Judge Dredd (character)


Judge Joseph Dredd is a fictional character created by writer John Wagner and artist Carlos Ezquerra. He first appeared in the second issue of 2000 AD, which is a British weekly anthology comic. He is the magazine's longest-running character. He also appears in a number of film and video game adaptations.
Judge Dredd is a law enforcement and judicial officer in the dystopian future city of Mega-City One, which covers most of the east coast of North America. He is a "street judge", empowered to summarily arrest, convict, sentence, and execute criminals.
In Great Britain, the character of Dredd and his name are sometimes invoked in discussions of police states, authoritarianism, and the rule of law. Over the years Judge Dredd has been hailed as one of the best satires of American and British culture with an uncanny trend to predict upcoming events such as rampant mass surveillance, rise of populist leaders, and the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2011, IGN ranked Judge Dredd 35th among the top 100 comic book heroes of all time.
Judge Dredd made his live action debut in 1995 in Judge Dredd, portrayed by Sylvester Stallone. Later he was portrayed by Karl Urban in the 2012 adaptation Dredd. In audio dramas by Big Finish Productions, Dredd is voiced by Toby Longworth.

Character and appearance

Joseph Dredd is the most famous of the Street Judges that patrol Mega-City One, empowered to instantly convict, sentence, and sometimes execute offenders. Dredd is armed with a "Lawgiver", a pistol programmed to recognise only his palm-print, and capable of firing six types of ammunition, a daystick, a boot knife and stun or gas grenades. His helmet obscures his face, except for his mouth and jaw. He rides a large "Lawmaster" motorcycle equipped with machine-guns, a powerful laser cannon, and full artificial intelligence capable of responding to orders from the Judge and operating itself.
Dredd's entire face is never shown in the strip. This began as an unofficial guideline, but soon became a rule. 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".
On rare occasions, Dredd's face has been seen in flashbacks to his childhood; but these pictures lack detail. In an early story, Dredd is forced to remove his helmet and the other characters react as if he is disfigured, but his face was covered by a faux censorship sticker. In prog 52, during Dredd's tenure on the Lunar Colonies, he uses a 'face-change' machine to impersonate the crooked lawyer of a gang of bank robbers.
In Carlos Ezquerra's original design, Dredd had large lips, "to put a mystery as to his racial background". Not all of the artists who worked on the strip were told of this. Mike McMahon drew Dredd as a black man, while Brian Bolland and Ron Smith drew him as white. The strip was not yet printed in colour, and this went unnoticed. The idea was dropped.
Time passes in the Judge Dredd strip in real time, so as a year passes in life, a year passes in the comic. The first Dredd story, published in 1977, was set in 2099, whilst stories published in are set in. Consequently, as former editor Alan McKenzie explains, "every year that goes by Dredd gets a year older – unlike Spider-Man, who has been a university student for the past twenty-five years!". Therefore Dredd was 38 when he first appeared, but is now years old, with years of active service, and for almost 30 years Dredd's age and fitness for duty were recurring plot points.
How Dredd's ageing would be addressed was a source of reader speculation until 2016, when writer Michael Carroll and artist Ben Willsher published the story "Carousel", in which Dredd is ordered to undertake rejuvenation treatment. Regarding the possible death of the character, in an interview with Empire in 2012 Wagner said: "There could be many ways to end it, but the probability is that I won't still be around when it happens! I would love to write it, but I can't see it happening. I'll leave the script in my will".

