Strontium Dog: The Life And Death Of Johnny Alpha (2000AD #1689-1699)

"Help him! In the name o'all that's merciful, end his torment.  I'm begging youse - give him his life back!" - Middenface McNulty

Created by writer John Wagner and artist Carlos Ezquerra, for the comic Starlord then transferred to 2000AD when Starlord folded, mutant bounty hunter Johnny Alpha is probably the most famous character from 2000AD after Judge Dredd.  Born a society that is very prejudiced against mutants the only jobs open to them is being members of the Search/Destroy agency whose distinctive S/D badges has led to them being nicknamed "Strontium Dogs". Johnny Alpha has mutated eyes which allow him to see through walls and read minds.  His stories ran through the eighties, but then in 1990, John Wagner decided to kill him off.  Johnny sacrificed himself saving mutants from extermination in a storyline called "The Final Solution".  Ezquerra refused to draw the story and later Wagner said it was "one of the big regrets of my career. Probably the biggest".  However, after nearly twenty years of further adventures set before his death, Wagner teamed up with Ezquerra to bring Johnny back to life with this story set not long after his presumed death.  This story explicitly retcons the fact that in the original Johnny's remains were destroyed, while in this storyline his body was recovered intact. So it's up to Precious Matson a reporter, and Middenface McNulty who was Johnny's best friend to discover the real truth of what has happened to Johnny Alpha since.  This story is collected in Strontium Dog: The Life And Death of Johnny Alpha - The Project.

Precious finds McNulty.

We begin with Precious arriving at the "Desolation of Paisley" years after Lord Sagan initiated the events that led to Johnny's death.   She walks into a rowdy mutie pub and finds McNulty hanging out with his drinking buddies.  She tells him she's researching a book about Johnny Alpha's life and death.  McNulty says that Johnny was a very private person. She says he's not around to object, she wants someone on the record who cared for him because a lot of lies have been written about him.

Precious: "So much of Johnny's life is shrouded in mystery.  Sometimes I wonder if I can ever penetrate it, ever get to the real Johnny Alpha".

McNulty was his closest friend so she'd be grateful for his help.  So McNulty gets rid of his drinking buddies and they sit together and talk.  "The Final Solution" turned out to be a portal set up at Stonehenge by Lord Sagan's boys. They were sending mutants through to another dimension, it was a slaughterhouse.

McNulty managed to escape before he got forced though the portal but Johnny and another mutant called Feral weren't so lucky, "they were set upon by weird beasties".  The supernatural mumbo jumbo is over his head.  Precious says the story goes that Jphnny was blinded but he didn't give up. McNulty says he couldn't quit fighting, and it needed a blood sacrifice to open the portal and Johnny made that sacrifice so the others could get back out.

McNulty recounts what he heard about Johnny's death.

Precious asks why the left Johnny there. McNulty says there was just a pile of scorched bones.  Precious asks how he knows all this.  McNulty says Feral told him.  Precious looks him in the eye and says, "what if I was to tell you that's not the way it happened?  Feral lied.  They brought Johnny's body back with them."

McNulty doesn't believe her, he insists Johnny was burned to a frazzle.  He then asks her why Feral would lie to him.  Precious says she doesn't know but she does know what a man called "Barry Roberts" told her.  She wanted to interview the Churchers who forced Johnny and the others through the portal, and managed to find one of the few who hadn't been killed.

We flashback to her at Barry's house.  He is a paraplegic and sneers that there is a smell when she comes in.  But Precious butters him up and he decides to tell her his side of the story. He tells her he doesn't know who ordered Johnny through the portal, "he was a mutant, that's all we needed to know."  He says he found Johhny and Feral and pushed them through, best thing for their kind.

When the muties started coming back through and started attacking the Churchers.  It was a slaughter, "they wanted their revenge and they got it".  Johnny didn't come through then, it was later. He was hiding under one of the caravans when he saw Feral and a fish headed mutant carry Johnny's intact body out.  And then Johnny Alpha sat up.

The Churcher reveals the truth.

But after he witnessed that, the fish headed one spotted him, dragged him out and shot him twice in the back.  He was found and treated but never told anyone he saw Johnny Alpha, by the time he got out of hospital history had been written by the apologists and the mutie lovers were in charge.

Back with McNulty he is stunned that Johnny sat up.  Precious says that can be a common post mortem reaction so not to get too excited.  They sit and think about what they can do next to confirm this story. Feral is missing presumed dead.  Precious says if he comes with her he'll pay all his expenses and a generous fee at the end.  But McNulty says he won't take money if it's for Johnny.  They decide to seek out the fish faced mutant and McNulty has a friend who might be some help.  They speak to a fellow S/D agent and he tells them they are looking for "Fish Wilson" who comes from the Chelmsford ghetto.  So off Precious and McNulty go.

They arrive at his house and his mother answers the door. As he climbs out of the back window his mum says he's been gone for months. McNulty spots him though and goes chasing after him.  Wilson manages to elude him, so Precious tells his mum that they just want to talk to her son and that she'd be willing to pay.  Back at their hotel Precious says "in my experience Middenface, the carrot usually works better than the stick".

Fish Wilson and mum.

And indeed it works, Wilson shows up being strongarmed into it by his mum.  Wilson is very nervous, but Precious tries to put him at ease.   They ask about what happened to Johnny and Wilson lies saying he saw one of the alien creatures burn his flesh away until he was only bone.  McNulty buts in saying that he knows they brought back Johnny's body.  Wilson stutters that it's not true, McNulty says he has four witnesses who say so.  Wilson says that can't be right there was only one.  Whoops.

He then says he made a promise not to tell to Feral, and if he finds out he'll come and get him, "there's something abnormal about him".   McNulty says if he doesn't start telling the truth, Feral will be the last thing he has to worry about.  Wilson's mum also threatens to put him over her knee, so he spills the truth.

He was one of the last to get to the portal when it was reopened. He saw Feral bending over Johnny's body.  Feral asks him to help getting him back through and hurry because the portal is closing.  They took him into one of the caravans and it looked to Wilson that Johnny was dead, he wasn't breathing. He did sit up and lie down again, but Wilson still swears he wasn't breathing.

Fish also spills the truth.

Feral said he was going to take the body away, if Lord Sagan's lot got ahold of it they'd do terrible things to it.  He then says that an old magic man he knows said that eating a dead man's heart will transfer all his powers to you.  "He said WHIT?" McNulty interjects. Wilson says he's just reporting what was said.  He drove them he doesn't know where and Feral made him promise not to say a word and that was the last he saw of Feral and Johnny's body.

