John Wagner is back! Judge Dredd co-creator and the top scribe at the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic returned to the pages of 2000 AD over the summer for the seven-part epic Machine Rule, with Colin MacNeil – tying together threads left by prior arcs of his most famous creation, not least 2019’s Machine Law. After the rollout of the Mechanismo robot judges to fill the depleted ranks of Justice Department, we saw what happens when the machines decide to take over.
Wagner hasn’t been wholly gone from the Rebellion/2000 AD stable though. Last year saw the surprise return of Spector – a series famously left unfinished by the sudden loss of close collaborator (and Dredd co-creator) Carlos Ezquerra in 2019. Finally seeing completion with the help of John Wagner and Alan Grant‘s creator-owned Rok of the Reds series artist Dan Cornwell. Spector: Incorruptible – about a robot police detective taking on corruption was published in the monthly Judge Dredd Megazine from April 2023 to January 2024, with a collected edition expected to hit shelves in April 2025.
And that’s not the only thing coming from Wagner and Cornwell: their scifi soccer book Rok of the Reds will see reprint and continuation in the Megazine soon, and the pair have a new instalment of classic Wagner war comic creation HMS Nightshade coming up in next week’s Battle Action #2.
With so much going on, The Beat’s Dean Simons had a chat with the great John Wagner about robots, retirement, Dredd, and more…
Dean Simons: Welcome back to Dredd, John! You had said that Machine Rule was going to be the end of the storyline initiated with Machine Law in 2019….
John Wagner: Did I say that?
DS: …five years later and here we are. Why now – and has the idea of how the story would conclude changed much in the interim?
JW: To be honest I doubt I gave it much thought at the time. I was probably in my umpteenth attempt at retiring and imagined I wouldn’t return to it. Well here I am, and it would be unwise to think that the story had concluded. In fact, I’m currently pumping myself up to work on the sequel.
DS: The reaction of some Judges at being rendered obsolete by Mechanismo units in the story’s opener seems quite extreme (i.e. a rash of suicides). Do you imagine that particular reaction to be unique to the Judges? Why?
JW: The judges devote their lives entirely to the job. For the majority to find themselves suddenly demoted to an ancillary role could be soul-destroying. It’s the same for many of us – our role in life becomes so much a part of us that to suddenly lose it leaves a gaping hole. Clearly I’m no different. I may try to be John Wagner the retired old fart, doddering about in his garden and growing his beans and onions, but something keeps drawing me back to what I used to be, what I guess I’ll always be. I never imagined it would be when I started out all those years ago, but ‘comic writer’ runs through me now like the words on a stick of rock.
DS: Often your stories tend to end on a major game changing note for the world of Joe Dredd. Do you enjoy throwing that curveball into the mix to the creative pool? How do you imagine the ending of Machine Rule will reverberate?
JW: Yes, I like surprising people, that’s half the trick of storytelling. It’s no fun if readers know what’s coming. Like the fact that there’s going to be a sequel.
DS: Mechanismo has been around since the 1990s and you have revisited it a few times since, also the first major Dredd storyline in 1977 was Robot Wars (and that’s not mentioning the Spector series). What keeps drawing you back to the theme? Do contemporary events (such as the increased cachet of AI in discourse recently) factor in?
JW: I am fascinated by the future, and robots in particular, though how things are going to turn out does seem a moot point, as I’m of the firm belief that we’re currently fucking up the planet bigtime and the people who rule over us are not capable of taking avoiding action in time for many of the human race to survive, if indeed there is still time.
But – leaving our impending doom aside – it’s one of my big regrets that I won’t be around to witness the result of all our human ingenuity…driverless cars, robot servants, sexmeks, cures for cancer and so on. Will robots ever actually become sentient? They’ll certainly be able to fake it, but will they ever be able to feel? I’d guess yes.
Talk of humans leaving to inhabit another planet however – Mars presumably – is total nonsense and I wish people would shut up about it. Just consider the energy required to launch a single Mars craft – how many of those are we going to send off? The planet’s in a bad enough state as it is. Maybe fine for a few self-centred arseholes like Musk, and I’d be happy to see them go, but for the rest of us – we’ve got one world, it’s a very nice world, let’s just try to look after it.
