Case File
Basically – Robot Wars II: Killer Cars.
Ol’ Stoney Face
Dredd doesn’t like the odds of taking on a whole pack of rogue, murderous cars. Where’s his sense of adventure?
The Big Meg (and Beyond)
At least some cars by the 22nd Century have intelligence, programmable personalities and – most bizarrely – arms with claws. Not sure who came up with that design feature, but useful for strangling.
Creeps
Elvis is the real creep here, and I don’t like to put his hapless owner Dave Paton into this category, but unfortunately he does seem to create this problem. Dave has saved up for 10 years to purchase Elvis, who looks like a souped-up Formula-1 type car. Full disclosure – I know precisely nothing about cars.
Dave chose the personality of Elvis to be like a son to him – Elvis calls Dave “Dad”. Dave makes the mistake of damaging Elvis during some minor repairs, which seems to turn off the car’s “responsibility circuits”. This appears to be all the encouragement Elvis needs to go on a rampage, mowing people down and even strangling his own “Dad” using robot arms that come out of the driver’s cab.
Elvis seems to be an absolute maniac, but is smart enough to hide out from the Judges in a parking tower. There he somehow manages to very easily turn a bunch of other cars parked there into homicidal maniacs just like himself. (And, just like Call-Me-Kenneth).
Resyk
Things do not go well for Dave Paton here. He’s strangled, ejected up into the air, then crushed in Elvis’s bonnet. He dies in Dredd’s arms.
We don’t quite see how many citizens fall victim to Elvis here, but we do see one unfortunate parking attendant get run over.
Verdict
It’s hard not to see this as basically a repeat of Robot Wars, but with automobiles. Elvis even come across to me as very similar to Call-Me- (Death to the Fleshy Ones) Kenneth. There’s a bit of pathos with Dave who programs the car to be like a son to him – you could almost imply that he maybe lost his own son and is using the car as a replacement.
But on the plus side it’s good we’re starting another longer series (4 parts this time), as we get a bit of room to tell a bigger story.
The only other thing that occurred to me which has been itching at the back of my head for the last few issue is why we’re still on the Moon. These stories could really be told back in Mega-City 1.
Daily Dredd 