Comic Review // Judge Dredd: Titan

Warning: Dredd Timeline Anomaly Detected...

I've done something dangerous. I've jumped forward in the Judge Dredd timeline. I know, I know...

Peps, what are you doing?!

The plan has been to work my way through Dredd's history in something resembling a sensible order, but I was recently lucky enough to pick up Titan and, well...

I bloody enjoyed it.

So I'm afraid the timeline can take a back seat for one review. Sometimes you just have to read the comic that's sitting in front of you, and Titan was absolutely worth breaking the rules for.

Book Details

Title:Judge Dredd: Titan
Writer: Rob Williams
Art: Henry Flint
Pages: 144

Commercial Fluff

THE KILLING MOOON!

On Saturn's distant moon of Titan lies Mega-City One's penal colony for exiled Judges—the most corrupt, dangerous and desperate individuals ever to carry the badge. When Justice Department loses contact with the colony, things get rather awkward. There are over a thousand ex-Judges sitting on Titan, many of them with very good reasons to hate their former colleagues. Now Dredd has to head into space, accompanied by SJS Judge Gerhart, a platoon of Space Corps troops and a whole lot of trouble.

Because, naturally, nothing in Mega-City One is ever as simple as it first appears.

Review

Welcome to Titan

This collection is an absolute roller coaster. The opening story sees Judge Dredd sent to Saturn's moon of Titan to put down a prison revolt. The inmates have overpowered the guards and declared themselves independent of Mega-City One. Which is already embarrassing enough for Chief Judge Hershey. But things get worse. The rebellion appears to be led by Judge Nixon. I have a soft spot for the Wally Squad and its wonderfully shady collection of Judges. Nixon is one of those characters I've really enjoyed discovering, so seeing her turn up here was an immediate win for me.

Unfortunately, Dredd can't just stroll onto Titan and sort this out himself. Well...Apparently he can't. So he's given some backup. Enter the Space Corps.

These guys are supposed to be the best of the best when it comes to off-world combat. They're highly trained, heavily armed and ready to deal with whatever Titan can throw at them. Alongside them is SJS Judge Gerhart, who has his own reasons for wanting to keep an eye on Dredd. Specifically, he blames Dredd for Chaos Day. So we've got Dredd, an angry SJS Judge, a platoon of Space Corps troops and more than a thousand pissed-off ex-Judges. What could possibly go wrong? Everything.

As is traditional with Judge Dredd, the situation isn't quite what it appears to be. The entire mission turns out to be a trap designed to get Dredd exactly where someone wants him, and the results aren't pretty. The Space Corps gets absolutely hammered.

I'm talking about the "best of the best" being dead within a handful of panels kind of hammered. Sorry lads, poor showing. Gerhart gets horrifically injured and we discover that a significant portion of him is actually replacement machinery, and then Dredd is captured.

What follows is basically a sustained attempt to beat the living hell out of him. He gets attacked. he gets beaten and his mind is wiped, and this is where something really caught me by surprise.

Dredd is getting old. I'm nowhere near this point in my Dredd reading journey, so seeing Dredd portrayed like this was genuinely fascinating. There's a weariness to him. He's not quite the unstoppable force I've become accustomed to seeing, and I absolutely love that. It makes me want to understand how we've arrived at this point.

Eventually, against pretty much all the odds, Gerhart manages to free Dredd and the pair attempt to escape. One of the mortally wounded Space Marines then activates Plan B, and Plan B is basically: Blow the bloody place up!

The prison is destroyed in the ensuing chaos, Dredd and Gerhart escape back towards Mega-City One, while the surviving ex-Judges flee towards the ice moon Enceladus. And we're only getting started.

Highlight: Dredd's Age.

This was probably my biggest surprise. I'm reading a Judge Dredd story that is much further along the timeline than I'm used to, and suddenly I'm seeing a version of Dredd who feels...old. Not weak, not useless, just older. He's been through decades of violence, wars, disasters and complete Mega-City insanity, and you can feel it. That really grabbed me.

It makes me want to eventually get to this period properly and discover what happened between the Dredd I'm familiar with and this version of the character.

Lowlight: Space Corps

Space Corps: The best of the best. Also Space Corps: Dead. Very quickly. I'm not saying they didn't put up a fight, but I'm pretty sure they got about three minutes into the story before the universe reminded them that they're extras in a Judge Dredd comic.

