There’s something about Judge Dredd that you just can’t get anywhere else. Maybe it’s the combination of gore, humor and science fiction, but you know whenever you pick an issue up you’re going to be getting something special. Whether that something is good or not depends on the balance between gore, humor and science fiction, so without further ado, issue #10 is out today. Is it good?
Judge Dredd #10 (IDW)
Checkout our review of Judge Dredd #9 here.
Dredd is seeking hostages out in the wastes when, in the last issue, he came upon some kind of insane amusement park run by mutant carnies. Each ride at this park was more death trap than fun ride and it all ended with Dredd getting trapped in the Mirrored Madhouse. Supposedly it’s impossible to escape. Unfortunately for the carnies, “impossible” isn’t a word Dredd knows very well.
Dinner party conversation starter.
Let’s be honest, we all know Dredd is going to escape the Madhouse, but it’s the how that’ll satisfy the reader or let them down. Thankfully writer Duane Swierczynski sticks a precog mutant in the Madhouse to not only introduce a neat power he has, but also give Dredd a sidekick of sorts. The power is the ability to see different futures from his plethora of eyeballs. Unfortunately the eye that always seemed correct was conked out. Leave it to Dredd to figure he should not do any of the things he can see so that he’ll hopefully do what the broken eye would have shown. It’s a cool way to play around with possible events and also allows Swierczynski to up the danger element. If all the eyes show Dredd dying most assuredly he won’t make it out alive, right?
I want this power except I don’t want all the eyeballs.
So we’ve got the science fiction element covered, how about the gore? I will say when Dredd takes out a few of the carnies it’s so-so on the gore element. A lot of the deaths are cartoonish or off camera. However, the boss of the carnies has a revealing power that is so disgusting it makes up for the lack of exploding heads. I won’t ruin it here, but let’s just say you’ve never seen a more disgusting “slit.” ::shudder::
“Pin-wheeling yer arms around like you’re carefree and it’s a lazy summer day!”
Finally, the humor. There are some good moments of humor here, mostly sprouting from Dredd’s new sidekick’s ability to see possible futures. One of his eyes must see a very loopy Dredd, because a “pin-wheeling” carefree Dredd seems very unlikely.
Cartoon zapping.
8.5
- Looks good as always from Nelson Daniel
- Funny moments and neat pre-cog character
- Rushed conclusion and wasted pages segueing to the next issue
The only negative to this issue is the final four pages. These pages resort to concluding the carnie storyline and segue into what we’ll be reading next month. When you only have roughly 22 pages of content that’s a lot of wasted comic and it rather abruptly and lazily ends the carnies.
Is It Good?
Yes. Everything you’d want in a Dredd comic save for the last couple of pages.
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