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scans_dailyPart two of my history of Galen DeMarco, continued from here.
Where we left off last time, partway through "Beyond the Call of Duty", DeMarco was making a spirited attempt at going where no woman has gone before. Here's how that worked out for her.
Roughly 22 pages of scans under the cut.
So, for the first time in the comic and character's history, Dredd has just had a pass made at him by a woman he likes and respects. How does he react? Well, for a start, with some gloriously entertaining body language:
Dredd arranges to leave his post at DeMarco's sector, but he doesn't find the incident quite so easy to forget.
...Emotional introspection is not really one of Dredd's strong suits. (Yes, Joe, I'm sure "disturbed about being a party to rule-breaking" is the correct classification for whatever feelings you might be experiencing there.)
Meanwhile, DeMarco has also gone for a drive on her own to clear her head, following up a long-shot hunch on some vigilantes running arena fights. Her instincts are on the money, but the perps turn out to have a killer robot on their side and she gets knocked unconscious.
Fortunately, Roffman's still playing stalker and is able to alert the Judges to her kidnap. Dredd manages to locate DeMarco, but not before she's taken a pretty brutal battering in the combat arena.
(I love Dredd's little sadface in the second panel there. Possibly the most woeful looking Dredd I've ever seen.)
Dredd's left the sector by the time DeMarco regains consciousness, but she does learn that he stuck around long enough to hear whether she would survive first. Aw.
Scorpion Dance
In "The Scorpion Dance" (progs 1125-32) the magnificent Judge Edgar enters the scene. She's the head of the Public Surveillance Unit, collecting information on the citizens, and Dredd made an enemy of her when he discovered she was hoarding blackmail material and leaked it to make sure the crimes were punished. Now she's interested in recruiting Roffman.
Edgar's attention has been caught by Roffman's allegations that he had an incriminating recording of DeMarco and Dredd erased it instead of keeping it.
...Judge Edgar is awesome. Awesome.
In the years since "The Hunting Party", problem cadet Renga has straightened himself out and become a full Judge. He drops in on Dredd to warn him that the SJS (Justice Department internal affairs) have been sniffing around asking questions about him.
Edgar is suspicious that Dredd seems to have taken such an interest in DeMarco, scenting a chance to catch him out in wrongdoing.
She continues to pull strings from behind the scenes, nudging the SJS into continuing the investigation when ordinarily they wouldn't go after a Sector Chief on so little evidence.
The SJS bring DeMarco in for questioning.
DeMarco's second in command comes to warn Dredd and ask him to intervene.
Unfortunately, Dredd's on a major case, and can't get away in time to prevent DeMarco confessing all under interrogation.
DeMarco's brought up before the Chief Judge, but she still won't bow down and accept the rules.
Dredd tries to argue DeMarco's case, but the Chief Judge won't back down - and points out that Dredd's own conduct isn't entirely above reproach.
Edgar makes sure to arrange for Dredd to learn that Roffman is now working for her, so he'll understand who set this up.
Doomsday For Mega-City One
A few months later the "Doomsday" epic begins in prog 1141. While that was running in the progs, there was a companion story featuring DeMarco in Megazines 3.52-3.59. (So far as I can tell from counting pages, this must have been told in 15-page instalments, so there's room for a few more scans from individual issues.)
Dredd's feeling guilty about Edgar going after DeMarco to get at him, and sets her up with a job opportunity working for another ex-Judge.
DeMarco's having a bit of trouble adjusting to life as a civilian:
She intervenes when she sees a Judge roughing up a suspect, and Dredd ends up called to the scene when the Judge finds he was the one who authorised her to carry a weapon.
DeMarco takes the private eye job Dredd lined up for her.
A woman asks them to look into her fiancé's disappearance, but DeMarco starts to smell a rat after she uses a Judicial override to get into the man's apartment and finds evidence that contracts her story.
DeMarco tracks down her man, and uncovers evidence of a large-scale plot to take control of the city's robots. There's a big shootout, during which the Judges discover their weapons have been sabotaged. DeMarco is knocked unconscious, and wakes to find herself alone and the city in chaos. She rescues one Judge from a robot attack, only to find it's a familiar face...
