Over
the years, I've become used to Mega City One being trampled all over
and millions of citizens dying. It's like an extra season in a way;
'Spring', 'Summer', 'Autumn', 'Winter' and 'Mega City One being beaten
to within an inch of its crime-ridden life'. It's always fun to be a
spectator when 'Catastrophe Season' rolls round and 2000AD outdid
themselves with the 'Day of Chaos' storyline; the Mega City skyline in
flames, 350 million dead citizens and Justice Department struggling to
mount any kind of resistance to the anarchy that the city is sliding
into. 'The Fourth Faction' and 'Endgame' were awesome reads but where do
you go from there? How can you top such a powerful story?
The
answer is that you can't really top it but there is still a wealth of
stories to be told in the shattered remains of the city. And that's what
'Fallout' is all about, an exploration of the aftermath of 'Chaos Day'
and, I suspect, seeds being sown for future tales.
Dredd's
actions, thirty years ago, led to the viral attack on Mega City One so
it's only fitting that the bulk of this volume concentrates on how he is
bearing up under the strain. Dredd is a fairly one dimensional
character, from what I've seen, so it is interesting to see cracks
starting to show in the façade at the same time as he is busting perps.
Stories like 'Wolves' and 'Save Him' force Dredd to face up to his
actions in really intense ways (some incredible artwork from Currie
backs this up) and the fact that you know Dredd will pull through is
besides the point; it's all about internal conflict and in more ways
than one, *COUGH*'Save Him'*COUGH!* Dredd knows where the responsibility
for Chaos Day ultimately lies but he still has a job to do and he's
going to get it done. It's an interesting dynamic that I wouldn't mind
following further. Would it go to the logical conclusion or would the
writers decide that Dredd is made of sterner stuff? Like I said, just
the fact that you can see those cracks at all is really telling…
There's
fifty million other people, than Dredd, in the Big Meg though and
'Fallout' also chronicles the attempts of the 'Chaos Day' survivors to
make something of themselves, generally involving varying degrees of
illegal activity from breaking and entering ('Sealed', a moving tale
that had me getting a piece of dust out of my eye, ahem…) to grave
robbing ('The Pits') to seceding from Mega City One entirely ('Debris',
superb artwork from PJ Holden and a story to match). The theme just
about stays on the right side of being too repetitive, built only just,
luckily for the writers there are a million different ways to break the
law in the Big Meg. The only stories that didn't work for me were
'Wastelands' and 'Power Struggle'; the switch to the machinations of the
rich/big corporations came at the expense of the raw emotion of the
survivors at ground level and these stories felt a little detached as a
result.The art was a little bit lacklustre too...
'Fallout' is one of those books that you're only really likely to read if you've already read the preceding volumes but, as far as I'm concerned, it's still a worthy follow up (albeit with a couple of misses amongst all the hits) to possibly one of the biggest events in the history of Mega City One. Nothing will ever be the same again and 'Fallout' leaves you in no doubt as to just why that is.
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