Return Of The Drokking Dead
2000 AD celebrates Prog 2300 with a zombiefied multiverse of madness
THREE DECADES AFTER IT FIRST appeared in both of the Galaxy’s Greatest Comics, undead Dredd epic “Judgement Day” is returning. “Judgement Days” begins in the landmark Prog 2300, before continuing in Judge Dredd Megazine 448. Lead writer Kenneth Niemand – who has penned both issues’ framing stories for artists Henry Flint and Leigh Gallagher – insists that it is no mere sequel to Garth Ennis and John Wagner’s original tale.
“It’s an alternative take on that story; a series of even more catastrophic events that happen because of a different decision that’s made at one point in the original story,” he tells Red Alert. “I wanted to do a big, fun story about zombies infecting the whole of the 2000 AD multiverse. I knew the problem would start in Dredd’s world, and Dredd plus zombies equals Judgement Day. The other Dredd story it references is ‘Helter Skelter’, which introduced the idea of a multiverse where all the 2000 AD stories happen.”
While “Judgement Day” concluded with Dredd forming an alliance with Johnny Alpha, the future cop and the top Strontium Dog won’t be partners on this occasion. “The major disruption to the timeline we know happens before the famous team-up scenes between Dredd and Johnny that we get at the end of ‘Judgement Day’,” explains Niemand. “Before that point, they’re both enemies, so let’s just say that relationship continues here…”
“Instead of a strike team being sent in to deal with Sabbat,” adds 2000 AD editor Matt Smith,
referring to the nefarious necromagus who’s behind the undead outbreak, “in this story a dimension bomb is dropped on him, which succeeds in blasting him out of existence but causes severe repercussions, which come back to bite Mega-city in a big way. Alpha returns to his own time but realises the extent of the damage that’s been done across the multiverse and comes back to try to right what’s happened. He won’t be teaming up with Dredd, who is a very different beast now.”
The impact of “Judgement Days” is also felt on Nu-earth and Downlode, settings of Rogue Trooper and Sinister Dexter. “The Genetic Infantrymen’s bodies are incredibly durable, so perhaps even death doesn’t slow them down all that much,” reasons Michael Carroll, who is scripting “a zombified Rogue Trooper” for artist Gary Erskine.
Dan Abnett, meanwhile, took a different approach. “I thought it’d be fun to subvert the idea a little, as I didn’t just want to write zombie Sinister and Dexter. I thought it would be interesting to see a world where all values – like life and death – were inverted. As hitmen, death was Sinister and Dexter’s business before the zombie apocalypse, so now they’re really making a killing!”
Aided by artist Kieran Mckeown, Karl Stock is reviving ’80s competitive combaters Mean Arena as Meat Arena. “‘Future sport with zombies’ is almost a premise in its own right,” he laughs. “It’s a nasty piece of work, and I had George Romero’s blunt satire in the back of my mind as I wrote it.” SJ
2000 AD Prog 2300 and Judge Dredd Megazine 448 are both out on 21 September.