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Judge Dredd
Judge Death: The Life and Death of...
Who is Dredd 's nemesis Judge Death and where does he come from? The answer to these questions and many others can all be found here! From Death’s origin through to his final destruction � killing was his business!
BORN TO KILL!
Judge Death � the most despicable creature on the face of the planet and Judge Dredd’s greatest foe. The superfiend with an appetite for destruction has taken billions of lives in his mission to eradicate all life in the universe, but has he always been this evil?
Find out how he came to be this way and what it takes to kill Death in these thrill-packed stories from Judge Death co-creator John Wagner ( A History of Violence ) with outstanding artwork from Peter Doherty ( Judge Dredd, Batman & World’s Finest ), Andy Clarke ( Shimura, Detective Comics ) and Frazer Irving ( Necronauts, Batman & Robin ).
BORN TO KILL!
Judge Death � the most despicable creature on the face of the planet and Judge Dredd’s greatest foe. The superfiend with an appetite for destruction has taken billions of lives in his mission to eradicate all life in the universe, but has he always been this evil?
Find out how he came to be this way and what it takes to kill Death in these thrill-packed stories from Judge Death co-creator John Wagner ( A History of Violence ) with outstanding artwork from Peter Doherty ( Judge Dredd, Batman & World’s Finest ), Andy Clarke ( Shimura, Detective Comics ) and Frazer Irving ( Necronauts, Batman & Robin ).
- GenresComics
224 pages, Paperback
First published July 12, 2011
1 person is currently reading
24 people want to read
About the author
John Wagner
1,277Ìýbooks184ÌýfollowersJohn Wagner is a comics writer who was born in Pennsylvania in 1949 and moved to Scotland as a boy. Alongside Pat Mills, Wagner was responsible for revitalising British boys' comics in the 1970s, and has continued to be a leading light in British comics ever since. He is best known for his work on 2000 AD, for which he created Judge Dredd. He is noted for his taut, violent thrillers and his black humour. Among his pseudonyms are The best known are John Howard, T.B. Grover, Mike Stott, Keef Ripley, Rick Clark and Brian Skuter. ()
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 13, 2018
An excellent compilation of the later adventures of everybody's favourite hissing undead zealot.
"The Life And Death Of..." is twisted, clever, off-kilter, ultra-violent (although not overtly graphic) and by equal turns hilarious, entertaining and disturbing in equal measure.
(So basically everything I've ever loved about "2000AD" since I first started reading it back in the seventies, then)
"Young Death" satirises Ann Rice's "Interview With A Vampire" as a fugitive Judge Death recounts the story of his transformation from a childhood psychopath into the undead interdimensional slaughterhouse (that we've all come to know and love) to a down-at-heel Mega-City One tabloid journalist.
"My Name Is Death" may be the darkest and most disturbing 'Death' story that John Wagner has ever written, focusing as it does on Death's attempts to lure Psi Judge Anderson into a fatal trap by embarking on a relentless campaign of infanticide. Frazer Irving's artwork perfectly, but tastefully, compliments the unflinching nature of the story.
"The Wilderness Days" follows Death as he wanders the Cursed Earth as a fugitive in search of a more effective, whole-sale way of bringing his deranged brand of "Jusssstice" to the planet's populace en-masse. Along the way he runs into a such an excess of twisted, homicidal and generally corrupt humanity that the reader begins to wonder if his crusade might actually have more than a little philosophical validity after all. Wagner and Frazer Irving pull all the stops out in this wild, wacky and deranged hell-ride through a nuclear wasteland populated by muties, man-faced dogs, hard-bitten western cliches, serial killers (clearly influenced by Oliver Stone's "Natural Born Killers"), corrupt Las Vegas Judges, and senile military men straight from Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove".
Throw a couple of three or four page stories which examine the effects of Death's cankerous presence upon the inhabitants of a City-Block, explore his brief incarceration, and even introduce us to the one individual that Death has ever judged 'innocent', and you're in for a corker of a ride if you're a fan of Death, Dredd and company.
"The Life And Death Of..." is twisted, clever, off-kilter, ultra-violent (although not overtly graphic) and by equal turns hilarious, entertaining and disturbing in equal measure.
(So basically everything I've ever loved about "2000AD" since I first started reading it back in the seventies, then)
"Young Death" satirises Ann Rice's "Interview With A Vampire" as a fugitive Judge Death recounts the story of his transformation from a childhood psychopath into the undead interdimensional slaughterhouse (that we've all come to know and love) to a down-at-heel Mega-City One tabloid journalist.
"My Name Is Death" may be the darkest and most disturbing 'Death' story that John Wagner has ever written, focusing as it does on Death's attempts to lure Psi Judge Anderson into a fatal trap by embarking on a relentless campaign of infanticide. Frazer Irving's artwork perfectly, but tastefully, compliments the unflinching nature of the story.
"The Wilderness Days" follows Death as he wanders the Cursed Earth as a fugitive in search of a more effective, whole-sale way of bringing his deranged brand of "Jusssstice" to the planet's populace en-masse. Along the way he runs into a such an excess of twisted, homicidal and generally corrupt humanity that the reader begins to wonder if his crusade might actually have more than a little philosophical validity after all. Wagner and Frazer Irving pull all the stops out in this wild, wacky and deranged hell-ride through a nuclear wasteland populated by muties, man-faced dogs, hard-bitten western cliches, serial killers (clearly influenced by Oliver Stone's "Natural Born Killers"), corrupt Las Vegas Judges, and senile military men straight from Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove".
