Predator Vs. Judge Dredd Vs. Aliens #1 Review - Just for the Hell of it Review

The Hunt Is On!

Written By: John Layman
Art By: Chris Mooneyham, Michael Atiyeh, Michael Heisler
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: July 27, 2016
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics

While I can't say that I have the deepest knowledge of Judge Dredd and all his crime fighting antics, I will tell you that I've read some comics over the years, made fun of Stallone's take on the character and find myself watching Dredd every now and again...... because who doesn't love Karl Urban?......  So that's enough knowledge right?..... Whether it is or not, I do happen to be a big fan of Predator and the Aliens so hopefully that at least gives me some street cred when reviewing this book....... and as we all know, street cred is all that matters in reviews.  So yeah, not a lot to say going into this book other than we've got three huge characters coming together for this story and hopefully Judge Dredd is able to set his Lawgiver on "Whoopass" and show these creatures from another world that he is in fact..... The Law.  Let's jump into this first issue and see what our setup is like.  Let's check it out.



Our first issue opens with a little set up for all of us readers to understand where the majority of our story will be set and who the players of this book are besides for our titular characters of course....... and this may be one of those situations where I should be more informed on the Judge Dredd side of life than I am because we've got an Island of Dr. Moreau situation going on in a woodsy area of the Cursed Earth in this dystopian future and while I've heard about mutants running around in this world, I can't ever recall hearing about animal men, let alone any animal men that are bad ass enough to take down a Predator........ who's in town with a few days to kill, and then confiscate all his goodies off of his ship.  That's our set up people and as far as set ups go, it's pretty bad ass because while we don't have Aliens running around bleeding acid and puncturing people's skulls with their horrifying inner mouths........ We do have a society that was created by a mad genetic scientist, who apparently only needs a shred of DNA to make his creations come to life and since we've got the Predator's trophy room all on display for whatever Predators might stop by to check it out...... Well, we've got ourselves an Alien skull with all the DNA goodness that Dr. Niels Reinstot could want...... not to mention a living Predator in his captivity.

Now that our extraterrestrial players are on the board, it's time to bring the big bad Judge...... and really, it's not too complicated or convoluted of an idea that gets him in this over the top situation that this comic presents.  Dude is just out and about looking for criminals, who have escaped Mega-City One and he's hell bent on bringing them to justice.  Easy Peasy and it doesn't hurt that we get some of Dredd's motivations thrown in during a bar fight just in case people didn't know that Dredd Is The Law.  It's after the fight though that events begin to converge on our main story, when one of his prey escapes into the forest area and Dredd goes in after him.

That's it for our first issue of Predator Vs. Judge Dredd Vs. Aliens and while I've seen a ton of these crossovers over the years, it has been awhile since I read one and I have to say that the set up is pretty goddamn perfect in that it isn't too over the top or convoluted to get us to the story at hand and I really appreciate that because with a crossover like this it could have gotten crazy.  The only thing that I don't really understand from this issue is the science involved in getting our Aliens into the picture and this could just be on me for being a big dummy and not knowing everything about the Aliens like I claimed at the beginning of this review and while nobody wants a super science exposition heavy scene that takes up a ton of page time, I would have just liked a little more where the Aliens were concerned because out of our three players here, their involvement in my mind is the trickiest to pull off.  Besides that though, we've got ourselves a solid issue that really gets me looking forward to our favorite dystopian anti-hero taking on these non terrestrial threats and the hardcore battles that will come from it.  Speaking of the hardcore battles that I'm looking forward to, I can't wait to see how they look because I really enjoyed the art in this book and even though I'm not certain that they're actually Judge Dredd characters, I want to see more of this civilization of animal men that appear here and how they'll deal with their "NO TRESPASSER" laws when their world is turned upside down by nothing but trespassers.

Bits and Pieces:

This first issue does a great job in setting up our crossover series by doing exactly what it had to do in the quickest way possible to get all our players on the board and I really appreciate how simple of a set up it was.  Like the set up, I also enjoyed the art and can't wait to see what this creative team gives us with this bloodbath of a series going forward......... and if you've dived into these types of Vs. stories before and enjoyed them, I don't think you'll want to miss what's coming either.

8.5/10