Realising they won't get anymore information out of him, Precious pays his mum and after they leave Precious has some questions now.

Precious: "I don't understand - the story about Johnny being burnt to a cinder and left in that dimension - how did that become accepted history".

McNulty says he might be at fault, he did lots of interviews.  Feral told him what happened and he told the world.  He didn't want Johnny's sacrifice to be forgotten, "hoo wuz I tae know it wuz a pack o'lies?"  Their next move should be to find Feral and get some straight answers out of him.

They catch a shuttle to the Eezy Space Station and McNulty starts telling Precious about Feral.  Apparently he was last seen talking about "makin' wan big score, then giein' the heave".  Most S/D agents say that but maybe there was more to it this time. He took a transgalactic flight bound for Eros, he disembarked at a transport hub on the Kam-Karmam Rim and there is no record of him leaving.

Precious asks if he might be dead, McNulty can't say for sure. The station is a favourite place for people to disappear, freighters will take passengers for the right amount of cash, "an' Feral had reason tae throw a wee swerve - there were Stronty Dogs on his trail".  Precious says "there were?" And McNulty says it was a pair of chancers called Jammy Hendrix and Pooch Bickersby.

Apparently about the time Feral disappeared there was a big warrant out for Namu, daughter of the Mutator. It was for five million dead or alive which would be enough to retire with a pension.  She wasn't dangerous but she was hard to find.  The two Strontium Dogs figured Feral had a lead on her. He'd been mouthing off in the Doghouse bar and getting into fights.  Nobody liked him much.

Feral was banned from the place, as he was shown out he made some claims that he'd soon be rich enough to buy the place.  So when he left he was followed to the hub where he then vanished.  McNulty says his bet is that of the freighters that left, Feral was on the one to Min'Ul'-Q-Uurl which was where Namu had pulled a big sting. Precious says that's where they go next.

McNulty protests that it's no job for a lady, but she retorts that she's accompanied Johnny on a hunt, and as she is financing this expedition her involvement is non-negotiable. As they travel, McNulty reminisces.

McNulty: "Y'know whit gets me is aw them lies.  Me an' Feral met up at Stonehenge maybe a week efter.  I can still see him standing there - I swear there wuz tears in his eyes".

He remembers Feral saying Johnny's blood opened the way back and how unfair it is that everyone else gets a happy ending except for Johhny. He wonders what he was really up to, Precious says they need to find him first.

McNulty, very diplomatic.

McNulty admits he's always felt guilty about abandoning Johnny, and if he'd been wih him maybe things woud have been different, "I let him doon.  We were pals an' I let him doon". Precious gets up saying she's going to sleep now, leaving McNulty alone with his bottle.

They disembark and McNulty uses his Search/Destroy identity to get stamped through customs.  We then get a note which tells us that they spent thirty-nine days questioning official, law enforcement agencies, hoteliers and other likely contacts.  Their enquiries proved exhausting and fruitless.  During this time McNulty remained in control of his alchohol habit.

They sit in a bar and finally have to admit that no one has seen Feral there, humans aren't exactly common there and someone should have remembered him.  McNulty says he'll check out the other ships crews which could take years.  He tells her to leave things to him and he'll keep her informed.  So Precious returns to Freedonia to work on her book while McNulty sent her updates which at first were frequent, then later less so.

Sometime later Precious returns to Paisley and finds a drunken and miserable McNulty who has given up the search. Precious then tells him that she has found Feral, at least she knows what he was doing three months ago.   She put out an offer of a large reward for information about him and the other day was contacted by 1/9870590, a Robocian who definitely saw Feral on Garn. McNulty says he's probably a chancer, but Precious says Robocian's are genetically incapable of any form of deception. Now is McNulty going to come with her or will he stay and wallow in booze.

Precious's contact.

As they travel there, they speak to Precious's contact.  His ship delivers supplies to the alien prison on Garn.  While unloading those supplies he spotted Feral who was being moved to the "feeding cells".  He has perfect recall so are almost never mistaken. They finish speaking to him and Precious says she's arranged a meeting with the immigration assessor on Garn.  They are so close now and McNulty decides to go for a drink, Precious tells him not to get drunk.

Later Precious has to go and get him out of the brig, she pays off his tab but agrees with keeping McNulty there for the rest of the trip.  Finally they reach their destination and will find out what has happened to Feral.  Before we get to that, the following has been inserted into the narrative:

Author's Note: "Much has been written about Feral, principally by the notorious fantasist Ho Gan, little of it bearing any resemblance to actual events. As previously stated I rely solely upon the accounts of Precious Matson, who was intimately involved in events and whose veracity has been established."

And if you are wondering what that's all about, please be aware that Peter Hogan wrote spin-off stories in the nineties starring Feral after Johnny Alpha was killed off.  This explicitly writes those out of canon in a somewhat mean-spirited way.

They speak to the alien representative over video communications. It seems Feral is in prison for the destruction of a Garn spaceship and the slaughter of its crew, "Feral is now in the fattening cells being prepared for ritual immolation" They ask to speak to him but are told they cannot enter Garn because they have noses and thus are "unclean".

They plead with the alien saying they want to ask Feral about where the body of Johhny Alpha is.  This sways the alien as Johnny was instrumental in saving their Grand Inquisitor from the clutches of the Durran and is regarded as a hero. So they are allowed access to the prison alone, and when they get there they find he is extremely obese now and being force fed by the Garners.  They leave them alone with Feral and McNulty expresses his sympathy at seeing Feral like this.

Feral in the feeding cell.

Feral says that in a few days him and six others will be taken out, tied to stakes and ritually immolated which they believe will give their Grand Inquisitor continued good health.  Tommorrow they are coming to cut off his nose. He asks if there is anything they can do to help him, McNulty asks if he did the things they said and Feral says he did.  Precious says that there is nothing they can do for him.

They ask him about Johnny's body and Feral says he knows nothing, which enrages McNulty who shouts at him saying he wants the truth. Feral says "So you want the truth?  Funny, lies are usually enough for most people."  He says he won't tell them unless they bust him out.  This angers McNulty again, but Feral calls the guards to come take them away.

Next day the Garners come to cut off his nose.  Feral screams that it isn't right.  Two hooded priests come in and turn out to be McNulty and Precious in disguise.  They train weapons on the surgical team and tell them to get lost and end up alone with Feral again, this time he is willing to tell them everything that happened with Johnny.

Feral gives them the truth.

