Armageddon, the Bad Man

[ESCUBRIA]

Remember that old Alan Grant series in megazine volume one. Does anyone have any interest in it being continued or have have any idea how it was to be continued.

It was supposed to be the start of the exploration of the origin of Dredd's world.

Surely that is still tantalising.

[Thread Zero]

I for one would love it to continue.

Ask Matt here. He loves that story!

Maybe one day the bad man saga will continue.
Well we can wish!

But Alan Grant is not interested I think.

John W, get writing it man!

scojo

[Thread Zero]

Just had an idea.

Maybe the new editor of 2k and the Meg should seriously consider the "History of Dredd " storyline.

I am sure it could be a classic epic saga. Full of great characters, and it would be nice to finally know the definitive history.

It would beat boring history lessons at school that's for sure!

scojo - teacher's pet

[Matt]

The bring back Armageddon campaign starts here!!!!

MATT

[Jim_Campbell]

> The bring back Armageddon campaign starts here!!!!

Umm ... my memory could be at fault here, but wasn't 'Bad Man' creator-owned?

Notwithstanding varying opinions on the quality of the series (I hated every panel of it, FWIW), surely any publisher would be out of their mind to allow a _creator-owned_ series to define the back-story of their most valuable property ...?

Cheers

Jim

[GordonR]

IIRC, it was one of the stories originally produced for Toxic and then hastily reworked for the Megazine when Toxic went belly-up.

The 'secret unknown history of Dredd's world' stuff was bollocks, and didn't disguise the fact that the first 'Bad Man' book was a fairly blatant Terminator knock-off.

I'm making an educated guess that the reason it didn't continue on after that was because none of the parties involved could be bothered doing any more.

[Thread Zero]

Hey Jim and Milo,

Long time no hear.

No comment on that one!

I think the 'History of Dredd' storyline should be done ideally by Wagner.
But start from scratch. Forget the Bad Man storyline. I would concentrate on the birth of the judge system itself. Introduce us to the key characters that created Dredd's world.

I think the story has tremendous potential. The conflict between the existing police and judicial system versus the advocates of a new system of justice.

You could also explore how the citizens of old America react to the new Mega City One.There could be riots, terrorism, anti judge leagues etc.

There is a lot you could do!

scojo the historian

[Matt]

Yo Tharg! Over here!! This is one story that has to be done. And don't bother running it in 2K or the Meg. I reckon a 4 to 6 part mini series, bound, prestige format. Wagner & Grant on the script with Ezquerra  on the inside & Bolland on the covers. C'mon its a classic in the making.

MATT

[Thread Zero]

Hell if John gives me some notes, I will write it.

scojo the unemployed writer

[GordonR]

You missed have missed the bit in my earlier post when I suggested that "none of the parties involved could be bothered doing any more."

Not sure either about the sense of doing it as a seperate high-quality mini-series.  Who exactly is going to buy it?  Dedicated Dredd fans?

Not enough of a market there to make the thing at all viable in the format you suggest.

I think the history of Dredd stuff should be left where it is.  As part of history.  Still plenty of cool stuff you can do with the present-day Dredd rather than raking through the ashes of the past.

[Matt]

"I think the history of Dredd stuff should be left where it is.  As part of history.  Still plenty of cool stuff you can do with the present-day Dredd rather than raking through the ashes of the past."

Milo, I seem to remember many Batman fans voicing a simular opinion when it was rumored that DC was going to give the character an origin that would finally be set in stone. And look what the result was - Year One, easily one of the best Batman stories published. If Dredds origins were handled with the same care it would be a classic. it would also make a good jumping on point for new readers.

Matt (defending his idea)

[GordonR]

I'm not really sure what your idea is.

First of all it was 'why don't they continue the Armageddeon story?' and now it's changed into 'why don't they do Dredd; Year One?', which is a totally different thing.

Armaggedeon was supposed to be about the creation of Dredd's world, up to and including the Atomic Wars in 2070.  Since Dredd was 4 years old (although possibly 9 or 10, with accelerated clone growth) at the time of the Atomic Wars, we can safely assume that he probably didn't play much of a pivotal role in those events ;>

And Dredd: Year One?  Sorry, but I still don't see the point of it.  Batman:Year One was a re-examination of the events that turned Bruce Wayne into Batman, a super-dramatic retelling of the old 'and at that moment a bat flew in the window' myth.  Dredd's background doesn't have anything like that.  No dead parents trauma, no driven psycholgy, no discovery of the Batcave, nothing.

'I got grown in a lab.  I was enrolled in the Academy of Law.  I was trained and brainwashed into the hardest bastard on earth.'  How many different ways can you re-shape that into something new and mythic and still retain the essence of Dredd?

The only significant event in Dredd's early personal history is his arrest of Rico, which Wagner has already gone over again in the excellent Blood Cadets story.  Other than that, there's nothing there that we don't know already.

But don't take my word for it.  John Wagner has said before that he doesn't see any point in a 'Young Dredd' story since, as I said above, it would tell us nothing about the chararacter that we didn't already know.

[Mk13]

Personally I find demythologising the history of a character can be dangerous - characters are more interesting if there is a certain amount of mystery about their origins - i.e. the Joker is much more interesting than Batman because his origins, AFAIR, have never really been fully explained.

[GordonR]

Joker's origins were pretty well revealed in The Killing Joke, by Alan Moore & Brian Bolland.

And, like you said, it made the characters less interesting than before, although there was a throwaway get-out clause line in it that suggested the Joker remembered completely different versions of his origins at different times, which gave him back some of the cool and mysterious glamour he needs as a character.

[Matt]

Milo, I wasn't suggesting a Dredd year one story because that wouldn't hold much interest for most readers. But I would personally love to see a story that told the origins of Mega City 1 & the Judges. Whether this was in the form of a sequel to the Bad Man or just a fresh new story doesn't really bother me, just as long as it was good. I just find the hints of past events glimpsed in Dredd stories over the years quite interesting and want to see more. I only used Batman Year One as an example to show that not all origin stories have to be crap. Now if I'd used The Phantom Menace...