With that page, we’re propelled from ‘Block Mania’ straight into ‘The Apocalypse War’, with the Sovs raining down nuclear devastation on MC-1, seemingly not caring that the Meg has its own missiles launching in retaliatory strikes.Īnd when ‘The Apocalypse War’ kicks off, with Carlos Ezquerra on art duties, it’s everything you want it to be – absolutely breakneck-paced, beautifully drawn, and chillingly brutal in the manner in which Wagner and Grant depict this mass-murder of millions. It’s just that, when it first came out, you had no idea of just how high the stakes would be, no idea that Wagner and Grant would go that far. You’ll get to see some of Mick McMahon and Brian Bolland’s finest work on Dredd here, as well as plenty of pages from the much-missed Steve Dillon and Ron Smith.Īnd then you get this – the final page of ‘Block Mania – and you know there’s trouble to come. The ‘Block Mania’ storyline gives us an artistic treat as well, opening up with those delicious double-page spreads we used to get where Dredd got two pages of colour in the centrespread each week. However, not even Dredd can imagine the instigators of the Block Mania, not until he comes up against Orlok, the Sov assassin spreading the Mania through MC-1’s water supply.
Of course, Dredd’s on the case and eventually uncovers the cause – this is no random accident, this is deliberate, an attack on his city. Like I say, those three strands run through the two storylines so well, with the writers hitting all those essential beats to make this one of my all-time favourite Dredd storylines.Įverything kicks off in the most unassuming fashion – a dropped ice cream – that triggers the start of the first Block War, with the rival MC-1 Blocks’ simmering hatred of each other magnified into out and out violence, seemingly with no real cause, growing and spreading to take in the whole city, with even Judges affected.
It’s a tale of two halves and three parts, brilliantly interwoven by Wagner and Grant, who guide us through just another crazy Mega-City One happening as the Blocks go to war, through the introduction of a East-Meg One plot through the Sov assassin and spy Orlok, all the way through to the nuclear devastation and all-out war of The Apocalypse War. And that’s a feeling that continues right to this day. But whichever it was, I can still remember being absolutely amazed by the sheer unbelievable scale of the thing.
It was actually seeing either the Eagle Comics reprints (with all those gorgeous Brian Bolland covers) or the Titan Books reprints of the saga once I’d started working at Nostalgia & Comics, Birmingham, from the age of 16. No, I was still a mere 12-year-old at the time, just getting into Marvel super-types at the time.
Not when it first appeared, either with the essential prequel, ‘Block Mania’, or with ‘The Apocalypse War’ proper that kicked off 1982 in such fine style. I have to say, ‘The Apocalypse War’ was the thing that got me into Dredd and 2000 AD.
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