Product Description

Another epic saga featuring Britain's home-grown superhero Judge Dredd. When Judge Dredd is sent to take over as chief of Sector 01 in the isolated North-West Hab Zone, it's an unwelcome posting for him and his new charges.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #139356 in Books
• Published on: 2008-12-11
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 96 pages

Customer Reviews

Dredd changes direction, in a good way
In The Pit, John Wagner changed gears, gave Dredd a desk job, and began to open the strip up into a slow-burning ensemble piece. This story was his first serious attempt at Dredd as a police-procedural thriller, a form he very quickly mastered and has returned to many times in recent years.

The events here are more personal in scale than the typical lunatic high-bodycount Dredd stories, with a solid cast of well-written supporting characters adding depth and dimension to the story. The reader's newfound emotional investment in the normally-faceless supporting Judges pays off in a slaughterhouse of a climax where you find yourself rooting for all of these likeable jackbooted fascists.

My copy from Amazon was marred by some weird printing side-effect where the pages were mottled with some weird sepia-coloured dusty stuff. This wiped off easily enough leaving the clean, beautifully reproduced art looking great, but doing it for 200-odd pages got rather annoying. Also, be aware that the Kevin Walker cover shown above is not the one on the front of the book.

"His private quarters... A plush cocoon, cutting him off from his precious streets. They all had to make sacrifices"
Sector 301, the North-West Hab Zone, is cut off from the rest of Mega City One by a patch of radioactive wasteground stemming from The Apocalypse War. This remoteness has enabled crime to run rampant. To make matters worse, it has been virtually abandoned by Justice Department, who have used it as a dumping ground for incompetent & corrupt Judges. Now the Sector Chief has been killed in questionable circumstances, it would seem 'the pit' is long overdue for a clean-up - and who better to do it than Judge Dredd?

'The Pit' sees Dredd where we never thought we'd see him, a place he never wanted to be - behind a desk, as Chief of a Sector House. But he certainly doesn't take a back seat - he stands tall as a symbol to the other Judges, most of whom see him as a sanctimonious spanner in their corrupt affairs but a few see him as an inspiring role model.

The Pit is very different to other Dredd epics. As always, there's a high body count by the end but there's also a large supporting cast of characters with intersecting storylines. While some of the earlier Dredd tales would see old stoney face take a back seat as a citizen took centre stage (eg Citizen Snork, 2-Ton Tony Tubbs or Chopper) The Pit is one of the first epics where the supporting cast of Judges takes centre stage. They are shown to be merely human beings doing their best to cope with an incredibly tough job while trying to live up to the ideals they are supposed to represent, rather than secondary cannon fodder or faceless fascists.

In short, we have a lot of well-rounded characters, making for an original, engaging tale. This is powerful testament to John Wagner's ingenuity, that he came up with such a new take on a world he'd been writing about for around 20 years at the time.

The only low point for me is one common to the earlier Dredd epics, which is the way the artists are chopped & changed, often at places where there is no natural break in the story. As such, some characters & settings slightly change in appearence, which I feel interrupts the flow slightly. But the artists are all very talented with plenty of Ezquerra's penmanship & the writing is so compelling, that as Dredd would say, I'm prepared let it pass this time, but I'll be keeping an eye on you, creep!

Classic Dredd - First Rate Graphic Novel - Essential buy
I brought 2000AD issue 1, the first day it came out in 1977. A week later, Judge Dredd appeared. 32 years later I sit in my study and see my ever growing 'Judge Dredd - Complete Case Files' (Now up-to 13 editions), and I realize Dredd has been with me my whole adult life (Sad, but true). THE PIT takes Dredd slightly out of the norm, he's in charge and you cant help but smile when he says "My names DREDD, some of you may have heard of me" to the assembled troops. I wont spoil the plot for you. This is classic Dredd, mean & moody. It also takes you into the world of the 'flawed' Judge. We've seen this before, but never on such a scale it seems. Needless to say Dredd cleans house, and introduces some good off-shoot characters in the process. The art is top-rate as you would expect, and the story line keeps you gripped to the very end. The Graphic Novel format is ideal if you need a big hit of Dredd in one go. The long story lines are not that common, although there are at least a dozen out there, that's not a lot over 30+ years. This rates right up there with the very best 'epic' Dredd stories. I can not see how they can improve on this, hence the five stars. Dredd is told in real time, so he's now at least in his late 60's. The weekly comic keeps hinting at the age thing, so we are due 'something' about them having to deal with that soon! This story is about 15 years ago, and is some of Carlos Ezquerra best work, and the other artist hold it together very well, (unlike Heavy Metal Dredd, which is about as bad as it can get, Im sorry to say). There have not been many good 'epic' story lines in the last few years, so these type of compendiums are real gems. A must have for the Dredd fan.