2000 AD #1142
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeProg 1142 is the opening chapter of 'The Doomsday Scenario,' the last major Judge Dredd epic before the millennium, and the first Dredd crossover structured so that the prog and the Judge Dredd Megazine told entirely separate but interlocking viewpoints of the same story from start to finish — a genuinely novel narrative experiment for British anthology comics. The issue kicks off the 'Return of the Assassin' sequence, pulling together Orlok the Assassin, Psi-Judge Anderson, the long-running Galen DeMarco subplot, and the spectre of Dredd's role in the Apocalypse War into a single converging crisis. Running across two publications simultaneously, it marked the peak of John Wagner's years-long project of building a supporting cast — particularly the DeMarco–Dredd dynamic — that could sustain its own parallel storyline. Its placement in the anthology also means it sits alongside a chapter of Nikolai Dante during one of that strip's most dramatic periods, making the prog a snapshot of 2000 AD at full creative stretch in the final year of Egmont Fleetway's stewardship.
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Prog 1142 was published in April 1999 under Egmont Fleetway Ltd, shortly before Rebellion Developments acquired 2000 AD in 2000. The 'Doomsday Scenario' crossover was John Wagner's culmination of several years of groundwork: he had been seeding the Nero Narcos robot-crime-lord threat and developing Galen DeMarco as a civilian protagonist since 'The Pit' (progs 970–999), deliberately positioning her for a parallel narrative track. The opening 'Return of the Assassin' sequence — progs 1141 onward — was drawn by Cam Kennedy, whose kinetic style had long been associated with prestige Dredd storylines; subsequent chapters brought in Simon Davis and a roster of other artists, reflecting the ambition and the production complexity of sustaining two magazine storylines concurrently.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Prog 1142 is the second instalment of 'The Doomsday Scenario' (progs 1141–1164 and 1167, plus Judge Dredd Megazine vol. 3 #52–59), which Wikipedia and the Judge Dredd Wiki both describe as the first Judge Dredd story to run the same narrative from two completely different viewpoints concurrently across two separate publications.
- The 'Return of the Assassin' opening sequence (progs 1141–1147) was drawn by Cam Kennedy; the story sees a bounty placed on Dredd's head by the East-Meg One government in exile, which draws retired Sov assassin Orlok back into action.
- Orlok the Assassin — who first appeared in 'Block Mania' (prog 236) as the villain behind Mega-City One's water-supply poisoning — returns here as an ambiguous figure, initially a hunter of Dredd but ultimately an unlikely defender at Dredd's war-crimes trial.
- Psi-Judge Anderson plays a key role: she telepathically contacts Orlok upon his arrival in Mega-City One, and their prior relationship (established in earlier Anderson strips) becomes central to the plot's emotional mechanics.
- Galen DeMarco — who first appeared as a street judge in 'The Pit' (prog 970, 1995), created by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra — appears here as a newly resigned civilian, with the prog-side and Megazine-side stories tracking Dredd's kidnapping by Orlok and DeMarco's concurrent exposure of crime lord Nero Narcos' robot-army conspiracy respectively.
- The Nikolai Dante strip, created by writer Robbie Morrison and artist Simon Fraser and launched in prog 1035 (March 1997), also runs in this issue; 2000 AD's Wikipedia article notes that 1999 saw war break out within the Dante storyline, marking a tonal shift from swashbuckling adventure to full-scale armed conflict.
- Prog 1142 was published under Egmont Fleetway Ltd, the final major corporate owner of 2000 AD before Rebellion Developments purchased the title in 2000.
- The 'Doomsday Scenario' arc was later reprinted in collected form as part of the Judge Dredd Complete Case Files series published by Rebellion.
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