He says that Johnny had been struck blind when he went to face the creature on the other side of the portal.  He had a theory that the creature that was killing them could be split apart and that would reverse the direction of the portal, "just a flare, that's all he had.  The Churchers had missed it on the way in".

We then see the creature blown apart and Johnny lying there with Feral and Fish Wilson coming to his aid.  They took him through and tried to revive him but he wasn't breathing. But it was weird, he wasn't like a normal dead body, "all the life had drained out of him and yet... yet it was like there was some little ember burning inside."  He never went cold, he stayed warm to the touch, Feral had never seen anything like it.

He decided he couldn't take the chance of the Churchers getting hold of his body and using it as a trophy so he decided to take him to a healer he knew in the Badlands.  McNulty asks if he didn't stop to take a nibble of Johnny's heart. Feral laughs and says he just told that to Fish Wilson to frighten him.

Precious asks why he didn't tell McNulty about this when he met him a week later.  Feral says he couldn't trust anyone, he was suspicious of McNulty because while he and Johnny got caught and sent through the portal, McNulty got away.  This angers McNulty again who starts throttling Feral, but Precious tells him off and he stops.

Feral continues with his story, he took Johnny to the hermit healer who wasn't able to bring him back but told Feral that there was those out there who had powers greater than he, "have you ever heard of the Stone Wizards?"

Hermit: "They say they can create life itself.  Some believe they are the god that man has worshipped since he crawled from the swamp - the ones who seeded this planet.  Of course that's all tosh, but it's true that the Stone Wizards have powers beyond the ken of mere grubs like us."

Feral says the journey there would be long and difficult as the Stone Wizards are on Zen, the far side of the galaxy.  McNulty is disbelieving, saying that a mutant from the Milton Keynes ghetto with no cash wouldn't suddenly be able to speed across the galaxy, he's making the Stone Wizards up.  But Precious says they Wizards do exist she has read accounts from very reliable sources.

Feral says the hermit had a lot of contacts, including several Spacers and he travelled off Earth on a mutant crewed freighter. He has Johnny's body with him in a box, and he was barely out of the system when the crew opened the box and demanded to know what he was playing at.  Feral told them the truth and they believed him.  They passed him onto another freighter, then aboard an asteroid miner whose crew he didn't trust so he jumped ship at a way station near the Gargoniles.

Feral travelling across Zen.

To make the final leg of the journey he met an older woman "of sorts"on the way station.  She was very rich and took a shine to him, "oh the things we did together, it would make your stomach turn.  But I didn't have a choice.  I had to do it for Johnny".  She took him to Zen and waited for him while he went off to see the Wizards.  Precious asks if he found them and Feral says "in the end".

Zen was a strange place, the land itself was in a state of flux. He wandered for days and just as he was about to give up, he found them, "they just looked like... well, like pillars of stone." There was another pilgrim there who wanted the gift of invisibilty.  The wizards granted it but made him insubstantial as well and when the alien complains they tell him he should have been more specific.

Feral then stepped into the stone circle holding Johnny's body. He shouts that he has come to them whose magic is greater than the Lyrian sorcerers who did this to Johnny.  The Wizards examine Johnny and say that "soul-sucking is so passe... they really haven't progressed, have they?"

Feral says he pleaded and begged with the Wizards but they wouldn't help.  McNulty says he might be a "drunken bam" but he's experienced enough to know when he's not getting the full story. Feral admits that they would only bring Johnny back in exchange for Feral's life.  And of course Feral didn't agree to that. He left Johhny buried underneath a tree in a forest that had appeared overnight and carved a memorial to him on the tree and left him there on Zen.

Feral unable to make the final sacrifice.

McNulty asks him why he didn't come and tell him the truth, Feral says "you and the people had your legend.  Why should I spoil it?" McNulty says maybe the truth was more important and he's still not sure they're getting it all.  "Take it or leave it" shrugs Feral. He then says he's given them what they wanted, and he owes them for pulling his fat out of the fire with the Garners.

Precious knocks on the door saying actually "I'm afraid that was something we were not able to do". They had colluded with the Garners to pretend they were saving him so he'd talk.  As Feral rages, the head Garner says they did it for Johnny's benefit and McNulty thanks them.

Next day they are still on Garn waiting to get transport off planet. As Precious types up her notes, McNulty witnesses the execution of Feral - now minus his nose - through the window.  He is lead to a stake, tied to it, slathered in fat then flaming arrows are fired into him and he goes up like a torch.  Upset McNulty says Johnny would have found a way to rescue Feral and make things right with the Garners, "I'm no' half the he wuz. No' half the man".  Precious comforts him saying Feral paid for his crime, but McNulty is still miserable.

Scrappy-dappy-doooooo!

Later on a spaceship, Precious tells McNulty she'll finance a trip to Zen and accompany him as long as his excessive drinking stops.  McNulty agrees although he just wants one good bender to forget the Feral execution.  On the long journey to Zen, Precious finds more time to work on her book and the time spent with McNulty provided her with valuable stories of their adventures together.

Finally they reach Zen and ask how to get to the great forest.  They are told that it was last seen "upways" last, so they should head "sideways" to catch it when it swirls round. Precious is a bit dubious but McNulty says he's being told "nothing is certain oan Zen, but there's a good chance this time of year.  Maybe eighty percent.  Mak O' that what ye will".

They set out with some Zenian guides and rations for months of travel.  On the evening of the sixth day their guide sniffs the air and tastes the soil and predicts the forest would appear there so they make camp and wait.   That night the ground is in heavy flux and suddenly the forest appears not far away and they travel to it.

They hunt around and find the memorial carved on one of the trees, they dig and find the box that Johnny's body is inside.  McNulty stops and tells Precious he's brooded a lot about the bad things he's done and how he believes that if he'd gone through the portal he might have been able to save Johnny, "but I know I'd just huv chickened oot.  Because that's the kind o'man I am." And he takes a swig of some booze to fortify himself.

Johnny's grave discovered.

Precious says he's too hard on himself. She says it's the same reason he calls himself "Middenface" instead of "Archibald", for some reason he hates himself.  She says she spoken to people who have fought alongside him and have nothing but good to say about him. She wouldn't have enlisted his help if she had doubts about the kind of man he was.  McNulty says it's nice of her to say all that but it doesn't change the truth and they continue digging Johnny up.

They drag the box out of the ground and tentatively open it and find Johnny's body still in perfect condition. He's even still warm to the touch, Precious asks McNulty what it means.