DeMarco rescues another badly injured Judge, and the group of them eventually find and join up with the Judicial resistance. Roffman is less than helpful throughout.
They make it to the Chief Judge's bunker, and DeMarco recuperates from her head injury in the healing machine. She has melodramatic dreams of Dredd returning to sweep her off her feet, but the actual reunion isn't quite so romantic.
Their reunion is interrupted by the Chief Judge's suicide, which the Judges dress up as a heroic death in battle. DeMarco is left distinctly disillusioned about the nobility of the Justice Department.
After Doomsday
Sadly, "Doomsday" was the last time John Wagner wrote DeMarco into the main Dredd series, and her spin-off appearances haven't really done the character justice. There was a short-lived "DeMarco P.I". series which I haven't had much luck tracking down, but the general verdict seems to have been that it was pretty generic and forgettable. She also appeared in "The Simping Detective", where the titular detective Jack Point (actually an undercover Judge but posing as an eccentric private eye) crosses paths with her on a case.
Dredd deals with the matter by ordering DeMarco and Point to work together. She continues to pop up from time to time throughout the rest of the Simping Detective series, but sadly, being filtered through the lens of someone else's noir pastiche, her characterisation doesn't always ring particularly true to the DeMarco we know from the Dredd stories.
Her last appearance in the comics was in 2005, but given that Dreddverse characters have a habit of popping back up even when they've been absent for decades, I'm still crossing my fingers that she'll show up again soon. Hey, after "Day of Chaos", they've got to be pretty desperate for experienced Judges, and I'd love to see what she makes of Dredd's new family connections...
Still one of my very favourite characters. ♥
Where we left off last time, partway through "Beyond the Call of Duty", DeMarco was making a spirited attempt at going where no woman has gone before. Here's how that worked out for her.
Roughly 22 pages of scans under the cut.
So, for the first time in the comic and character's history, Dredd has just had a pass made at him by a woman he likes and respects. How does he react? Well, for a start, with some gloriously entertaining body language:
Dredd arranges to leave his post at DeMarco's sector, but he doesn't find the incident quite so easy to forget.
...Emotional introspection is not really one of Dredd's strong suits. (Yes, Joe, I'm sure "disturbed about being a party to rule-breaking" is the correct classification for whatever feelings you might be experiencing there.)
Meanwhile, DeMarco has also gone for a drive on her own to clear her head, following up a long-shot hunch on some vigilantes running arena fights. Her instincts are on the money, but the perps turn out to have a killer robot on their side and she gets knocked unconscious.
Fortunately, Roffman's still playing stalker and is able to alert the Judges to her kidnap. Dredd manages to locate DeMarco, but not before she's taken a pretty brutal battering in the combat arena.
(I love Dredd's little sadface in the second panel there. Possibly the most woeful looking Dredd I've ever seen.)
Dredd's left the sector by the time DeMarco regains consciousness, but she does learn that he stuck around long enough to hear whether she would survive first. Aw.
Scorpion Dance
In "The Scorpion Dance" (progs 1125-32) the magnificent Judge Edgar enters the scene. She's the head of the Public Surveillance Unit, collecting information on the citizens, and Dredd made an enemy of her when he discovered she was hoarding blackmail material and leaked it to make sure the crimes were punished. Now she's interested in recruiting Roffman.
Edgar's attention has been caught by Roffman's allegations that he had an incriminating recording of DeMarco and Dredd erased it instead of keeping it.
...Judge Edgar is awesome. Awesome.
In the years since "The Hunting Party", problem cadet Renga has straightened himself out and become a full Judge. He drops in on Dredd to warn him that the SJS (Justice Department internal affairs) have been sniffing around asking questions about him.
Edgar is suspicious that Dredd seems to have taken such an interest in DeMarco, scenting a chance to catch him out in wrongdoing.
She continues to pull strings from behind the scenes, nudging the SJS into continuing the investigation when ordinarily they wouldn't go after a Sector Chief on so little evidence.
The SJS bring DeMarco in for questioning.
DeMarco's second in command comes to warn Dredd and ask him to intervene.
Unfortunately, Dredd's on a major case, and can't get away in time to prevent DeMarco confessing all under interrogation.
