The Pit

Judge Dredd: The Mega Collection #40

by John Wagner, Carlos Ezquerra (Artist), Colin MacNeil (Artist)

Sector House 301 in the North West Hab Zone is an underperforming and corrupt Judicial outpost in Mega-City One. Nicknamed 'The Pit' because it's become a dumping ground for every misfit and failure on the force, a clean-up is long overdue. Dredd has been tasked with instigating a new regime in 301, and bringing its personnel into line- but can even the future cop cut it as Sector Chief?

Written by John Wagner (A History of Violence) with art from Carlos Ezquerra (Strontium Dog), Colin MacNeil (America), Alex Ronald (Missionary Man) and Lee Sullivan (Doctor Who), this tense procedural thriller is one of Dredd's most explosive epics.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Science Fiction

208 pages, Hardcover

Published March 1, 2016

About the author

John Wagner is a comics writer who was born in Pennsylvania in 1949 and moved to Scotland as a boy. Alongside Pat Mills, Wagner was responsible for revitalising British boys' comics in the 1970s, and has continued to be a leading light in British comics ever since. He is best known for his work on 2000 AD, for which he created Judge Dredd. He is noted for his taut, violent thrillers and his black humour. Among his pseudonyms are The best known are John Howard, T.B. Grover, Mike Stott, Keef Ripley, Rick Clark and Brian Skuter. (Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Matthew Marcus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Modern Dredd starts here. After some years of what we'll politely refer to as "languishing in the doldrums" under half-baked writers such as Ennis, Millar and Morrison, the strip finally calls back in the services of John Wagner... who basically reinvents the whole thing and gives it enough new vigour and vim to last for the *next* 1000 weekly progs.

The idea is essentially a 22nd Century Hill Street Blues. "The Judges" are no longer just a flimsy pretext to justify the gun-toting action story of the week, but an organisation of living, breathing people, some good, some bad, most somewhere in between. With Joe Dredd drafted in as the Section Chief of one of Mega-City One's most notorious (and that's just the bent Judges) districts, his problems are mostly no longer resolvable by a correct choice of Lawgiver bullets. A memorable cast of supporting characters - DeMarco, Guthrie, Priest, Giant, and many more - adds a pleasing element of soap opera to the proceedings. Characters whose fortunes you can follow and care about for weeks, months or years - much as we all love Joe Dredd, he was never going to be a great vehicle for surprise character development.

You may not really realise how good Wagner is until you see his work contrasted with that of lesser scribes in the context of the Mega Collection. Take the saga of framed-up, gone-partly-native, on-the-wrong-side-of-the-law undercover Judge Guthrie. Wagner invents this whole plotline so effortlessly as to seem like it isn't at all hard (while juggling it with all the other subplots taking place in The Pit, of course!) but the concept has such legs that we've subsequently seen both Simon Spurrier (The Simping Detective) and Rob Williams (Low Life) rip it off wholesale. Even to the extent of creating their own private "dumping grounds for the worst elements of the city", Angeltown and The Low Life. Well, Wagner did it first and easily the best with The Pit. I doubt that anyone else will ever come close to being able to bring Dredd's world alive in the same way, more's the pity.

[Leila Anani · Rating 4 out of 5]

Judge Dredd meets Hill Street Blues. Sector 301, more commonly known as "The Pit" is a dumping ground for all the Judges who fail to make the cut - It's their one last chance before being kicked out completely. Corruption abounds and often the judges are worse than the criminals. When the sector chief dies, Dredd is sent in to replace him and turn the worst performing precinct into one of the best. But first he has to work out who he can trust.

This is classic cop drama with a fantastic supporting cast including the very human Galen DeMarco and Undercover rogue Guthrie. Absolutely loved this one. Its a simple story, but made interesting by the constant action and wonderful array of characters. Accompanied by top notch art.

Would make a terrific film, there's tonnes of action, and sympathetic characters who genuinely make you care. While it doesn't have much weird, this is very straightforward police drama, albeit set in the 2000AD universe, it's still essential reading for Dredd fans and shows Ol' Stoney Face's competence and skill, along with the usual biting satire. Big thumbs up.

[Philip Higgins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much of this collection is the work of Dredd's co-creators, writer John Wagner and artist Carlos Ezquerra. This was a dream team and The Pit is rightly regarded as a classic. The Dreddverse is a broad church and this tale of police corruption took a harder, more realistic turn than previous epics (no rampaging robots, aliens or dinosaurs). Think "Line Of Duty" but with added machine-gun blazing motorbikes. Dredd is placed in charge of sector house 301, a corrupt police station in the heart of the city's worst district. He sets about cleaning these Augean stables with his typical no nonsense approach.

We get interesting new characters like Galen DeMarco (sexy conflicted cop) and Guthrie, a rogue undercover judge whose hardboiled Mega City street talk is amusingly incomprehensible. There's plenty of trademark humour - I loved the cultists awaiting Armageddon who seem to miraculously survive the mayhem all around. Dredd shows surprising flexibility and compassion before a climactic battle at a besieged cop shop: when we hear it's called "subsection Alamo" we know what to expect and aren't disappointed.

I enjoyed it a lot and this hardback has a terrific cover and nice intro from 2000AD editor Matt Smith. It only drops a star as the artists chop and change, the late great Ezquerra missing from the final pages. I'm looking forward to filling in more gaps in my Dredd library with plenty more recent epics to catch up on.

[Johnny Andrews · Rating 5 out of 5]

301 precinct is where the lowest ebbs of the Judges are sent, maybe they annoyed someone higher up. However since 301 dubbed the Pit is where you end up it is rife with corruption and most of the Judges do not seem to be that bothered.
So Dredd is sent to clean up.
We meet undercover Judge Guthrie and Judge DeMarco two good Judges with depth and a great foil to ol' Stony Face.
Bringing in some of his own men, Dredd seeks out the corrupt Judges and then it is all out war with a seemingly untouchable gang leader.
Great stuff.

[Mat Tait · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun, propulsive script by John Wagner, let down by some truly poor art in certain episodes.

[Al No · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wagner shows the pretenders how it’s done with an intricate, hard-boiled, procedural-cum-mega-epic that doesn’t bounce between titles. Cracking stuff. No back-up essay.