Judge Dredd Day Of Chaos: Endgame

This is part 2 of the Day of Chaos arc (covering Progs 1759-1789), the first being "The Fourth Faction" (1700-1704, 1740-1751, 1753-1758, Megazine 307,308, 310). This one covers the meat of the eponymous event, with the Fourth Faction leaving off just as the plague begins to hit the city. Day of Chaos shows the impact of the plague and the events it spurs, and this is not mentioning the appearance of the Dark Judges which come as even more unwelcome bad news.I can see Day of Chaos being one of the essential story arcs of Judge Dredd along with the classics like Necropolis or Apocalypse War.As for the quality of the book, it is great to me. For a paperback copy, the quality of the print inside is excellent and the binding is pretty sturdy. As is custom among TPBs, the book also includes some of the covers to 2000AD related to the stories included in the collection.

I'm a long time Dredd fan, a collector of the early works through the mid-nineties, when Dredd became hard to find in comic shops. The past couple years, I've been completing and updating my collection. This looked like a good addition to my collection. I was excited for this story largely because my favorite Dredd artist Colin McNeil did much of it. His work in "America" "Chopper" and "Mechanismo" were truly revolutionary. In those projects the art was more painted than drawn. In this collection his art was indistinguishable from the other contributors, it was clearly colored by computer. The art isn't bad, it actually has a very cinematic feel, but it looks method, like it could've come from any "Image comics" release of the last 3 decades. The storytelling as well seems fragmented, as Dredd approaches senior citizenry it seems he's more of a detective than enforcer, he's less decisive and more of a tutor than a leader, he literally talks more than bringing perps to justice. It seems many crimes are more gruesome, but less impactful. Dredd has always responded to absurd and morbid crimes, but in this it feels like an add on. This volume brings together several old foes, largely for no reason. While the events of the storyline will clearly have long lasting effects on Mega-One, it gives you little reason to care. It's crazy that a story this epic feels so irrelevant.

Great apocalyptic Dredd story, with plenty of action and great art. This is part 2 of the day of chaos arc and things will never be the same again for the Big Meg. Best storyline in a long time - although new readers may need to do some research with Case files volume 5 and the apocalypse war first.

Book waa btand new awesome A+++++

Incredible. One of the best and most fundamental Dredd stories ever. Probably need to read more of the older back stories leading up to this, especially The Apocalypse War and Democracy.

Day of Chaos is a powerful story as Mega City One faces yet another apocalypse. John Wagner does not shy away from showing the brutal conflict and our heroes failing. In the end the city is devestated and millions are dead and thanks to his solid story telling readers feel every moment of it.After Apocalypse War, Necropolis, Judgement Day and no doubt other stories I've forgotten, it would be easy to assume this is just another apocalyptic Tuesday in Mega City One. But although Day of Chaos is in many ways a strong sequel to Apocalypse War story from 30 years ago it is still a new story.It's much stronger than Judgement Day, Wagner understands that for us to care about a story we have to care about the characters so he takes the time to show us life in Mega City One so the victims are not just nameless extras.Plus the various Judge Dredd stories occur in real time in a world that changes and evolves. They shy away from the sort of 'reset button' approach other fictional universes use to restore the status quo.If Apocalypse War story from the 1980s was a science fiction version of World War III, Day of Chaos is a response to September 11th. The enemy is no longer a foreign country with armies and legions, but a small group of fantatics who offer no easy target to hit.There are some weak points, the Dark Judges (seen on the cover) and the increasingly tiresome PJ Maybe are a distraction but still this was one of my favorite Dredd stories and is really worth reading.

An incredible story that shows why Dredd stands alone in comicland. Unlike DC or Marvel, who simply use some time-travel/inter-dimensional plot device to reboot their entire universe every 25 years or so, Dredd's world is happening in real time with the characters aging accordingly (something that's going to give the writers trouble sooner rather than later given that Dredd is now 70!). No one is going to reboot the devastation of Mega-City One caused by the Sov chaos virus which unfolds in this book, nor the damage done to the authority of Justice Department and their relationship with the citizens they govern.Long story short, on the worst day in the city's history the Justice Department reaps the rewards of decades of taking the easy route of bullying and lying to their people 'for their own good.' When the department tries to be honest with the citizens, when they really need them to listen, no one buys it. As one infected citizen sceams 'How many times do you think you can lie to us and get away with it?'There's no triumph, no quippy putting down of the bad guy, Dredd and the department are two steps behind their enemy all the way and all they can do is clean up in the wake of a threat they knew was coming but utterly failed to prevent.Easily the best Dredd story since Necropolis, and with that in mind one slight grumble. It's easy to see why they chose Henry Flint's drawing of Fear, Fire & Mortis for the cover but it's a bit misleading. The Dark Judges appear, but late in the day and not for long.