Throw a couple of three or four page stories which examine the effects of Death's cankerous presence upon the inhabitants of a City-Block, explore his brief incarceration, and even introduce us to the one individual that Death has ever judged 'innocent', and you're in for a corker of a ride if you're a fan of Death, Dredd and company.
August 30, 2012
This is a very very odd graphic novel, if you can call it that. It's actually a compilation of different issues by different artists that follow Judge Death as he wanders around, causing havoc.
First, the art. I didn't really like any of it. Of the 5 or so artists, none of them appealed to me. This is actually very unusual, since I'll usually enjoy at least 2 of the art styles in a compilation like this. But nope. I found the art very ugly, or hard to read. Especially the last story, which is all in black and white. I found myself just skipping over entire panels and just reading the dialog, because the art work was too busy. Granted, Judge Death isn't a pretty, let alone appealing character on any level, so I guess the art work reflects that.
Second, the story. It starts out alright, about his childhood etc. It's nothing really insightful, and something that any beginning writer could've come up with for a twisted character. Don't expect any of the depth that you'd see in Dexter, for example. Then you move onto Judge Death's antics, and this takes up about 3/4's of the book. He basically goes around killing people. And that's about it. Lots and lots of killing, including children and pregnant women. And they show all of it.
Don't get me wrong, I appreciate violence in any medium. I loved , I just recently read Junji Ito's trilogy. So I don't have a problem with it. My problem with this book is that it's just killing endlessly, for no reason. It gets boring, and actually started to annoy me. I mean, what kind of artist gets off on drawing panel after panel of such gratuitous violence?
Judge Death is also not very smart. He is constantly getting foiled, but not without murdering at least a couple hundred people first. You'd think someone who was killing that many people would be noticed sooner, or that they would have developed some sort of technology to deal with this jerk, but NOPE. He just keeps doing it. And he mouths off these really really cheesy one liners constantly like "The crime issss LIFE....the sssssentence issss DEATH!!!" Of course he has a really heavy hiss to his voice so all the words are written with too many ssssss.
I realize there is a wicked sense of humor underlying all this weirdness, but it just felt flat to me. I think it's because Judge Death just isn't that deep of a character. He has no remorse, there's no true consequences for his actions, he doesn't even have a sidekick, his face doesn't move, his jokes are mostly puns... I could go on and on.
I've never actually read the Judge Dredd comics, and haven't seen the movie, but it seems like he started out as a simple rival for Dredd. And the author never really extrapolated on that. Judge Death is just a bad dude, and he's never going to change. I think that's what made reading an entire graphic novel kind of painful. The same thing happens on every single page, and you shouldn't expect anything different. I think in that aspect he works better as just an evil side character to Judge Dredd. He probably shouldn't have his own book, since he falls flat on his face in every aspect.
First, the art. I didn't really like any of it. Of the 5 or so artists, none of them appealed to me. This is actually very unusual, since I'll usually enjoy at least 2 of the art styles in a compilation like this. But nope. I found the art very ugly, or hard to read. Especially the last story, which is all in black and white. I found myself just skipping over entire panels and just reading the dialog, because the art work was too busy. Granted, Judge Death isn't a pretty, let alone appealing character on any level, so I guess the art work reflects that.
Second, the story. It starts out alright, about his childhood etc. It's nothing really insightful, and something that any beginning writer could've come up with for a twisted character. Don't expect any of the depth that you'd see in Dexter, for example. Then you move onto Judge Death's antics, and this takes up about 3/4's of the book. He basically goes around killing people. And that's about it. Lots and lots of killing, including children and pregnant women. And they show all of it.
Don't get me wrong, I appreciate violence in any medium. I loved , I just recently read Junji Ito's trilogy. So I don't have a problem with it. My problem with this book is that it's just killing endlessly, for no reason. It gets boring, and actually started to annoy me. I mean, what kind of artist gets off on drawing panel after panel of such gratuitous violence?
Judge Death is also not very smart. He is constantly getting foiled, but not without murdering at least a couple hundred people first. You'd think someone who was killing that many people would be noticed sooner, or that they would have developed some sort of technology to deal with this jerk, but NOPE. He just keeps doing it. And he mouths off these really really cheesy one liners constantly like "The crime issss LIFE....the sssssentence issss DEATH!!!" Of course he has a really heavy hiss to his voice so all the words are written with too many ssssss.
I realize there is a wicked sense of humor underlying all this weirdness, but it just felt flat to me. I think it's because Judge Death just isn't that deep of a character. He has no remorse, there's no true consequences for his actions, he doesn't even have a sidekick, his face doesn't move, his jokes are mostly puns... I could go on and on.
I've never actually read the Judge Dredd comics, and haven't seen the movie, but it seems like he started out as a simple rival for Dredd. And the author never really extrapolated on that. Judge Death is just a bad dude, and he's never going to change. I think that's what made reading an entire graphic novel kind of painful. The same thing happens on every single page, and you shouldn't expect anything different. I think in that aspect he works better as just an evil side character to Judge Dredd. He probably shouldn't have his own book, since he falls flat on his face in every aspect.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
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