Counting down my Top 10 Judge Dredd epics and episodes – essentially as a running list updated as I finish each volume of the collected Judge Dredd Complete Case Files in my ongoing Mega-City Law reviews (presently up to Case Files 16).
Note that I distinguish between epics and episodes – on the basis of epics as longer storylines over a number of episodes. At present, I classify epics as storylines of five or more episodes. As such, this includes what I would normally regard as ‘mini-epics’ or just longer story-arcs, with the ‘true’ epics usually exceeding 20 episodes – but these are obviously special events within the Judge Dredd comic. As of Case Files 16, there’s only been 6 ‘true’ epics of more than 20 episodes – the first two such epics in Case Files 2, the third in Case Files 4, the fourth in Case Files 5, the fifth in Case Files 11 and the sixth in Case File 14.
(10) THE DEVIL YOU KNOW & TWILIGHT’S LAST GLEAMING
(CASE FILES 16: prog 750-756 – 7 episodes)
“Mega-City One…eight hundred million people and everyone of them a potential criminal. The most evil, violent city on earth…but God help me, I love it” – Judge Dredd, 2100.
The centerpiece and highlight of Case Files 16 – which is also the culmination of the ongoing epic Democracy storyline, the referendum whether to retain the Judges after Necropolis, instigated and pushed by Dredd himself.
After this, the Democracy movement in Mega-City One faded away, albeit bubbling to the surface from time to time, but largely transformed into or was replaced by terror movements. Of course, there was always an overlap between democracy and terror in the Judge Dredd comic, at least in the eyes of Justice Department but from this point onwards also in the remnants of the Democracy movement itself or other political opponents of the Justice Department.
And once again it is through the Democracy movement that we see Justice Department and the Judges at their darkest, but ironically also the comic at its most morally ambiguous or complex.
From the outset, Judge Dredd and his fellow Judges were intended as a dystopian satire of the worst excesses of police and government authority fused together into a post-apocalyptic police state. And yet, also from the outset, Dredd co-creator Pat Mills, best known for his anti-authoritarian themes, wrote Dredd – the ultimate authority figure – as a heroic character. As I’ve said before, Judge Dredd is essentially Dirty Harry in a dystopian SF satire, reflecting both the heroic and anti-heroic nature of that character as his predecessor.
That’s heightened here with Judge Dredd – having recently saved the city from the Sisters of Death and the Dark Judges in Necropolis – supporting the referendum and indeed the prime mover behind there being any referendum at all, although of course he is confident that the people will vote for the Judges. (Spoiler alert – he’s right). That support seems him targeted for assassination by a conspiracy of Judges within Justice Department, led by Judge Grice. The moral ambiguity with respect to Dredd’s dedication to the city and support of the referendum is not lost on the leader of the Democracy movement, Blondel Dupree.
And if nothing else, it did lead to Judge Dredd’s poster moment with the quote in my feature image – quoted twice in these episodes, including at their conclusion, and repeated since.
Of course, one might quibble with that quote. Mega-City One’s population of 800 million was accurate enough as at 2100 – although not ironically not when Dredd was meant to have been quoted here upon his return from Luna, as there was that early episode weirdness with it being quoted at 100 million in The Day the Law Died before the writers settled on 800 million in the episodes in Case Files 3. It was halved by Block Mania and the Apocalypse War – and was referred to as 350 million (after Necropolis) shortly before these episodes. There’s also that reference to God rather than Grudd.
And comparatively, Mega-City One is better than a number of other mega-cities one could name. Of course, the Australian mega-city of the Sydney-Melbourne conurb (nicknamed Oz) is hands-down the best place to live in the twenty-second century. Of the cities we’ve seen, you could argue that Brit-Cit, Hondo City, and Murphville are better than Mega-City One – perhaps even Mega-City Two is better. But…there’s a long line of cities that appear to be worse. East-Meg One (before it was nuked) and East-Meg Two. Ciudad Banquarilla or Banana City. Even Texas City looks worse. And we’ve yet to see them but spoiler alert – Luxor, the Pan-Andean Conurb and Vatican-Cit all look worse.
Still, the quote does seem to accurately reflect the essence and heart of Judge Dredd as a character and as a comic.
RATING: 4 STARS****
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(9) NECROPOLIS
(CASE FILES 14: progs 662-699 – 38 episodes, including the various prelude or countdown episodes)
When the Dark Judges reigned supreme over Mega-City One as the titular Necropolis according to their mantra – “The crime is life. The sentence is death!”
And they racked up perhaps the second highest body count of any Mega-City One crisis after the Apocalypse War or Day of Chaos – with estimates of over 60 million (out of a population of 400 million). Yes – Judgement Day had a higher body count (2 billion!!), but that was more global (to other mega-cities) rather than Mega-City One itself. Of course, the Dark Judges might have racked up a higher body count if they didn’t insist on dispensing their “justice” personally (and usually literally) by hand like chumps, as opposed to using weapons of mass destruction like the Sovs – but then, it’s a labor of love for them and they have all the time in their world or any other for it.
Of course, Necropolis is effectively part of the ongoing Dark Judges storyline, but I prefer to consider the Necropolis epic separately (at least for now).
Necropolis falls into one of the two essential Judge Dredd epic plotlines established by the first two Judge Dredd epics, The Cursed Earth, and The Day the Law Died (as well as arguably their precursors Luna, and the Robot Wars) – Dredd confronting some threat, usually existential, to Mega-City One, and Dredd venturing to some other, usually exotic, location, (or a combination of the two, Dredd venturing to some other, usually exotic, location TO confront some threat, usually existential, to Mega-City One).
