Judge Dredd Vs. Aliens: Incubus #4 - Dark Horse Comics

JUDGE DREDD VS. ALIENS: INCUBUS No. 4, June 2003

Firmly focusing upon the exploits of a seemingly ‘destined to die’ Joe Dredd, John Wagner and Andy Diggle’s script for Issue Four of “Judge Dredd Verses Aliens: Incubus” certainly provided its audience with ample evidence as to just why the senior street judge is Mega-City One’s toughest lawman. In fact, considering that Fargo’s clone has already been ‘fatally’ impregnated by a Facehugger before this particular publication even starts, it is difficult to imagine a more grimly determined incarnation of the Apocalypse War veteran than that presented to this comic book’s audience in 2003.

Fortunately however, unlike the much more emotional Judge Sanchez, whose hysteria at having an embryo embedded inside her body almost unhinges her mind, Dredd seems to take a sort of stoic comfort in the fact that he can still serve his city one last time by ridding the metropolis of the extra-terrestrial threat, as well as the presence of the nefarious Mister Bones too. This fatalistic philosophy makes Pat Mill’s co-creation arguably deadlier than ever, as he engineers a truly horrific, albeit fitting, death for the leader of the anti-Judge activists and mutants who have killed so many of his fellow law officers; “M-My pheromone tag! He’s crushed it --! B-Back! G-Get back! Please -- You m-must recognise me! It’s me -- D-Daddy-!”

Unsurprisingly, this twenty-four page periodical’s creative team also can’t resist setting up a somewhat ‘Ripley-like’ confrontation between Dredd and the alien hive’s queen. Packed full of pulse-pounding tension as the dying Judge declares his intention to gun the egg-laying monstrosity down where she stands, many of this comic’s readers were probably as slacked jawed as Sanchez is portrayed as being at the thought of just a couple of lawgivers taking down an entire Xenomorph XX121 nest. But the lawman’s desperate attempt to crush the aliens’ ruler beneath an unstable cement ceiling, whilst simultaneously trying to escape via an old subway station’s exit “sealed off with resin”, makes for a sense-shattering action sequence.

Similarly as successful is the writing duo’s ‘spotlight’ upon the guilt-laden Packer and her inner demons at having underestimated the deadliness of her pest control team’s current prey. Resolute to neutralise the “alien frenzy” once and for all under an unrelenting torrent of boiling lava, Dredd and Sanchez seemed determined to ‘die like a judge’ until the Verminator’s leader makes a highly memorable self-sacrifice using her jet-pack's fuel supply as a ready-made explosive, and engulfs the entire old Grand Central Station, and then some, with flesh-sizzling magma.

Writers: John Wagner & Andy Diggle, Art: Henry Flint, and Colors: Chris Blythe