What happens when Judge Dredd is reassigned to a new city with different rules? Douglas Wolk looks to expand upon this idea with the new Judge Dredd miniseries, Mega-City Two: City of Courts.
This miniseries is set during the year 2094, when Judge Dredd is reassigned to Mega-City Two, a city built on the remains of Los Angeles. Obviously, the West Coast has much different rules and lifestyle choices than Mega-City One, so Dredd has a difficult time adjusting to his new assignment. For example, a camera crew is assigned to follow Dredd on all of his cases in Mega-City Two, complete with a producer who is constantly asking for multiple takes during an arrest. Even worse than the camera crew is the fact that Dredd doesn’t have any of his guns; instead, he is given a useless, but adorable, gun with a teddy bear insignia that only shoots “friendly bullets”. Why would Judge Dredd take an assignment in a place that makes his job more difficult?
City of Courts doesn’t answer this main question until the very end of the story. I won’t spoil the ending, but I will say that it does explain why Dredd is in Mega-City Two on assignment. Most of City of Courts is actually focused on Dredd’s pursuit of a criminal named Garbo Gubbins who deals Stookie extract (an anti-aging drug made from butchered aliens). Dredd’s pursuit takes him across a large portion of Mega-City Two and into a movie studio. He ends up arresting multiple users of Stookie as well as Gubbins, which is only the beginning of this story. The rest of City of Courts is dedicated to explaining why Judge Dredd is assigned to Mega-City Two, and why he is using a gun with “friendly bullets”.
One thing that I really enjoyed about City of Courts was the art style. Ulises Farinas and Ryan Hill combined to create a world that is gritty and violent, yet bright and colorful at the same time. They created a stylized world filled with very unique vehicles, weapons, and robots, and they added all types of little details. I loved how some panels looked like an ultra-violent Where’s Waldo image. Little hidden details reference Van Halen, Michael Bay, and Sylvester Stallone. Additionally, Farinas and Hill differentiated between the past and present panels by making the present very colorful and the past washed out and bland.
City of Courts is a very entertaining start to the Mega-City Two miniseries. The characters are interesting, the art is fantastic, and the story includes just enough humor to spice up the story. The only main issue I have is the lack of explanation for a few different characters. City of Courts doesn’t explain very much about Gubbins beyond his Stookie dealing, nor does it explain the importance of a character named Hurley. Hopefully, she will make another appearance in the next issue. This is a minor issue, but it does keep City of Courts from being downright amazing. Don’t worry though, this issue is still pretty great.
