3 out of 5

Yes, the 90s in comics were XTREME and gave us Image Comics, and Marvel’s And DC’s various attempts to iterate on that trend. Mixed in to what some consider the dark years, though, are a lot of sneaked in experimentations: tapping in to the speculator era and taking opportunities to use moody imagery or new #1 issues to step off the well-trod Big Two path and shake things up.

Such was the completely unexpected Chain Gang War from John Wagner and (primarily) artist Dave Johnson: a title which hides a unique, layered pitch behind Punisher-adjacent vigilante themes, and a bullets-and-blood-ridden logo: as the masked “Chain Gang” takes up a pledge to hunt down criminals and… jail them. They will absolutely shoot those who get in their way, but it’s with a warning that they will not shoot first; but once you pledge your allegiance to those criminals by taking a a shot – you are fair game. Additionally, this “jail” ain’t your local municipality, rather an undisclosed, underground location; the cells have a tiny window and you get take out food occasionally. Not cushy, though not wholly inhumane. As to what’s going to happen to these criminals…?

Though Wags had been taking a crack at US comics for a while by the time of CGW, it’s clear from the letters that the audience for the book – surprised that it wasn’t the Punisher knock-off it seemed to be – wasn’t prepared for John’s 2000 AD schooled method of packing in maximum story (for 6-12 page progs) with an extended view of character, as he’d built up Judge Dredd’s for a couple decades via indirect storytelling, focusing the strips on antics and kind of slowly fleshing out the character along the way. While Joe was a satire to start – and thus the character pretty shallow – I think it gave John the tools for a general story-first approach; not the way for US books of the time that felt the need to explain-it-all in every panel, and also make sure your #1 issue came packed with a super clear origin story. CGW instead makes us wait, quite a bit, letting the Chain Gang’s actions speak for their intentions, and allowing intergroup dynamics to indicate that not everyone is a carbon copy of some other DC hero: one member is reticent about their actions; one member seems to be in it for the greater good; one member is a bit more unhinged; and in all cases, these are shades of grey.

Dave Johnson’s bold art is a big component here. Also learning his craft at the time, a mix of art deco and European sensibilities smash together with big and bold US style for something really grabbing, and that helps mind the line between think piece and action book. As Dave gets more and more confident, so too does John’s “voice” with the book – alas, frequent art disruptions throw this off a bit, and the book’s eventual looming cancellation throws a big wrench in the slow boiling storylines, which, if we’re being realistic, is really what lowers the book’s rating: it’s awesome that DC didn’t just kibosh it outright and gave the team 3 or 4 more issues to close it out at 12, but it’s clear some storylines got kind of both extended and smooshed to fit that ending, and the pacing just inevitably suffers. I would love to know how this was planned.

Chain Gang War definitely feels like a response to 90s comics, or even a thought on what a “real life” Judge Dredd would look like in then-contemporary America. John isn’t idealizing things, but he’s struggling with – and let his characters struggling with – what we should want and expect from ‘justice.’ Stuffing this in to the DCU allows for some interesting combos with characters like Deathstroke and Batman; while the latter ultimately feels a bit pointless – again, I think there might’ve been more there had the book stayed on – putting this into a fictional world with supers is also what allowed Wags to keep it fun and serious at the same time, allowing his tendencies toward satire and surreality to seep in.