Predator Vs Judge Dredd Vs Aliens
by John Layman, Chris Mooneyham, Michael Atiyeh, Michael Heisler
Review by Seth
Well, we have a contender for the most prosiac, long winded title of the year.
JD has of course met the extra terrestrial menaces before, in this :
and in this:
Both were jointly published in and were run in the Meg’.
But hey.They are quite old now. Wouldn’t it be more fun to squeeze all 3 franchises (yep -admit it, JD is a franchise – nothing catastrophic is going to happen to him despite all the cliffhangers Rebellion throw at you) into one frenzy of (acid for) blood, bullets and blades?
These inter franchise crossovers can be a bit silly. The JD/Bats ones were a bit hit and miss, but the first Bats / Predator one was awesome, and to be fair, Dredd’s previous encounters with the our extra terrestrial chums were pretty snazzy too. But do we need another one?
Well, clearly Rebellion / IDW think so. IDW keep plugging away at the JD franchise in the US, has it really been that successful? I don’t know, the mini series, the ones written (largely) by Brits or “2000AD” alumni have been at worst decent. With the exception of “Mega- City Two : City of Courts” the other strips have been to put it politely – lacking.
Enough rambling and digression. What’s it all about Seth?
Well, I’m glad you asked me that…..
JD takes a trip into the Cursed Earth chasing a religous cult, leading him to the Alabama Morass, where coincidenally a Predator is being pursued by “TMNT” baddie Rock Steady’s hick cousin and his anthropomorphic buddies. Entering the Pred’s ship, they find a very familiar skull and a pink crab like being that likes to get over familiar with your head and has no sense of personal space.
In the centre of this mexican 3 way stand off is geneticist, and “Dr Moreau” a like, Dr. Reinstot, who has plans for the new specimens found on the Predator’s ship.
So far, so high concept.The art is nice, it harks back to the Bats versus Predator series by Gibbons and Kubert² of 1991!. Good interpretations of Old Stoney Face (not sure about his jaw occasionally though). The Predators look suitably hulking, mean and ready to rock and roll.
My biggest gripe is the scripting. Why, oh why are there so few writers who get Dredd’s dialogue right? Some of Layman’s script is completely cringey. Permit me to demonstrate :
Ouch, right? There’s more
(Mooneyham used Sharon from Eastenders as the model for Cass’ in that left hand panel.)
and there is this :
Quite frankly, it’s a little embarrassing.
Anyway, if the 2012 movie producers got John Wagner into check Dredd’s dialogue and script, couldn’t IDW or Dark Horse at least ask Tharg, or a regular Dredd writer, one who knows his voice to give it the once over?
Rant over.
It’s entertaining. The setup is pretty good, and whilst I am not quivering with anticpation for issue 2, I’ll definitely pick it up (but partly because I’m a compulsive completeist). Essential? Hell no, but if Layman sorts out the dialogue it should be worth picking up for gits and shiggles.
And we all know who should win.
Everything Comes Back To 2000AD 
It’s okay. The idea of Judge Dredd vs classic movie monsters (how about Dracula or Frankenstein vs Dredd!) sounds cool in theory but in print it feels a bit contrived.
When Karl Urban said “I am the law!” in Dredd 2012 – it sounded cool but when new writers use it in Dredd strips it sounds a little cliché.
One of John Wagner’s greatest skills is how he tends to avoid cliché dialogue. I think Wagner tends to writer Dredd as if he’s semi- British! What I mean is Dredd is American – we all know that – but Wagner tends to shy away from giving him too many Dirty Harry, Die Hard cop type dialogue. When American writers take on Dredd they can’t bypass their American roots so Dredd ends up talking like a cliché American cop. You can’t expect American writers to think the way a British writers thinks. John Wagner is American by birth but lived in the UK most of his life.
To give the writer some benefit of the doubt you could argue this is IDW/Dark Horse’s version of Judge Dredd so he’s going to sound a bit different, speak differently. I suppose that’s a fair way of looking at it.I don’t think this has direct link to existing 2000AD Dredd-world continuity.
Re: Dracula – they have faced each other in an annual story, Costa del Blood. It was contrived, though enjoyable enough.
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