Judge Dredd: Pirates Of The Black Atlantic, Part 2 - Nuclear Skank!

NAME
Judge Dredd: Pirates Of The Black Atlantic, Part 2 - Nuclear Skank!

FIRST PUBLISHED
2000 AD Featuring Judge Dredd Prog 198

DATELINE
7 Feb 81

This prog also featured Dash Decent, The Mean Arena, Meltdown Man, Return To Armageddon, Tharg The Mighty, and a Tharg cover by Ian Gibson.

PAGE COUNT
6

REPRINTS
2000AD Monthly 5, The Best Of 2000AD 14, Judge Dredd Classics 72, The Complete Judge Dredd 19, Judge Dredd Chronicles Book 26 and Judge Dredd The Complete Case Files 04.

SYNOPSIS
Skank attacks Mega-City One, Dredd goes after him.

FIRSTS & LASTS
First citiblock destroyed by a nuclear device.

INFORMATION
(This strip takes place on the 7th of February, 2103)

Class K Nuclear Projectiles can splinter into fifty independently-functioning warheads.
Laser defence teams man Mega-City One's Atlantic Wall to repel an external attack. Each citiblock has its own City-Def Defence Group.

Bob Oppenheimer Block was in Mega-City One's District 403 to the south of the city. Everything within a ten miles radius of it is destroyed by the only Class K Nuclear Projectile to get through the defence screen. The city's Weather Control Department is equipped to deal with nuclear fallout.

A Double Red Priority Alert is of vital importance. The Justice Department's Atlantic Division has access to patrol ships that can fly over the sea and convert to sub-sea status and travel under it as well. Named Judges: Judge Carter (Atlantic Division)

The area that once was Cuba is now known as the Cuban Wastes.

JUDGE DREDD
He is aboard a patrol ship that tracks the launch of nuclear missiles to a particular location.

OTHER CHARACTERS
CAPTAIN SKANK
He fires thirty nuclear warheads at Mega-City One.

JENNO MATRYX
She installs warheads on thirty of Skank's missiles.

ARRESTS
None.

DEATHS
Millions. Everyone in Bob Oppenheimer Block and for ten miles around it dies instantly, further out their would be many more deaths as well.

BEST LINES
Winnie (offering advice to protect against nuclear fallout): "Hide under a wet mattress, Morrie!"

WORST LINES
Matryx: "My Lord, it's happened! B-but why? Wh-what will it gain you?"

CATCHPHRASES
Skank says "Zzzz!" five times and "Zzzzz!" once.

CONTINUITY & CROSSOVERS
None.

INFLUENCES & REFERENCES
Bob Oppenheimer Block is named after Julius Robert Oppenheimer (1904–1967), an American theoretical physicist and among those who worked on the Manhattan Project called the "father of the atomic bomb". The first atomic bomb was detonated on the 16th of July, 1945 and Oppenheimer commented later that it brought to mind words from the Bhagavad Gita: "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds". The Cuban Wastes illicit a connection with the Cuban missile crisis, a 13-day confrontation in October 1962 between the USSR and Cuba on one side and the USA on the other. It is generally regarded as the moment when the Cold War came closest to turning into a nuclear conflict and the first documented example of the discussion of mutual assured destruction (MAD) as a determining factor in a major international incident.

MISTAKES
None.

RETROSPECT
None.

NOTES
None.

CREDITS
Script: T.B. Grover
Artist: Ron Smith
Letters: Tom Frame

REVIEW
This is fantastic. Again Dredd is sidelined, but seeing the effects of the missile strike on the people of Bob Oppenheimer Block is excellent.

Next Prog: Terminal Skank?