So here we are...the death of 347 million Mega City One citz. That's just short of the 400 million who died in the Apocalypse war which this story has its roots in. You begin to wonder if life would be safer out in the cursed earth as over the years the Big Meg has suffered from the Robot Wars/Judge Cal/Block Mania/Apoc War/Necropolis/Judgement Day/2nd Robotwar (Doomsday) and now the Day of Chaos....Its enough to make you say Drokk it! Unlike so many of the previous disasters (BTW good ol' Judge Fey he foresaw the evil of the Judge child but not a lot else!!) Joe Dredd takes a bit of a back seat. That's not really much of a surprise as stoney face must be getting on for 65-70 years old now!. As its been written before Dredd has a much wider supporting cast these days and is a lot more procedural than it used to be. That takes something away from the story really, but to be expected when you are in effect flogging a very old horse....So the cover....being that I don't read 2000 ad single issues or the Megazine I like many other rely on the trade paperbacks to keep me going. So having read part one and seeing the cover of part two I thought maybe the 3 supporting dark judges would get to play a much larger role than they did. Maybe they finally would get to have another stab at necropolis which I thought was a bit hit and miss and didn't live up to its great build up. But no here they only appear for a few pages and up to their normal tricks of turning up killing a few perps and with a few "foolssssss" and "we are undoneeeeeee" they are off again. I guess really given they are bound to their mortal form it was always going to be struggle for them to do too much. As time has gone on the reality of how limited their powers are shows them to be deadly but in the end not really that great a threat when faced with overwhelming firepower of the judges. Their end fate unwittingly hooking up with one of Dredd's greatest foes potentially points to surely what must be the final Dredd story that has to be just round the corner. The dude is near 70 years old!!! He has been shot and cut 100's of times/eyes gauged out/every bone broken its a miracle even in the 22nd century that Joe can get out of the sleep machine ! The end for Dredd is nigh!Finally this whole tale is devoid of much of the dark humour that has for 30 years been a trademark of John Wagner. Make no mistake JW is pretty much the greatest SCI-FI writer of our times and Dredd must be one of comics greatest characters. Day of Chaos is heavy on the detail and more wordy that many previous Wagner tales which slows the pace a bit and makes for some at times turgid reading. Its not the best work JW has done, for that IMO you have to look at "Boyhood of a superfiend" or "My name is death" ("My sir you've lost weight"..."i'll do the jokesssss round here") but its pretty solid stuff...just not sure it really conveys the death of most of the Big Meg convincingly enough....

This city has had a fair few disasters before. We've had robot rebellions, the tyrannical rule of a madman, nuclear Armageddon, slaughters from alien super fiends, terrorist attacks and even a zombie apocalypse! (let me know if I've missed any). But ve've never had anything that has affected the population like this.During the Apocalypse war half the population of mega city 1 was killed. That's 400 million people. In this, a viral attack from the Sovs, who are still feeling bitter about losing the war, is unleashed into the city. The virus is named the Chaos bug and is fatal in 98% of its victims. I strongly suggest you read the precursor to this called Day of Chaos : the fourth faction.Needless to say things couldn't get worse for the judges trying to stop this out break... but they do. Pretty quickly.In the mayhem the dark judges are set free and go about their usual business and later have a run in with PJ Maybe (a brilliantly crafted little side story from John Wagner that I cant wait to see the results of later).All in all this is as good as it gets from John Wagner and 2000ad and is well worth a read.

I had to keep an eye on myself as a was turning the pages of this book, for fear my eagerness to do so might rip one of them. This is not hyperbole, i loved this book, as a fan of Dredd for 20 years it was hard not to! It's fast paced, brilliantly written, has wonderful characters, both good and bad, and can be very bleak. My only gripe is the cover, which suggests that the characters featured thereon are major cogs in the story. They're not, but its still good to see them after nearly 15 years of an absence. Don't know what i can add to the other reviews except that it was worth every penny!

Relentless story telling, great apcharacterisations and phenomenal artwork. It's not often that a comics hero ends up on the losing side but Dredd and co are lucky to survive this one.