Weapon

The Lawgiver is a fictional weapon used by the Judges including Judge Dredd. The Lawgiver is a self-loading handgun featuring manual and automatic focusing and targeting, plus a built in computer capable of controlling its operation. It fires a range of speciality ammunition. An in-line gunsight shows the view directly down the barrel. A Lawgiver can only be operated by its designated Judge owner, whose palm print is programmed into the gun's memory.
An earlier weapon appeared in the Origins storyline. Though little was known about the gun itself, it was capable of firing standard and armour-piercing rounds.
The gun has a maximum range of up to three miles and has six distinct settings:
Joseph Dredd and his older "brother" Rico Dredd are cloned from the DNA of Chief Judge Fargo, the founder of the Judge System. Their growth is artificially accelerated in gestation so that when they are "born" in 2066, they already have the physiological and mental development of a 5-year-old child, with appropriate knowledge and training already implanted in their brains. The last name 'Dredd' is chosen by the genetic scientist who created them, Morton Judd, to "instill fear in the population".
When the corrupt President Booth starts World War III in 2070, also known as the Atomic Wars, the Judges move to restore order to the panic-stricken streets. Caders Joe Dredd and Rico Dredd are temporarily made full judges to restore order to the panic-stricken streets, despite the fact that they are cadets who are physically and mentally only nine years old. They are under the supervision of Judge Kinnison and make their first kills during this time, stopping a rape gang, but are unable to prevent Kinnison's death. During the war, they discover that their clone-father Eustace Fargo is still alive despite the public being told he'd been killed years before. Fargo meets with Rico and Joe personally, recruiting them to be his temporary bodyguards. During this time, he openly expresses his doubts regarding what the Justice Department has achieved, and if they have taken away "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" in their efforts to instill strict order and control. Three weeks later, Fargo is placed in suspended animation and the Dredd brothers return to the Academy.
Distinguishing themselves, they Dredds are fast-tracked through the Academy of Law, Rico graduating first in the class of 2079, with Joseph graduating second. Joe's final assessment is done under the supervision of Judge Morphy, who is impressed with the young man and passes him. Soon after graduation, Joseph discovers Rico has embraced corruption, engaging in multiple crimes including murder, believing that Judges are thugs and killers by nature and so this is not a betrayal of that. Rico asks Joe to help him cover his crimes, but Joe arrests his brother instead, sentencing him to 20 years of labor on the penal colony on Saturn's moon Titan. Joe Dredd continues operating as a judge, excelling, and quickly gaining a reputation throughout the city as a formidable but also incorruptible law enforcement agent. In 2099, Rico Dredd returns to Earth after serving his 20-year sentence. He comes after Joe for revenge, challenging him to a fast draw. No longer used to Earth's gravity, Rico loses when Joe shoots him dead in self-defence. Joe is visibly upset by the incident, insisting he be the one to carry his brother's body away.
Over the decades, Joe Dredd becomes a major force protecting Mega-City One and is sometimes the biggest catalyst in preventing its destruction. Offered the opportunity to become Chief Judge in 2101, Dredd declines, preferring to serve on the streets enforcing the law, though he does temporarily serve in other senior positions. In "Tour of Duty", Dredd is appointed to the Council of Five, Mega-City One's highest governing body, on which he serves for two years. On several occasions, he saves his city from conquest or destruction by powerful enemies, and in 2114 he saves the entire world during the Fourth World War.
In 2107, Dredd loses his eyes in combat during the story City of the Damned. He has them replaced with bionic eyes that granted him night-vision. In 2112, he suffers near-fatal wounds when a battle leads him to fall into a lake of acidic chemicals, burning his entire body. Later on, he undergoes rejuvenation treatment, healing him and added more vitality than a man his age would normally have. In 2130, Dredd is diagnosed with cancer of the duodenum, though it was benign. In 2138, at 72 years old, Dredd undergoes another "rejuve" treatment after being ordered to. It is specified that his entire epidermis, vascular, and muscular tissue are rebuit on a cellular level, once again restoring some lost youth and vitality. He turns down an offer for a full treatment that would rebuild his internal organs and skeleton.
Although Dredd holds his duty above every other priority, this devotion is not blind. On two occasions, Dredd resigns from the force on points of principle, but both times he later returns, believing that the Judge System while imperfect and vulnerable to corruption is the best protection that currently exists for people. In 2113, Dredd insists the Justice Department gamble its existence on a referendum to prove its legitimacy. In 2116, he risks 20 years imprisonment with hard labour when he challenged the policy of a chief judge; In 2129,Dredd threatens to resign if Chief Judge doesn't change the city's harsh anti-mutant apartheid laws.
In 2129, Dredd is present when his clone-father Eustace Fargo is revived from cryogenic suspension only to die later the same day. Before Fargo dies, he calls for Dredd to be at his side and admits his conclusion that the Judge system was a mistake that had killed the American Dream, that it was meant to fix things but not to last forever. He says he wants Joe Dredd and his brother Rico to fix things, as they are his blood. After he dies, Dredd decides not to share Fargo's final words.
In more recent years, Dredd has met other Fargo clones such as Kraken and Nimrod, and a rogue clone of himself called DRƎDD. He has also developed a family of sorts with the introduction of two younger clones of his own named Judge Dolman and Judge Rico. Dredd also discovered his older brother Rico Dredd fathered a daughter, Vienna Dredd, who now looks on Joe as an uncle.

Family and associates