Episode IV: “King Krong”
First print date: March 26 1977
Prog appearance: 5
Writer(s): Malcolm Shaw
Artist(s): Carlos Ezquerra
Total episodes: 1
Woe betide the man or woman who tries to bring a sense of normality and relaxation into the life of Judge Dredd! On his infrequent down-hours, Dredd's idea of kicking back is to bone up on his law books, and when a salesman from Senso-Round tries to sell him a virtual reality system he is not amused! It's no laughing matter however when the president of that company turns up murdered, seemingly torn limb from limb, and he's not the only one. Over the next two days two more senior executives from Senso-Round meet a messy end. Dredd is on patrol when HQ calls him to say that the voiceprint recorded at the scene of the last murder has turned out to be that of the curator of the Special Effects Museum, and Dredd goes to apprehend him.
Dredd finds himself reunited with O'Neill, the man who was trying to sell him a Senso-Round system at the opening of the episode. Seems he's not only a salesman for the company, and has a grudge against them because, he says, people no longer need to go to see monster movies any more, not when Senso-Round can bring them right into their own homes. The museum is suffering as a result, so O'Neill has decided to take revenge upon the executives of the company that is driving him out of business.
O'Neill unleashes his biggest movie monster, the giant gorilla known as King Krong (
) to pound the offices of Senso-Round to rubble. Dredd follows him but the monster is so huge his weapon has no effect. As the gorilla begins climbing the building and tearing chunks off it, Dredd guns his bike to the top, sets it on automatic and hits the self-destruct, aiming it down the creature's throat. With no head after the explosion, the monster topples off the building and lands on O'Neill, crushing him.
QUOTES
Maria: “But Judge! You never have no fun! A younga man like you, he should not work all da time!”
Dredd (thinking): “To think I could get a robot-cleaner for half the price and be done with all her nagging!”
Dredd (standing over the corpse of O'Neill): “All your dreams were crushed, O'Neill. But with dreams like yours, who needs nightmares?”
NEW CHARACTER!
Maria, Dredd's landlady/maid
With no other name ever given, Maria was a typical Italian woman who constantly harangued Dredd as if he were her son --- why don't you get a girlfriend, have some fun etc ---- and was most likely introduced to semi-humanise Dredd, to show he had a home he went to when off duty, and that he ate and read and shat like normal people. But come on! The guy even wears his helmet and full uniform while relaxing in his apartment! Dredd always gave the impression of merely putting up with Maria --- in this story he rolls his eyes (presumably) and thinks about replacing her with a robot --- and there never seemed to be any affection, or any sort of emotion between them. She would later leave his employ, but that as it happens.
Ch-ch-ch-changes
Just one really. Still undecided on what HQ were to be called, Mills calls them “police control” (kind of ironic, eh?) when they would eventually be known as Justice Central.
Those clever little touches
Although I didn't realise it at the time, the salesman for Senso-Round, and also the killer, is called Kevin O'Neill. This was the name of another artist working for 2000AD, who would eventually come to his own brand of fame when he illustrated the series
Ro-Busters and later
Nemesis. O'Neill's style of drawing was very angular (see below) and did indeed inspire the sort of nightmares of which Dredd muses in the final panel here. A dig at his art style? A prediction? Or just coincidence?
Mister Tharg? You've been served!
With its unique brand of satire,
2000AD was always in danger of infringing someone's copyright, and indeed in a later Dredd epic got into a lot of trouble and had to pay costs for using trademarked images and characters without permission. Here, I'll detail any brushes the Mighty Tharg had with copyright infringement, where he got away with them, where he did not, and where he changed it just enough that he could not be accused of the crime.
The most obvious attempt to avoid ending up in a court here is when King Kong --- who is identical in every other way, including the iconic climb up the tall building and the dramatic and tragic fall and death of the creature --- has its name changed by adding one letter. At least Dredd doesn't say “Beauty killed the beast”! But even so, the cover of the prog has Dredd sentencing the gorilla to forty years for smashing biplanes (even though none figure in the story: it's obviously another sharp dig and a “come at us” challenge by Mills). To my knowledge, there was no action taken over this. At this point after all, this was a struggling comic trying to get on its feet. It was only later, when there was money to be made, that the lawsuits began. In fairness, they must have expected them. But here, they dodged the proverbial litigation bullet. They would not always be so lucky.