McNulty: "He's no deid. He cannae be.  I know deid. I've seen deid mair than I care to remember.  An' that's - no - deid!"

They decide to take Johnny back to the Stone Wizards, he thinks he can talk them round.  Their guide seems to have buggered off so they set out to find the Wizards themselves or make it back to Port Hopeless to hire another one. They had brough solar generators to recharge the skimmers so they had plenty of time to look and finally after a lot of travel get back to the Port.

They rest up, then something unexpected happens.  A crowd forms and tells them the Stone Wizards are due the day after tommorrow and they are going to come with them. And so Precious, McNulty and Johnny's body travel out to the Wizards with the rest of the crowd who are coming to petition them for favours despite the capriciousness of the stony ones.

Finally it's McNulty's turn and he stands in the middle and after the Stone Wizards adjust to his dialect they ask if he thinks they got it wrong about Johnny, is he "crusin' fer a brusin'?"  McNulty says that he thinks Feral didn't give them the full story about Johnny.

McNulty pleads his case with the Wizards.

He tells them that as a teenager Johnny came to joing the fight for freedom, he had funny eyes and could see into a man's soul.  Oh and part of the deal is Johnny gets his sight back.  The Stone Wizards make a note. McNulty goes on to say Johnny fought like a lion, "he couldny stand injustice and cruelty", he never walked away from it, he'd always fight it and that's what brought him to this "sorry pass".

McNulty continues that after the war Johnny became a bounty hunter, but he never "shoot naebody who wouldny be the better fer a wee hole in the heid".

McNulty: "He a'ways took the side of the underdog.  Always tried tae protect folk who couldny stand up fer themsel's.  An' the whole o'mutantkind looked up tae him as a true hero.  An' when the end came - when the end came... sniff"

He tells the Stone Wizards that Johnny saved hundreds from Lyrian sorcery and that's how he ended up dead but not dead. He says there's something still alive in him and doesn't know if Johnny has been aware of what's been going on all this time and please could they help him?

The Stone Wizards say they get the picture, but the deal is the same the offered Feral, his life in exchange for Johnny's.  McNulty says as long as Johnny gets his eyes back he will take the deal, "Johnny Alpha's worth ten o'me and ye'd still get change". 

And Stone Wizards cause lightning to flicker round McNulty and also around Johnny while removing the remnants of the Lyrian sorcery inside him.  There is a huge flash of light and we end with Jonny kneeling outside the circle and Precious running up to him calling his name.  Cliffhanger!

He's back! But what of McNulty?

This was actually a pretty clever way of bringing Johnny Alpha back. It gives Feral a reason to lie about the state of Johnny's remains because he couldn't trust anyone with the secret bar one easily frightened fellow mutie. Of course if you were a reader who was at all invested in the nineties Feral stories you might feel hard done by as they are retconned out of existence and Feral himself subjected to an epic humilation conga.  Something makes me think John Wagner didn't think much of the character somehow.  The twists and turns of the investigation is exciting to read and the pairing of Precious as the sensible one and McNulty as the volatile one works very well.  It's sad to see how much self hatred consumes McNulty and it was obvious as soon as the fact it would take a sacrifice of another life to bring Johnny back that he'd offer himself up.  Some great sci-fi ideas with the planet of Zen and its shifting geography and of course I have to compliment Carlos Ezquerra's art and Hector Ezquerra's exquisite colouring job.  Carlos's art is as wonderful as it's ever been.  When he half arsed his arc of The Boys I worried that maybe he'd got worse over the years, but fortunately he hasn't and it feels very right seeing him drawing Strontium Dog again.  He'd already done some pre-Johnny Alpha's death stories with John Wagner prior to this, but drawing the events leading up to Johnny Alpha's return must have been very satisfying as he cared enough about the character not to draw his death back in 1990.  So how has being "dead" all this time affected Johnny? And is McNulty really dead himself?  Find out in the next UK comics month when I look at the next book in the series "The Project".

Chopper: Song Of The Surfer (2000AD #654-665)

"Sorry Charlene... so sorry" - Chopper

We return to Dreddworld now with a haunting tale of death and destiny as Marlon "Chopper" Shakespeare, a once youthful and rebellious Sky Surfer, returns to compete in "Super Surf 11" which is taking place in Megacity 2.  Sky Surfing is exactly as described, surfers travel through the air on flying surfboards and Super Surf takes place around the globe each year to find the best of them.  On the run from the Justice System he escaped in Megacity One, Chopper has been living the the Australian "radback" where he had ended up after escaping Dredd at the end of Supersurf 10 and making friends with and re-racing Jug who he lost to in Supersurf 10 (he wins the rematch and gets a new love interest called Charlene too).  He stays in the radback, and when circumstances combine to encourage him to take part in the event, it turns out this Super Surf will be a little different from the others.  Bankrolled by a blind bilionaire called Stig, there will be bullets, snipers, spikes, rockets and lasers all pointing at the competitors.  Signing up will mean almost certain death, but the reward for winning is a huge amount of cash and glory.  Will Chopper embrace his destiny in taking part?  Or will he bow out like his friend and the current world champion Jug?  On writing duties is John Wagner and Colin McNeil is on art chores with a less painterly look than his later works at least at the start, it gets more painted as it goes on.  This story ran in 1989 round about the time Necropolis was being teased with the likes of The Deadman, as well as the third book of Zenith in which whole parallel worlds were being destroyed left, right and centre, giving the comic at the time quite a doom laden feel.

Out in the radback, Chopper broods on his surfboard.  A newpaper advertising Supersurf 11 has made it out to him.  His friend, an disabled aborigine called Smokie grumbles at him at the food he's caught for them, saying a city boy like him is no help.

Later while the eat, Smokie spies the newspaper and asks if he plans on going.  Chopper answers in the negative but Smokie says he should:

Smokie: "You have the wind dreaming.  You too dumb to know.  But I know.  You follow your songline.  Song bring you.  Song take you away".

Chopper reiterates he's not interested and wants to stay and look after Smokie, who says he's dying soon.  And next day Chopper indeed finds him dead.  Sadly Chopper buries him, says a few words, then leaves to join the other Oz surfers going to the Supersurf.

Chopper reunites with Charlene.

Chopper has an emotional reunion with Charlene as well as Jug and his girlfriend.  Charlene insists Chopper has a bath and treats him for the insects he's got living under his skin.  Jug tells Chopper the prize is one million creds from the new backer and Megacity Two ought to be safe for Chopper.

