Judge Dredd Casefiles Vol 15

The Judge Dredd Casefiles are a collection of trade paperbacks that publisher Rebellion (current owners of 2000AD and Dredd) have been releasing now for the last few years, collecting together all of the Judge Dredd stories, in complete chronological order, from his first appearance in Prog 2 (2000AD issues are referred to as Progs) to, hopefully, the present day. Or at least, a couple of years behind the present day, so as not to interfere with more prestige Graphic Novels of individual stories. That's my hope anyway, I don't know what the plans are at Rebellion, but they certainly are showing no signs of slowing down with these books anytime soon. There are currently 16 volumes in the Casefiles series but in this post I'd like to discuss No. 15. Partly because I have yet to pick up No. 16 but mainly because it is in No. 15 that we get the stories marking the handover of control from the renowned veteran Mr John Wagner to the brash young upstart Master Garth Ennis.


At the beginning of the 1990's the then editor of weekly anthology comic 2000AD had a problem. John Wagner, creator and main writer of the titles flagship character, Judge Dredd, for most of the comics life (nigh on 15 years at that point) had expressed a desire to step back from writing the strip. He would continue to provide scripts featuring Dredd for The Judge Dredd Megazine (a newly launched spin-off comic that would feature stories from all around Dredds world) but the main strip in the weekly would require a new regular writer. Given that John Wagner is, in the eyes of all right thinking individuals, a God among writers, and his work on Dredd, especially in the couple of years leading up to this point, had been pretty much peerless, (it wouldn't be surpassed for years and only then when Wagner returned to the character for a run that has become one of the best on any comic ever), it would be very difficult to find a replacement that would a) be up to the task and b) meet with the approval of the readers.

Enter Garth Ennis. Not comic book industry superstar Garth Ennis with acclaimed books like Preacher, Hellblazer, Hitman, The Boys, War Stories, Punisher, Crossed, and Battlefields to his name, among others. This Garth Ennis was young, inexperienced and pretty much the last name anyone would have expected to be appointed, had they even considered him at all. But appointed he was and it was up to him to prove the doubters wrong and make the biggest character in British comics his own. Would he succeed? We'll see.

I am a huge fan of Garth Ennis. I have read and enjoyed a lot of comics by the man and consider him to be in my top 5 comic writers (as is John Wagner) so it is very difficult for me to be totally objective here. Every man has an off day though, and Ennis himself has admitted that his Dredd writing is not exactly his best work. Be fair though, he was young, and this was by far the highest profile gig he'd had to date. Seems only natural that he might take a while to find his feet. With that in mind, there is a lot to like about the first couple of Ennis stories and I can see a lot of potential here for his future on the title.

Only one Ennis story falls flat here and, perhaps tellingly, it's the only one not to riff on a pre-existing piece of continuity. It's called Emerald Isle and sees Dredd visiting Ireland, which has been forced to accept corporate money to aid in it's rebuilding after the Atomic Wars, and as a result has been turned into one big theme park based on Irish cliches. Write what you know they say, so for his first proper contribution to the Dredd mythos it's perhaps understandable that Ennis falls back on his Irish heritage but all in all the whole thing just seems a little bit too silly. Dredd as a strip has a long and distinguished history of incorporating comedy, ranging from slapstick to subtle satire, so it's not the inclusion of jokes that doesn't work, merely that the jokes aren't all that funny. It is, if nothing else, an interesting artifact, in that marks a very early collaboration between the Preacher dream team of Ennis and artist Steve Dillon.

The book also contains the first few Dredd stories written for the Megazine. Sadly, they do not seem to be particularly good. It's possible that I'm allowing my opinion to be clouded by the rather murky art on one story (The Gippers Big Night) and the (in my opinion) messy and unpleasant style of art on another (Black Widow) but hey, a great script can overcome poor art and these scripts didn't.

I hate to end on a downer when talking about a series which I really do love so I'll reiterate here that with the exception of Emerald Isle and the early Megazine mis-fires this book is chock full of arsomness. John Wagner on form is guaranteed class and even sub-par Ennis is better than a lot of stuff out there.