Judge Dredd: Mad Tooth’s Run

NAME
Judge Dredd: Mad Tooth's Run

FIRST PUBLISHED
Judge Dredd Annual 1981

DATELINE
1 Sept 80

PAGE COUNT
6

REPRINTS
None.

SYNOPSIS
Mega-City One's prime public enemy swears he'll get revenge on Dredd if it's the last thing he does.

FIRSTS & LASTS
First Judge Dredd text story, and possibly the first story that turns out to have been "all a dream".

INFORMATION
Mega-City One's Redemption Square is near a Soy-Meat Take Out shop, a sky-rail train line and a Bierce & Porter undertaking parlour. Bierce & Porter has branches in all the major districts of Mega-City One, but is in reality a front for crime.

The Inter-Date Universal and Mega City Consolidation Pension Fund has had 68 Million Credits stolen from it, in an attack that destroyed half a bank block and killed 5000 people.

Sky-Rail trains can do speeds of 150 and have are equipped with glide-chutes. The 330C-NE train runs from the vicinity of Redemption Square to Justice Central.

Justice Central is 280 miles south of Redemption Square. The Judges have armoured trains.

JUDGE DREDD
McKill wants to get revenge on Dredd.

OTHER CHARACTERS
JOSEPH 'MAD TOOTH' McKILL
Mega-City One's prime public enemy. He has fearsome teeth, his lower incisors flip down at a 45 degree angle and a wafer-thin strip of titanium-treated steel covers his throat as the tooth shoots out like a missile. He and Velasquez blew up half a bank block, killing 5000 people, and stole 68 Million Credits from the Inter-Date Universal and Mega City Consolidation Pension Fund. Velasquez is killed in a shootout and McKill is hit by a heat-seeker. He is killed, but in his last few micro-seconds he believes that he kills a Judge, hijacks a hovercar, kills George Gooney during a pursuit and orders the hovercar's driver to let him out on the roof of a sky-rail train. He kills the hovercar driver and cuts his way into the train. Aboard the train he encounters Tony Pistachio's gang and he uses his tooth missile to shatter the train's glass windows and they are sucked out. He heads to Justice Central and kills Dredd.

VOOM-VOOM VELASQUEZ
McKill's partner. He was killed in a shootout with the Judges.

GEORGE GOONEY
Mega-City One Racketeer. He uses Bierce & Porter undertaking parlours as a front. During McKill's dying delusion he gives pursuit in a hover-hearse when he witnesses McKill kill a Judge and McKill kills him.

TONY 'LITTLE GRUNTER' PISTACHIO
Boss of the most prominent gang in Mega-City's South End. During McKill's dying delusion, he is killed when McKill breaks the glass on the train and he and the rest of his gang are sucked out.

ARRESTS
None.

DEATHS
One. McKill dies from a heat-seeker to the back of the neck which ricocheted off the cerebral vertebrae up the spinal cord and out through one of his cerebral hemispheres. Prior to the story 5000 people were killed in his bank raid and his partner Velasquez was shot dead. However during his hallucination easily dozens of people are killed. McKill kills a Judge and with his needle laser, George Gooney with his toothy missile. He shoots the driver of the hovercar as he exits and the vehicle crashes into an airbus full of late-evening shoppers. On board the train he kills a dozen passengers and a guard. He breaks the train's glass windows and Tony Pistachio's gang are sucked out. As he exits, the train collides with another causing an "appalling explosion". Finally he kill Dredd, cutting him in half with his laser.

BEST LINES
"in any case 68 million credits didn't get you very far these days."

WORST LINES
None.

CATCHPHRASES
McKill thinks "drokking" three times, "drokkers" twice, "drokker" once. Members of Tony Pistachio's gang call him a "drokker" and say "My Dok" although since that is all in McKill's head he thought them as well.

CONTINUITY & CROSSOVERS
Glide Chutes were introduced in Judge Dredd: Firebug.

INFLUENCES & REFERENCES
Unknown.

MISTAKES
None, but since most of the story takes place within the brain of a dying man any mistakes would probably need overlooking anyway.

RETROSPECT
None.

NOTES
None.

CREDITS
Story: Jack Adrian
Artist: Dave Gibbons

REVIEW
Mad Tooth's journey from Redemption Square to Justice Central and back again is wonderful. This is a piece of prose that successful escalates continually until it can't get any more epic and then it does, before revealing, and crucially earning, the fact that it was all a dream. Brilliant.

The End