He is the law. You should be afraid. Or enthralled. It depends on how twisted you are.
In college, sometime in 1991, my friend, Mike, showed me a weekly British comic called 2000 AD.
Within its pages was Judge Dredd. Dredd was so popular he was given his own comic – Judge Dredd: The Megazine.
Judge Joe Dredd lives in the dystopian future of Mega-City One in North America. He is judge, jury and executioner in this authoritarian world.
In Dredd’s first ever appearance in the comic 2000 AD, he tackled a gang of killers who had been ambushing his comrades.
His response? He casually shot two of the men dead and – after punching the third in the face – gave him a life sentence on the spot.
Dredd’s unbending, unsentimental approach satirised right wing approaches to law enforcement, while also injecting a large dollop of humour. Instead of being sent to prison, the criminal was marooned on an extremely busy traffic island with no hope of escape.
Earth is mostly radioactive wasteland. People live in mega-cities, like Mega-City One, Brit Cit, Sino-Cit, and others. The inhabitants live in giant towers, known as City Blocks, that can hold 50,000 people. Mega-City One stretches from Boston, Massachusetts to Charlotte, North Carolina. Before the Apocalypse War, it went as far as Florida.
Mega-City Two was destroyed in 2114 during the Judgment Day war. Texas City, Mex-Cit, Canadia, and Uranium City are also in North America.
Dredd is equipped with his lawgiver (pistol), which only recognizes his palm print, capable of holding six types of ammunition. His Lawmaster motorcycle comes equipped with machine guns, a laser cannon and artificial intelligence that can respond to Dredd’s orders and operate on its own.
Mega-City One is surrounded by Cursed Earth, which is also the name of the first Mega-epic, spanning 25 weeks in the comics. When a judge can no longer meet the physical requirements of patrolling Mega-City One and don’t want to teach or take a desk job, they take the “long walk” into the Cursed Earth to bring the law to the lawless.
In the epic, Dredd trekked across the Cursed Earth to deliver an antidote to Mega-City Two. Although he accomplished his task, Mega-City One was corrupted by Judge Cal while he was gone. The next epic, The Day The Law Died, is Dredd’s quest to return order to Mega-City One.
As a lover of dystopian fiction, how could I not fall in love with Dredd? Although, if it were real life, I’m sure I would hate all the judges for their authoritarian regime. But I loved the rich storytelling and expansive new world. I even had the t-shirt.
As each issue of 2000 AD or the Megazine arrived, Mike read them and then passed them on to me. I would carefully read each issue, soaking up the stories, the characters, the world.
Mike, our friend Doug, and I used to get together and play the Judge Dredd role playing game. Doug would often play Psi Judge Anderson. Judge Anderson works in Psi Division and has psychic powers.
Mike and I eagerly awaited the first crossover issue of Judge Dredd and Batman. Batman is a vigilante, so Dredd should hate him. But they have a bigger problem. Judge Death made a dimensional jump to Gotham City. Judge Death believes that, because all crime is committed by the living, all life is a crime. If you’re breathing, Judge Death is ready to sentence you to death.
After Batman accidentally kills Judge Death, Judge Death enters the Scarecrow and the two go on a murderous rampage. Of course he can’t be stopped without the help of Judges Dredd and Anderson.
Judge Death is one of the four dark judges. He’s pure evil and he’s awesome.
Unfortunately, Mike dropped out of college to join the Marines. I graduated from college, moved back to New York and lost touch with both of them. I still enjoyed Dredd, picking up compilations each time I visited the United Kingdom to catch up with the goings-on in Mega-City One.
When a Judge Dredd film was announced with Sylvester Stallone playing Dredd, I eagerly awaited its release until I found out the filmmakers committed the worst sin of all.
Dredd’s face has never been shown in the comics. Creator John Wagner says this is because “It sums up the facelessness of justice − justice has no soul. So it isn’t necessary for readers to see Dredd’s face, and I don’t want you to.”
The idiots who made the movie showed Dredd’s face. The humor was removed. The mythology ignored. Dredd had a love interest, Judge Hershey. Relationships between judges is forbidden in the comics.
Other than mentioning it here, the movie doesn’t exist in my life. It betrayed Dredd. For more than a decade, I was disappointed no movie showing the real Dredd existed.
Dredd was released in 2012. Karl Urban is Dredd. I don’t say that as in “he was cast as.” He is Dredd.
Wagner said in 2010, “I have read the script (by Alex Garland) and seen Jock’s visuals. While I can’t go into detail about the content I can say that it’s high-octane, edge of the seat stuff, and gives a far truer representation of Dredd than the first movie. I hated that plot. It was Dredd pressed through the Hollywood cliché mill, a dynastic power struggle that had little connection with the character we know from the comic.”
That’s about right. The 1995 movie was a shit show. The 2012 movie was brilliant.
Naturally, Hollywood still didn’t know what it was doing and screwed up advertising for Dredd.
The movie never came to Scottsbluff. My options were traveling to Loveland, Colorado to see it or pirating it. You don’t see something this good by downloading a shitty cam version of the film.
Psi Judge Anderson was in the film, too. She was awesome. Actually, there wasn’t anything not awesome in the movie.
However, because people in Hollywood are a bunch of dumbasses, Dredd didn’t make a lot of money despite being so good. Urban wants a sequel. The fans want a sequel. Hollywood is full of idiots, so I’m not holding my breath. But if there was one, it would be glorious.
Judge Dredd turned 40 this month. That’s why I went on this little trip down memory lane. Since Dredd is a clone, he’ll probably be entertaining me until the day I die.
If you’re interested, you can catch up and read everything you need to know about Judge Dredd and Mega-City One.