Michael Carroll (1) (1966–)

That was surprisingly better than I expected it to be 😊

The first story by Michael Carroll is basically a Western with Dredd as sheriff in a border town run by a corrupt business family, with high explosive weapons, mutants and radioactive twisters.

The second story by Matt Smith sees Dredd battered and bloodied, running a gauntlet of violent perps in a locked-down Mega-Block, not dissimilar to the excellent Karl Urban Dredd movie.

The last story by Cavan Scott is a detective mystery, show more featuring a female Trump-alike trillionaire politician and Deadliner, a serial killer targeting journalists. Dredd is assisted by a Psi-Judge, who wasn't Anderson but could just as well have been. Sadly, this story was marred by a section of egregious fatphobia 😕 I know the Fattie subculture is canon from the comics, but it can be used sensitivity or abusively, and unfortunately Scott went with the latter, which is a shame.

All the Dredd characteristics are here, but as an inexperienced newbie on the Mega-City One skeds, Joe is not infallible and he has some learning to do. Overall, a fun romp with a bit more going on than steel-chinned police brutality. show less

Roz, Abby, Thunder, Paragon, Brawn, Max and Lance find themselves teleported six years into the past; at the same moment Krodin, the 4500 year-old unkillable warrior brought to the current time by the fanatical Helotry, is nearly destroyed by Pyrokine but instead is inadvertently sent back six years prior to his battle with the young superhumans. Safely anonymous from the Superhuman community, Krodin plots his rise to power within the United States by befriending Max Dalton and using his show more powers of "persuasion" to his advantage. When the the Superhumans arrive, their world has been turned upside-down. The US is now a closed-border police state controlled by Krodin and his Praetorian guards, nearly all of the superhumans were murdered in a contrived nuclear terrorist attack which destroyed Anchorage and vaulted Krodin to supreme power.

While Roz and Max search for the others, Abby and Thunder look for Brawn, and Lance discovers his family, who had been murdered by Slaughter in his timeline, is still alive. But the world has changed in ways that none of the superhumans can accept, and when they learn of a resistance headed by a superhuman named Daedalus, they join up hoping to help him and the rest of the world fight Krodin.

Sequels often fall short of first novels, but I enjoyed this one immensely. It was action-packed, but thoughtful: Carroll wants his readers to consider the dangers of sacrificing freedom for security, and the slippery-slope toward fascism that this leads to. His characters are well-rounded, and moral--they care about their actions (or at least most do), and recognize that indiscriminate harm on others makes them less "super" because it destroys their integrity and character.

Stronger is the third in the series, and I expect all of the "regulars" will be returning, including our maniacal warrior-"friend," Krodin. show less

Okay so this is a bit better than the first Dress book in the omnibus, which was very simplistic. I've not read 200ad for many years now, and it was nice to be reminded of so many parts of the Dredd lore as i remember it, this book was a little more on depth with characterisation than the first book although it's still quite basic. Maybe they don't want to mess with someone else's characters to much? Anyway it's a little fun read and a little nostalgic for me.

Ten years ago a battle was fought after which all the superhumans, heroes and villains alike, disappeared. Did they die? Go into hiding? No one knows, but they are gone. Recently thirteen-year-olds Danny and Colin have begun changing, getting faster, stronger…and someone is not happy about this development. One of the better books I have read this year. Carroll’s novel has all the elements of both X-men and James Bond. Teen heroes face real ethical dilemmas: what is Good? Evil? Right? Do show more the good of the many out way the good of the few? Carroll handles these issues adroitly without demeaning the importance of the heroes’ decisions. Keep an eye out for books by Michael Carroll. show less