{"id":246,"date":"2017-03-27T19:33:46","date_gmt":"2017-03-28T01:33:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.irenenorth.com\/writings\/?p=246"},"modified":"2024-04-22T02:46:16","modified_gmt":"2024-04-22T02:46:16","slug":"i-am-the-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/2017\/03\/27\/i-am-the-law\/","title":{"rendered":"I am the law"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

He is the law<\/a>. You should be afraid. Or enthralled. It depends on how twisted you are.<\/p>\n

In college, sometime in 1991, my friend, Mike, showed me a weekly British comic called 2000 AD<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Within its pages was Judge Dredd<\/a>. Dredd<\/a> was so popular he was given his own comic \u2013 Judge Dredd: The Megazine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Judge Joe Dredd<\/a> lives in the dystopian future of Mega-City One<\/a> in North America. He is judge, jury and executioner in this authoritarian world.<\/p>\n

In Dredd’s first ever appearance in the comic 2000 AD, he tackled a gang of killers who had been ambushing his comrades.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Earth is mostly radioactive wasteland. People live in mega-cities<\/a>, 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<\/a> stretches from Boston, Massachusetts to Charlotte, North Carolina. Before the Apocalypse War, it went as far as Florida.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Dredd is equipped with his lawgiver<\/a> (pistol), which only recognizes his palm print, capable of holding six types of ammunition. His Lawmaster<\/a> motorcycle comes equipped with machine guns, a laser cannon and artificial intelligence that can respond to Dredd’s orders and operate on its own.<\/p>\n

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 \u201clong walk\u201d into the Cursed Earth to bring the law to the lawless.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Mike, our friend Doug, and I used to get together and play the Judge Dredd role playing game<\/a>. Doug would often play Psi Judge Anderson. Judge Anderson works in Psi Division and has psychic powers.<\/p>\n

Mike and I eagerly awaited the first crossover issue<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Judge Death is one of the four dark judges<\/a>. He’s pure evil and he’s awesome.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Dredd’s face has never been shown in the comics. Creator John Wagner says<\/a> this is because “It sums up the facelessness of justice \u2212 justice has no soul. So it isn’t necessary for readers to see Dredd’s face, and I don’t want you to.”<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Dredd was released in 2012<\/a>. Karl Urban is Dredd. I don’t say that as in \u201che was cast as.\u201d He is Dredd.<\/p>\n

Wagner said in 2010, \u201cI have read the script (by Alex Garland) and seen Jock\u2019s visuals. While I can\u2019t go into detail about the content I can say that it\u2019s 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 clich\u00e9 mill, a dynastic power struggle that had little connection with the character we know from the comic.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That’s about right. The 1995 movie was a shit show. The 2012 movie was brilliant.<\/p>\n

Naturally, Hollywood still didn’t know what it was doing and screwed up advertising for Dredd.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Psi Judge Anderson<\/a> was in the film, too. She was awesome. Actually, there wasn’t anything not awesome in the movie.<\/p>\n

However, because people in Hollywood are a bunch of dumbasses, Dredd didn’t make a lot of money<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Judge Dredd turned 40 this month<\/a>. 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.<\/p>\n

If you’re interested<\/a>, you can catch up and read everything you need to know<\/a> about Judge Dredd and Mega-City One.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He is the law. You should be afraid. Or enthralled. It depends on how twisted you are.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[95,201],"class_list":["post-246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ramblings","tag-comic","tag-judge-dredd"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3896,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246\/revisions\/3896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}