DeMarco's brought up before the Chief Judge, but she still won't bow down and accept the rules.
Dredd tries to argue DeMarco's case, but the Chief Judge won't back down - and points out that Dredd's own conduct isn't entirely above reproach.
Edgar makes sure to arrange for Dredd to learn that Roffman is now working for her, so he'll understand who set this up.
Doomsday For Mega-City One
A few months later the "Doomsday" epic begins in prog 1141. While that was running in the progs, there was a companion story featuring DeMarco in Megazines 3.52-3.59. (So far as I can tell from counting pages, this must have been told in 15-page instalments, so there's room for a few more scans from individual issues.)
Dredd's feeling guilty about Edgar going after DeMarco to get at him, and sets her up with a job opportunity working for another ex-Judge.
DeMarco's having a bit of trouble adjusting to life as a civilian:
She intervenes when she sees a Judge roughing up a suspect, and Dredd ends up called to the scene when the Judge finds he was the one who authorised her to carry a weapon.
DeMarco takes the private eye job Dredd lined up for her.
A woman asks them to look into her fiancé's disappearance, but DeMarco starts to smell a rat after she uses a Judicial override to get into the man's apartment and finds evidence that contracts her story.
DeMarco tracks down her man, and uncovers evidence of a large-scale plot to take control of the city's robots. There's a big shootout, during which the Judges discover their weapons have been sabotaged. DeMarco is knocked unconscious, and wakes to find herself alone and the city in chaos. She rescues one Judge from a robot attack, only to find it's a familiar face...
DeMarco rescues another badly injured Judge, and the group of them eventually find and join up with the Judicial resistance. Roffman is less than helpful throughout.
They make it to the Chief Judge's bunker, and DeMarco recuperates from her head injury in the healing machine. She has melodramatic dreams of Dredd returning to sweep her off her feet, but the actual reunion isn't quite so romantic.
Their reunion is interrupted by the Chief Judge's suicide, which the Judges dress up as a heroic death in battle. DeMarco is left distinctly disillusioned about the nobility of the Justice Department.
After Doomsday
Sadly, "Doomsday" was the last time John Wagner wrote DeMarco into the main Dredd series, and her spin-off appearances haven't really done the character justice. There was a short-lived "DeMarco P.I". series which I haven't had much luck tracking down, but the general verdict seems to have been that it was pretty generic and forgettable. She also appeared in "The Simping Detective", where the titular detective Jack Point (actually an undercover Judge but posing as an eccentric private eye) crosses paths with her on a case.
Dredd deals with the matter by ordering DeMarco and Point to work together. She continues to pop up from time to time throughout the rest of the Simping Detective series, but sadly, being filtered through the lens of someone else's noir pastiche, her characterisation doesn't always ring particularly true to the DeMarco we know from the Dredd stories.
Her last appearance in the comics was in 2005, but given that Dreddverse characters have a habit of popping back up even when they've been absent for decades, I'm still crossing my fingers that she'll show up again soon. Hey, after "Day of Chaos", they've got to be pretty desperate for experienced Judges, and I'd love to see what she makes of Dredd's new family connections...
Still one of my very favourite characters. ♥
no subject
Date: 2012-07-11 11:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-11 02:15 pm (UTC)Yeah, one of the reasons I really want to see DeMarco back is that she interacts with Dredd in a way that no one else can get away with. (Or even wants to try.) And given that Dredd's social skills, such as they are, have actually improved slightly since he got closer to his niece, it would be fascinating to see how he handles that kind of baiting/flirting now.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-11 02:46 pm (UTC)Her name starts with a 'S' and ends in an 'anderson'. ;)
no subject
Date: 2012-07-11 03:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-11 04:12 pm (UTC)That being said, it's good to hear that Wagner's bringing her back to the main Dredd fold. Hope he brings her sass too.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-11 11:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-11 11:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-11 11:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-11 11:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-11 11:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-11 11:55 pm (UTC)I wish I had some Nikolai Dante to scan. That's a series that definitely deserves more attention than it gets.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-12 05:39 am (UTC)It had one of the most memorable supporting characters, though. Travis Perkins, the Urbane Gorilla.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-12 09:33 am (UTC)