Two horror-laced tales for Mega-City One’s top lawman, as the word of God is apparently revealed to a long-missing Judge, and a Frankenstein’s monster formed from dead Sov Judges heads for Mega-City One, seeking revenge on the man who killed them all – Dredd…
Moderately recent tales from the pages of 2000AD, with Dredd facing a bevy of other Judges in Crusade as he tries to be the one to retrieve the missing Judge Eckhart. There’s a story hiding underneath here about faith in the Dredd universe – the power of Vatican-Cit spreads beyond its own walls, like the Roman Catholic Church from which it sprang – before it wanders off into a combination of Final Destination and any number of superhero fight stories, ending up with a sprinkling of H.P. Lovecraft. The ending is left open, and it would be interesting to return to Judge Eckhart’s story…
Frankenstein Division has the feel of a Terminator story told in the Dredd universe: we’ve seen Dredd up against the unstoppable before, so the outcome is never really in doubt, with the Frankenstein Judge reminiscent of some portrayals of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Mr Hyde. There’s a dark humour to this tale that’s missing from Crusade, from the opening punishments at Selwyn Froggitt House to the final fate of the Frankenstein Judge’s creators.
Verdict: Both tales have the potential to be more than they are, but they are different additions to the Dredd mythos. 6/10
Paul Simpson
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