8-9, 2018
☠
Well, I think this story was exactly what it needed to be in today's political climate. Unlike most Dredd stories before it, this one is a straight ahead, stone faced repudiation of everything the fascist Judges and Justice system represent. Reading this story, I had the impression that this was attempting to be Judge Dredd's Dark Knight, or Reign if you prefer the Spider-Man version. This is an end-of-the-story story. And, for a Judge Dredd book, I think it succeeds.
While Judge Dredd has been an unflinching satire from the start, always with a lowbrow punk rock humor, horror levels of gore, and indie comic style, the reading of the extreme fascistic police-state world is necessarily different in the changing political climate in which the stories have been published over the last decades. So, I hoped that in times like these, Dredd creators would have the wisdom to make their satire baldly clear, and the courage to illuminate the rising fascism in the world today. Both of these things, this book certainly did do. Putting lines straight from the mouths of the current U.S. president and his cabinet members, not to mention cult ultra-right personalities into judges and other characters in this book makes perfectly clear who the bad guys are in this ultra macho dysfunctional world.
The book still suffers from changing artists, not an unusual problem for IDW books, nor for Judge Dredd. I would have happily seen Irizarri do all the interiors from the nine books in this series. Unfortunately, between the two volumes, there are seven illustrators. This may have worked for readers buying issue by issue. As a bound volume, it made the tone and pacing choppy and inconsistent to a degree that was pretty devastating to sustained tension. Also, some complicated twists at the end were quite rushed, and some included elements strained believability, even for a Dredd comic.
In all, I think this is a welcome addition to the continuing story of Dredd and the Judges. I do not know, but hope that this story is accepted as canon, for reasons I can't disclose without spoilers. It is fair to point out, though, that the in-canon Dredd has always had the unique attribute among comics "heroes" that he actually ages in real time. So this story, written as an end-of-the-story story (but not really - it is a comic, after all) could very well be in canon, and showing Dredd at the age he should now be.
Anyway, great story for fans of Dredd. If not already a fan, I think there might be a lot to miss in this one, since it relies heavily on the reader's understanding of the lore of the world. But it wouldn't be the worst introduction to Dredd's world. So, if you like science fiction dystopian satire like Robocop and Starship Troopers, maybe check this guy out.
☠
Judge Dredd: The Blessed Earth Volume 2
Ulises Farinas & Erick Freitas
Art by
Daniel Irizarri
Jason Copland
Trade Paperback
IDW, 2000AD, 2018
Four Stars
November 9-10, 2018
☠
P
☠☠☠
Judge Dredd: The Blessed Earth Volume 1:
~~~
Here is a review of an unfinished story, because graphic novels are often published in two skinny trades instead of just one, for some reason.
Satire like this can be hard to parse. It can get so incredibly on the nose sometimes, that I'm not sure if this is like Starship Troopers, the film by the director of Robocop, a hard sendup of fascist propaganda, or if it is like Starship Troopers, the book on which the film was based, which is straight faced fascist propaganda.
It's also such a trip to read this right after The Communist Manifesto.
So far, this might be brilliant, or it might be offensively bad. I'm weirdly thankful for the obvious lifts straight from the mouth of Donald Trump that indicate the intentionality of the book, even as they also add to the difficulty I am having with the book.
So, I give a middling rating for questions and serious potential problems I feel under the surface of this story, but also recognize that the second volume may prove these feelings of tension to be a result of brilliantly crafted story. We will see.
☠
Judge Dredd: The Blessed Earth Volume 1
Ulises Farinas & Erick Freitas
Art by
Daniel Irizarri
Jason Copland
Dan McDaid
Pablo Tunica and
Ulises Farinas
Trade Paperback
IDW, 2000AD, December 2017
Three Stars
November 8-9, 2018
☠
February 12, 2021
Judge Dredd: The Blessed Earth Vol. 2 is remaking a recipe.
March 15, 2021
Things get darker and weirder in this second volume of the series.
February 28, 2018
an interesting side story in the Judge Dredd universe. I don’t mind how different the IDW stuff is, it’s definitely a change from the standard continuity.
September 8, 2025
The art was the only thing thay got me through this book. What the hell were they thinking with this story? Why would you go with something so damn muddled? just give us Dredd fighting baddies.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews