Judge Dredd: Pre-Emptive Revenge
Starring: Toby Longworth as Judge Dredd and Simon Pegg as Johnny Alpha
Format: 1 full-cast CD (or formerly download) with no episode breaks, no longer available for first-hand purchase
Silly? Yes, in a 2000 AD way. There are outright comedy scenes, and the action scenes are too over-the-top to take seriously.
Standalone? Happens during a specific event in 2000 AD comics and only gives the barest details of that event, so not really.
Recommended? Collectors of 2000 AD might want this CD as an interesting piece of memorabilia, but I wouldn't particularly recommend it just for listening.
My reactions to this story contain spoilers for it.
Before listening
I was wondering when my Selectortron would hit something out of print. This story is no longer available for purchase from Big Finish and CDs of it seem at least slightly hard to find. Fortunately for me, Big Finish does continue to allow downloads of already-purchased discontinued items, so I can get this onto my current computer and give it a listen.I think I've heard this story exactly once. It's packaged in the Judge Dredd range but is actually a more or less equal crossover between Judge Dredd and Strontium Dog, two serials from legendary British comics magazine 2000 AD. From what I recall, Big Finish's treatment of Judge Dredd is drawn directly from the comics with no reference to film adaptations; Strontium Dog is a more obscure property that doesn't have any other adaptations to speak of.
I remember being able to follow this story despite not really knowing much about either of the properties crossing over. The crossover apparently has a very specific placement in both comic series' timelines and the nature of that placement might add some sort of additional narrative weight, but I recall it basically working as a story on its own.
I don't clearly remember how much I liked this story, but I'm pretty sure I didn't dislike it. I think I might have liked the Strontium Dog parts more than the Judge Dredd parts, but I am not sure about that.
After listening
Ian Hallard, as directed by John Ainsworth, really did a terrible job of a Chinese accent. His Chinese character gets the third most lines, after Dredd and Alpha, and the performance is more or less inexcusable. On a lesser note but also a hallmark of laziness, there is a scene where Johnny Alpha successfully shocks a flatline.The story starts in medias res, with Johnny Alpha and Judge Dredd traveling together after a successful mission together (the 2000 AD comic crossover event Judgement Day, from 1992). Dredd hates mutants and hates hearing about events that are in his own time's future, and Alpha is a mutant who has traveled back in time, so they are not getting along. It initially seems that Alpha is obviously the relatively good guy of the two, but he ends up angrily jumping into the "bad cop" side of an interrogation that Dredd hadn't even asked for help with, so Alpha doesn't just uniformly hold the moral high ground. The banter is funny and well-paced until the aforementioned accent shows up.
Since I haven't read Judgement Day, I don't know how much of what this audio says was established in it and how much is new for the audio. Just going by what I'm told in Pre-Emptive Revenge itself, there is a logical last thing that Dredd and Alpha need to deal with after the success of their main mission before they can go home: Dredd and Alpha destroyed Sino-Cit One to stop a zombie infestation, but Sino-Cit One had a nearby mutually assured destruction failsafe and a nuclear missile is preparing to launch. The title refers both to this and to a question of whether Dredd is going to betray Alpha instead of helping him return to his own time.
I enjoyed most of this audio, but the matter of Ian Hallard's Chinese accent and the difficulty of acquisition are enough that I wouldn't recommend anyone try to track it down on CD just for the sake of hearing it. As the only Judge Dredd/Strontium Dog crossover in the audio medium, it is an interesting curiosity and might be worth seeking out to a collector of 2000 AD memorabilia.
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