The Comic Cave - Judge Dredd vs. Aliens: Incubus

 

The Comic Cave is a bi-weekly feature where we spin the Wheel of Comics and see what graphic novel story it brings up for us to deep dive into! This week we take a look at the crossover comic Judge Dredd vs. Aliens: Incubus, which sees the Mega City One cop facing off against the deadliest creature in the galaxy.

Growing up in Britain in the 90's there were often only three comics I would ever really see on the shelf in shops, The Beano, The Dandy, and 2000AD. The first two are very child oriented, and tend to be quick stories over a page or two that have no real connection to each other and no continuity, with the book returning to the status quo at the end of each strip. They're not comics in the same way that people reading American comics would think of them. The closest we had to that in the UK was 2000AD, a book very much not for kids. The sci-fi settings of the book appealed to me as a young geek, but often the dark tone, the ultra-violence, and the more complex themes meant that it was never bought for me, and my first brush with more adult comics was prevented.

It wasn't until years later that I would begin to actually discover parts of 2000AD, Judge Dredd. Dredd was the standout star of the title, and whilst a lot of the characters within the pages of 2000AD would receive some degree of success none did as well as Dredd. Even before ever picking up a book with the character in it I'd been exposed to him through the 1995 film, which saw Sylvester Stallone play the cruel future cop. Not knowing anything about the comics when I first saw the film I couldn't speak to how accurate it was to the source material, but I ended up liking the movie for what it was. As sch, when I got my first library card as a young tween and I saw Judge Dredd books on the shelf there I of course grabbed what I could.

Interestingly, my first book with him was another crossover, Batman/Judge Dredd: Judgement on Gotham. It wasn't until many years later, when my small crappy town finally got a comic book shop, that I began to explore the character further. One of the books that they had that immediately grabbed my attention as a lifelong fan of the Alien franchise was Judge Dredd vs. Aliens: Incubus, an oversized hardback book that was too tall to fit on my shelf, but that I knew I needed to read thanks to the gorgeous cover art. 

The story begins in the middle of action, as a shootout in heavy traffic between a group of criminals attracts the attention of the Judges. One of the criminals, Jimmy Godber is trying desperately to get to the nearby Eisenhower Hospital, but he's being chased by anti-Judge terrorists, yelling about how he 'took something that didn't belong to him'. Godber gets saved by the Judges, with the lawmakers killing his pursuers. But Godber is still desperate to get to the medical facilities. It's then that his chest explodes, and a monstrous creature breaks its way out. The chestburster manages to make its way to a vent leading into the hospital, where it's lost.

The Judges grab the bodies, and assign a group of pest control officers, Verminators, to deal with the creature inside the hospital. As the Judges investigate into the criminals and try to find out where they came from the Verminator team inside the hospital, expecting to find a small snake-like creature, come under attack from a fully grown Xenomorph, who kills several members of the team. Whilst the Verminators are trying to make it out alive, the Judges are able to track down Godber's hideout, where they find a number of alien eggs, and a fully grown creature. The judges battle the aliens, with one of them falling victim to a facehugger, and manage to defeat it. Hearing that another of the creatures is in the hospital, Dredd heads over.

As the hospital is evacuated Dredd goes inside to fight the alien monster, who's retreated to the maternity ward, where it hovers over a group of infants. In order to save the babies, Dredd launches himself at the monster, and the two of them crash out of the window and fall several stories; Dredd fighting it the whole way down. With all of the aliens dead or contained, the Judges have to try to figure out where Godber got the eggs to begin with, suspecting that there might be more of the creatures out there. And they're not wrong, beneath the surface of Mega City One, in the ruins of the old New York a group of anti-Judge terrorists led by the scarred Mr Bones, prepare their hive of Xenomorphs to attack the Grand Hall of Justice, which lies directly above them.

The Xenomorph has crossed over with a lot of other franchises and characters over the years. The first, and most famous of these is the Predator, with this particular pairing spawning multiple comics, novels, video games, and movies, to the point where a lot of fans don't even really see them as being in separate universes at all anymore. And the two do fit very well together that when one turns up in another's story you don't really feel too phased by it. But seeing the Xenomorph fight Superman, on the other hand, can feel very jarring (even thought the first crossover between them is a ton of fun). Sometimes the crossovers work, sometimes they really don't. And the same can be said of the times that Dredd has gone over to other settings. 

