The Seminal Introduction to the 2000AD Universe: Laurel Sills’s ‘Devourer’

“How about you cut the crud, give me the info and I’ll get this done myself?”
He paused, clasping his arms behind his back and looking above him as if for inspiration. “Are you a particularly – calm person?”

She took a deep breath.

“I take your point. But if I have to learn how to gruddamn fly for this woman, I’ll give it my best shot.”

This novella is chock-a-block with diverse and badass sci-fi broads being vulnerable, cruel, homicidal, terrified, and torrential at every turn, and, let me tell you, it’s drokking glorious.

It’s also the perfect place for the uninitiated to dive into the world of Judge Dredd and 2000AD for the first time (the comics universe that is essentially the British DC/Marvel). Set in the overcrowded metropolis of Mega-City One on the east coast of the US in the late 21st century, the dystopian Dredd and Anderson comics feature the eponymous Judges, law enforcers with psychic abilities who operate out of a secretive branch of the Justice Department called the Psi-Division that specialises in supernatural phenomena. Each armoured Psi-Judge rides a Lawmaster motorbike equipped with AI and laser cannons, carries a fearsome Lawgiver gun, wears a futuristic helmet obscuring their face, and has the power to instantly convict, sentence, and execute justice.

Though Dredd usually gets all the attention (no need to spell out why), Abaddon Books, an imprint of Rebellion (who publish the comics), recently committed to launching a whole new swathe of Judge Anderson content.

In Devourer by Laurel Sills, we have our main lass, Cassandra Anderson herself, in her second year on the streets as a full-Eagle Judge in 2101AD as she is called to the headquarters of Psi-Div after she fails to rescue a young girl with unscreened psychic abilities from a group of gangsters embroiled in a string of suspicious abductions. Back at HQ, it turns out all the Psi-Judges have been summoned for a debrief by the notorious Judge Aline Verastegui, one of the Council of Five, about an apocalyptic threat that could jeopardise the entire division. Forty-two years ago, a group of renegade psychics calling themselves the Cult of the Devourer preached the worship of an ancient terror and almost wiped out the whole of Psi-Div in the process.

It was a kid’s story. The psychic demon from an astral plane bent on breaking down the dimensional barriers to suck the psychic life force of every sentient being. A monster come to break the world.

And the demon Karlul, the dreaded Devourer, is rising again.

Enter Judge Cassandra Anderson and her bevy of epic female supporting characters, from Judge Adjonyoh and Chief Smee, the leader of the division, to the tech genius Abdullah, head of the gang union, and senior Judge Mei Yin, who starts out as Anderson’s abrasive rival and becomes not only her mentor but her closest friend.

Mei Yin in particular is a triumph, with her eccentric and prickly forest-obsessed family on the other side of Septic Town and the soaring pine trees and sprawling sea of her mental safe place. The way her relationship with Anderson evolves and grows throughout the course of the novella is perfect. Also shout-out to the fact that the very few male characters in the story have names like Rotten Teeth and Howl.

Devourer really would make a cracking episode of a Judge Anderson TV series. If only Bad Wolf or the BBC had the resources of the CW or HBO or Netflix to mine the rich British talent behind the sweeping 2000AD universe (though I’ve yet to see the 2012 Dredd film). It raises such prescient philosophical questions about authoritarianism and the justice system and carceral logic and abolition and moral relativism. My dream cast for a series adaptation would be Nicole Maines as the 21-year-old Anderson and Ming-Na Wen as Mei Yin, produced by Laeta Kalogridis and Robert Rodriguez, with Tokio Myers scoring the music.

In short, all the hats off and standing ovations to Laurel Sills on a truly deft novella.