Judgement
I've been reading through a few Judge Dredd comics... some of the classics... some more recent stuff... the "Judgement on Gotham" Batman crossovers... the "America" story arc...
...in light of current politics (and given that a lot of these stories were written over 20 years ago), the satire is viciously delicious.
Given that I've been reading these comics for detail research regarding my "Arcology Tower" project, almost everything fits in with what I've done and my memories of the overall structure have generally reflected the oeuvre. A few things I'm finding interesting are the finer points... certain character calling knives "stanleys", even to the point of having "laser stanleys" that might be used for cutting into flesh for scarification purposes...the strange cults and gangs who often have names that allude to groups in our world... mysterious relics and arcne technologies that might link this world to other universes (where the Dark Judges originated, where crossovers with other comic companies or elements of 2000AD canon might occur)...
...the whole setting is so rich with flavour elements and works on numerous levels. I'm not sayong it's a perfect setting, there are a few elements that stand out as elements of their time and have become dated as the years have gone by (a notable meme has commented that the crime statistics in the USA are arguably worse than the "dystopia" of Megacity One).
The quoted population vesus the depicted cityscapes feels off too... by at least an order of magnitude.
Still... it was never written for its accuracy, it was written for its satire on the Thatcherist government in the UK in the 1980s, and the current political climate is bringing relevance back to that side of it. I guess it's a bit like Warhammer 40k in that regard, it's just that the fanatics in that part of fandom seem to have lost their senses of humour regarding the whole thing.
...in light of current politics (and given that a lot of these stories were written over 20 years ago), the satire is viciously delicious.
Given that I've been reading these comics for detail research regarding my "Arcology Tower" project, almost everything fits in with what I've done and my memories of the overall structure have generally reflected the oeuvre. A few things I'm finding interesting are the finer points... certain character calling knives "stanleys", even to the point of having "laser stanleys" that might be used for cutting into flesh for scarification purposes...the strange cults and gangs who often have names that allude to groups in our world... mysterious relics and arcne technologies that might link this world to other universes (where the Dark Judges originated, where crossovers with other comic companies or elements of 2000AD canon might occur)...
...the whole setting is so rich with flavour elements and works on numerous levels. I'm not sayong it's a perfect setting, there are a few elements that stand out as elements of their time and have become dated as the years have gone by (a notable meme has commented that the crime statistics in the USA are arguably worse than the "dystopia" of Megacity One).
Still... it was never written for its accuracy, it was written for its satire on the Thatcherist government in the UK in the 1980s, and the current political climate is bringing relevance back to that side of it. I guess it's a bit like Warhammer 40k in that regard, it's just that the fanatics in that part of fandom seem to have lost their senses of humour regarding the whole thing.
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