Marshal Law: The Deluxe Edition: written by Pat Mills; illustrated by Kevin O'Neill (1987-94; 2013): Misunderstood and mismarketed by Marvel's Epic Comics line when it first came out in 1989 as a Judge Dredd clone, Marshal Law became perhaps the most scabrous, irreverent superhero comic book of that self-serious, ultra-violent era of superhero comic books. Marshal Law hunts rogue super-heroes, beings created to be America's super-soldiers. And he was one of them. Now he hunts rogue super-heroes for the former San Francisco police (now, after a devastating earthquake, renamed San Futuro) in the middle of the 21st century.
There's a nod to serious drama in the first six-issue miniseries, as Marshal Law's civilian identity suffers a grievous personal loss, and the dynamics of his horrible future America with its horrible super-heroes is laid out. Later installments would abandon drama in favour of all-out satire, and this actually made the series much more satisfying as Mills and O'Neill cut loose in prose and pictures. Targets of Law's violent justice included thinly disguised versions of Superman, Batman, The Avengers, The Punisher, The Justice Society of America, Captain America,The Legion of Super-heroes, and the X-Men.
O'Neill would gain more fame as the illustrator of Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen; here, he's as anarchic as many of Mad magazine's most anarchic early artists such as Wally Wood or Bill Elder, but with way more graphic sex, nudity, violence, and bodily fluids. He's probably the most grotesque of (sort-of) mainstream superhero artists.
Mills is equally high-energy and bleakly satiric. Mills and O'Neill use the heroes as double-layered parodies throughout of both the history of American superhero comics and of the dark side of American history. It's a brilliant, disturbing romp.
Kudos to DC for re-publishing this series, which will delight people dubious about super-heroes and people who are just a bit tired of their dominance of the mainstream comics marketplace. With superheroes now a dominant force at the box office as well, Marshal Law's vision seems more appropriate than ever. Hopefully, the rights issues to the four Marshal Law team-up books of the 1990's (with The Mask, Pinhead, Savage Dragon, and Judge Dredd) can be worked out simultaneously so that there can be another volume. Or new stories. I'd imagine Marshal Law has only become more violent and jaded over the years. Highly recommended.
Dredd: written by Alex Garland based on the character created by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra; directed by Pete Travis; starring Karl Urban (Judge Dredd), Olivia Thirlby (Judge Anderson), and Lena Headey (Ma-Ma) (2012): This faithful adaptation of the venerable British action-satire comic-book series Judge Dredd would have been a big hit in the early 1980's. It's old-school action, a somewhat low-key day-in-the-life movie in the vein of John Carpenter's Escape from New York and Assault on Precinct 13.
In the post-apocalyptic urban sprawl of MegaCity One (population 800 million), which occupies much of America's East Coast and stands above a countryside devastated by war and pollution (The Cursed Earth), police officers are judges, juries, and executioners if need be. Judge Dredd is the best of them.
With a new drug on the streets and Lena Headey's psychotic crime boss in control of an entire residential block/building, Judge Dredd and trainee Judge Anderson (Olivia Thirlby) walk into a killing zone. And for about 70 minutes, they try to fight their way out of it.
Karl Urban is solid as Dredd, a character who never removes his helmet. Thirlby is also good as the psychic Anderson, who gets some great on-the-job training here as everyone tries to kill the two Judges. The movie does a nice job of capturing the odd action-satire of its original: Dredd is both a Dirty-Harry-style badass and a pointed commentary on Dirty-Harry-style badasses.
It's too bad this bombed, as I'd have liked to see the film-makers' take on the whole Judge Death saga. But at least this helped wash the memory of the horrible, horrible, horrible 1990's Judge Dredd, starring Sylvester Stallone and Rob Schneider, out of my head, though obviously not completely. Easy the Ferg! Recommended.
