America

[TordelBack]

Spurred by the reappearance of Total War at the start of "...Regrets", I bought and devoured the very beautiful new collection of America 1 and 2 and Cadet, which is a treat of enormous proportions, and sports a very nice Wagner introduction and the script for Cadet Part 1.  Highly recommended, a quality production and a great way to showcase McNeil's changing style, and one of the greatest Dredd tales of them all.

Now I have two questions and an observation.  

1.  In Fading of the Light we see that the Statue of Liberty has been blown up, despite Total War's earlier failure.  By who?  Was this in the prog/meg during my wilderness years, or did it happen "off screen"?

2.  Bennett claims that America died from having a piece of shrapnel from the getaway vehicle lodged in her brain.  Then in Cadet Beeny's reinvestigation of the case, we see that she was shot in the head, something its hard to see clearly in the original strip.  If it was the shrapnel that actually killed her, why didn't Dredd bring this up when Beeny observed that the Judge responsible had only received a verbal reprimand - from Bennett's account, the shot was almost incidental.  Am I missing something?  

And the observation:  I'd forgotten that America Beeny's unborn half-brother Tony had been aborted as a mutant by the Judges (at 6 months plus, fercrissakes) after a 'routine' amnocentesis test during her 'rehabilitation' after the 16 Million-cit march way back in Democracy.  I was amazed to see this connection between America, Total War and the Mutant Question right there in the original story.  Clever stuff, even if Wagner denies that he planned it that way in his introduction.

[TordelBack]

Shee-ite, I've just realised the opening line of my post was a big spoiler for the current Prog. My sincere apologies, I'm too wrapped in the warm afterglow of a good long trade.

[Cthulouis]

Regarding question 1, wasn't it just the hand that was blown off? If I remember rightly, in Fading of Light we don't see anything other than the hand, but the rest of the statue is still standing, with a stump where the torch should be.

I remember seeing the statue at the start of the Blind Justice trade when I was younger, and being really confused by the missing hand.

[Leigh S]

If it was in anything, I have a fear it might be in Inferno, but i'm too scared to look!  Do you see what happens to the Statue of Liberty when the giant city spanning Statue of Judgemetn falls over? Otherwise, I can only assume an off camera thing...?

[JOE SOAP]

Do you see what happens to the Statue of Liberty when the giant city spanning Statue of Judgemetn falls over? Otherwise, I can only assume an off camera thing...?

Well considering that the Statue of Judgement (in Inferno) falls through the west wall when it's actually physically situated on the east coast harbour, we can safely dismiss that story methinks.

[JOE SOAP]

***2. Bennett claims that America died from having a piece of shrapnel from the getaway vehicle lodged in her brain.***

Thats what the judges said to Bennett Beeny, not necessarily true though. Now that Beeny's a judge it's a different story that doesn't actually conflict with waht we see in America Pt. 1.



***And the observation: I'd forgotten that America Beeny's unborn half-brother Tony had been aborted as a mutant by the Judges (at 6 months plus, fercrissakes)***

Wouldn't it be great if Beeny found that the judges lied and Tony was actually put in the mutant internment camps and is brought back to the city?

[Richard T Field]

Will double check but when I asked I never got an answer.

Link: Thread 17970

[TordelBack]

We appear to see the stump of the original statue in the foreground of the panel that shows the torch and the Statue of Judgement together.  Unless I've my dates arseways, Inferno farted in our faces in 1993, and Fading of the Light was about 1996, so it's a possibility... if not a palatable one. We did however see the Statue of Liberty back in (more or less) one piece in 1995, when PSU is being installed in the new Statue of Judgement, so maybe it was blown up sometime after that?

[TordelBack]

Thats what the judges said to Bennett Beeny, not necessarily true though.

Aha. Good enough for me, although he did see the shot himself, and he did have some fairly expensive surgery carried out on the 'body', so he probably had an idea about cause of death....

Wouldn't it be great if Beeny found that the judges lied and Tony was actually put in the mutant internment camps and is brought back to the city?

Yes. Yes it would.

[The Adventurer]

I loved America when I first got to read it a year and a half ago. I had only just gotten into Judge Dredd at the time, I had some Case Files under my belt, the current stuff (at the time), some of the TPs Rebellion had been pumping out.  I liked Dredd and his world a lot. But America, phew. That was something. It really opened my eyes to the depth Dredd and Mega City 1 really have.

I said it before, what America reminds me of the most is Marvels. With it's "citizen" eye view of a world generally seen through a bigger then life "hero" and its painted realistic art.

The follow-ups seem to lose that theme however, they come across as standard Judge Dredd/Mega City 1 type stories. Which is cool, as the cast and events of America has certainly provided a lot of meat to build upon (and Judge Beeny is easily one of my favorite current characters). But honestly, I'd like to see another series with the kind of theme America had. I'd really been hoping Origins would have been like that. Alas, it was not to be.

[Pete Wells]

I'm an idiot! I bought America last week but because I've read part one so many times I dived straight into parts two and three and missed the Wagner intro!

Whoosh! (that is the sound of Pete the tit excitedly rushing off to read it!)

[Leigh S]

It'd be nice if they could gfix that primitive computer colouring on part 2 - very distracting

[TordelBack]

It'd be nice if they could gfix that primitive computer colouring on part 2 - very distracting

This is true.  The art on America 2 is much better than I remembered, but the colouring is a bit sore-thumby when compared to teh subtle and effective work on Cadet.   Having the three styles together definitely helps you see McNeil's work on 2 as part of an evolution rather than  a decline.  I'd also forgotten how much I loved McNeil's insane exit wounds.

[The Adventurer]

I still prefer him Painted. *flashes back to his work on America and Terror*

Why doesn't he do that any more?

[IndigoPrime]

Probably for reasons of time (his) or costs (his clients' wallets). I've always liked his b/w stuff (Chopper, Dredd, etc.), and if he's coloured, it needs to be subtle. The colouring in America 2 is just dreadful.

I'm still hoping to see Top Dog in the next Strontium Dog collection, despite the chances of that being, ooh, about 1 in 46 billion.