Judge Dredd: The Blessed Earth, Vol. 1

Judge Dredd (IDW) #12

by Ulises Fariñas

Mega-City One is gone. Everything is a desolate wasteland. Nothing is as it was. Nothing, that is, except for Judge Dredd! It has been 10 years since the events of Mega-City Zero, and Judge Dredd continues his mission to restore order to a lawless land. The mystery of The Blessed Earth begins to unfold here! Collects issues #1–4 and the 2017 Annual.

Genres: Comics

138 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 13, 2017

Reviews

[Jonathan Lee B. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Judge Dredd: The Blessed Earth Vol. 1 is mystery hopscotch.

[Zoë Birss · Rating 3 out of 5]

~~~
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

☠

[Nicholas Driscoll · Rating 2 out of 5]

I started reading this maybe a month ago, got sidetracked, then decided to finish it up. The story is confusing--it has a lot of interesting ideas, some things about stealing skeletons, lots of backstabbing, rights for robots, etc. But danged if I can understand what's going on.

I thought the last few stories would be easier to follow since they seem to be standalones. One of them is about Red Judges and some guy infiltrating them. I guess it's about the infiltrator just basically killing everybody. It was so hard to follow the story I just gave up. The last story was similar--something about a Mexican Wrestler and former judge who tries to redeem himself or something in a TV show wrestling ring and Mother Mary talks to him before he gets his head staved in or something, but maybe he is still alive and... I don't know what the heck this was, but I was confused.

[Russio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hints of the old hardline Dredd humour (“Dredd is the wall,”) within this interesting set up of judges trying to recivilise the US after an atomic war. There is much consideration of robots and their rights here, although Dredd (and therefore the writers, it seems) do not want to accept this as an idea. Where this falls down is in its narrative - the panels sort of blur into each other - not visually - but in story terms, so it is not always easy to tell quite what is going on. I wondered if it was some kind of polyphonic story-telling but it seems that it is rather just a bit muddled.

[Nick · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unlike most of the Judge Dredd stories, this one doesn't focus on crime and punishment. Instead, it's a really weird police procedural that just didn't work well for me. It's too disconnected from the mainstream Judge Dredd stories, and too much of it doesn't make sense.
Still, there are good bits, including the art, and some readers will find it enjoyable.

[Kenny Boyd · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’ve been reading Dredd for most of my life and this series of books illustrates just how good the original strips were.

There are some strong, imaginative ideas here but the clarity of storytelling and art is terrible. It is messy and confusing.

I regret buying so many of the US books as they have generally been poor. Sticking with the UK work.

[Dave Farrance · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was just disappointing. Couldn’t get into this at all. Story was awful, seemingly jumping all over the place with no flow at all, and then there was just a random story at the end that was even worse so I ended up skimming it.

Awful story, awful artwork. I used to love Judge Dredd but this did nothing for me.

[Kai Charles(Fiction State Of Mind) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This series is set 5 years after the events in Mega City Zero. Millions of people back from the green and the Judges struggle to reinstate order in a world with citizens that have lived without the judges and want to keep it that way. Lots of creepy story elements and robots .

[jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Staff forever

Very different style of art for Dredd, and a great story. Dress seems a character that has survived the purge of comic heroes, and remains the character he always was, though with just enough growth through his experiences to keep it all fresh

[JJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Simon · Rating 1 out of 5]

On the one hand, yay for trying to do something new with Dredd?

But on the other hand, this sucked.

[Joe Middleton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I quite like these 'alternate universe' versions of the Judge Dredd character from the noted SF anthology comic 2000ad. Expect the unexpected.