From Bayou to Abyss: Examining John Constantine, Hellblazer.Judging Dredd: Examining the World of Judge Dredd.Turns out they're pretty much in full agreement with me, which should make me happy that they get it for once, but because this is the 2020s, more makes me worry that I'm wrong. Since writing the above, I've read the Comics Journal's review of the collection, expecting to have a good chuckle at them snootily missing the point, because in my head that's what the Comics Journal generally does unless you're doing black and white autobiographical comics about having a cry-wank. Just please don't burden the man with the expectations of Events.
More successful, because they're not being expected to do anything except be solid weekly Dredd stories, are Removal Man (a black farce in which a hitman who strives to be unobtrusive nevertheless draws the attention of the ultimate lawman) and Now That's What I Call Justice, ostensibly a satire of listicles and true crime obsession, but which ends up making a far more satisfactory callback than Citadel to Dredd lore past, and one which you don't even need to know for the story to mostly land and emphasise the sheer monstrousness of the set-up.
But the journey there has enough of Ol' Stoney-Face being stony-faced and fucking Sovs up that one can't resent it too much, certainly not compared to US comics which promise Big Revelations! Nothing Will Ever Be The Same Again!!! and then take eight issues of meandering nonsense to bring out something a) stupid, b) which will get reversed in 18 months or generally c) both. In short: a blatantly untrustworthy narrator insists he knows a big secret about the Apocalypse War, which ultimately, even if taken at face value, turns out not to be something that would shake any reader's conception of Dredd very much. Something which also held true of Origins, so maybe the real lesson is that he shouldn't be lured by the urge of digging back into Dredd's past so blatantly. And so perhaps we shouldn't be too disappointed when, as in the title story here, he turns in something that's perfectly readable but doesn't really amount to as much as was trailed.
And true, it must help immeasurably that John Wagner hasn't been writing Dredd solidly for all that time, being able to hop on and off as and when he has a Dredd story he wants to tell. Not many creators still deliver the goods after 40+ years on the same character Sim went a bit odd before reaching half that on Cerebus, and while you could point to strip cartoons for examples, most obviously Charles Schulz, even Peanuts had periods of formation and coasting either side of its imperial phase.
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