First print date: January 9 1982
Prog appearance: 246
Writer(s): John Wagner
Artist(s): Carlos Ezquerra
Total episodes: 25
The Apocalypse War, Episode II
Note: A quick explanation: everyone in Mega-City One lives in massive tower blocks, the equivalent I would guess of skyscrapers, though presumably much bigger. Each block is named, usually after some icon or famous person, hence the rather odd/familiar names used throughout this and other stories whenever dealing with habitation blocks.
As Block Wars rage on through Mega-City One, Sov-Blok nuclear missiles target the city and destroy much of it. The city's laser mesh grid, designed to protect the huge metropolis like, we assume, a force field, is not up to the task as there are thousands of missiles being launched at once, and they were not designed for such an onslaught, so H-Wagon defences are brought up too, but even this may not be enough. The odd Cityblock is able to take out a missile or two, but this is pure coincidence: locked in Block Mania, they assume this is some other block firing and retaliate accordingly, completely unaware that their entire city is under attack. Meanwhile, Mega-City One's retaliatory strike has claimed millions of victims in the East; the Diktatorat, safely underground now in their nuclear-proof bunker, see the destruction and loss of life as vital to drain as much of Mega-City One's defences as possible. The more missiles the Meggers send, the less they'll have to send when the Sovs decide to put the second phase of their attack (one would assume there is a second phase; the Sovs are not just relying on taking out as much as they can with their missiles and then calling it a day!) so everything is going according to plan.
Not so of course for Dredd and his people, who are suffering massive casualties and, more to the point, were taken unawares and so have not been able to emulate the Sovs and get their leadership to safety. Any moment now a lucky strike could take out the Hall of Justice. Back in the Sov-Block, Bulgarin contacts the leaders of Mega-City Two and Texas City (which will sometimes be referred to as Mega-City Three) and assures them that their beef is with Mega-City One only; if neither of the other two cities interfere they will not be targeted. Happy to leave Mega-City One to its fate, the Chief Judges of each of the other two cities agree they will not get involved. Bulgarin sneers at what he sees as their cowardice as the communication link is broken, promising their time will come, and then he issues orders to unleash stage three of their attack. Oh yeah: stage one was initiating Block War, the attack is stage two. So what will stage three be? Invasion? Surely not.
Quotes
Bugs Bunny blocker (watching the missiles fall): “Them blockers down south are sure throwing down some heavy stuff!”
Magnus Pyke Block City-def: “We got them! The fleapit was overdue for a cleanup anyway, and we were just the block to do it!” (They disrupted one of the Sov missiles with a sonic cannon and sent it hurtling into the infamous slum known locally as the Flea Pit).
Chief Judge Griffin: “The East-Meg sneak attack has hit us hard! We're losing on all fronts!”
Vlad: “Four sektors down already! Death toll over seven million! Why are we allowing their missiles to penetrate?”
Snekov: “It is vital that we drain as much of their strength as we can at this stage. You worry too much, Vlad. Everything is going to plan.”
Bulgarin: “By now you will be aware of our pre-emptive strike on the warmongering, imperialist Mega-City One. This matter is strictly between our two cities. Our allies will not interfere, unless your cities foolishly decide to aid the enemy.”
Texas City Chief Judge: “We don't want no world war! Texas City will not intervene, as long as the other East-Meg cities keep their word.”
Mega-City Two Chief Judge: “Mega-City Two will also remain uninvolved, provided no hostile act is perpetrated against us.”
Bulgarin: “I assure you comrades, nothing could be further from our minds.”
Laughing in the face of death
As the missiles fall, we see the Bob Oppenheimer Reclamation Project targeted. First of all, this is clever, as Robert Oppenheimer of course was the brain behind the first atom bomb, forerunner of the nuclear missiles now homing in, and second, as a reclamation project this site has obviously been renovated and rebuilt, and is about to be destroyed. As one onlooker groans “Not again!”
One of the I guess street names in the Fleapit is ... Parasite Boulevard.
Although they couldn't have known at the time, the word “vape” is used here, obviously meant as a shortened form of “vapourise”. Interesting that in our twenty-first century culture, this has now come to refer to the smoking of electronic cigarettes...
Return of the Nitpicker!
Just a small point, and it may not even be one, but when Snekov speaks about the other two Mega-Cities wishing to save their necks, it's spelt “knecks”. Is this a deliberate Russian (Sov) spelling, or has the letter got a little confused with all these “k”s?
I AM THE LAW!
Although he's standing right beside the Chief Judge, and given that, at this point, so far as I know anyway (though I could be wrong: we are after all time-jumping here) he has no special powers, no status other than as a senior Judge, Dredd seems to be taking over, issuing orders, demanding updates, virtually ordering even the Chief Judge around! Not a man to sit and wait for events to overtake him, Dredd knows that Mega-City One has limited time to respond to this sneak attack, and he wants to make sure they make the Sov-Blok pay for their treachery. He defers to Griffin, yes, but kind of only in a paying lipservice kind of way. Reading this prog, it's pretty clear that the man in charge is Judge Dredd.
Final note: when I started synopsising this episode it seemed to me that, not that surprisingly, much, indeed perhaps all of the story would be taken up with the arrival of the Sov missiles and their impact on their target, Mega-City One, and to some extent that's true. Laced with the usual black humour, this second episode does a good job of demonstrating the horrors of nuclear war. However, later in the episode we get two vital and key pieces of information, surely important to the plot.
The first is when Supreme Judge Bulgarin makes contact with Mega-City Two and Texas City, securing their promise that they will not interfere in the attack on Mega-City One, in exchange for assurances they themselves will not be targeted. Of course, we no more believe these oaths than we would a used car salesman, but the two Chief Judges seem to be taken in, or perhaps are just grateful for breathing space to prepare their cities for an attack they assume will be launched once Mega-City One has been brought to its knees.
The second piece of information is that there is indeed a third stage to the Sovs' plan, which is about to be put into place and which, presumably, we will hear of in the next prog. It's also interesting, if not a little chilling, to see that Snekov and Bulgarin at least are prepared to sacrifice millions of their countrymen to sap the strength of the Mega-City One attack. Vlad seems to be the only one decrying this; one might assume he may not last long into the story.