The Aftermath

The next section moves away from the initial assault and starts dealing with the consequences. Titan needs rebuilding. The surviving Judges are dealing with what happened, and Dredd? Dredd doesn't seem right.

He's sluggish and increasingly withdrawn following his ordeal, while Gerhart has become convinced that Dredd may no longer be capable of functioning as an effective Judge. So naturally, Gerhart starts monitoring him. I’m confident this will go brilliantly.

Meanwhile, the ex-Judges who escaped to Enceladus are apparently dead. Except...They're not. We eventually get flashbacks showing what happened on the moon, along with the introduction of an alien entity capable of taking the form of deceased Judges, and then things get really weird.

The creature begins attacking Mega-City One from the Black Atlantic, with ice slowly spreading across the city. Because apparently Mega-City One didn't have enough problems already. And then...Dirty Frank! I will never complain about Dirty Frank turning up.

Highlight: Dredd Goes Nuclear

One of my favourite moments involves Dredd dealing with the alien threat in a particularly Dredd-like manner. He calls in a napalm strike on his own position. Because apparently if you're going to kill an alien, you might as well take yourself along for the ride. The result? The alien gets absolutely hammered, and Dredd gets most of his back melted off (Badass).

The man might be getting old, but apparently nobody told him he was supposed to start taking things easy. There's also a fantastic image of Dredd riding a horse through Mega-City One after the attack. Which brings me to an important question:

Where the hell did the horse come from?

If you know, tell me. Because I've been staring at this scene thinking: "Did I miss an entire subplot involving a horse?" Drop the answer in the comments because I genuinely want to know.

And Then There's Melt

The final story is Melt, which I've actually read previously and will review elsewhere, so I won't spend too much time on it here. Essentially, it's 2000 AD's rather twisted take on the Snowman story. Yes. That classic british Snowman story or is it Frosty for our Americans?

Except this is Judge Dredd, so obviously things don't go quite as warmly and nostalgically as they do in the Christmas classic. It's a fun little tale and a nice change of pace after the darkness of Titan.

And I have to admit...It makes me feel rather sorry for snowmen.

Sector 102 Brainstorm

Here is where this book becomes dangerous for me. Because I'm not just reading Judge Dredd anymore. I'm constantly asking:

"Can I steal this for Sector 102?"

And Titan has given me a ridiculous amount to work with. We've got Wally Squad Judges, both past and present. We've got Space Corps. We've got ex-Judges. We've got off-world prisons. We've got aliens. We've got strange survivors. We've got potentially hostile escapees. We've got Judge-related conspiracies, and we've got the general question of what happens when something from outside Mega-City One gets into the city.

So now my brain is asking: What if some of the Titan convicts escaped? Maybe one of them eventually ended up in Sector 102. Perhaps they're living under a false identity, hiding amongst the population and trying to avoid Justice Department detection, what if they are running some of the crimes?

Or...What if something else survived? The alien element is particularly interesting. Could something have survived the encounter and made its way to the Spillways? Could there be an alien organism buried somewhere beneath the Sector? Could one of the Spillways abandon rooms contain something that absolutely should not be there? Is it a Snowman? And, because I apparently enjoy making life difficult for myself, I'm already thinking about what the Justice Department would do if Basecamp Black discovered evidence of an off-world organism. Kelp Pharmacy would obviously want to study it. The Judges would obviously want to own it or at least destroy it, and the Sector 102 residents would probably be stuck somewhere in the middle.

Sounds like a problem waiting to happen.

Final Thoughts

What a bloody good collection. I know I've broken my own reading order by jumping this far ahead, but I honestly don't care. I had a fantastic time with Titan. There's so much packed into these pages: ex-Judges, Wally Squad history, Space Corps, off-world action, aliens, prison revolts, Dirty Frank and, most importantly for me, a much older and more damaged Judge Dredd.

Henry Flint's artwork is another huge positive. He's one of my favourite modern Dredd artists, and his work really suits the darker, stranger elements of this story. The whole thing feels bigger than a simple Judge Dredd adventure. It's dealing with the consequences of Chaos Day, the changing nature of Dredd himself and the increasingly strange threats facing Mega-City One, and apparently it has given me about twenty new ideas for Sector 102.

So yes, I've jumped forward. Yes, I've probably spoiled something for myself. And yes...I'd do it again.

Sometimes you just have to follow the story that grabs you. And Titan grabbed me by the throat and dragged me straight onto a moon of Saturn.

DROKK!