Still, Joe wouldn’t draw his gun.
“Draw, damn you!” Rico placed his own hand on the gun strapped to his chest, the gun he’d pulled from the dying hands of Evan Quasarano, who’d grown up into a smug, mid-level mobster with a gang of his own. Quasarano had tried to laugh Rico out of his office, told him that he was a washed-up ex-con trying to relive his glory days.
“You sent me to Titan, brother Joe—you turned me into a freak! Now you’re gonna pay for it!”
Joe didn’t move. “A Judge that goes wrong has got to be punished! Don’t make me kill you!”
“Draw, I said!” Rico screamed.
Calmly, Joe said, “Okay, Rico. If that’s the way you want it.”
Joe grabbed his gun. Rico drew.
There was a moment, the thinnest slice of a second, when Rico knew that he had won. He’d proven to Joe that his way was right, that a rigid, unbending approach to the Law was ultimately flawed...
...That twenty years on the streets of Mega-City One were no match for twenty years in the penal colony on Titan...
...That Joe would always, always be second-best. The lesser brother. The flawed clone.
And then Joe’s shot hit him in the chest, before Rico’s gun was even out of its holster. The shock took the strength out of Rico’s legs, and he collapsed to his knees.
Impossible. He...
Rico realised he was toppling to the side, that he would crash to the floor, but Little Joe was there, running towards him, sliding in, catching him before he hit the ground.
His arms growing weak—colder than they had been even in that methane lake on Titan—Rico reached up and grabbed his brother. “You... You... can’t be faster than R-Rico...!”
Joe looked down at him, his face barely visible through the helmet’s visor and respirator. “Twenty years on Titan slowed you down a split second... But you were the best, Rico... The best.”
Joe lowered him to the floor, pressed his gloved hands against the entry wound in Rico’s chest.
With the last of his strength, Rico pushed Joe’s hands away. “Don’t. I’m dying, Little Joe. I get to go first. But I was right, wasn’t I?”
“Shallow breaths,” Joe said. “I’ll get help. Just hold on.”
Rico watched, unable to move, as his brother restored the apartment’s environment, then radioed Control for backup.
Rico said, “The Meg, the Justice Department... You’re all teetering on the edge. One good push and it’ll topple. The whole society will come crashing down because... because you damn Judges are too much in love with your own power. You know I’m right.”
He was fading fast, and he knew it. There was no way out of this one. Each breath was an agonising rasp that struggled through his artificial lungs. “Admit it, Joe... I want to hear you say it. Admit that I’m right.”
As the air and heat flooded back into the apartment, Joe crouched down next to him. “No. You’re wrong. We serve the Law, the Law serves the people. That’s how it has to be. It’s not perfect, but it’s...”
“Hah! Even now, you can’t back down...” Rico reached up with his left hand, palm open. But his strength was gone and what was meant to be a slap was almost a caress. As his hand slipped back down, he said, “You never... never did learn how to comfort someone, did you? Say goodbye to the old crew for me. Gibson and the others... Whoever’s left. You tell them I was right, Joe.”
“I’ll tell them you said you were right.” Joe hesitated for a moment. “Rico...”
“Yeah...?”
“That reporter, the one who took your story on Titan...”
“Oh yeah, her. What about her?”
“You have a daughter. Her name is Vienna.”
Rico Dredd laughed for the last time. “Yeah? That’s good. I like that. Take care of her for me, Little Joe. You raise her right... understand? Tell my girl all about me.”
“I’ll tell her what she needs to hear, that’s all I can promise you.”
“Huh... Not good enough...” Rico’s plastic-coated eyes flickered shut. “Things were... the other way around... I’d tell her everything. I’d do it better than you, Joe.”
“I know you would, Rico. I know.”
The apartment door burst open and in seconds Rico and Joe were surrounded by med-Judges. They pushed Joe aside and crouched over his brother.
But they were too late to save him. Twenty years too late.
The End
Rico Dredd Omnibus
Outroduction
Michael Carroll
9th December 2018
Hopefully by now you’ve read the book so you know that Rico Dredd is the clone brother of Judge Joseph Dredd (Rico might argue that should be the other way around: after all, he is older by a few minutes).
It would be a crime to write an entire 100,000-word book about Rico without acknowledging his creators, writer Pat Mills and artist Mike McMahon. Their Judge Dredd story “The Return of Rico” was published in 2000AD prog #30 (dated 17 Sep 1977), and it’s a tale that packs a heck of a lot into only six pages... In 2099, Rico returns to Mega-City One after serving his twenty-year sentence on Titan. He blames Joe for his incarceration and is looking for revenge. But all those years on the streets have sharpened Joe’s skills. Joe wins the shoot-out, killing his own brother. It’s an absolutely classic strip: intriguing, thrilling, tragic, heart-breaking and uplifting at the same time, and a master-class in efficient story-telling. (Mills retells this story eighteen years later in “Flashback 2099: The Return of Rico” in 2000AD progs #950 to #952, this time with Paul Johnson on art duties.)
For such an important character his presence in Dredd stories is surprisingly scant. He pops up from time to time—usually in a flashback sequence, or in an alternate reality—but you could count Rico’s actual appearances on the fingers of about two and a half hands.
