Him turning to a death cult for the final transformation feels maybe a bit underwhelming (it’s sort of like a deus ex machina for this sole purpose), but Wags doesn’t just throw that set piece / concept away – he builds up to it and digs into it for several pages.

And there’s a really good balance of creepiness, here: artist Pete Doherty includes plenty of comedy beats, but doesn’t sell short on the gorier stuff, as Death recalls his buildup from torturer to murderer to, y’know, Judge Death. As mentioned, I think that Wagner has always written the Dark Judge with a note of camp, and the character sitting down with a reporter in order that his history may be told to the masses, educating them on why they’re full of sin… there’s something so gloriously loopily perfect about it that just fits with how I could understand Death’s logic working, especially after suffering another failure at the hands of Dredd and crew. Gunderson – Death, licking his wounds post-Necropolis, logically has to find a place to live, and stumbles across an opening in the nearly blind and deaf elder’s building, but I found the balance to be perfect.

Dredd Reckoning seems to bash on this tale a bit, as it goes for some slapstick with Death’s landlord, Mrs. It starts so strongly, though, with “Young Death,” the origin story of Death and the planet from whence he came, as serialized in the initial Judge Dredd Megazine issues. Depending on your take on the different variations of that – which tend to be more absurd than horrific, although an undercurrent of viciousness is always there – will determine how successful this trade is for you me, I’m good with a little goofiness with Death, since I think that’s been inherent in his character since the get-go, but the equation does get a rather out of whack when Wagner sends Jay on a cross-Cursed Earth road trip, as arted by the absurdist black and whites of Frazier Irving. Can you get enough of Judge Death? That’s really the question this collection of “Jay De’Ath” post-Necropolis strips poses, and not just because the character features in all of the storylines, but because writer John Wagner has blown past any limitations in how the character is handled, and presents him as blown out of proportion as possible.

Necropolis john wagner