Random Happenstance

I've had a copy of this one for years, and it's still a favorite, even though it maybe made me less of a fan of Dredd. From 1986, Quality Special #2--the Midnight Surfer Special, reprinting from 1985's 2000 AD #424-#429, written by John Wagner, art by Cam Kennedy. 

 

First, this is a great package, collecting the 6-prog storyline, but more than that, as the GCD explains: "The story has been substantially tinkered with for US publication. British comic size pages have been slightly stretched, or elongated via extra art to more closely resemble a standard US size page. Furthermore, panels have been re-sized or differently placed to ensure the story runs more smoothly in the US format. In the original printing only some splash pages were in color." I wonder if it wasn't cost-effective, though, since Quality/Fleetway usually stuck to straight reprints. 

The only thing it misses, I wouldn't read until years later: the lead here, Chopper, appeared in an earlier Judge Dredd story, putting him in the rarefied ranks of recurring perps. At that point, I think there would've been Judge Death, and Chopper, and that was it! (Maybe Mean Machine Angel.) Previously, Chopper had been a young offender, a graffiti artist in an escalating competition to be "King Scrawler." Years later, he had rehabilitated...to some extent. He had taken up power boarding, or sky-surfing; which wasn't illegal except at lower altitudes. Chopper was determined to not let Mega-City One break him down and make him just another nobody, so was set on making his name by winning the illegal cross-city race, Supersurf 7. Dredd questions Chopper about the race, and knows the score immediately, so he has him put under surveillance.   

Chopper gets the call with the meet location in code, and quickly realizes he's being tailed by drone cameras. He considers bagging out, to protect the other racers, but can't bring himself to quit, and cuts a dangerous path through the city to ditch the cameras. Then, a scene familiar to kung-fu movies: introducing a bunch of cool badasses ready to compete in the tournament, most if not all of whom would be dead before long. The Supersurf course wasn't exactly the scenic route, but it was supposed to be a challenge, culminating in taking the Manfred Fox tunnel, backwards, against traffic.

There were fatalities before the pack even gets there, but at Mega-City advertising landmark the Okeydokey Man we maybe see why Supersurf and low-altitude boarding was illegal, as a surfer "shooting the O" wipes out, taking a massive truck with him and causing a massive pile-up. Dredd orders the Judges to "shoot to kill," which hopefully was in the name of public safety and not because the surfers were thumbing their collective nose at the Law. 

While most of the racers are shot down, wiped-out, or arrested; it comes down to the previous world champion Yakamoto and Chopper: Yakamoto gets clipped by a truck's mirror and goes down, and Chopper goes back to save him, although Yakamoto still dies from his injuries. Dredd himself arrests Chopper, but he knows Mega-City One won't forget his name, and the Law will never break him...

And even this wasn't the last we would see of Chopper, although I was perfectly satisfied with this story. That entry notes Chopper's next appearance would break up the Alan Grant/John Wagner partnership, and how he was supposed to die in a later appearance but was brought back, which Wagner may have later felt was probably a mistake. And this issue was maybe the first where I saw Dredd not as the action-hero, but as an obstacle: it might've taken me a bit, but I was starting to notice he wasn't always the "good guy."