ENNIS, GARTH & BURNS, JOHN – JUDGE DREDD - A MAN CALLED GREENER in JUSTICE ONE 2002 TITAN BOOKS A delightfully icky revolting
politically incorrect adventure for Judge Dredd. Greener is an American athlete of some note – his specialised sport – the noble pastime of Gobbing spectacular globs of spit and mucus,) the thicker and more full of bile the better) further than anyone else. The sport is understandably illegal in Mega City One. Which takes crime of any kind as an excuse for zero tolerance. When a couple of people become sufficiently offended by the spit left splattered and dripping on their high apartment windows by the contestants seeking the Oscar like statue awarded for gobbing, they call in Judge Dredd. As he travels on his
police bike to break up the meeting and arrest everyone, Greener fires off his best ever gobbet of spit. It proves to be an instant record-breaking effort. It goes over the roof of the target high rise apartment, and travels far enough to hit the windshield of a tanker, which crashes and causes a multi- vehicle pile up with enormous casualties. Dredd arrives and insists that the competitors surrender Greener to him. They gladly do. He gets twenty years in
prison. Everyone else gets five years. Here is Dredd done with tremendous deadpan humour, The sport is revolting enough that many people would get an ASBO or a police caution, a fine or even a short term prison sentence for it today. It is good that the Dredd stories treat minor crimes as seriously as major ones, and even show the extreme unlucky consequences of minor petty juvenile hi-jinks like this. The story has a strong sense of absurdity, with characters coming from abroad specially to compete in a silly street game, and with highly valued prizes at stake.