Book Review // Rico Dredd: The Titan Years by Michael Carroll
This book seemed like the perfect follow-up to yesterday’s Titan overview. Rico Dredd: The Titan Years by Michael Carroll, an author who has produced some great work in the Dreddverse, so I am excited to read this and learn more about the iconic character.
Title: Rico Dredd: The Titan Years
Author: Michael Carroll
Buy it now via my affiliate link to Amazon
Description:
Original fiction featuring the story of Judge Dredd's evil twin Rico's years on Titan is finally revealed.
“You know about me. I'm Rico Dredd, Joe Dredd's big brother. I'm the clone that went bad, that brought shame on Judge Fargo's legacy. I was a Judge, the best the Academy of Law ever turned out. The very best. But after less than a year on the streets of Mega-City One, I was brought down, taken in. It was Little Joe who caught me; second-best Judge there's been.
Broken, sentenced, stripped of office, I was shipped out to the brutal moon Titan to do my twenty years' hard labour. Yeah, you know about Rico Dredd. But do you know what really happened? Why I did it? What it was like, out there on the edge of space, doing time in the Bronze? Truth is, mister, you know stomm about me.
Style: Paperback
Page Count: 480 pages
Publisher: Abaddon
Review
Rico has had a lasting effect on the fans in 2000 AD for such a short-lived character. He even managed an appearance in the Sly movie version! Much was left in mystery for such an iconic character, and now, finally, we get some background.
The Titan Years is a book of collected novellas that follows Rico's twenty-year stay on Titan. The prison on Titan is full of some of Earth's most potent, roughest and deadliest criminals (including rogue Judges). Here, the inmates are expected to work on the Bronze (the surface of Titan), mining for a precious mineral. Ships rarely visit here, and outside the colony, there is no life, so there is no way to escape, or at least that's what the guards want the inmates to think.
I enjoyed the writing style of these tales, with Rico taking on the role of narration, meaning we can't believe this is fact or his "fact" of events. We see how Rico justifies his actions and the lengths he will go to to return to Earth. You end up feeling for Rico and hoping he will become a better man, even though you know what will ultimately happen. Rico knows he deserves to be on Titan, but throughout, he stands by his choices and thinks the system is broken and needs changing. You can't help but agree with Rico's viewpoint on the world and how wrong the Justice system is, something Judge Dredd seems to be dealing with now.
Ultimately, this is a fantastic story that fills out Rico's back story and makes me wish Rico had survived in the comics longer than the one story he got back in the day. It is well worth the read and deserves to be enjoyed by all Judge Dredd fans. I would love to see this series become a graphic novel.