Washed and dressed, Chopper meets up with the rest of the Oz surfer continginent who are all very cheerful and friendly.  They tell him there's a boy from Brit-Cit who is a real contender.  Charlene notes that Chopper seems distant from the rest.  Chopper says he's just "following the songlines."

As they travel with the other surfers to Megacity Two, Chopper tells Charlene that he doesn't really understand it but Smokie says each person is descended from an ancestor which gives them their dreaming.  Smokie's was a wombat, but Chopper's is the wind. So he's a "child of the wind" says Charlene.  Chopper agrees and says he has nothing better to do so why not follow the songline?  And they snog.

Megacity 2.

Once they are at Megacity Two all the surfers take part in a flypast, then someone sets off a firework display which catches the skysurfers unawares.   It results in one dead and three seriously injured.  Afterwards Chopper darkly says he doesn't think it was an accident the fireworks went off and this has resulted in more publicity for Stig, the man behind this Supersurf.

Chopper: "It's all a circus... once it was just a race... no money, just man against man and that was enough.  Now everybody's out to screw what they can."

He's speaking to Dora, Jug's girlfriend who admits Jug's "off the boil".  He drinks and barely practices.  He's trying to pretend it isn't over.

Chopper muses that he didn't race the real Jug MacKenzie then and Dora says she guesses not.  Chopper was in the cubes during Jug's top form in Supersurf 8 and 9.  Then a Judge comes in to their room asking for Chopper.  He says Megacity One won't press for Chopper's arrest as long as Chopper doesn't try to go back to Megacity One.  "Fat chance" says Chopper.

A message from MC1

Elsewhere there is a large gun enplacement being set up. We discover that Stig's assistant has bribed the Megacity Two judges to make this Supersurf more lethal than the others and to look aside from the setting off of fireworks during the flypast which was completely intentional.  She has also paid off the injured surfers though one is proving a little more intransigent than the others.  Stig's assistant has taken responsibility to give Stig deniability and when he asks if it's time, she tells him it is.

The surfers all gather in a giant hall.  The Brit-Cit kid "Sonny Williams" is pointed out to Chopper.  He keeps to himself, Charlene thinks he looks lonely.  Then Stig gives a bizarre speech to them.  He tells them that the public want blood, that together they'll "paint a masterwork of carnage across the sky".

Stig: "And when it is over, one of you will be a hero - a true hero. Forged in the heat of battle!  Be the most famous person on this Earth!  Is that not worth making sacrifices for?"

Stig's assistant takes over and confirms that there will be snipers and guns along the route.  The surfers are angry and ask about the fireworks and she says the matter has been investigated by the Judges to their satisfaction.

The form to sign up will absolve Stig Inc. from death and injury caused before and during Supersurf 11.  Jug rips it up saying he'll have no part in this.  For a moment it looks like all the other surfers will join him, then Sonny signs his, and after a long pause and to Charlene's horror, so does Chopper.

The race is on.

Later, while in bed together, Chopper reiterates his intent to take part to Charlene albeit unenthusiastically.  She accuses him of wanting to commit suicide, he says he's just "following the songlines."  She says they can't be telling him to die.  But she can't talk him out of it.

Next day Chopper is out practicing, he is having difficulty adjusting back to city surfing after being in the country so long. He has a chat with one of the other surfers who says seventeen have signed up now.  Then he finds Sonny Williams and rides his slipstream for a while looking for a weakness, but Sonny doesn't show him one.

The competitors gather and check out where the various guns are going to be.  Stig has one of his own despite being blind, "he reckons he's going to feel us out" says one.  Chopper thinks to himself that he isn't sure why he's doing this.  Maybe because Stig called them cowards, maybe because he didn't beat Jug at his best, "that need to be number one.  An unquenchable fire still gnawing away inside him". 

Chopper starts practicing.

He realises that Stig had thrown down the gauntlet and the need to push life to the edge, "that was the song of the surfer."  The competitors then line up in front of Stig and all moon him.  His assistant tells Stig, they're "just showing you the target" when he asks what's happening.

The action jumps forward to four days before the event and now twenty-nine surfers have signed up. During practice a watching woman drops her baby off one of the sky scrapers.  Chopper and Sonny both dive to rescue it and Sonny gets there first. Then it's two days before.  Another surfer has died in "Porcupine Alley" the tunnel of spikes and Stig has offered a one million cred donation to charity for every surfer killed.

Charlene tries to walk out on Chopper.

Chopper and Charlene are fighting, she's packed up and is leaving. She tells him she loves him and begs him to give up.  He says he can't.  She says nothing matters to him but the race and has she thought what it's going to be like for her watching him die.  She walks out and slams the door behind her.  There is a pause, then she opens it and comes back inside.  She hugs him and says:

Charlene: "All right Chopper... you win. I won't run out on you.  I'll be here.  I'll stay with you, and I'll love you, and I'll pray for you. And then I'll bury you."

Race day and a drunken Jug has decided he wants to compete saying he's been called a coward. Chopper gently shows him into the cupboard and locks him in it.  He then leaves to prepare and Charlene says "got a spare cupboard Dora?"

The surfers all line up ready.  Chopper has a flashback to just before the race.  He saw that Sonny Williams was actually terrified so he provoked him to rile him up and get him ready for the race.   The starter's gun goes off and away they fly.  Two surfers decide at the last moment not to compete and another two are immediately chewed up by gunfire, four down and the race has barely begun.

The surfers fly into another barrage of gunfire and a big name "Dallas Williams" is killed, her head blown apart.  Blood rains down on the spectators. Two more are taken out and Chopper picks up an injury that takes out his left arm, most likely shrapnel from Dalla's shattered head.

Badly injured right at the start.

He uses his belt to tie down his dead arm and flies through the next barrage to the first obstacle, the windmills.  The blades are razor sharp and one surfer has the engine of his board shorn off but manages to land safely, if no one else makes it he might be crowned the champion by default.

Another surfer is killed and falls knocking Sonny off his board.  But he is attached to it via a cord and is able to pull himself up and get back in the game.  Chopper flies over and kicks the sniper who had targeted Williams, knocking him out.  Chopper is now in the lead by quite some margin even with that detour.

Then it's through "Death Canyon" and another surfer is vaporised leaving only his feet behind.  There is chaos of napalm and death and another four surfers are gone. Jug, Charlene and Dora are watching on TV in utter horror.  This is "flamin' murder" says Jug.

Several surfers wipe out together.

