By later standards, ‘The Rise of the Robots’ is nothing special, but Dredd would never again be an also-ran. Seven Dredd episodes appeared before a Wagner strip was published, delivering a leap in quality as Dredd’s character matures, albeit slightly, and his first continued story begins. Their solution with a deadline imminent was to slap a ‘censored’ banner across the panel, so creating a legend. These strips do introduce some Dredd staples: the Mega-City, the Statue of Judgement, and Dredd’s face never being seen, an editorial accident after artist Massimo Belardinelli revealed his face, but delivering what the editors considered an inappropriate likeness. That wasn’t realised, though, until Wagner’s return to the strip, as Dredd thrashes around in unimaginative cramped stories, the tradition for British anthology comics being to pack in panels for maximum impact in limited pages. ![]() A toned-down Dredd saw print, and while resented by Wagner at the time, it was instrumental in transforming Dredd from a heavy-handed satire of American law enforcement into something with greater potential. ![]() Showing an altogether more violent Dredd with no qualms about summary street executions, it was submitted as another IPC publication was vilified over violent content. That’s presented as this collection’s final strip. ![]() Artist Mike McMahon was still developing his style, emulating Ezquerra’s work on what was intended as the first Dredd appearance. ![]() It’s credited to Pete Harris, but subsequent interviews reveal significant contributions from editors Kelvin Gosnell and Pat Mills, who christened Dredd after a portly purveyor of risque reggae briefly popular in early 1970s Britain. Judge Dredd is now comfortably among Britain’s greatest ever comics creations, so how do his earliest appearances hold up? This collection gathers 59 strips, covering his first 18 months in print, and while initially crude, some qualities delivering Dredd’s enduring success date from the early days.Ĭonceived by John Wagner, and designed by artist Carlos Ezquerra, neither worked on the first episode of Dredd to see print.
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