Necropolis falls into the category of Dredd confronting an existential threat of Mega-City One (although he does start the epic in the Cursed Earth) – and it doesn’t get more of an existential threat than the omnicidal Dark Judges.
It also continues that element introduced back in The Day the Law Died and demonstrated par excellence in The Apocalypse War, that Dredd becomes the focus of resistance to the existential threat to Mega-City One, leading a small ragtag underground force to defeat it. In this case, as in The Day the Law Died, literally underground – in the Undercity. It still works effectively here, although it was to become something of a recurring cliché in future epic storylines.
Like The Apocalypse War, you feel genuine and very real tension for the continued existence or survival of Mega-City One. It has a similar prelude with the countdown to Necropolis that the Apocalypse War had with Block Mania – a slow burn or creeping doom, starting small but building to a force overwhelming Mega-City One. And like The Apocalypse War, Necropolis starts as that force overwhelming the city – and from there it is a taut and tensely told story of grim, gritty desperation of the mega-city on a knife’s edge from extinction, fighting for its very survival against the overwhelming odds of a relentless invader, in this case the extra-dimensional invasion of the Dark Judges and Sisters of Death as opposed to the Soviets. Arguably there is even more tension in Necropolis – at least the Soviets wanted to preserve the population of Mega-City One for conquest, while the Dark Judges have no such concern, indeed quite the opposite.
To that Necropolis adds some genuine elements of horror – always in the background with the Dark Judges, although it is often swamped out with their black comedy or high camp. Certainly, they and the Sisters of Death are also campy in Necropolis, but there is their horror as well – as with Judge Mortis pursuing the Judge cadets through the Undercity, clamoring to them as “children”.
So why does it fall short of the Apocalypse War?
Well, firstly there is the element of personal preference or nostalgia – the Apocalypse War was my introduction to Judge Dredd (through the reprint comics lent to me by a friend) and remains the classic Judge Dredd epic for me, my once and future king epic of all time. However, my second and third reasons are more objective.
Secondly, there is the simplicity of the Block Mania and Apocalypse War epic – in that I believe a first-time reader of Judge Dredd could pick it up, read it and enjoy it without too much difficulty. Block Mania is a reasonable introduction to the character of Judge Dredd and the claustrophobic dystopian nature of Mega-City One, “a society where every single thing has become monstrously overwhelming”. And the Apocalypse War is straightforward enough from history or even contemporary geopolitics – Americans vs the Soviets or Russians. There is little in the way of necessary backstory
That is not the case in Necropolis. It is arguably one of its strengths – tying together a number of longstanding themes or threads – but that will also leave new readers at a loss for those themes or threads. Probably the most important is the background of Judge Kraken, a clone of Judge Dredd by the renegade Judda, in the Oz epic – but there’s also the Democracy storyline and the Dark Judges themselves.
This is compounded by the true prelude to the epic, The Dead Man, running as a separate story from the regular Judge Dredd comic altogether (albeit partly not to spoil its central twist). The countdown to Necropolis does do a reasonable job of recapping it, but might still leave a new reader at a loss that Dredd has been disfigured or scarred from acid burns as a result of psychic attacks from the Sisters of Death – and that their attacks are themselves a sign of the doom that has already fallen on Mega-City One.
Thirdly, on the subject of the Sisters of Death, they are my third reason for ranking Necropolis below The Apocalypse War as their powers seem both ridiculously overpowered and vaguely defined for plot contrivance, the latter leaving some substantial holes. They are the means by which the Dark Judges take over the city – through their mind control of the Mega-City One Judges, although it is unclear how two entities control thousands of Judges across the city and which begs the question of why the Dark Judges didn’t use them earlier. It also begs the question of what exactly is stopping the Sisters of Death from similar psychic infiltration of the city afterwards.
RATING: 4 STARS****
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(8) P.J. MAYBE
CASE FILES 11: prog 534 “Bug”
CASE FILES 12: progs 592-594 “PJ Maybe, Age 13”
CASE FILES 12: prog 599 “The Further Misadventures of PJ Maybe”
CASE FILES 13: progs 632-634 “The Confeshuns of PJ Maybe”
CASE FILES 14: progs 707-709 “Wot I Did During Necropolis”
(11 episodes)
One of my favorite recurring characters and storylines – the ongoing misadventures of juvenile genius and psychopathic serial killer P.J. Maybe. With his complete amorality and high intelligence, albeit combined to comic effect with an apparent exception when it comes to written English (where he continues to write like a juvenile), P. J. Maybe is a recurring antagonist to Judge Dredd and one of the few perps wily enough to consistently escape detection or custody.
Of course, as the comic universe time passes at about the same rate as in real life, at least year for year, P.J. Maybe doesn’t stay a juvenile. We’re introduced to him in “Bug” at 12 years of age – in 1987 in our world and 2109 in Mega-City One – but we continue to follow him at regular intervals as he grows into adulthood, ultimately rising under an assumed identity to Mayor of Mega-City One, ironically one of its best as he successfully compartmentalized his public office from his private life (until slipping up). And of course, Judge Dredd is his ultimate as well as ongoing nemesis, although almost thirty years after he was introduced, in 2138 at 41 years of age. Arguably, he was at his best – or at least his “cutest” – as a juvenile.