Chopper is still in the lead, twisting his board to avoid sniper fire. In the following group Sonny Williams manouvres himself between the sniper and another surfer so that surfer gets killed and he takes third place. Chopper is starting to feel the loss of blood from his arm and Porcupine Alley is the next obstacle up.

Chopper enters the alley as the back end of the surfer group is wiped out by the napalm.  He carefully negociates the spikes, although he gets gashed by one he makes it through... only to be struck multiple times by bullets on the other side.  Charlene lets out a cry and runs out to go to the stricken Chopper.  He's down but still on his board.

Surprise! Ouch.

Then Anderson and Sonny Williams the joint second placers collide with each other at the entrance to Porcupine Alley.   Both land on spikes, run through by them. There's another collision at the entrance by the next batch of surfers, blocking access.  One of the last place surfers, Negri gets back on his board and could be the last one left in the race as he flies through.

But he's blasted to bits by the same guns that got Chopper.  One of the machine gunners has a live grenade for an earring as the race commentators admiringly comment on.   Sonny Williams has managed to pull himself off the spike he's impaled on and lying on his board flies it out of the tunnel. Before the machine guns can get him, Chopper surprises one of them and uses his gun to kill the other one but not before Sonny is mortally wounded.

Chopper takes out two gunners.

Chopper apologises to his body, the other surfers left have decided to opt out of the race.  They fly down to where Chopper is, who guiltily says he thought he did Sonny a favour getting him psyched for the race.  Then Chopper gets back on his board.  He's the only one left now and he plans to go to the finish.  "You crazy nong! Noooo!" shouts Charlenne.

The toll the race has taken is incredible.  The commentator reports thirty-one dead, three alive but seriously injured and four withdrawn.  The commentator declares Chopper the "greatest Sky Surfer who has ever lived!".  But there is one obstacle left.  He falls from the board, but painfully climbs back on and lies on it for a while.

Chopper exacts explosive revenge.

He thinks back to Smokie and him telling him about following his songline.  He stands back up and slowly flies towards Stig and his gun.  Stig doesn't open fire.  Chopper tells Stig he made a promise to some of the guys and reaches into his suit and brings out the live grenade he took from the machine gunner he surprised.  He tosses at Stig and it kills both him and his assistant.

Then Chopper turns and heads for the finish line.  He feels numb now, and running through is head are the words of Charlene calling him selfish and he realises he was dumb now.  He collapses to his knees as the finish line comes into view.

Narration: "Darkness closes in again.  Enfolding him.  The windsong rises and falls in his ears... calling him back to the ancestors."
 
He slumps forwards saying he's coming Smokie and just inches from the finish line his board comes to a halt.  Charlene stands underneath it and can only look up in despair as blood trickles down his arm and lands on her tear streaked face.  The camera pans out.  The race and the story is at an end.

.......

Powerful stuff.  And it's such a fitting end for Chopper that it was understandable when he returned in a story in the Megazine people protested.  Especially as said story was written by Garth Ennis who admitted later it wasn't a great story and really Chopper's story should have ended here.  After that he featured in a couple more stories but in Judge Dredd Megazine #302's "Twenty Years to Midnight", set in 2132, Chopper makes a background appearance on a talkshow. The teenagers in this story are unaware of who he is, and view the show as being for adults; the POV character believes Chopper looks tired and lost, looking at footage of "when he used to matter".  Which is in someways even sadder than having him die at the end of this story where he could have at least gone out as the Greatest Sky Surfer on the Planet fulfulling a destiny following the songlines of his life to the bitter end.  Despite the horrific nature of the race it is actually exciting to follow and the build up is suitably thrilling as well.  Also giving Chopper a girlfriend who decides to support him the whole way rather than have her walk out and leave in a somewhat cliched way was a great idea and of course leaves us with her showing the full emotional cost of the race on the final page.  Great writing, great art, this is collected in the Chopper: Surf's Up trade paperback along with several other of his best stories.

The Dead Man (2000AD #650-662)

"I don't know why or what I've done... but I've no right to inflict it on you good people" - The Dead Man

In 1990 2000AD ran a year long storyline called Necropolis.  This epic tale bought back the always popular Dark Judges - Death, Fear, Mortis and Fire, and introduced the "Sisters Of Death" the magic using  Phobia and Nausea.  What was interesting in retrospect was how much build up there had been prior to the start.  Although there was a strip that lead into it clearly marked "Countdown to Necropolis" pretty much all the several months worth of Judge Dredd strips in previous months had been setting the scene and introducing characters who would go on to play a major role in the storyline.  And then there was this story, "The Dead Man".  A quiet story to start with about a mysterious, badly burned and scarred man who is found out in the Cursed Earth by friendly natives. And who, in the company of a child from the village that takes him in, goes on a trek to discover who he is and how he ended up where he did. And slowly it starts to dawn on the reader that what seems like a stand alone story about a new character, is actually the lynchpin story of the whole mega-arc.  I'll try and preserve the mystery of The Dead Man until the reveal towards the end in this post in case you want to try and figure it out for yourself as we go.  Long time UK comics artist John Ridgeway provides the delicate, fine lined artwork making the Cursed Earth feel as arid and desert like as it ever has.  Keef Ripley scripts it with a well paced and sensitive hand.

The Cursed Earth is the expansive area outside Mega-City One.  It is a wasteland mostly populated by criminals, bandits, monsters and mutants.  But as the radioactivity has lessened it's also become home to small communties of normal human beings just trying to scrape out of a living of their own, and it is one such community that finds The Dead Man.  The story is narrated by a young black teenager called "Yassa" who introduces the story:

Yassa: "It wuz me who found The Dead Man... It was me who touched him - felt his skin.  All cracked and baked like a bad stretch of the Cursed Earth.  It wuz me looking right into his face when The Dead Man's eyes opened."

Yassa finds the Dead Man.

As this narration plays out we're shown Yassa, a friend and his pet dog called Dog discovering the wreck of a man and soon the whole village has come out to see him.  Yassa's mum gives him some water then they take him back into the village, "Bubbletown".  They load The Dead Man into a buggy to get him there and Yassa reflects:

Yassa: "Me I wuz praying for him.  I dunno why. I guess I kinda owed it to him. me being the one who found him. What I didn't know then wuz who he wuz - or why he had to stay alive. And I never dreamt of the evil he would bring down upon us all."

They take The Dead Man back to Yassa's house and lay him on a bed and bandage him up. The note the old bullet wounds on his body.  The local mad preacher, Larry, says he's "A man of violence!  A creature of evil!"  but the folks just ignore his rantings. Eartha, Yassa's mum says maybe The Dead Man won't survive to see the morning, but what kind of people would they be if they didn't give him a fighting chance?  And she chases everyone out the house.