But the setting of the Judge Dredd books is perhaps one of the best places outside of the Alien franchise in which to put these things. The futuristic setting works best for these creatures, and the themese of dystopia and mega corporations feels like it could be the Earth we keep hearing about in the Alien movies (especially in the fourth one). The dirty, dark hallways and corridors that make up a lot of the books locations feel reminiscent of the ships and colonies of the Alien films, and the ruins of the old New York bring to mind the barren landscapes of LV-426 and Fury 161. It's part way into the book, where I'm absorbed into the narrative and aren't even thinking about how these two properties don't normally go together that I realise it's wild that it took such an obvious pairing until 2002 to happen.

I also hugely appreciate the fact that the real villain of the book, Mr Bones, is very much doing what Weyland-Yutani was always trying to do, he found and weaponized the Xenomorphs. Having found them in space, he creates a pheromone tag that allow wearer to be seen as a member of the hive to the creatures, and thus move around in safety. He then used his men to bring the creatures to Earth, and positioned them in a way ready to set them upon his intended target, the Judges. And it works. The Xenomorphs attack their headquarters and kill a lot of people, and there are times when it looks like the Judges are going to lose. It doesn't seem like Bones has much control over them, and there's no indication that he could stop them moving on to other locations and killing more people after the Judges; but it also doesn't seem like he cares. So for him, he pretty much masters the aims that the company had.

The book also manages to balance out action and plot pretty well too. In the crossover between Dredd and the Predator my chief complaint was that the pacing was pretty bad, and the action dominated most of the story whilst failing to be really very interesting (again though, that feels like a perfect mash-up of franchises). Here, however, there's a lot of emphasis given over to story. The Judges actually investigate what's going on, they find clues, move from one suspect to another in their search for answers. And there are characters other than Dredd. We get the chance to know some of the supporting cast, see their motivations, understand what kind of personality they have, and you end up actually caring when they end up falling in battle. And all of this is balanced with some really cool moments.

The writing team on the book, John Wagner and Andy Diggle, know what they're doing. Hell, Wagner invented Dredd, so you can't get a much better writer for this story than that. And Dredd's character here is one of the things that I love about this story. Again, having not read huge amounts of his stories I don't have a huge sample size to go off, but most of the depictions of Dredd I've read have him as heartless, unwavering in his opinions and views, and close to an unfeeling fascist. But in this book he has personality. He comes across as a person, he allows the Verminators to stick around and help them because they're looking for payback for their fallen friends, and he even offers his condolences to them. He also inspires a rookie Judge, giving her the pep-talks she needs to give her the strength to keep going, rather than barking orders at her or tearing her down. He even throws himself out of a window with little hope of living to save babies. This Dredd is a bad-ass, but he's also something of a hero; and I loved that.

But the writing isn't the only draw for this book, as the art is absolutely fantastic. Henry Flint provides the art, whilst Chris Blythe colours the book, and it's wonderful to look at. Flint has a way of drawing that has a lot of fine, thinner lines, and a lot of the characters have more detail on them than you'd find in something like Marvel or DC, thanks to lots of extra detailing and line work to show off imperfections and flaws. The style is very British, and having read more work with British creators it seems to be a style that we Brits do much more than other countries, and you'll find that a few British artists have a fairly similar feel to them because of it. The first time that I saw the book it was this style of art that drew me to it, a style that's simple and beautiful to look at, but that can also covey the ugliness of the world it's set in, and holds more detail than you first realise. And my god do the aliens look fantastic too.

Whether you're a fan of Judge Dredd or the Alien, this is a book that will appeal to you. The two fit together wonderfully, and it plays well with the themes and stories of both universes in great ways. If they ever do allow the Alien to cross over with 2000AD in the future (highly unlikely now that Disney own them) this would be the creative team that would need to do it.

Judge Dredd vs. Aliens: Incubus was released from December 2002 to April 2003 by Rebellion Developments, and Dark Horse Comics,

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