Judge Dredd: Crusade & Frankenstein Division [Paperback]

This is one of those comics that is so chock full of talent that by all rights it should be mind-blowingly awesome. Just look at that pedigree; Grant Morrison, Mark Millar, Mick Austin, and original Judge Dredd artist Carlos Ezquerra. That is a royal court of some of Britain's comic book talent working on Britain's most popular and enduring home-grown hero, Judge Dredd.

But somehow, "Judge Dredd: Crusade" falls flat.

Not only is this a disappointing comic given all the talent involved, the two stories here are mediocre even by the usual Judge Dredd standards. I don't know what everyone was bringing here, but it wasn't their A-game, especially on the writer's side.

The first story, "Crusade," is written by Millar and Morrison and drawn by Mick Austin. Originally published in 1994-95 in "2000 AD Magazine" prog 868-871, this story forecasts what Morrison would later do in Batman. Instead of the international Batmen we get the Judge Dredds of many nations.

The story is high-concept and should have been much cooler than it is. An astronaut on a deep space voyage claims to have reached the end of the universe and to have spoken with God. His return ship crashed in the South Pole, and all of the various nations send a team of judges to fight for the prize of getting the message.

Judge Dredd represents the American Mega City One, and a roll-call of ethnic stereotypes makes up the rest; Judge Sharma from Indo-Cit (India), Judge Shojo from Hondo Cit (Japan), Judge Daktari from Pan-Africa, Judge Kilroy from Brit-Cit (Britain), Judge Ramses from Luxor (Egypt),Judge Spassky from East Meg-One (Russia), and the hard-drinking, lackadaisical Irishman Judge Wilde. Rounding out the cast and playing the villain is the inquisitor Judge Cesare from Vatican-Cit.

After the initial meet-and-greet, the story devolves into a battle royale with the usual goofiness that entails from an ethnic punch-up. There are some good Grant Morrison tidbits--the whole battle takes place at Ultima Thule stations--but there is zero characterization and the story is based on the classic "each person has to die in a cooler and/or more disgusting way than the last person" motif. Mick Austin's art is good and everything looks cool in that 2000 AD style, but nothing raises the story higher than a puff piece.

The next story, "Frankenstein Division," is as much of a throw-away story. By Mark Millar and Carlos Ezquerra. It originally appeared in 2012 in 2000 AD prog 928-937. The story links back to the classic Apocalypse War storyline and the all-out war between Mega-City One and the East-Meg Cities. The Russian side saw most of their highly trained judges reduced to body parts on the battlefield and thought it seemed like a waste. So in Frankenstein fashion they salvaged the best parts and stitched them together to make Project X, the Ultimate Judge. Of course, each of those body parts were killed by Judge Dredd, and every cell of the monster cries out for revenge.

"Frankenstein Division" isn't a bad story; actually, for a simple monster-revenge piece it is pretty fun. But due to the anthology nature of 2000 AD, a 22-page story was broken into four chapters meaning you don't get a lot of story development time for each chapter. And like all "ultimate monster" tales, this Project X just isn't quite the menace that he should be. Ezquerra's art in this story is excellent, and the concept is cool, but Millar didn't have the page space to pull off something really interesting.

Honestly, if "Judge Dredd: Crusades" was written by a bunch of no-names then I probably would have enjoyed it more. But I know that every person working on this comic is capable of much more, and that fact drags the comic down.

Reason for Reading: I'm falling in love with Judge Dredd and his whole post-apocalyptic world.

I gave this book 5 stars but I'll let you know right away it certainly wasn't for its literary merit. There was a lot of cheesy dialogue and readers of modern comics may not be able to get past that. But I have to say I love to laugh at the cheese in my comics when it comes to superheroes and villains. The Judges, including Dredd, are the heroes of these books but one doesn't necessarily side with them or like them. They are "better" than the villains but then these judges are police, judge and jury rolled up into one person who makes a judgement call in matters of seconds with each case they take on.

This book is divided into 2 separate stories taken from the pages of "2000AD". They are random stories both written by Morrison & Millar with a very weak connecting theme that they are both set in an Arctic cold location. The first story in the book is "Crusade" first published in 1994 is set in the South Pole and has an "Alien" vibe to it as they know a monster is hidden in the secret lab where representative Judges (the best of the best) have been sent to get this former man back to their official respective Cities and learn his truth. I really enjoyed this story. It was much longer than the second one and covered 10 issues. The plot built up rather speedily. Though it did lag a bit in the middle, The authors did manage to quickly pull it back up and gave us an action packed story. I was a little irked that the bad guy had to be the Vatican City, complete with his "Inquisitor Judge", but what can you expect from anti-papist Brits anyway (I'm British so I'm allowed to say this kind of stuff :-)

The second story "Frankenstein Division" is much shorter and comes from 1995. This one has the Soviets as bad guys in the sense that one of their inventions, a super judge made from remnants of judges that had been killed by Dredd during the Apocalyptic Wars, has escaped from Siberia with one thought on its mind: find and destroy Judge Dredd. A great bit of battle action and behind the scenes dirty politics as we see how "justice" is handed out to those who let the super judge escape in the first place.

I'm loving these books and glimpses into the Judge Dredd universe where Judges are police, judge, jury and sentencer (though mostly executioner) all in one person!

When a Justice Department ship crash-lands in Antarctica judges from around the world gather to find what secrets it may hold, including a supposed message from God. With a concept like that and a plot by Grant Morrison and Mark Millar this seemed a must-buy.

But it turns out to be a string of cliches without much of interest.

Once the ship crashes an all-star team of international judges, some new some we've seen before, are fighting it out for the prize. Why only one judge per city? Who knows, budget cuts maybe, or the high price of air fare. It could be some sort of code of chivalry but no one bothers to explain it.

The international judges are the usual collection of cliches, a drunken Aussie, a drunken Irishman, a Japanese samurai, a mystic Indian and of course Vatican Cit has a sadistic inquisitor. Because even the fertile imaginations of Morrison and Millar cannot imagine a sympathetic Catholic.

The lone survivor of the expedition is your usual cannibal monster, without anything to make him stand out from a dozens that have come before.

For the second story, by Millar with art by Ezquerra, Dredd takes on a Soviet super judge, whom he defeats by um, shooting it. Again, nothing too clever here.

I might have added a star if I didn't come in with high expectations.