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Judge Dredd: The Cursed Earth Uncensored by John Wagner

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I was starting my comic book collection at the time this originally came out but I never collected Judge Dredd. I suspect if I had tried my parents might have frowned at ten year old me picking this up and they'd be right. This dystopic SF offering is geared to the somewhat older reader. And outside of some funny parodies, it's honestly not very good. It makes zero sense and Dredd himself is boring with a flat character arc of zero growth (and no, I don't think that's asking too much of a comic book character)

Let me set the stage, it opens up with Dredd being brought up to speed by scientists, his superiors and a man who landed his strat-brat airplane (space capable?) in Mega City Two. Basically L.A. and NYC have become monster cities taking up either coast. The rest of the country fell victim to the atomic wars and have a lot of mutants and other forgotten people trying to survive (while the Mega Cities seem to care little). A plague has broken out in Mega City Two and plague ridden men have taken over the airports so Dredd has to DRIVE all across the 'cursed earth' America to bring the vaccination to save the city.

I'm already mentally checking out and we're only about five pages in. I'm expected to believe that they can't set a plane down anywhere outside the city? Can't taxi it on a flat desert floor? Later we learn (and if we were already fans probably knew) that we're capable of mining operations on distant planets and obviously we're not setting down on an airstrip. And somehow we can't set a vehicle capable of flight down somewhere outside Mega City two? No, we have to drive for days through mutant country. That's just lazy writing. Even ten year old me wouldn't have been impressed. Tell me they are capable of shooting down planes or something. Geez.

So Dredd goes and liberates Spikes harvey Rotten (no doubt inspired by The Sex Pistols Johnny Rotten) a criminal because he's the best biker alive. That's the only reason we're given. Why this is needed isn't clear because there's also the Kill Dozer and other judges following Dredd with the vaccine. I wish they had left them at home and so does the writers because how many times did Dredd get caught and NO other judge comes to help, like the writers forgot they were there.

This is called Uncensored not because of sex or gore (in fact women barely exist in this thing to the point I was wondering where all the mutant humans came from because where are the women?) No it took some parodies a bit far and they are probably the more entertaining of things, watching the cults of Burger King and McDonald's killing each other over who is better. We get to see Dredd fight the Michelin Man to save the Alka Seltzer Kid. About the best story line might be the 'vampire' one in Kentucky.

Dredd exists to utter nonsense like 'by strom' and 'drok' and spout about how the law is all important and he is the law. As a character he's as deep as a rain drop and that's pushing it. I see very little reason to invest in this guy. The art isn't much better. I can't even call this misogynistic as really, women aren't in it. The only women with any importance was in one story as scientists in Barbarella outfits for some reason ffs.

I'm not even sure why I finished this. Maybe I was hoping to see Dredd break into Coca-Cola's It's the Real thing song or see the Kool-Aid pitcher come busting in.



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Once Upon a Time at the End of the World, Vol. 2 by Jason Aaron

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This one picks up several years down the road from Vol 1 where Mezzy and Maceo are young adults and have moved on to the sexual phase of their relationship. And it is vast. Seriously. Free Love Hippies would be impressed (so yeah if sex scenes aren't your cuppa, you'll want to give this a pass)

They're trying to find the Ranger's paradise and they manage it. It becomes a beacon for those wandering the Wastelands. Mezzy repurposes the idea of the Rangers as something to go out and leave Maceo's weird inventions everywhere to lead people to this Utopia.

And that is what they build. Lots of polyamorous relationships, orgies, naked hot springs, even a consent-bound sex dungeon. Mostly Maceo uses the mall tower he grew up in as a model so there are all kinds of bizarre rooms. His inventions and his know how combined with others has them making gardens and truly are living in a free society filled with love.

Naturally this can't last. It doesn't and the ending of this non-linear volume is bizarre like Alice when she's Ten Feet Tall. I did find this a bit slow here and there or too intent on being weird and edgy but the art is SO damn good it kicked it right back up to four stars.



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Once Upon a Time at the End of the World Vol. 1 by Jason Aaron

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I don't generally go for dystopias but since this was at the library and I was eyeing at my comic book store too so I checked it out. Mezzy is on the run, from what we don't originally know. She stumbles across a tower in the wastelands where she meets the sheltered Maceo, a young man living in what looks like a high end, high rise mall, by himself with his inventions and his two dead parents cuddled together on the bed.

We don't know what has killed the world (his parents suggests infection was at least part of it) Maceo is ill suited for life outside and yet he follows Mezzy into the ruined world for reasons I wished had been a lot stronger than they were. Mezzy continues to tell him she's not saving him (as he has no idea how to live out there) but she does.

And that's when her past catches up to her things go badly.

Some of the tension is a bit muted as there are flashforwards to fifty or so years into the future so you know that they survive.

The villains are probably getting the type of fans who review bomb anything by women or creators of color or anyone they think is 'woke' all up in arms. But I see it as natural progression of where some of us are now. I'm interested enough to move on to volume 2



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