Of course, most of his story was ahead of his first teaser episode, even his background as the only child of the Maybe family, relatives through his mother of the wealthy Yess clothing manufacturers, specifically of trousers (with a lucrative contract for Justice Department uniforms), or that his initials stand for Philip Janet (with his middle name as a result of his parents wanting a girl. His parents – decent law-abiding citizens completely oblivious, as most people were, of their juvenile son’s extra-curricular activities of murder – end up inheriting the Yess fortune. Not that his background really comes into play, particularly after the Judges catch up with him, as his parents die (by suicide during Necropolis) and he routinely changes identity – face-changing machines being one of his favorite tools of choice, along with his skill in robotics and chemistry, particularly the mind-altering drugs SLD-88 and SLD-89.
RATING: 4 STARS****
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(7) CITY OF THE DAMNED
(CASE FILES 8: progs 393-406 – 14 episodes)
Vampire Hershey – and zombie Dredd! What more could you want? (Well, other than the writers not to have tired of it and finished it less abruptly)
Of course, it leans heavily on the preceding epic in The Judge Child Quest (collected back in Case Files 4). Indeed, it goes back to the very origin of that Quest – the deathbed precognitive vision of Psi Judge Feyy that Mega-City One would be overwhelmed and destroyed by some mysterious disaster in 2120:
“I saw a war more ghastly than any we have known. I saw our city destroyed – and from the destruction, foul creatures rose to prey on the survivors”.
Unless of course the Judges found the Judge-Child also seen by Judge Feyy as prophesied savior – “he is fated to rule Mega-City One in its gravest hour” – but as we know, that didn’t turn out well in The Judge Child Quest. Judge Dredd found him alright, but then simply abandoned him to his fate because the Judge Child – Owen Krysler – was evil. Ultimately the Judge Child’s fate was death, killed by the Mega-City One equivalent of an interstellar drone strike when he sought revenge on Dredd for abandoning him.
And of course, at the same time, Dredd abandoned Mega-City One to its prophesied fate, essentially shrugging it off that they’ll have to face whatever comes on their own.
However, Mega-City One and the Judges are not quite done with the Judge Child Quest or the Judge Child, particularly given that Judge Feyy’s precognitive visions were 88.8% accurate (a figure only slightly less than Mega-City One’s unemployment rate). And the Judge Child Quest was back in 2102 – now it is 2107, with 2120 only thirteen years in the future.
Of course, it’s still in the future and hence unknown – until now, with the introduction of time travel to the Judge Dredd comic, indeed in the very introduction of this comic with the first successful time machine prototype, Proteus. By the way, that seems have been a popular name for time machines at that time (heh), since I’ve also read the SF novel The Proteus Operation with its titular time travel.
Anyway, the Judge Dredd comic had already introduced dimensional travel between alternate dimensions with the Dark Judges, albeit by those antagonists rather than Justice Department – but now both dimensional and time travel will be a recurring feature in the comic, albeit still somewhat rare. In its introduction, the prototype time travel still seems somewhat risky despite short-range tests – but the importance of its destination, the prophesied disaster of 2120, overrides any risk. So Chief Judge McGruder sends the duo of Judge Dredd and Psi-Judge Anderson on a time travel mission to 2120.
As I’ve said before, there are two essential Judge Dredd epic plotlines which were set up by The Day the Law Died and The Cursed Earth respectively – Dredd confronting some threat, often existential, to Mega-City One and Dredd venturing to some other exotic location. The two tend to be combined in the latter, with Dredd venturing to some other exotic location TO confront some existential threat to Mega-City One itself – as here in City of the Damned, albeit where that exotic location is Mega-City One in the future.
And 2120 turns out to be grim indeed – also introducing vampires among the “foul creatures” preying upon the survivors. Those vampires turn out to be shockingly familiar to Dredd, as is the overwhelming psychic force that destroyed Mega-City One and the Judges. The epic also involved some drastic and enduring developments for Dredd himself.
Sadly, the epic itself did not endure for its anticipated length of at least twenty episodes, as is characteristic of Judge Dredd epics, but instead ended after only fourteen episodes – apparently because writers John Wagner and Alan Grant got bored of it (as they did not like time travel stories). However, it did include some of the late great Steve Dillon’s finest Dredd epic art.
RATING: 4 STARS****
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(6) THE JUDGE CHILD QUEST
(CASE FILES 4: progs 156-181 – 26 episodes)
As I’ve said before, there are two essential Judge Dredd epic plotlines which were set up by The Day the Law Died and The Cursed Earth respectively – Dredd confronting some threat, usually existential, to Mega-City One and Dredd venturing to some other exotic location. The two tend to be combined in the latter, with Dredd venturing to some other exotic location TO confront some existential threat to Mega-City One itself (which is why I tend to classify the former as Dredd confronting the threat to Mega-City One within the city itself, with the city typically embattled against some invading force). The Cursed Earth was an example – except that the existential threat was not to Mega-City One but its West Coast counterpart of Mega-City Two – and The Judge Child Quest is in the same vein, only even more so.
For one thing, it doesn’t get more exotic or downright weird than the Cursed Earth, except for alien space – so The Judge Child Quest ups the ante by starting in the Cursed Earth and then going into alien space (via our first distinctively different mega-city setting, Texas City). For another, this time the existential threat is to Mega-City One itself. This is one of the important elements introduced in this epic, that would loom large and cast a long shadow in Dredd’s world – the deathbed prediction of Psi Division’s foremost pre-cog, Judge Feyy, with his track record of 88.8% accuracy in predicting the future, that Mega-City One would be destroyed in 2120 (so 18 years in the future in the comic’s timeline of 2102) by a “ghastly war” from which “foul creatures” would rise up to prey on the survivors UNLESS Judge Dredd could find the Judge Child, Feyy’s fated savior of the city.
