With Judge Dredd: Control, Delirium presents a contemporary and parody version of Judge Dredd. The very talented Rob Williams and Chris Weston have fun jostling the old judge by confronting him with improbable adversaries.
In parallel with the monumental integral of the first adventures of Judge Dedd (Cases classified in seven volumes), Delirium offers a collection of five stories published between 2012 and 2019. John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra imagined, in 1977 for the English magazine 2000 AD, a post-apocalyptic world with endemic violence where judges combine the functions of police officers, judges and jurors in order to render justice more quickly. Dredd is the best of them.
The drawing of Chris Weston is modern, realistic and surprisingly precise. From the first full page, the tone is set: in the middle of the street, a heavy advertising truck touting heart transplants is stormed by a gang of merry, heavily armed thugs on two-wheelers and unicycles. But already an aero-wagon is diving. The line is precise, the imagination fertile and unbridled. Enjoy the grenade, rocket launcher and chainsaw designs. The whole album is of the same water. Dredd has aged, his face fossilized, expressing nothing but a foul mood. In fact, we die a lot there, the life expectancy of a judge in the streets of Mega-city One would hardly exceed twenty minutes. It is possible, because partners and adversaries pass away quickly. The series prohibits all supporting recurring roles.
Rob Williams’ first and most developed scenario pits Dredd against the ruthless Judge Spin, the irremovable chief of the local police force, who seems quite psychotic. The following four stories evolve curiously on a comic register. Not that Dredd doesn’t care to smile, but his opponents are funny. He successively confronts terrorist monkeys, an egocentric Kaijū, a parakeet-loving space cannon and the chief accountant judge. My preference is the pure-hearted Klegg. This colossal extra-terrestrial saurian belongs to a species renowned for its cannibalistic mercenaries. This Kregg is probably the only authentically gentle being in Mega-city, unfortunately harmed by his physique. His only friend could be Dredd, if the latter was not unaware of any form of friendship. Too sad.
Stephane de Boysson
Judge Dredd: Control
Screenplay: Rob Williams
Drawing: Chris Weston
Publisher: Delirium
144 color pages – €20
Publication: March 4, 2022
Judge Dredd: Control – Excerpt:
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