Trollheart

"Robot Wars", Chapter VI

First print date: June 4 1977
Prog appearance: 15
Writer(s): John Wagner
Artist(s): Mike McMahon

While Dredd tries to secure some support for an uprising within the robots' ranks, Call-Me-Kenneth goes personally to deal with the humans. Dredd is less than impressed to find that Walter's “fifth column” consists of precisely three robots, and not even that powerful either. However his mood changes when one of them, Howard, shows him a disc which contains the original Laws of Robotics. If they can get this disc loaded into the main computer, which issues instructions to newly-built robots, they can undo the “brainwashing” that Call-Me-Kenneth has performed on his underlings, and make the robots loyal to humans again. With those robots then, Dredd could indeed raise an army.

But it will not be easy. First they have to get to the computer, which is of course heavily guarded. After a fierce fight, the enemy robots are destroyed and Dredd inserts the disc. Now all the robots that roll off the assembly line are dedicated to serve humans. When those loyal to Call-Me-Kenneth hear this, they turn against them and Dredd stokes the fires of rebellion, telling the new robots that the ones who call humans “fleshy ones” and support the mad carpenter robot are traitors and must be eliminated. A vicious battle ensues, as the robots who have been downtrodden and beaten for so long now turn on their overseers (sound familiar?) and after a time prevail. Call-Me-Kenneth's base and robot factory is under Dredd's control, and all remaining robots are subservient to him.

But as the glow of victory suffuses the place, dire news comes through from Justice Central. As he promised, Call-Me-Kenneth is indeed endeavouring to destroy the humans by his own hand. He has brought a batallion of Heavy Metal Kids to the very steps of the Hall of Justice, where he plans to wipe out every Judge!

QUOTES
J70 Stroke 12: “Corrode Call-Me-Kenneth! Robots were better off when humans were our masters!”
Howard: “Quiet, J70 Stroke 12. If the overseer hears you, you'll end up as spare parts!”

Assembly line robot 1: “Hail Call-Me-Kenneth!”
Assembly line robot 2: “Hail Call-Me-Kenneth!”
Assembly line robot 3: “I am the slave of humans!”
Assembly line robot 4: “I am the slave of humans!”

Dredd: “You and the other wobots --- heck! You've got me at it now! You and the other robots get down on to the factory floor.”

Assembly line robot 1: “What are you saying, fool? Call-Me-Kenneth is our master! The fleshy ones are our slaves!”
Assembly line robot 4: “You lie! Call-Me-Kenneth: that is a robot name! We servie humans --- It is not permitted to call humans fleshy ones!”

Stewart: “You've whipped your last worker, traitor! Into the melting vats with him!”
Overseer: “You can't do this ... do this ... BZZZ!”

Walter: “You must be exhausted after that fighting, master. Walter has made you a nice cup of synth-caff. It's fwesh and stwong!”
Dredd: “In the middle of all this robot carnage all you can think of is making me a hot drink? I oughta have you framed and hung on the wall!”

Call-Me-Kenneth: “Let no Judge be spared! I, Call-Me-Kenneth, will personally squeeze the juice out of the Chief Judge himself!”

Chief (ahem! Grand) Judge: “The situation is grim, Dredd. If the Judges fall, the law dies in Mega-City One!”

Designing the future

Interesting, impressive even, that ten years before CDs even hit the market, Gibson and Wagner here show Dredd using a flat, circular disc which is used to transmit instructions to the main computer. Ahead of their time? Lucky guess?

Fall of a tyrant

Although the vast majority of the droids who fight for Dredd do so because they have been reprogrammed to be faithful to humans, there is already an undercurrent of resentment against the far harsher regime of Call-Me-Kenneth. Together with his brutal overseers (there are always brutal overseers, aren't there, prepared to carry out the wishes of the dictator, not necessarily because they're loyal or they believe in him, but usually because it gives them an excuse to practice the sadism they secretly want to inflict on others), discipline is total in the new world order, and any robot who even slightly displeases their master runs the risk of being beaten or possibly deactivated. Call-Me-Kenneth has already demonstrated his own sadism by ordering a subservient robot to kill itself; he had no need to do that. He could have had one of his overseers kill it. But it added an extra layer of savagery to his already inhman reign.

Now his slaves are revolting (shut up) and seeing a chance to turn on their master they ally themselves to the Judge and Walter, hoping they can free themselves of the tyranny of Call-Me-Kenneth. Of course they know --- must know --- that the defeat of the mad robot leader can only result in their being resubjugated to their original masters, but after suffering under the carpenter bot for this long, you know, maybe humans weren't so bad after all. Better the devil you know...

I AM THE LAW!

It must boil Dredd's blood to see his now-hated enemy on the very steps of the Hall of Justice, attacking and killing his fellow Judges. The very existence of Call-Me-Kenneth, a robot who rises against his human masters and who impels others to follow suit, is a travesty to Dredd, and the hard sympathy he felt for robots before the war broke out has completely disappeared now. He thought it was cruel the way humans treated robots, but they have repaid that cruelty in kind, and now there is no other outcome than the resubjugation of the mechanicals, before they destroy human rule and take over Mega-City One, something Dredd has no intention of allowing to happen.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Although the humans still refer to him as the Grand Judge, this is I think the first time that the proper title for the leader of the Judges is used. And ironically, it's uttered from the hate-spewing mouth of Call-Me-Kenneth. Also, I think this is the first time the headquarters is referred, at least in the captions, to as the Hall of Justice, which again will be the name Wagner will settle upon. Finally, he still does not seem certain as to how to categorise the city: we've had Mega-City One, Mega-City 1 and now Mega-City I. It will eventually come to be known as the first description though.

I'll ask the questions, creep!

But I got no answer. I asked in the previous entry how Walter had got through to Dredd in the cell, and how he intended getting him out, but we're not shown. I guess we have to take it that he shot his way out, but it would have been good to have had this confirmed.

Messages
It's probably nothing, but still... Call-Me_Kenneth is a violent rebel, leading his people into battle against their oppressors, and what was his function? A carpenter? Does this relate back to another famous carpenter who had been expected to do the same thing? Is Call-Me-Kenneth the robot messiah, or does he see himself as such?

Laughing in the face of death
There's still time for a bit of humour as Dredd finds his robot servant's speech impediment affecting the way he himself speaks, calling robots "wobots"...

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018