And so the epic introduced another important element that would persist along with Feyy’s prophecy, the Judge Child himself, Owen Krysler, the boy “born of this city” and bearing the Mark of the Beast – I mean Eagle of Justice on his forehead – which makes for a convenient identifying feature in order to find him (as well as his appearance like that of a Buddhist monk in training).
Unfortunately, the stage is set as Owen Krysler was taken by his parents to a Cursed Earth settlement four years previously and from there abducted by mutant slavers. And of course, since finding him in the Cursed Earth would be too easy, he is abducted twice more, with the second taking him into alien space. So Dredd has to go into space on an episodic adventure rivalling that of The Cursed Earth epic, where he encounters weirdness beyond that even of the Cursed Earth – aliens of course, but also living planets, necromancers, Oracle Spice, robot kingdoms and my personal favorite, Jigsaw Disease.
Enter two more important recurring elements of Dredd’s world that would persist long after the Quest itself. The first is the villainous and notoriously violent Angel Gang, particularly fan favorite cyborg and quintessential weird Judge Dredd villain, Mean Machine Angel. As a boy, he was good-natured and showed none of the family’s violent tendencies. Obviously, the Angel Gang patriarch, Pa Angel, decided that this would simply not do, and arranged radical…surgery to transform him into a murderous cyborg, with four ‘settings’ of rage literally dialled into his head – with his basic default setting merely as the lowest level of anger. (“I’m going up to 4 on you, Dredd!”)
The second is Judge Hershey, a female character to rival Psi-Judge Anderson – whose telepathic abilities would have come in very useful to locate the Judge Child, except that she was presently in a boing bubble containing another apocalypse within her – and one who would subsequently rise high among the ranks of Judges to the ultimate position of Chief Judge.
Sadly, both those elements were mashed into the 1995 Judge Dredd film in its usual mangled manner – nothing was too sacred in Judge Dredd’s lore for that film not to desecrate in the pursuit of fan favorites. And so, we saw a version of Mean Machine Angel in the Cursed Earth, as well as Judge Hershey – played well enough by Diane Lane, but as Dredd’s love interest?! Whom he kisses, after having taken off his helmet for most of the movie. Oh the humanity!
RATING: 4 STARS****
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(5) THE DAY THE LAW DIED
(CASE FILES 2: progs 86-108 – 23 episodes, including the 3 episode prelude where Dredd is framed)
The Day The Law Died will always rank highly among Judge Dredd epics. It was the second true Judge Dredd epic, running straight on back-to-back from the first epic The Cursed Earth, when Judge Dredd returned to Mega-City One from Mega-City Two. More fundamentally, the duo of The Cursed Earth and The Day the Law Died saw the Judge Dredd comic come of age. This duo is the origin of the classic Dredd I know, although Mega-City One wouldn’t quite find its shape until just afterwards – not least in population, jumping from 100 million as referenced in The Day The Law Died to 800 million. Each of the epics (and their precursors in Luna and the Robot Wars) respectively set up the quintessential Judge Dredd epic plotlines – Dredd venturing to some other, usually exotic location, or confronting some threat, usually existential, to Mega-City One.
We saw the former in the Cursed Earth, now we see the latter in The Day The Law Died. In this case, the existential threat to Mega-City One came from the Justice Department itself, in the form of the insane Judge Cal’s rise to the position of Chief Judge, essentially by way of coup. As such, The Day The Law Died effectively introduced a recurring theme in Judge Dredd – the dangers of corruption, and especially the corruption of power, within the Justice Department, albeit rarely at the level of existential threat to the city as it is in this epic. Ironically, the source of that corruption in this epic is Judge Cal’s position as head of the SJS or Special Judicial Squad, the Justice Department’s equivalent of Internal Affairs or the body of Judges who judge other Judges. Nominally, the Special Judicial Squad is meant to guard against corruption within the Justice Department, but in practice in this and subsequent storylines they tend to have a somewhat antagonistic role to the rest of the Department (and Dredd in particular) at best and be a source of power unto themselves at worst – the House Slytherin in Justice Department.
In fairness to Judge Cal, most of the existential threats posed to Mega-City One come from Judges, just not usually Judges of Mega-City One. The extra-dimensional Dark Judges, led by Judge Death, are perhaps the most recurring danger to the city and became an existential threat to it in the Necropolis epic, with their warped philosophy that all crime is committed by the living so the elimination of crime involves the elimination of all life – “The crime is life. The sentence is death!” However, when it comes to the most effective existential threat to Mega-City One, the Dark Judges are amateurs compared to the Soviet or Sov Judges, mainly because the Dark Judges typically insist on meting out their dark justice by hand, whereas the Sov Judges typically employed weapons of mass destruction – in the Apocalypse War and subsequently in the Day of Chaos.
As for the storyline, like The Cursed Earth, it is simple and straightforward – all the better to let the SF future satire and absurdist black comedy play out. Indeed, just as The Cursed Earth essentially just, ahem, borrowed its storyline wholesale from Roger Zelazny’s Damnation Alley, The Day The Law Died also borrowed its storyline, but from a more classical source – the ill-fated reign of Roman Emperor Caligula, straight from the pages of Suetonius’ The Twelve Caesars, or more so as it was closer in time to this epic, the BBC TV adaptation of Robert Graves’ I Claudius. Indeed, Judge Cal was named for Caligula (with his appearance modelled on John Hurt’s portrayal in the BBC TV series), and he is even named AS Judge Caligula when the series was introduced (and subsequently collected under that title). Of course, if that was his actual name, it would seem to have been begging for trouble. I mean, what next? Judge Hitler?
