Nov 2012
Writer: Duane Swierczynski
Artist ("Ripe"): Nelson Daniel
Artist ("Protection Racket"): Paul Gulacy
Colourist ("Protection Racket"): Leonard O’Grady
IDW Publishing, colour, $1.99 digital
Oh god. Four variant covers. Four. I’m not a fan of variant covers so I shan't dwell on this. They look okay; some nice action poses, but only cover A (half-head shot of Dredd with red goop on his visor) bears any relation to what actually happens inside, so I'll say I like that one best. On with the comic.
Since newcomers might be scared off by 37 years of continuity the clock's wound back to 2100 and the readers get a chance to acclimate before the craziness really starts to kick off. We don’t see Dredd until about seven pages in: for the first third of the book, not so much as a glimpse of a helmet. That’s the first sign that crime writer Swierczynski wants to do Dredd right. As resident 'Dredd's Comportment' columnist Douglas Wolk observes: its most important "character" is its setting.
Bless his little servos.
Violent mugging; outlandish fashions; charmingly goofy robot designs: welcome to Mega-City One, pop. 800,000,000. The workforce is 99% robotic: robots are central to both this issue's stories and indeed the first major story-arc. Swierczynski takes us in with a slick, near-effortless manner; and Nelson Daniel has a pretty good grasp of what's required of him. He draws a good robot too: the sewer droid is adorable; right from the stroppy expression on its face-screens to its tiny little wheels. One can see the fun he had with that character.
Sadly, when it comes to action scenes, Daniel seems to blow hot and cold. Some of his panels look a bit rigid and thus at odds with the high-octane pace that one might expect from Dredd. On other times his mood seems a bit off; when a robber decapitates a bystander, it looks like it's played for laughs. That's not necessarily a bad thing in itself, Dredd's famous for its black comedy but there's grittiness and horror too. Having a guy's head fly straight upwards in a humorous way when it's lopped off seems a little jarring, a little (dare I say it?) nineties. Still, Nelson Daniel's hardly the first artist to play it this way, it's only one panel and it's early in the run. We'll let that slide. I'll come back to it later, perhaps.
Chop! Whee! Insert humorous musical riff.
Still, when he's good, he's good. Every artist has shortcomings, he will improve as he grows into the role. For any panel that seems a little lacking in dynamism, there's at least two where it's present in abundance. RoboCop-faced security droids fall under a hail of armour-piercing rounds. The Paradise Machine, a robotic tree that grows genetically-enhanced fruit at high speed, overloads and showers all and sundry with exploding fruit pulp. Lovely stuff!
As for the characters, we have Dredd and two other judges: Myers and Tarjay. Both become important recurring characters, but naturally there's more attention given to Dredd as he has credentials to establish: Dredd is courageous, pragmatic, doesn't let go once his suspicions are roused and doesn't flinch from resorting to using Hi-Ex rounds to blow a case open. Myers is of a similar age to Dredd, a bit more restrained, and has less time for the hints that something more sinister is afoot (robots saying they have no owners, for example). Unlike Dredd he has no desire to make a rod for his own back: the job will create enough trouble without one looking for more. There are a million cops like him, just trying to get through their shift. It is perhaps his misfortune to be working with a zealot like Dredd. Tarjay is younger, "the kid" according to Myers, and not so quick to react; he gets tasered in his throat for his trouble. Not much to work with yet; we just see him carted off in a med-wagon, but as we'll see later on, Swierczynski likes to plant seeds, and Tarjay shall prove fertile ground indeed.
Gulacy and O'Grady take over the art duties for the second feature, "Protection Racket". Set during the ongoing incident at Zuckerberg block's Pleasure Mall, the story has the feel of a side-quest to it; a way for Swierczynski to go off on a tangent and plant plot seeds for later harvesting. As we'll see in future reviews, this seems to be a favourite trick of his, and he uses it to good effect. Once again. robots are the order of the day, this time in the shape of a fembot fatale, who, sick of being exploited, manipulates her owner into murdering an old acquaintance turned looter. It's a nice self-contained piece that hints at there being something a bit more sinister to all this robotic misbehaviour than a simple malfunction. Another good bit of design here, by the way; T-3000 is gorgeous to the point of fetish fuel, resembling a cross between the robots in the film of "I, Robot" with a bit of RoboCop's armour plating (albeit styled for a gynoid). The body language is terrific and adds to the noirish feel that Swierczynski gives the character.
The only real issue I have with the art in "Protection Racket" is the depiction of Dredd's uniform; and really that's just a petty nitpick. Obviously a strip with as many artists as Dredd’s had is going to have a lot of different interpretations of the same basic costume. That’s a thing to be accepted and even celebrated. But all the same, on the last page we see a gold-lined stiff collar, a chest strap connecting the shoulder-pads… and a resemblance so close to the Stallone film uniform so blatant that really it’s got to be a wind-up. Kudos, Mr Gulacy: a masterful bit of chain-yanking there. Please don’t do it again!
One small problem common to both stories concerns the robots' word balloons. White text on a medium-to-light grey gradient background. A bit hard on the old optics there, chaps! Perhaps black text would work better there?
On the whole, a promising first issue. 8/10.
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