Judge Dredd Blu Ray

[Rosette Allaband]

JudgeJoseph Dredd is a fictional character created by writer John Wagner and artist Carlos Ezquerra. He first appeared in the second issue of the British weekly anthology comic 2000 AD (1977). He is the magazine's longest-running character, and in 1990 he got his own title, the Judge Dredd Megazine. 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. Judge Dredd stories often satirize American and British culture, with a focus on authoritarianism and police brutality.[2]

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.

The task of visualising the character was given to Carlos Ezquerra, a Spanish artist who had worked for Mills before on Battle Picture Weekly. Wagner gave Ezquerra an advertisement for the film Death Race 2000, showing the character Frankenstein (played by David Carradine) clad in black leather on a motorbike, as a suggestion of Dredd's appearance. Ezquerra added body-armour, zips, and chains, which Wagner initially objected to,[7] commenting that the character looked like a "Spanish pirate."[8] Wagner's initial script was rewritten by Mills and drawn up by Ezquerra. The hardware and cityscapes Ezquerra had drawn were far more futuristic than the near-future setting originally intended; in response, Mills set the story further into the future,[9] on the advice of his art assistant Doug Church.[10] The original launch story written by Wagner and drawn by Ezquerra was vetoed by the board of directors for being too violent.[11][note 2] A new script was needed for the first episode.

By this stage, Wagner had quit, disillusioned that a proposed buy-out of the new comic by another company, which would have given him and Mills a greater financial stake in the comic, had fallen through.[12] Mills was reluctant to lose Judge Dredd and farmed the strip out to a variety of freelance writers, hoping to develop it further. Their scripts were given to a variety of artists as Mills tried to find a strip which would provide a good introduction to the character. This Judge Dredd would not be ready for the first issue of 2000 AD, launched in February 1977.[13]

The story chosen to introduce the character was submitted by freelance writer Peter Harris,[note 3] and was extensively re-written by Mills, who added a new ending suggested by Kelvin Gosnell.[14][15] It was drawn by newcomer Mike McMahon. The strip debuted in prog 2. Around this time Ezquerra quit and returned to work for Battle. There are conflicting sources about why. Ezquerra says it was because he was angry that another artist had drawn the first published Judge Dredd strip.[16] Mills says he chose McMahon because Ezquerra had already left, having been offered a better deal by the editor of Battle.[17]

Wagner soon returned to the character, starting in prog 9. His storyline, "The Robot Wars", was drawn by a rotating team of artists (including Ezquerra), and marked the point where Dredd became the most popular character in the comic, a position he has rarely relinquished.[18] Judge Dredd has appeared in almost every issue since,[note 4] most of the stories written by Wagner (in collaboration with Alan Grant between 1980 and 1988).

In 1983, Judge Dredd made his American debut with his own series from publisher Eagle Comics, titled Judge Dredd.[19] It consisted of stories reprinted from the British comic, but since 2012 IDW Publishing has published a variety of Judge Dredd titles featuring original stories. Since 1990, Dredd has also had his own title in Britain, the Judge Dredd Megazine. With Wagner concentrating his energies on that, the Dredd strip in 2000 AD was left to younger writers, including Garth Ennis, Mark Millar, Grant Morrison and John Smith. Their stories were less popular with fans, and sales fell.[20] Wagner returned to writing the character full-time for 2000 AD in 1994.

Between 2015 and 2018, Hachette Partworks published a fortnightly partwork collection of hardback books entitled Judge Dredd: The Mega Collection. This included not only Judge Dredd stories but also a variety of spin-off stories set in the same universe.

Almost all[note 5] of the stories from both comics are currently being reprinted in their original order of publication in a series of trade paperbacks. Stories from the regular issues of 2000 AD and the Megazine are collected in a series entitled Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files. This series began in 2005[28] and is still ongoing as of 2024. Stories from special holiday issues and annuals appeared in Judge Dredd: The Restricted Files. This four-volume series began in 2010 and concluded in 2012.

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.

In an interview, Ezquerra commented on how he designed the character stating he received the basic description of "a menacing policeman dressed in black and driving a motorbike." He later described his process on creating the character: "When I create a character, I'll do it fairly quickly, the longer you stay working on an idea, the more chances you have to spoil it and Dredd was not an exception. I draw the essentials: grim face, black suit, menacing helmet (based on the Greeks), protections, and gun readily available when sitting on the bike, after that I started to embellish the protections and bike with symbols, maybe a couple of days in total."[29]

On rare occasions, Dredd's face has been seen in flashbacks to his childhood; but these pictures lack detail.[32] 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.[33] 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.[34]

In Carlos Ezquerra's original design, Dredd had large lips, "to put a mystery as to his racial background".[35] 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.[when?][36]

How Dredd's aging would be addressed was a source of reader speculation until 2016, when writer Michael Carroll and artist Ben Willsher published the story "Carousel",[38] in which Dredd is ordered to undertake rejuvenation treatment that restores him to his physical prime. 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".[39]

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. 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. Any attempt by a non-designated user to fire a Lawgiver causes the weapon to self-destruct (a feature introduced by writer Malcolm Shaw).[40]

Dredd's first stories take place in the year 2099, 122 years after their publication date in 1977. His regular stories are generally set 122 years after their real-world publication date (unless otherwise stated as a flashback or prequel story), so that stories published in 2024 are set in 2146.

The setting of Judge Dredd is a dystopian future Earth damaged by a series of international conflicts; much of the planet has become radioactive wasteland, and so populations have aggregated in enormous conurbations known as 'mega-cities'.[42] The story is centred on the megalopolis of Mega-City One, on the east coast of North America. Within Mega-City One, extensive automation (including intelligent robots) has rendered the majority of the population unemployed.[43] As a consequence, the general population is prone to embracing any fashion or craze they encounter.[44] Mega-City One is surrounded by the inhospitable "Cursed Earth",[45] a radioactive desert populated by outlaws and mutants. Much of the remaining world's geography is somewhat vague, although other mega-cities are visited in the strip.

The majority of Mega-City One's population lives in gigantic towers known as City Blocks, each holding some 50,000 people.[46] Each is named after some historical person or TV character, usually for comic effect. A minority live in "mopads" - an evolution of the mobile home, and constantly travel Mega-City One's extensive road network. Mega-City One extends from Boston to Charlotte; but extended into Florida before the Apocalypse War laid waste to the southern sectors.[47] At its height, the city contained a population of about 800 million; after the Apocalypse War, it was halved to 400 million.

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