Anyway, his insanity mirrors that of Caligula, albeit (somewhat disappointingly) without the depravity – not surprisingly in the more ascetic Justice Department of Mega-City One, or even more so, in the publishing restrictions for 2000 AD. And so, just as Caligula appointed his horse as a senator of Rome, Judge Cal appoints a goldfish as Deputy Chief Judge Fish, ironically remembered fondly by the Mega-City One citizenry for a death that saved the city. Speaking of which, the insanity of Judge Cal was such that he sentenced the entire city to death – twice. Which again evokes the historical Caligula, who according to Suetonius, wished that all the city of Rome had but one neck.
However, Judge Cal is made more dangerous in his insanity – and hence earns his place among the top tier of Judge Dredd’s villains – in that, unlike his historical predecessor, he at least has the cunning and presence of mind for a technique of mind control to ensure the loyalty of his equivalent of the imperial Praetorian Guard. And as a failsafe, when Mega-City Judges proved too unreliable, to import a new Praetorian Guard – in the form of alien Klegg mercenaries. The Kleggs and their Klegg Empire – aliens resembling giant bipedal crocodiles with appetites to match – would prove to be an occasionally recurring element in Judge Dredd (and Dredd’s recurring hatred), although the reach of their Empire is obviously limited by their temperament and lack of intelligence.
The Day The Law Died also introduced an element that would prove to be something of a recurring cliché in subsequent Dredd epics (until it was dramatically subverted in the Day of Chaos storyline) – that Judge Dredd becomes the focus of resistance to the existential threat to Mega-City One, leading a small ragtag underground force to defeat it. In this case, literally underground – in the Undercity, which became more fleshed out in this epic from its previous introduction, and contributed a critical ally to Dredd’s resistance, in the form of the dim-witted but hulking brute Fergee. Of course, Dredd didn’t have much choice in this, as he was an important target of Cal’s plans to assume the position of Chief Justice and control of Mega-City One – and he had not been subject to Cal’s mind control technique due to his absence from the city on his mission in the Cursed Earth. Cal’s initial plan is to frame Dredd – and when that fails, to assassinate him along with the incumbent Chief Judge. Sadly, these elements have something of a bad aftertaste as they were adapted into the abominable Stallone Judge Dredd film – including where the character of Fergee was transformed beyond recognition in all but name to comic relief played by Rob Schneider. Sigh.
RATING: 4 STARS****
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(4) THE CURSED EARTH
(CASE FILES 2: progs 61-85 – 25 episodes)
And here we are in Judge Dredd’s first true epic The Cursed Earth – for which some of my favorite images come not from the original episodes in 2000 AD, but the Eagle Comics reprints with their cover art by Brian Bolland.
The location of the Cursed Earth featured all the way back in progs 3-4, although it had yet to be christened the Cursed Earth and was simply described as the “wilderness from the Atomic Wars” – if by wilderness, of course, you mean most of the former United States (outside the mega-cities on East and West Coasts and in Texas), now dangerous and mutated badlands (with a running theme of dark, mutated versions of the United States). The Cursed Earth is downright drokking dangerous – mutants, aliens, ratnadoes, the last President of the United States, Las Vegas, war droids…and freaking dinosaurs!
The Cursed Earth combines the essential Judge Dredd epic plotlines – Dredd confronting some threat, usually existential, to Mega-City One, and Dredd venturing to some other, usally exotic, location, or a combination of the two, Dredd venturing to some other, usually exotic, location TO confront some threat, usually existential, to Mega-City One. The Cursed Earth epic is just that – except the existential threat is not to Mega-City One, but its West Coast counterpart of Mega-City Two. In this case, it is a deadly virus that turns people into murderous, cannibalistic psychopaths (not unlike Rage virus in the 28 Days Later film(s).
And it doesn’t get more exotic, or downright weird, than the Cursed Earth – except perhaps for alien space.
As for the storyline, it is simple and straightforward, much like that in Mad Max Fury Road (which come to think of it, would make for an excellent Cursed Earth storyline – Judge Dredd and Mad Max are even owned by the same studios, hint hint) – all the better to let the SF future satire and absurdist black comedy play it out. Dredd must drive through the Cursed Earth to take a vaccine to Mega-City Two. Of course they, ahem, borrowed the storyline from Roger Zelazny’s Damnation Alley. I know it, you know it and the writers know it. Who cares? It was an SF classic – a former Hell’s Angel must drive a vaccine from the West Coast to the East Coast in a post-apocalyptic United States after a nuclear war. Judge Dredd just goes in the opposite direction. He even takes his own former Hell’s Angel-style biker with him (by the name of Spikes Rotten). In Damnation Alley, flight was simply not possible due to the freakish atmospheric conditions because of the nuclear war. In the world of Dredd, with its regular aircraft (and space flights!), this excuse doesn’t really seem to wash, although there is a passing reference to the Death Belt of floating (and radioactive) atmospheric debris – which doesn’t seem to recur much after this epic. Hell – Mega-City One supersurfer Chopper later crosses the Cursed Earth on a hoverboard! The Cursed Earth storyline offers the flimsy excuse that the plague infectees have taken over the Mega-City Two airport(s?). Surely Mega-City One aircraft could simply land as near the city as possible? Or Mega-City One could use drones or similar craft to land anywhere else within the city other than the airports? But again, who cares? Who wants to see Judge Dredd fly over the Cursed Earth? Of course, we want to see Dredd ride across it (in his special Killdozer vehicle) and fight dinosaurs. So strap yourself in for the ride.