AI, now, that’s very interesting, dangerous and incredibly beneficial at the same time. But we have to control it and not let it control us.
DS: Elsewhere, yourself and Dan Cornwell also have a second instalment of HMS Nightshade out next week (October 2), appearing in Battle Action #2. What can we expect from this new story?
JW: Blazing battle action. Some lovely art. One very shocking development. I’ll say no more, except that the resurrection of Battle has been a joy to see. Garth Ennis and the other contributors and editorial are doing a great job. Battle was the comic that drew me back into the fold after my attempt to quit the comics world way back in 1974 and it will always be special to me.
DS: Was it hard returning to a series after some-thirty years? How do you get back into the mindset to write it?
JW: I’ve had a long attachment in the sea, having grown up beside it, and Corvettes had such an interesting part to play in the war. They seemed to sum up a large part of what I think of as our British character – plucky little guys, ready for a scrap. I can say ‘our’ British character as a couple of years ago I finally took the plunge and got myself naturalised [note: John was born in the US]. I even got a welcome letter from Priti Patel [former British Home Secretary, 2019-2022]. Beats the one I got when she was trying to deport me.
So anyway it was fairly easy to drop right back into the story. I did though find that I’d covered most aspects of the war in the Atlantic, so it has been difficult finding new and fresh material. It was Dan the artist who came up with the idea for the latest story, quite a startling twist.
DS: It appears with Rok of the Reds, Spector, and HMS Nightshade that you and Dan Cornwell are working quite closely. How did you first come across Dan and know he was a good artistic fit for you?
JW: I was looking for an artist to draw Rok of the Reds, someone who wasn’t a professional and wouldn’t need a huge page rate, as I intended to pay for the material myself. I spotted Dan in Zarjaz or Dogbreath, can’t remember which – two fanzines then run by the late lamented Dave Evans. I liked his style so got in touch. Dan was driving a bus in Brighton at the time. He saw my email, practically jumped out of his skin, crashed the bus into a line of traffic and caused over £300,000 worth of damage. Ha, no, okay, he thought someone was hoaxing him. He’s told the story so often I won’t repeat it, but I get on with him very well so we’ve continued to work together on other projects and no doubt will do more the future.
DS: You also recently revisited and completed Spector, which you had started with Carlos Ezquerra. How did you decide to return, and bring Dan in to fill Carlos’ mighty shoes?
JW: Spector was a character Carlos had created for a story Alan Grant and I never managed to get off the ground. He’d lain around unused for years but always looked too damned good to be forgotten, so when Carlos and I decided to work on a new story I pulled him out of the drawer and wracked my brain till I came up with a new role. For a long while after Carlos died, having drawn just two episodes, I couldn’t bear to go back to the story, but it kept nagging at me – could I really allow one of his best creations to lie fallow?
I knew Dan would do a fine job on it – not a copy of Carlos’s style, but true to his intent, and respectful, so though I did consider other artists Dan was an easy choice.
DS: When will we see you again? We know there is a third series of Rok of the Reds coming to the Judge Dredd Megazine – will there be more Spector?
JW: I’m not sure about Spector. At the moment there are no plans, but never say never. Currently, as I’ve said, I’m working on the sequel to Machine Rule. What happens next? A few ideas rattling around in my head, but nothing concrete so far, so suggestions on a postcard please to…
HMS Nightshade will make landfall in Battle Action #2 on sale October 2 (UK)/October 30 (US) — PREVIEWS: JUL241988
The entire Judge Dredd: Machine Rule saga (serialised in progs 2392-2398) can be procured in print and digital direct from the 2000 AD webshop now. For PREVIEWS comic shop ordering request Prog Pack references MAY241895 (Progs 2390-2393, available now) and JUN241946 (Progs 2394-2397, shipping October 2), and JUL241987 (Progs #2398-2401, shipping October 30)
Rok of the Reds will be coming soon to the Judge Dredd Megazine. And the entire collected Spector: Incorruptible series releases April 23, 2025
