Banzai Battalion: Just Another Bug Hunt by John Wagner & Alan Grant

Banzai Battalion: Just Another Bug Hunt by John Wagner & Alan Grant
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Judge Dredd Universe

This is a fun collection that features a rather cheesy premise but goes on to be a darker plotline. Set in the Judge Dredd megaverse of Mega-City One, the opening story features Dredd and is a cheesy little story of tiny garden soldier robots who patrol gardens (only the rich have these) and take out garden pests. The next couple of stories have Dredd to a lesser degree until he is no longer a part of the story. The Banzaii Battalion progresses from a rote obedient robot group to a rogue element and finally the story goes dark with violence and madness. I've read a couple of these stories before; I haven't got this far in the Case Files so it must have been in other collections, thus it was nice to have the complete story of these somewhat lovable characters. All the Banzaii stories are collected here and even though they haven't appeared since 2006, their story is still open and it is feasible for their story to continue someday. To make the book a bit longer this collection then ends with a few Dredd stories, completely unrelated to Bonzaii, but with the same theme of malfunctioning robots or technology. They were okay stories, just not sure whether I appreciated them being tacked on to the end of this collection. The art is by a variety of artists and goes from 1999-2006 so covers a wide sampling of styles and is all over the place, some obviously being better than others. Certainly a fun collection and one you don't have to have any concerns with letting your kids read as it's pretty tame as far as these books usually go.

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