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Judge Dredd
Judge Dredd: Day Of Chaos: The Fourth Faction
Legendary Judge Dredd-co-creator John Wagner has written the longest, most eventful and world-shattering Dredd-epic of his career. Mega-City One has seen nothing like this since the Apocalypse War, and this time things are looking even darker. With the much-loved mayor of Mega-City One presumed dead by the citizens, an election has been scheduled to choose his successor. Cadet Judge Hennessey has predicted that something terrible will happen on the Election Day and she may be right. East-Meg assassin Nadia has arrived in the Big Meg, looking for a scientist who has created a very dangerous virus...
Hardcover
Published June 10, 2015
About the author
John Wagner
1,336 books191 followersJohn 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)
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 8, 2025
04/02/2025
This issue had two good stories running parallel at the same time, and while (yet) they don’t seem to be connected, they are both compelling and bring some of the stronger elements of judge Dredd and the 2000AD world to the forefront.
In Mega City One, the intelligent serial killer and the best mayor mega city ever had, PJ Maybe is languishing in a maximum security iso-cube. However, you can't keep a super intelligent killer down. In a daring escape, PJ Maybe is loose in the city, with Dredd, now, reluctantly on the judge council, personally taking the lead on the manhunt. Maybe, continues to evade capture through a mix of face changing technology, coercion, lies and murder, but with the mayoral elections coming up, maybe still holds a grudge on being deposed from office and has plans to enact revenge on his former deputy bathing in maybe’s mayoral legacy and to somehow return to political office.
At the same time, and rookie psi judge is getting visions of a (another) disaster to hit mega city one. With a less than Stella hit rate on her visions many aren’t taking the threat seriously. But Dredd is seeing some troubling evidence this judge is right. The legacy of the apocalypse war with Sov-city continues; a cell of Sov agents are planning an attack that will bring the city to its knees.
This brought two of my favourite plotlines from Judge Dredd together. I've always enjoyed PJ Maybe. The smart serial killer, always with a cunning plan, acting as a less confrontational foil to Dredd, who seems to have a personal grudge against Maybe, especially after Maybe’s stint as being the best mayor of Mega city one in living memory. Maybe is always fun to read. While his stories are never the big action ones, they do a respectable job of displaying the world of Judge Dredd in another light, with all its over the top and absurdities. It's fun to see how frustrated Dredd gets about Maybe, as he's less a problem he can hit or shot and one that seems at least two steps ahead.
The story running alongside is one that brings back one of the major events of judge Dredd, the apocalypse war with Sov-city. A cell of sleeper agents have infiltrated the city, with the aim of kidnapping a biochemist who created a deadly bioweapon. Dredd, placing his faith in the rookie hunts for this cell across the Meg and even into Siberia. But Dredd seems one step behind with the council holding him back, as Dredd tries to stop the revenge attack causing a catastrophic outbreak.
I really enjoyed this issue. The flip between the two stories allowed to highlight the strengths that Judge Dredd has, with the PJ Maybe plot, while not a parody be any means, allows more of the extreme elements of futuristic megacity to be showcased while the other story, I’d say has a more serious tone. The legacy of the apocalypse war still rages decades after (which after the nuclear destruction of Sov-city it would). This story is a mix of cat and mouse search for the sleeper cell and trying to interpret the visions of the psi judge, hit with bursts of action. All the strengths a good Judge Dredd story has, and the fact it treats this plotline straight, without forcing the more absurd elements (not too much anyway, they still have arena game of a staring contest) into it. By not treating it as a joke, this carries a heightened level of threat and suspense which I think it does pretty well.
There is a one-shot story, about a serial killer who skins his victims to make himself a selection of clothes, who lives in Ed Gein block (I did have a little chuckle over that, guiltily). This is like a classic over the top story, which had its tongue on its cheek just a little, but not too much to turn it into a complete joke, which is the amount I like.
The art I really liked, but I just like this kind of style. It worked well with story, and while it might not get as surreal or alternative it can sometimes with Dredd, I don’t think that is the right style for this type of story.
I really enjoyed this one, and looked forward to the second part, to see where each of the stories go, and if and how they’d converge in some way.
This issue had two good stories running parallel at the same time, and while (yet) they don’t seem to be connected, they are both compelling and bring some of the stronger elements of judge Dredd and the 2000AD world to the forefront.
In Mega City One, the intelligent serial killer and the best mayor mega city ever had, PJ Maybe is languishing in a maximum security iso-cube. However, you can't keep a super intelligent killer down. In a daring escape, PJ Maybe is loose in the city, with Dredd, now, reluctantly on the judge council, personally taking the lead on the manhunt. Maybe, continues to evade capture through a mix of face changing technology, coercion, lies and murder, but with the mayoral elections coming up, maybe still holds a grudge on being deposed from office and has plans to enact revenge on his former deputy bathing in maybe’s mayoral legacy and to somehow return to political office.
At the same time, and rookie psi judge is getting visions of a (another) disaster to hit mega city one. With a less than Stella hit rate on her visions many aren’t taking the threat seriously. But Dredd is seeing some troubling evidence this judge is right. The legacy of the apocalypse war with Sov-city continues; a cell of Sov agents are planning an attack that will bring the city to its knees.