RATING: 4 STARS****
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(3) THE GRAVEYARD SHIFT
(CASE FILES 7: progs 335-341 – 7 episodes)
Here we have it – the miniature but boutique epic of seven episodes, The Graveyard Shift, that remains for me the single best ‘snapshot’ introduction to Judge Dredd and Mega-City One as a futuristic Dirty Harry in an absurdist dystopian post-apocalyptic SF satire.
Its strength is its premise – unlike the longer epics that usually involve some awareness of backstory or mythos, this shorter storyline is just another normal night of Judge Dredd and his fellow Judges policing Mega-City One, the titular graveyard shift from 9 pm to 5 am.
Well, normal night might be an understatement, as the events of this storyline do seem to exceed the usual nocturnal criminal activity of Mega-City One, even if only by a question of degree or level of intensity. I mean – it seems to involve all the usual things we see on a night in Mega-City One, just somewhat worse for some of them. And let’s face it, the criminal activity of Mega-City One is insanely intense or deliciously over the top to start with – it’s why they have the Judges in the first place.
The Graveyard Shift has it all. All the usual crimes and features of Mega-City One life – suicide ‘leapers’, Judges killed on duty, gang violence, mutant incursions from the Cursed Earth as illegal immigrants, illegal underground sporting competitions (in this case bite fighting matches) and the random searches of citizens’ apartments known as crime blitzes or crime swoops.
There’s also a block war – block wars are of course also a regular feature of Mega-City One, but this one’s a doozy, even by Mega-City One standards short of the city-wide Block Mania. Serial killers are also a recurring feature of Mega-City One, albeit perhaps not on a nightly basis – but the one we see here is out to break a record. Literally.
And we get random flashes of events unusual even by Mega-City One graveyard shift standards, including one of my favorite images for the storyline – an escaped alien devouring citizens. The story concedes that “even by graveyard shift standards, it is a busy night” – particularly at the business end of it all, the city’s body recycling plant or resyk, where a dozen Justice Department autopsy units are set up to keep those recycling conveyor belts moving.
We also get to see the more heroic self-sacrificial side to Judge Dredd along with his usual straight-shooting wisecracking police officer in the style of Dirty Harry – as he risks his life to save an infant trapped in a collapsing building. As he admonishes his fellow Judge who declare him too valuable to risk – “When a Judge gets too valuable to risk, he’s no longer a Judge!”
And Judges Hershey and Psi-Judge Anderson make appearances as well.
And of course there’s the classic scene in my feature image – classic Dredd in the style Dirty Harry. “What’s the body count, Dredd?” – “I’ll let you know.”
RATING: 5 STARS*****
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(2) THE DARK JUDGES
CASE FILES 3: progs 149-151 “Judge Death”
CASE FILES 5: progs 224-228 “Judge Death Lives”
(8 episodes)
Judge Death. The Dark Judges.
Need I say more?
Well, yes. The first Judge Death story arc, while not epic in length, proved epic in enduring impact – introducing not just one but two of Judge Dredd’s (and for that matter its anthology publication 2000 AD’s) most iconic and enduring characters, eclipsed only by Dredd himself.
Firstly, the titular villain – who is THE most iconic and enduring antagonist for Dredd, the Chaos to Dredd’s Law or the Joker to Dredd’s Batman.
Secondly, Psi-Judge (Cassandra) Anderson – the primary female character in both Judge Dredd and 2000 AD, in both senses of the first major female character (well, apart from Dredd’s niece Vienna, but she effectively vanishes for two decades or so before resurfacing as an adult in the Dredd storyline) and the most substantial major female character.
Clearly the writers of Judge Dredd identified a problem in that Dredd lacked antagonists of substance, but particularly recurring antagonists of substance. After all, Dredd’s antagonists were typically criminals or perps, who by their nature tended to be less formidable than Dredd himself, and in any event tended to be incarcerated or killed by Dredd in their storylines. Ironically, Dredd’s most substantial antagonists have been other Judges, generally as an inversion or dark version of Dredd himself.
And the greatest of these is the extra-dimensional Judge Death – although he was human in origin, he is a supernatural adversary, effectively an undead corpse in a dark fantasy inversion of a Mega-City One Judge’s uniform. Indeed, Judge Death is a dark fantasy insertion into what is predominantly science fiction, although the Judge Dredd comic is something of a fantasy kitchen sink, throwing in everything from science fiction through fantasy to horror. For me, however, Judge Death seems somewhat less jarring than other fantasy elements in the comic, perhaps because he seems to straddle fantasy and science fiction as an extradimensional being (or an “alien super fiend” as he is sometime styled), not unlike the Cthulhu Mythos – indeed, in some ways Judge Death is akin to Cthulhu in a uniform. And because he’s just too damn cool. Anyway, his supernatural or extradimensional nature means that he is much more hardy than Dredd’s human antagonists – as he himself says, “you cannot kill what does not live”. His ‘body’ can be destroyed with enough firepower, but he then ‘ghosts’ out to jump to another suitable corpse or possess suitable minds while in transit between bodies. (He also typically kills his victims by ‘ghosting’ or phasing his hand into their body to grip their heart).
And while he is second to none in villainous scope – quite simply, he is an omnicidal maniac, with his goal as the destruction of all life, due to the insane troll logic that all crime is committed by the living so that life itself is a crime. Hence his catchphrase – “The crime is life. The sentence is death”. Although that would seem to be directed more at all human life, he carried out that sentence on his world of origin and it does seem to be devoid of all life. Of course, setting aside the insanity of the logic, that premise would still seem to be flawed, as his ‘unlife’ seems equally capable of committing crimes. (He also does make exceptions, usually for temporary expediency towards his ultimate goal, but has identified at least one notable exception to his otherwise universal death sentence, the elderly Mrs Gunderson). Consistent with the insane troll logic of his catchphrase, Judge Death tends to be played for black comedy, but always has a touch of horror about him and quite often is played for genuine horror effect. Part of his appeal (and effect) as Dredd’s most iconic adversary was that he is the ultimate dark inversion of Dredd (and the Law).
