Judge Dredd: Pinboing Wizard

NAME
Judge Dredd: Pinboing Wizard

FIRST PUBLISHED
Judge Dredd Annual 1981

DATELINE
1 Sept 80

PAGE COUNT
6

REPRINTS
The Best Of 2000AD Special Edition 1993, Judge Dredd Colour Series: The Streets Of Mega-City and Judge Dredd: The Restricted Files 01.

SYNOPSIS
Dredd inadvertently finds himself playing Pinboing.

FIRSTS & LASTS
First Judge Dredd strip in a Judge Dredd Annual.

INFORMATION
Mega-City One has a Pinboing Stadium. Since Boing© was invented in 2101, a new sport appeared in Mega-City One: Pinboing. It is essentially a huge Pinball machine, but with a human ball. If a player achieves a million points they are dubbed 'Pinboing Wizard'.

JUDGE DREDD
He is chasing an armed gang. When he destroys their vehicle, they take cover in the Pinboing Stadium. Dredd pursues them onto the Pinboing table itself. As he knocks the lawbreakers into the table's bumpers and autoflip, he chalks up a score of 1,007,000 and becomes a Pinboing Wizard. He is knocked off his bike by a lawbreaker surrounded in Boing©, but he shoots its fuel tank causing an explosion which the Pinboing table registers as a tilt and ends the game. Dredd rounds up the remaining lawbreakers still trapped in their Boing©.

OTHER CHARACTERS
HARVEY 'HOTSHOT' KRANTZ
Pinboing player. His score is 605,000.

BOUNCING BOB BINGLEY
Pinboing player. His score is 729,000.

ARRESTS
Two. The two Pinboingers were easy to catch.

DEATHS
Three. Dredd kills Mac and Pete with the workings of the Pinboing table, while Roscoe is crush by his friend covered in Boing©.

BEST LINES
Dredd: "All I can say is there must be easier ways of keeping the peace...Thank Drokk they don't have replays!"

WORST LINES
None.

CATCHPHRASES
Dredd says "Stop in the name of law!" once and "Drokk!" twice.

CONTINUITY & CROSSOVERS
Boing© previously appeared Palais de Boing and Judge Death, Part 3 .

INFLUENCES & REFERENCES
'Pinball Wizard' was a 1969 single for The Who that reached No. 4 in the UK charts and featured in their rock opera album Tommy.

MISTAKES
None.

RETROSPECT
None.

NOTES
None.

CREDITS
Script: John Howard
Artist: Mike McMahon
Letters: Tom Frame

REVIEW
Boing© seems to be the gift that keeps on giving as we see another inventive use of it here that takes something commonplace, augments it with a surprising piece of 22nd Century technology and then drops Dredd in the middle of it. It's fun.

The End.