When I was developing the first volume of this series, The Third Law, I knew how Rico’s story had to end, of course, but I wanted to focus on the journey rather than the destination. And I knew that I wanted it to stand out from the other stories in which Rico appeared, and to do that I chose to tell the tale from Rico’s point of view. Now, once or twice Rico has been depicted as actually evil—smug, cackling, grinning, rubbing-hands-together, “I’ll show them all!” evil, from the same school as Dick Dastardly and Snidely Whiplash—but that never sat right with me. A credible villain isn’t the one whose midnight hilltop ranting soliloquies about perceived injustices and intended revenge are always illuminated by well-timed flashes of lightning. It’s the one who makes the reader think, “Actually, I kinda see where they’re coming from here.”
And since I’d decided that Rico would be the one telling us his tale, he might be a tad biased, with a tendency to paint himself as the good guy. After all, every character is the hero of their own story, right?
So he embellishes his past, tweaks the tone here and there... He shines a light on the elements that support his viewpoint and nudges the rest under the carpet. He’s a master manipulator, or he believes that he is. He has rewritten his own history, inflating his strengths and crowing about his victories while justifying his crimes and redesignating his flaws as positive attributes. He presents himself simultaneously as both hero and victim; the lone champion standing firm against the unstoppable machine, when in reality he is as much a part of that machine as anyone else.
I leave it up to you, the reader, to decide whether he’s attempting to fool his audience, or he’s just fooling himself.
For me, it’s that aspect of Rico’s character where he and Joe differ: they’re actually much more alike than either of them might want to consider, but the key difference is that Rico thinks he’s special. He has an ego. He wants to be acknowledged and thanked for serving the people. Joe doesn’t care about any of that: he just wants to do his job. He doesn’t need to be raised aloft or to see his name in lights.
So this is the story of a strong man trying to do the right thing, and suffering the conseq
uences. As he might have put it, standing up for others makes you an easy target. But beneath that, it’s also the story of a weak man who was given more power than he could handle.
My thanks to Pat Mills and Mike McMahon for creating Rico, and of course to John Wagner and the late Carlos Ezquerra for creating Dredd in the first place, to the other creators who have worked on Rico, the awesome behind-the-scenes staff of 2000AD, Abaddon books and Rebellion, and lastly but not leastly to those readers who enjoyed my first Rico book enough to keep asking for more!
Michael Carroll
About the Author
Irish Author Michael Carroll is a former chairperson of the Irish Science Fiction Association and has previously worked as a postman and a computer programmer/systems analyst. A reader of 2000 AD right from the very beginning, Michael is the creator of the acclaimed Quantum Prophecy/Super Human series of superhero novels for the young adult market.
His comic work includes Judge Dredd and DeMarco, PI for 2000 AD and Judge Dredd Megazine (Rebellion), Jennifer Blood for Dynamite Entertainment and Razorjack for Titan Books.
His website is at www.michaelowencarroll.com.
JUDGE DREDD: YEAR ONE
Mega-City One, 2080. Judge Joe Dredd’s first year on the streets as a full-eagle Judge. Bred for justice, trained in law, Dredd’s no helpless rookie, but he’s not the seasoned veteran we know either. Three tales follow the first adventures of the future city’s greatest lawman. With an introduction by the Mighty Tharg!
CITY FATHERS
The brutal murder of a Justice Department-sanctioned spy uncovers something new and dangerous in the sector’s murky black market. Unless Dredd can stop it, chaos will be unleashed.
COLD LIGHT OF DAY
A savage killing spree results in the deaths of two highly-regarded Judges, and many consider Dredd to be responsible: a decision he made five years earlier – while he was still a cadet – has come back to haunt him.
WEAR IRON
“Wear iron, that’s the rule.” Paul Strader is a stick-up man, and a stone cold professional. But when he gets in over his head, he has to risk everything on the word of a corrupt lawman and break every rule he has. Every rule but one
www.abaddonbooks.com
ROOKIE YEAR’S OVER
Mega-City One, 2081. Judge Joe Dredd’s been on the beat for a year. He’s made tough calls, tackled hardbitten perps, and seen the consequences of his choices come back to bite him.
But he’s not done learning yet. Dredd’s second year on the sked will see him back out in the Cursed Earth, where right and wrong are questions that go beyond the easy answers of the Law; he’ll tackle an apparent serial killer—or more than one?—targeting journalists; and he’ll take his first real beat down, leaving him bent and broken with only his badge and his conviction to protect him…
Including stories by Matt Smith, Michael Carroll and Cavan Scott, Judge Dredd: Year Two puts the city’s greatest lawman to the test.
www.abaddonbooks.com
“YOU READY, ROOKIE?”
In years to come, Cassandra Anderson will be a living legend, Psi-Division’s most famous Judge. But for now it’s 2100, and a young Judge Anderson is fresh out of the Academy, the Eagle still gleaming on her shoulder. It’s time to put her training—and her judgement—to the test.
Tackling a love-obsessed telepathic killer at a Valentine’s Day parade, plunging into the depths of madness in a huge new psychiatric prison, and probing the boundaries of reality itself as she hunts a psychic virus to its roots, Cass will be forged in the fires of Justice, emerging as something extraordinary.
“Exactly what you’d want: smart, fast-moving sci-fi that’s filled with pulpy thrill power.”
Wait, What? Podcast
www.abaddonbooks.com
Rico Dredd: The Titan Years Page 33