This story arc also introduced Justice Department’s ‘psychic’ judges against such supernatural threats, although they use the characteristically science fiction nomenclature of ‘psi’ (or psi powers) for the Psi-Division or Psi-Judges. Psi Division was introduced in the person of Psi-Judge Anderson, Psi Division’s leading telepath, originally modelled on blonde 1980s singer Debbie Harry (and enduring as Judge Dredd’s or 2000 AD’s recurring pin-up girl). She was also introduced as something of a foil to Dredd, albeit not in the same villainous way as Judge Death – as opposed to Dredd’s laconic and taciturn expression, she has a cheery disposition which lends itself to cracking jokes, often at Dredd’s expense. Then again, this is part of her nature as a Psi-Judge, as they all tend towards eccentric personalities by Justice Department standards (and tolerated as part of their useful abilities). In Anderson’s case, her ability and reliability has earned her the enduring trust of Dredd – and she remains one of the few people who regularly calls him by his first name Joe.
The second story arc expanded the mythos to include the other Dark Judges, effectively rounding out an apocalyptic foursome to match the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse – Death himself, Fire, Fear and Mortis. Although isn’t Judge Mortis – he’s the one with the cattle skull head (and badge) – doubling up on death judges? Mind you, the original Horsemen of the Apocalypse did much the same thing with Conquest and War as the first two Horsemen (followed by Famine and Death).
It also introduced their origin in the dimension now known as Deadworld. “Now they were assembled…Fear – Death – Mortis – Fire…the four Dark Judges. They had found their world guilty and destroyed it. Now they brought their law of death to Mega-City One”.
Well, I suppose Judge Fire is an easy guess from his appearance, given he appears as a skeleton engulfed in flame (and a flaming badge to boot). Judge Fear is a little trickier, with his full portcullis bat-winged helmet. Judge Fear of course gave Dredd the opportunity for the immortal Judge Dredd quote – “Gaze into the fist of Dredd!”
Did…did you just punch out Cthulhu, Dredd (as the trope goes)? Why yes – yes he did.
RATING: 5 STARS*****
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(1) BLOCK MANIA & APOCALYPSE WAR
(CASE FILES 5: progs 236-270 – 35 episodes)
This is it – this is the big one! The Apocalypse War – and its prelude of Block Mania – remains my favorite Judge Dredd epic of all time, partly because it was my introduction to Judge Dredd (in the subsequent reprint comics).
Block Mania was destructive enough, engulfing Mega-City One in city-wide block wars between its 800 million citizens (with deaths at least in the thousands and possibly in the millions). It was hard to see how it could get worse, and then it did, in its final pages no less – it was all a prelude by the Soviet mega-city of East Meg One to their Operation Apocalypse, their war against and invasion of Mega-City One. Out of the dystopian frying pan into the apocalyptic fire…
The Judge Dredd comic had been teasing war with the Soviet mega-city – the Sovs or Sov-Judges – since their introduction as the most persistent recurring adversaries of Mega-City One in the Luna storyline, way back in progs 50-51 in Case Files 1. Of course, the Sov-Judges were much more topical when they were introduced in 1977-1978, as indeed was war with the Soviet Union (or its surviving mega-cities) back when The Apocalypse War was published in 1981-1982, a late peak in the Cold War which turned out to be its last gasp, albeit not without its nuclear scares. The historical Soviet Union collapsed a decade later – the Sovs remained in the Judge Dredd comic universe but episodes subsequent to that collapse hinted at a neo-Soviet revival. In their introduction, war was somewhat more ritualized between the American and Soviet mega-cities, at least in their lunar colonies – effectively as a death-sport, somewhat like Rollerball. Back on earth, however, the Sovs had been gradually looming as a threat of actual war.
And here it was – war with the Sovs – and how! As I’ve said before, there are two essential Judge Dredd epic plotlines which were set up by The Day the Law Died and The Cursed Earth respectively (with precursors in The Robot Wars and Luna respectively before that) – Dredd confronting some threat, typically existential, to Mega-City One and Dredd venturing to some other exotic location. The latter tends to include the former, with Dredd venturing to the exotic location to confront some threat to Mega-City One – which is why I tend to classify the former as Dredd confronting the threat to Mega-City One within the city itself, with the city typically embattled against some invading force. And you don’t get a more classic example of the city embattled against an invading force – or a more existential threat to Mega-City One – than the Apocalypse War.
In addition to being the most persistent recurring adversaries to Mega-City One, the Sov-Judges have also proved to be its most effective recurring adversaries, in terms of sheer destruction – and that’s in a universe with such omnicidal maniacs as Judge Death and the Dark Judges. Of course, the Dark Judges like the personal touch of doing things by supernatural hand, while the Sovs used nukes or other weapons of mass destruction. When you come down to it, the most damage done to Mega-City One is by Judges – predominantly by the Sov Judges, with the Dark Judges running a distant second.
Prior to the Sov Judges in The Apocalypse War, the most existential threat (and damage done) to Mega-City One had been from its own Judges – in the form of the insane Chief Judge Cal in The Day The Law Died. In that epic, the mega-city was somewhat smaller, with a population of 100 million. After that epic, the writers abruptly but discreetly bumped it up to a population of 800 million and an area sprawling along the entire Atlantic seaboard of the United States (and part of Canada). Ironically, having quietly ret-conned the city into such a giant, the writers then decided that it was just too big and messy, so they dramatically cut it down to size in The Apocalypse War – halving it, in both population (down to 400 million) and size (losing everything south of North Carolina).
