Dredd, the second movie to be based on the Judge Dredd franchise is gearing up for release later this year, and there are high hopes that this
movie will make up for the 1995 movie which starred Sylvester Stallone
and was directed by Danny Cannon.
Judge Dredd is perhaps the only British created comic book character
that has the potential to rival franchises like Batman and Superman. I
was there when the character debuted in 2000AD issue two, way back in
1977.
1977 was a big year in pop culture - the Silver Jubilee, Charlie Chapling died, Elvis died, the Pistols rock the UK and 2000AD is born. Back then Dredd then played second fiddle to Dan Dare but the lawman soon became top banana.
I still pick up
the Judge Dredd mag from time to time, and although the character has
evolved through the decades he is still basically the same character we
saw tearing down the futuristic streets of New York -yeah it was a
future New York in the early days. Mega City One, had not even been
thought of when the strip started.
And so if you're late to the party it matters now for here is the
Archive with everything you need to know about the character in one
concise hit.
MEET THE TOUGHEST LAWMAN OF THEN ALL...The
first showing of Dredd, issue 2 of 2000AD, told us it was New York and
the year was 2099 - a tarnished city where skyscrapers tower miles into
the sky and small buildings like, for instance, The Empire State Building
lay in ruins and now serve as hideouts for vicious criminals. Right
from the start Dredd had the makings that would turn him into the most popular strip in the comic. Mega City one
developed slowly and from very early issues the name New York was
dropped and became America's Mega City and then simply, Mega City One.
The
reason Dredd was the succcess Dan Dare was not seems obvious with
hindsight - 2000AD was a new kind of comic and it's strips, very much
initially influenced by the banned Action Comic, had a very 1970's
grittiness to them, while Dare, although upgraded, was still stuck in
the traditional space opera vibe. The readers were hungry for the
violence of strips such as Flesh, Invasion and yes, Judge Dredd.
Dredd evolved from an idea for a comic strip by John Wagner for an
extreme version of the Dirty Harry type character. Wagner had written
various
Dirty Harry-style "tough cop" stories for other titles,
and suggested a character who took that concept to its logical extreme,
imagining an ultra-violent lawman patrolling a future New York City
with the power to administer instant justice. Mills had developed a
horror strip called
Judge Dread but abandoned the idea as
unsuitable for the new comic; but the name, with the spelling modified
to "Dredd" at the suggestion of sub-editor Kelvin Gosnell, was adopted
by Wagner for his ultimate lawman. The judges were lawman who were able
to instantly pass a verdict as to a perps guilt and also pass sentence
there and then. The modern police force seem to aspire towards this.
The
Dredd character worked well in epic storylines, split across several
month's worth of issues - and over the years there have been many, some
that have even redesigned Dredd's world - two early examples were the
Robot Wars and The Cursed Earth. The Robot Wars ran from issue 10 - 17
and featured a war between mankind and the robots that had been built to
serve. The story was notable for its social commentary - The very first
story in which the Judge Dredd series finally comes alive is the Robot
Wars, where the parallels between the robots in the story and black
slaves of years gone by is made quite explicit.
The Cursed Earth was even more ambitious
is scope and ran from issues 61 - 85. When this strip finished its run
Judge Dredd and the world he operated in would never be the same. Indeed
the world depicted in the modern Judge Dredd strips was very much
defined within the Cursed Earth storyline. It may have been knocked
about a bit in future epics, such as The Apocalypse War but the feel was
right here in The Cursed Earth.
The Cursed Earth was also notable for a lawsuit involving the publishers of
2000 AD,
McDonalds, Burger King, and the Jolly Green Giant. Four episodes in the
series, written by John Wagner and Jack Adrian, featured copyrighted
characters without permission.
One storyline depicted wars between rival gangs, headed by the Burger
King and Ronald McDonald - including scenes of Ronald executing a gang
member who spilled a milk shake. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the owners of
these characters objected to the use of their trademarks and sued.
Publishers IPC settled out of court, publishing a half-page retraction
and agreeing never to reprint the offending episodes
Another point is that, unless we're talking about the Sly Stallone movie, Dredd never removes his helmet - Dredd's entire face is never shown properly in the strip. This custom
began as an unofficial guideline, but soon became a rule which artists
were required to follow.
As John Wagner explained:
"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."
However, on very rare occasions Dredd's face has been shown in flashbacks to when he was a child, in pictures lacking in detail.
In an early story in prog 8, Dredd is forced to remove his helmet and
the other characters react as if he is disfigured, but Dredd's face was
covered by a faux censorship sticker.
An aborted idea was to have Dredd as a non-white character. In Carlos
Ezquerra's original design he drew Dredd with large lips, to put a
mystery as to his racial background.However not all of the artists who
worked on the strip were told. As a result Mick McMahon spent four
months drawing Dredd as a black man, while Brian Bolland and Ron Smith
drew him as a white man.
For
many years it became popular for readers to send in drawings of what
they thought Dredd looked like - many of these had him terribly
disfigured.
Over the years the Dredd series has matured and these days satire, both political and otherwise is ingrained in its DNA.
The WIKI gives us the following bio of Judge Dredd -
Senior Judge Joseph Dredd and his brother Rico Dredd were cloned from the DNA of Chief Judge Fargo, the first chief judge, in 2066.
Their growth was artificially accelerated so that they emerged with an
apparent physiological age of 5, with all the appropriate knowledge
for their age electronically implanted in their brains by computer
during gestation.
The name Dredd was chosen by the genetic scientist who created them, Morton Judd, to "instill fear in the population."
In 2070 they saw action for the first time during the Atomic Wars, when
as cadets they were temporarily assigned the rank of full judge and sent
to restore order to the panic-stricken streets.
Distinguishing themselves, they were chosen to take part in assaulting
the White House when the Justice Department deposed President Booth.
They were fast-tracked through the Academy of Law, Joe graduating second in his class in 2079 (Rico came first)
Later that year Joe was forced to arrest Rico for murder and corruption.
Joe
Dredd excelled as a judge, rapidly gaining promotion to the rank of
senior judge. Offered the opportunity to become chief judge in 2101, he
declined, preferring to serve on the streets enforcing the law.
On several different occasions he saved his city from conquest or
complete destruction by powerful enemies, and in 2114 he almost
single-handedly saved the world from being destroyed during the Fourth
World War.
Although Dredd puts his duty to uphold the law above everything, this
devotion is not blind loyalty. On two occasions (in 2099 and 2112) Dredd
resigned from the force on points of principle, but both times returned
to the fold.
In 2113 Dredd insisted that the Justice Department gamble its very
existence on a referendum to prove its legitimacy as a form of
government.
In
2116 he risked 20 years' imprisonment with hard labour when he
challenged the policy of a chief judge which he was unable to support.
In 2129 he threatened to resign to persuade another chief judge to change the city's harsh anti-mutant laws.
After over fifty years of active service, Dredd's career may be drawing
to a close. In 2130 he was diagnosed with cancer, though it was said
to be operable.
In 2132 Dredd was appointed to the Council of Five, Mega-City One's highest governing body.
So that's it, a pretty rough guide but basically all you need to know -
just remember, if you put Margaret Thatcher in a figure hugging leather
suit, and gave her unanswerable power then you'd have Judge Dredd...
Hey, come to think of it - maybe that's why he never takes his helmet
off! Is it the Thatch in there?