Yassa's folks take the Dead Man in.

Mad Larry bellows she's bought "Doom!" upon them as he goes.  Yassa reflects if they'd known what was coming maybe they should have paid more attention to Larry. The Dead Man has a restless night and talks in his sleep.

The Dead Man: "Servants of Evil!  I know you...! What devilment is afoot?  Damn you!  I won't.. huuuhhHH! - Die for you!"

A pall seems to descend on the house.  Dog starts barking and in his room Yassa wakes up to a prescence that seems passes through him and as it does so he feels it "more full of blind evil than anything you could imagine"

Yassa's first nightmare.

His mum and dad come in and comfort Yassa who is shaking and crying.  He says he heard it scream, like a "saw scraping on glass".  His father says maybe The Dead Man will be able to tell him what it was when he wakes up. Two days later The Dead Man's fever recedes under Eartha's tender care.  The Dead Man finally comes around but when they ask him who he is he responds, "I remember... nothing."

A week passes and the fear everyone felt in Bubbletown the first night The Dead Man stayed there didn't come back, but it left Yassa feeling jumpy, looking at shadows and thinking he could hear screams. They ask The Dead Man about the things he said when he was feverish but he doesn't know what he meant, his whole life is a blank.

The whole town comes for a gawp.

Eartha says to Yassa that his memory would start to come back in time and she wasn't going to throw him out of the house just because everyone said she should.  Larry keeps protesting outside of their house saying "they're bringing doom upon us all!"  The rest of the town come and ask questions of The Dead Man but he can't answer them.  When they leave he says to Yassa, "They all stare at me - like some.. monster.  Am I that ugly?"

He then picks up a rifle and starts examining it.  He asks what it is and Yassa says it's dangerous.  Then he says that as far as he is concerned if Dog thinks The Dead Man is OK then that's good enough for him, "smart animal" says The Dead Man and he and Dog shake hand and paw.

The Dead Man is recovered enough to go outside.  Yassa takes him to where they found him in the hope it triggers some memories.  It doesn't, but Dog picks up a trail and they follow it.  It leads further into the canyon and suddenly they are ambushed by a group of sub-humans called "Grunts".

The Dead Man discovers his gun skills.

There is a struggle and the rifle is knocked from Yassa's hands.  The Dead Man picks it up and with precise efficiency kills several of the Grunts with pin-point accuracy. With all of them dead, Yassa is amazed that this morning The Dead Man didn't even know what a rifle was, now he's  crackshot with one.

Yassa: "Maybe I can't tell you who you are Dead Man.  But I know one thing - you're the meanest shot I ever saw!"

He tells the folk of Bubbletown but they aren't too pleased at the proof The Dead Man is a killer.  They tell The Dead Man that ever since he arrived in town things haven't been right with the animals, the rains are late and more Grunts have been coming down close to town like they've been spooked.

They come right out and tell Eartha they don't want The Dead Man in town anymore.  That night he stands outside Yassa's house thinking.  Yassa watches him and thinks he hears that terrible scream again, "as if it too had learned something about The Dead Man".

Another nightmare.

That night Yassa has a nightmare that he is being chased, a crowd of hands grab at him and a shadow bears down on him and he wakes with a start.   But in the room with him is a hooded figure who pulls her cloak back to reveal a bueatiful woman.  She reaches for him saying "where is he?  You'll tell me won't you boy" and then she transforms into a hideous monster.  And he wakes for real this time screaming his head off.

As he tells his parents and The Dead Man what he saw there is a banging at the door.   An old man had taken fright and died of a heart attack and the villagers blame The Dead Man for bringing the terror, "he brought a curse down on us all!" The next day The Dead Man tells Yassa and his parents he is leaving as he feels responsible for what has happened since he arrived.

He asks to take Dog as he wants to retrace his steps and thought Dog had his trail the previous day.  But Eartha says Dog stays with Yassa and Yassa won't be going with him.  She packs him some supplies and Yassa's dad gives him a rifle and a map.  The villagers turn out to see him off, though they are glad to see the back of him.  Yassa and Dog surruptitiously follow him through a corn field and catches up with The Dead Man at the canyon saying his mum changed his mind about him coming along.

Yassa: "Scared as I were of the terror.  It sound like too good of an adventure to miss. Fool that I wuz".

They carry on and when Dog loses the trail, they wait for him to sniff it out again.  Dog returns with a scrap of material which Yassa identifies as the same kind burnt onto The Dead Man's body when they found him.

Yassa and Dead Man make camp.

That night they make camp and The Dead Man says he knows Yassa is there without permission and that tommorrow he goes home.  Yassa says he can't send him back, he needs Dog. He says The Dead Man said it was important he found out what happened to him and who he is, and at that The Dead Man decides to keep Yassa and Dog with him.

They are ambushed by Grunts the next day, but The Dead Man sees them off and they arrive at a place with several burnt out dwellings.  Yassa comments:

Yassa: "Funny, you coming all this way when you were so near dead. Musta been somethin' mighty powerful drivin' you on."

They realise the trail leads directly into Grunt country. When Yassa says no one is ever stupid enough to go in there to find out how many Grunts are there, The Dead Man says, "maybe I was".  So through there they must now go.

More grunts dispatched.

They reach a wooded area and Dog finds more of the material.  The Dead Man says he recognises the place.

The Dead Man: "I have a picture... a memory cloaked in shadow. I'm staggering - lurching blindly. Pain exploding in my head - every step - but.. something's driving me.  I've got to keep going.  I've got to get away."

For some reason the Grunts didn't attack him then, which Yassa finds strange as he was already cooked.  But the Grunts aren't holding back now and they walk into a trap.  The Dead Man is yanked upwards via a rope trap.  He fires on the attacking grunts and gets himself free but not before they have carried Yassa off.

Yassa is tied up as the grunts light a big fire.  They grab him and Dog and drag them towards the flames to cook them.  Then they all hear the eerie scream and the grunts flee in terror and the hooded figure appears before them.  Yassa uses the knife he was going to be killed with to cut his bonds then he and Dog make a run for it.

Grunts take Yassa.

The Terror keeps chasing him.  The Dead Man lights a flare to guide him but Yassa stumbles and falls to the ground.  Dog leaps at the hooded figure but just passes through it.  Yassa is too scared to move, but before the hooded figure can do anything to him, The Dead Man appears and fires on it.  "You!" The figure says, "put that toy away you cannot hurt me."