Of course, it was hard to take the soap operatic satire of The Day The Law Died seriously, particularly as Chief Judge Cal’s ridiculous persona and antics were modelled on Roman Emperor Caligula. The Apocalypse War was different, at least being more grounded in the contemporary reality of the Cold War. Don’t get me wrong – it’s still over the top and tongue in cheek as all hell. Get ready for those nukes flying! They didn’t do things by halves in The Apocalypse War, or rather they literally did if you’re talking about Mega-City One itself, and there’ll be a billion people or so dead by the end of it. There is, however, a grim, gritty desperation of a city fighting for its very survival against the overwhelming force of a relentless invader. It was just as well the Apocalypse War was my introduction to Judge Dredd, as the epic makes you feel for Mega-City One and the palpable threat to its very existence in a way that The Day the Law Died did not. Indeed, perhaps a little too much – I mean, you know Mega-City One and Judge Dredd will win out in the end, but I’m not sure real wars turn so quickly on such an abrupt reversal of fortune from the plight in which Mega-City One finds itself.
Which leads to me to the story formula codified in The Apocalypse War, although it had been introduced in The Day The Law Died – of Mega-City One all but overwhelmed by the threat to its very existence, until that existential threat is abruptly reversed or negated at the eleventh hour by a small team or squad led by Dredd fighting back against it. It proved such a, dare I say it, winning formula, that it was recycled to the point of cliché or joke in virtually every subsequent epic of existential threat to Mega-City One – until outright subverted in the Day of Chaos epic, and you know, they didn’t, as Dredd and the other Judges failed to save the city and could only look only helplessly as it died.
Which leads me to the long echoes of The Apocalypse War in the Judge Dredd comic. Although other storylines also had enduring repercussions – notably the previous epic of The Judge Child Quest, which would haunt Mega-City One for eighteen years or so – it was The Apocalypse War that would have the most enduring and profound impact particularly between the American and Soviet mega-cities. Not so much the East Meg One of the Apocalypse War – I wouldn’t get too attached to that mega-city. Just saying…
But there was the other Soviet mega-city of East Meg Two, and more dangerously yet, the renegade emigres or ex-Judges of East Meg One, who would continue to exchange blows with Mega-City One until they finally wreaked their revenge in The Day of Chaos – decades later.
The Apocalypse War also introduced Carlos Ezquerra, the standard artist for 2000 AD’s Strontium Dog strip, as the standard artist for Judge Dredd epics in the following decades. I tended to prefer the cleaner lines of other artists, but Ezquerra’s art in Judge Dredd was admittedly iconic and he sadly passed away recently.
And finally, some more personal reflection on it. It remains my favorite Judge Dredd epic of all time for many reasons.
I particularly like the contrast between Block Mania and the Apocalypse War. Block Mania was a slow burn – or creeping doom, starting small but building to a force overwhelming Mega-City One. The Apocalypse War starts off as a force overwhelming the city. And from there it is a taut and tensely told story of grim, gritty desperation of a city fighting for its very survival against the overwhelming odds of a relentless invader – and eking out whatever victories it can just to hold an ever-retreating line (until, of course, the last victory).
And I can think of barely any actual wars during which I’ve cheered for victories in my lifetime, and very few in history – perhaps rightly so, as one should go to war with a heavy heart, let alone cheer its victories. But I did cheer Mega-City One’s victories in the Apocalypse War, not that there’s that much (or many) to cheer through the storyline – as small, limited and few as they are. Of course, that’s fictional wars for you – Star Wars, the War of the Ring, and so on. It also helps that the Apocalypse War epic makes you feel for Mega-City One and the palpable threat to its very existence, balanced on knife’s edge as it is from being completely overwhelmed and going under forever. And it also helps that I have been a patriot of Mega-City One ever since, sometimes to the extent that I identify with it as my actual country.
RATING: 5 STARS*****
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TOP 10 JUDGE DREDD EPICS (TIER LIST)
This is my running (tier) list up to and including Judge Dredd Case Files 16, in which I’ve defined epics to include storylines of five or more episodes, usually in continuous format but also including two recurring storylines.
S-TIER (GOD TIER)
(1) BLOCK MANIA / APOCALYPSE WAR
(2) JUDGE DEATH / DARK JUDGES (recurring storyline)
(3) THE GRAVEYARD SHIFT
The Apocalypse War (and its prequel Block Mania) is both my Old and New Testament of Judge Dredd (particularly my Book of Apocalypse) – still my favorite Judge Dredd epic and one that still has an ongoing impact, both as the foundation of my enduring love of the character and in the narrative of the comic itself.
Of course, Judge Death and the Dark Judges also make a fine Book of Apocalypse for Judge Dredd, what with the Dark Judges as Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and all.
The Graveyard Shift may only be seven episodes but is still the best single storyline or ‘snapshot’ introduction to Mega-City One and Judge Dredd.
A-TIER (TOP TIER)
(4) THE CURSED EARTH
(5) THE DAY THE LAW DIED
(6) THE JUDGE CHILD QUEST
(7) CITY OF THE DAMNED
(8) P.J. MAYBE (recurring storyline)
(9) NECROPOLIS
X-TIER (WILD TIER) – for the newest entry as at Case Files 16
(10) THE DEVIL YOU KNOW / TWILIGHT’S LAST GLEAMING