Judge Dredd: Goodnight Kiss

Back when I was in school, especially in the 3rd-4th years (age 13-15) the weekly arrival of 2000 AD was one of the highlights. As far as I can recall I never actually bought a copy[1]. As we all knew, Dredd was too obvious, too blatant, a hero for 9 year old boys and politically unaware violence fetishists. Johnny Alpha in Strontium Dog was where the action was at: a strip for both male and female teenagers and politically aware violence fetishists.

Obviously they killed him.

Dredd though is still going strong[2] and Heckler acquired Goodnight Kiss, a story of Judge Dredd co-starring Jonni Kiss, a judge killer who kills judges by snogging them kisses his victims before killing them, then passed it on to me.

So, yes. Violent. Blatant. Mostly unsubtle. Dredd has a few moments of introspection when he's crucified and hallucinates everyone he's ever killed (a bodycount that even impresses Judge Death). There's also an homage[4] of the crucifiction scene from the Conan story A Witch Shall Be Born (recreated faithfully in the movie(from 3:00)). The closest to a moment of sadness belongs to the Lawmaster bike of Dredd's partner, requesting clarification of the location of the partner. Other than being very tough indeed, Kiss only plan seems to be to get a gang of dupes to weaken his target before he performs the coup de grace.

I enjoyed it quite a bit. Not quite enough to buy more Dredd (not for a while - maybe when nostalgia overtakes me or the TV claims there was a film) but maybe it's time to track down some Strontium Dog collections...

[1] Something else I'm not an owner-reader of.
[2] In theory many of the stories in 2000 AD run in realtime, so having been published for 31 years, Dredd is 31 years older than in his first strip. In Goodnight Kiss, Dredd points out to Kiss that he's 30 years older than him, and has been shot, stabbed, burnt, electrocuted and had every bone in his body broken more times than he can remember[3]. The wikipedia intro is probably enough information if you're not familiar with Dredd. However, the entry seems to have been vandalised as it claims there was a film. There is no film. There is no film. There is no film.
[3] Does this include the ossicles?
[4] Or theft if you like.