The "Terror".

The Dead Man asks what it wants of him. It tells him when he knows himself it'll be back for him and disappates into thin air.  They follow the trail out of the grunt woods and come to country Yassa doesn't know about.  He reflects on what happened:

Yassa: "Even funnier to think the Terror had saved me from being eaten by grunts.  But I didn't feel like laughing.  I didn't feel good at all. I had a feeling it had only saved me for something worse."

They come to a river that is made of acid.  The Dead Man's memory is triggered again, he remembers stumbling through it, feet burning as he did so and he falls into it, "I'm on fire.  Pain.  The pain is unbearable."  But something stronger was driving him on, he could not die.  He thinks the final answers to his identity is over the river, but how to get across?

Fractured memories return...

The Dead Man says this is as far as Yassa goes, there is real danger over the other side of the river and he's already exposed him to far to much already.  Yassa pleads with him but The Dead Man says his mind's made up.  Then he fires his rifle at a tree on the other side and it falls making a temporary bridge across. 

But as he crosses, Yassa and Dog follow and can't go back as the tree burns away.  The Dead Man is annoyed by this and tells Yassa not to follow him, but Yassa refuses to comply and trails behind him.

Yassa: "Why did I go? What damn fool notion made me so eager to go rushing headlong into disaster?  It's a question I've asked myself many times in the madness where I now dwell;  when I awake screaming, reliving the terrible events of that day - remembering her face, her touch upon me..."

They finally happen upon another village called "Crowley" although there are no signs of life.  This is where The Dead Man will find the answers to his questions and discover who he is and what happened to him.

Crowley, where the answers lie.

Outside the town Dog lies down and will go no further, "he could smell the evil waiting for us there." Yassa still feels compelled to follow The Dead Man to find out who he is, caught like a whirlpool in events surrounding him.  They find several dead bodies, all burned to a crisp, there is no one alive in the town.

The Dead Man is lost in a mass of flashbacks, him confronting something evil, saying "I won't... die for you!" to his attackers.  "Servants of Evil I know you!" he says to them.  He and Yassa explore further, and find a helmet and the remains of a motorbike and finally a badge with a name on it.  "Who are you?" urges Yassa.

The Dead Man: "I am... Judge Dredd".

Best cliffhanger ever.

Even Yassa has heard of the legendary Judge Dredd.  But what is he doing here?  Dredd says he took the Long Walk (which is when a Judge retires, he goes out into the Cursed Earth with just his gun and bike to dispense justice until he or she is killed).

Dredd: "A hundred days bringing law to the Cursed Earth and then... they came... Creatures with hearts so dark and twisted nothing on this earth could have spawned them!"

He says they are denizens of a world where living was judged a crime and the population wiped out, Judge Death's world.  And the creatures who attacked him were "The Sisters Of Death!" I wrote about the origins of them in my coverage of "Young Death: Memoirs of a Superfiend."

The Sisters of Death.

Then the Sisters appear and approach them.  Dredd fires on them but one says "you cannot kill what does not live".  Dredd tells Yassa to run, but Yassa is frozen to the spot in terror.  And we get a full on look at the two sisters "Phobia" and "Nausea".  Dredd struggles with Phobia while Nausea takes a hold of Yassa and says she wants him to suffer and presses his face to her manky bosom.

Yassa: "Oh yes, I learned who The Dead Man was that day. But the price I was to pay would be terrible."

Ouch!

Dredd yells to Yassa that they can't hurt him if he doesn't believe in them.  But Yassa is terrified and Nausea rams her fingers in his eyes and blinds him.  Dredd curses them saying Yassa is unimportant to them.

Phobia: "All life iss important!  All mussst be punissshhhed!"

Dredd says they couldn't kill him the first time, and they can't now.  Phobia says they have damaged him physically before but Dredd says that was a momentary aberration. He grits his teeth and tells them:

Dredd: "You're not here! You're just an illusion- a nightmare... your power was strong enough to hurt me - even kill me.  But only if I surrended to it.  You're somewhere else! Yes! If you'd been here you'd have made sure of me."

Dredd resists and they find they cannot hurt him anymore so they leave and Dredd says, "tell your brothers I'm comin' for them".  Yassa had blacked out which Dredd says it what saved him from further harm.

The Sisters were currently elsewhere and using projection to attack people's minds.  Allowing them to inflict physical harm by tricking the mind into making it real.   Dredd picks up the blinded Yassa and says sadly, "what have I done?"  And takes him back to Bubbletown.

Dredd takes Yassa home.

All the folks in Crowley had died because they thought what was happening was real, but Dredd just refused and that's why he survived.  Back in Bubbletown, Yassa's mother says she can't forgive Dredd for what happened to Yassa.  Dredd says there may be a way to help him in the future and he is now going to head for Megacity One where he believes the danger originates from.  He leaves a traumatised Yassa, trapped in a cycle of nightmares and terror.

Yassa: "Dear God, I wish I could forget - lose my memory - become a Dead Man too. But I don't suppose is wise to envy The Dead Man.  Somewhere out there he's got his own nightmare to face."

And a new quest begins...

And that brings "The Dead Man" storyline to a close.  It leads directly into "The Tale Of The Dead Man" which relates the story of how Judge Dredd came to become disillusioned with the Justice system and the reason he decided to take the Long Walk into the Cursed Earth. I shall be covering that story in my next UK comics month. This story however is a really nice little tale, building up a solid mystery and leaving you feeling much sympathy towards Yassa, a brave young man who just wanted to help Dredd find his memories.  I remember being legitimately surprised at the reveal of who The Dead Man was at the time, this story was running at the same time Dredd strips also were in the comic so there was no reason to connect the two.  It also was our first glimpse of The Sisters of Death and the first major clue that something was going terribly, terribly wrong in Megacity One.  There was still many weeks to go before the Necropolis storyline started properly and the sense as "The Dead Man" story drew to a close that something big was on the horizon for the Dreddverse was palpable.  Dredd's promise to Yassa's family that he will find a way to help him is not forgotten, but there are more dreadful things to deal with right now. John Ridgeway's art is beautiful here, imbuing the human characters with dignity and strength while giving us a repulsive look at Phobia and Nausea.  His and Keef Ripley's Dredd is just the right blend of vulnerable and badass in this story and his bond with Yassa, even though it dooms the poor boy is well conveyed.  All-in-all a triumph of serial storytelling that is stil an enjoyable read when you know the twist ending.  Good stuff.