Late to the party, as always, but I finally picked up my copy of
Tour of Duty: The Backlash. I primarily picked it up because I stopped reading 2000AD at the start of 2009 (finances), and didn't restart until this start of 2011. So there is a pretty big two year gap I'm dealing with. A two year gap where the meet of Tour of Duty apparently has shook things up quite a bit. And the nice part of Tour of Duty the collection is its a great Dredd primer for the last 4 years of Dredd meta-plot.
The majority of
Tour of Duty: The Backlash I have actual read before. The majority of it ran between 2007 and 2008. Only the last story, The Backlash, printed in 2009, I missed out on completely. But all the same, its nice to have it all collected because its been a while since I read it, and most of it I had only digitally (because all my 2008 progs came via Clickwheel).
My first impression is, god DAMN that's a chunky tome. Maybe the thickest (non-casefiles) Dredd trade since The Art of Kenny Who? And it was at a really really good price point (there was a while there I was paying 30 bucks a pop, for the thinnest of Rebellion trades. Looks like things have gotten a little better over the last few years). Rebellion still knocks it out of the park in the Trade collection department then most other comics companies. Maybe because they're bigger (wider) then the rest, intimidating comic books.
The contents, are above exceptional, John Wagner is in his toppest form, telling all the sorts of Dredd stories I love. Procedurals, Politicals, social commentary, action, 'slice of Mega-City life', and just spinning a rip roaring mega-epic. Origins itself wasn't all it could be, but its fallout has been above extraordinary. This collection is just a treat in terms of its variety, and yet holds to its ongoing plot threads, weaving in an out, elegantly.
The artist list was a proverbial who's who of my favorite Tooth artists. MacNeil, Critchlow, Frasier, Walker, and they even managed to squeeze some Dayglo in there. Awesome.
As it stands, the follow up volume,
Mega-City Justice, is the one I'm most anxious for as it fills my significant story gap. How's Dredd going to handle being on the outs? Is Dan Francisco the right man for the Chief Judge job? And what about PJ Maybe, what's his stake in all this? The thrill power is just completely overloading me.
Technically though, why is it called 'tour of duty'? Surely that's the next story, and just 'the backlash' would have been accurate?
I'm glad they did it this way. Partly because it links the two trades as one thing (Tour of Duty), better then calling them Tour of Duty Vol.1 and Tour of Duty Vol.2 (which still looks tacky on my Red Seas soft-cover TP). With the same title across two volumes, I can keep my trades in alphabetical order, like I like, but keep these two volumes together as they are meant to be.
and and and- they changed the 2000ad logo on the spine! I know some people who are not going to like that, one tiny bit! 
This did bother me, for all of 5 seconds. Its a small detail. Hardly noticeable, at least its still red.
