It came about from the same general circle of artists and writers that spawned Judge Dredd (and 40k stole a whole lot of concepts and aesthetics outright from Judge Dredd), and I'd argue that both do some things right but are undermined by lib brainworms and the danger of appropriating fascist aesthetics and themes. Like even if the clear portrayal is "this is bad and everyone is suffering because of it" that just works back into the Fascist aesthetic of violence and sacrifice for the sake of violence and "glory."
Like (at least in the old comics) Judge Dredd's whole thing is that he's incorruptible, inhumanly self-less, and never wrong: he arrests other cops, he arrests himself, he arrests the rich, he fights against his own ruling class over atrocities they're committing against sapient non-humans, and even tries to de-escalate and non-violently solve mental health crises instead of just going in guns blazing. That works as a pretty good piss-take on superheroes, and as a very dry "this is the sort of impossible perfection you'd need to trust someone with the power cops have." But then he also commits genocide, preserves the deranged social fascist status-quo, and generally does a bunch of stupid bullshit too, which confounds the whole thing: is Judge Dredd an impossible paragon, and that's the joke, or is he just another piece of shit in a deranged system? It loses its clarity and creates the same situation 40k is in, where whatever satire may have been there gets lost in unironic "ok but what if the conditions were such that genocide really was the lesser evil? what about that, ever think about that?" brainworms.
GW sucks for a lot of reasons, but I'm glad they came out and said it.
TBH Warhammer hasn't ever been good satire, it's almost always been a grab bag universe of things people think are cool in an edgelord kinda way.
It came about from the same general circle of artists and writers that spawned Judge Dredd (and 40k stole a whole lot of concepts and aesthetics outright from Judge Dredd), and I'd argue that both do some things right but are undermined by lib brainworms and the danger of appropriating fascist aesthetics and themes. Like even if the clear portrayal is "this is bad and everyone is suffering because of it" that just works back into the Fascist aesthetic of violence and sacrifice for the sake of violence and "glory."
Like (at least in the old comics) Judge Dredd's whole thing is that he's incorruptible, inhumanly self-less, and never wrong: he arrests other cops, he arrests himself, he arrests the rich, he fights against his own ruling class over atrocities they're committing against sapient non-humans, and even tries to de-escalate and non-violently solve mental health crises instead of just going in guns blazing. That works as a pretty good piss-take on superheroes, and as a very dry "this is the sort of impossible perfection you'd need to trust someone with the power cops have." But then he also commits genocide, preserves the deranged social fascist status-quo, and generally does a bunch of stupid bullshit too, which confounds the whole thing: is Judge Dredd an impossible paragon, and that's the joke, or is he just another piece of shit in a deranged system? It loses its clarity and creates the same situation 40k is in, where whatever satire may have been there gets lost in unironic "ok but what if the conditions were such that genocide really was the lesser evil? what about that, ever think about that?" brainworms.