Review by Karl Verhoven

Rend & Tear With Tooth & Claw collects three Judge Dredd stories written by Rob Williams and drawn by R.M. Guéra, best known for his work on American series Scalped. Each has a different mood, and each is phenomenally well drawn by Guéra no matter the location. He is the complete package as an artist. His gritty style suits Dredd, he’s a storytelling master, great with both character and page designs and there’s no shortage of detail either. What an artistic treat this collection is.

While the art is always first noticed, Rob Williams supplies scripts to match the illustrations, cementing the excellece.

In the title strip Dredd is sent on a mission outside Mega-City One. Picking his own team, he includes a cadet. The mission rapidly goes bad when their craft is shot down by inhabitants of an icy area used to the conditions, so negating the advantage of the Judges’ technology. A bad situation becomes worse when a bear arrives, from which Williams develops a tense and compelling chase scene. Readers know Dredd is going to survive, and the trick to writing successfully about such characters is to introduce that seed of doubt that he may not, which Williams handles masterfully. Guéra’s art is fiddly, yet colourist Giulia Brusco shows no hint of being troubled by the detail and contributes greatly to an excellent story, one that’s relatively simple, yet utterly thrilling.

‘Tunnels’ takes Dredd to Ciudad Barrancuilla, but before then there’s the credulity-stretching incident of a rogue Judge taking out an entire sector house. It’s one of those stories contrasting the compromises the local Judges make in order maintain a semblance of peace with Dredd’s rigidity about the law. “These are the actions of a gangster” a local claims as Dredd sets about someone, only for Dredd to supply the emphatic reply “No. These are the actions of a Judge”. Guéra and Brusco supply vivid jungle scenery and a suitably inhumane ending rank this as another treat despite the shaky start.

Williams ensures a couple of clever visual moments for the single chapter ‘The Man Comes Around’, but it’s a more standard strip. Dredd feels old, but remains determined enough to deal with a perp who’s devised a killing gas.

The combination of the two longer strips make this a Dredd collection to be reckoned with.