This brought two of my favourite plotlines from Judge Dredd together. I've always enjoyed PJ Maybe. The smart serial killer, always with a cunning plan, acting as a less confrontational foil to Dredd, who seems to have a personal grudge against Maybe, especially after Maybe’s stint as being the best mayor of Mega city one in living memory. Maybe is always fun to read. While his stories are never the big action ones, they do a respectable job of displaying the world of Judge Dredd in another light, with all its over the top and absurdities. It's fun to see how frustrated Dredd gets about Maybe, as he's less a problem he can hit or shot and one that seems at least two steps ahead.
The story running alongside is one that brings back one of the major events of judge Dredd, the apocalypse war with Sov-city. A cell of sleeper agents have infiltrated the city, with the aim of kidnapping a biochemist who created a deadly bioweapon. Dredd, placing his faith in the rookie hunts for this cell across the Meg and even into Siberia. But Dredd seems one step behind with the council holding him back, as Dredd tries to stop the revenge attack causing a catastrophic outbreak.
I really enjoyed this issue. The flip between the two stories allowed to highlight the strengths that Judge Dredd has, with the PJ Maybe plot, while not a parody be any means, allows more of the extreme elements of futuristic megacity to be showcased while the other story, I’d say has a more serious tone. The legacy of the apocalypse war still rages decades after (which after the nuclear destruction of Sov-city it would). This story is a mix of cat and mouse search for the sleeper cell and trying to interpret the visions of the psi judge, hit with bursts of action. All the strengths a good Judge Dredd story has, and the fact it treats this plotline straight, without forcing the more absurd elements (not too much anyway, they still have arena game of a staring contest) into it. By not treating it as a joke, this carries a heightened level of threat and suspense which I think it does pretty well.
There is a one-shot story, about a serial killer who skins his victims to make himself a selection of clothes, who lives in Ed Gein block (I did have a little chuckle over that, guiltily). This is like a classic over the top story, which had its tongue on its cheek just a little, but not too much to turn it into a complete joke, which is the amount I like.
The art I really liked, but I just like this kind of style. It worked well with story, and while it might not get as surreal or alternative it can sometimes with Dredd, I don’t think that is the right style for this type of story.
I really enjoyed this one, and looked forward to the second part, to see where each of the stories go, and if and how they’d converge in some way.
September 8, 2020
In which John Wagner, slowly but surely, begins the destruction of half his creation and does so beautifully. Using the absurdist frame of the election to fool us through classic Simp action, and using PJ Maybe as another distraction of black humour, Wagner slowly puts his mechanism together so when in the next volume everything collapses there’s an awful vertiginous plummet into horror. The Day of Chaos itself is now weirdly reminiscent of our own virus filled world, but this is the sort of conspiracy the chumps would like to believe - that dumb luck isn’t responsible but some hideous design is. Hideous design suggests a way of working against that but no such luck for us right now. Still a masterpiece of comic writing and art even ten years later
October 12, 2025
Dredd at his finest: dark, witty, ultra-violent and gripping. Nobody writes Dredd like John Wagner and the art here is consistently good with none of the jarring switches in style sometimes found in these compilations. Mega City One's finest was on a great run here.
June 22, 2025
First part of the Day Of Chaos epic mega-epic. Wagner spends time getting his dominoes in order and delights in teasing at what’s coming. Art’s great. Nice to see Stewart Lee Block too.
July 5, 2015
This is the prelude to the epic day of chaos. It begins with the Skinning room - in which Dredd heads a crackdown zero tolerance policy on a random block and uncovers a serial killer who likes to skin his victims living in Ed Gein block on Dahmer Street...
The rest of the book follows two distinct threads on the one hand we have the ever identity changing P.J. Maybe who is caught whilst masquerading as mayor and escapes custody only to try and assassinate other candidates for mayor.
Psi-trainee Hennessey has a vision that during the election something big will go down which leads nicely into the second arc about an embittered Soviet agent trying to manufacture a biological weapon. Dredd follows Hennessey's predictions but always seems to get there too late.
This one's really dark and violent. It would make a great film/TV adaptation. It's more realistic than other stories - clear cut cops and criminals without the mutations and way out weirdness of a lot of Dredd. Also features some of my fav artists: Henry Flint, Colin Macneil.
Exciting stuff and an absolute must for Dredd fans.
The rest of the book follows two distinct threads on the one hand we have the ever identity changing P.J. Maybe who is caught whilst masquerading as mayor and escapes custody only to try and assassinate other candidates for mayor.
Psi-trainee Hennessey has a vision that during the election something big will go down which leads nicely into the second arc about an embittered Soviet agent trying to manufacture a biological weapon. Dredd follows Hennessey's predictions but always seems to get there too late.
This one's really dark and violent. It would make a great film/TV adaptation. It's more realistic than other stories - clear cut cops and criminals without the mutations and way out weirdness of a lot of Dredd. Also features some of my fav artists: Henry Flint, Colin Macneil.
Exciting stuff and an absolute must for Dredd fans.
November 4, 2015
The start of a huge epic is a gory slow burner, a serial killer with some great little subtle jokes hidden under the skin. Then it just gets worse for the MegaCity. A scientist and his family kidnapped by the Sovs, a young PSI division Judge having visions that become accurate all leading up to some big catastrophe. Meanwhile mass murderer PJ Maybe has escaped the Judges clutches.
All meshing together to make it seemingly more than just a day in the life of Judge Dredd.
All meshing together to make it seemingly more than just a day in the life of Judge Dredd.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews