In a dark, distant future of 2099 AD, United States has turned into a massive wasteland and Mega-City One is a metropolis like other "mega-cities" of the then "Cursed Earth". Though, it has turned into a technologically advanced paradise but most of its inhabitants are unemployed and has highly criminal tendencies among themselves.
To keep situations in check, there are assigned Judges to make sure everyone follows the law and order as they possess full authority for arrest, sentence and even execute at spot. Judges exist to keep criminals in check Earth has seen enough and every one of them is capable of terrible ideas to spread chaos around citizens.
Joseph Dredd is one of the finest Judges among his peers and commonly known to all as Judge Dredd. His very name instills great fear in the minds of criminal scums of Mega-City One. Always covering his face under a helmet, Dredd represents a faceless authority of justice, who actually is a clone of the "Father of Justice" Eustace T. Fargo.
With his trusty Lawmaster bike, Lawgiver gun Dredd is a one hell of a force to be reckoned with on any given day. Though he is a quite super sufficient at what he does, often does he gets aided by Judge Cassandra Anderson of the Psi Division.
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| Judge Dredd | Comics |
City Limits
When regenerative tree Paradise Machine at Pleasure Mall starts malfunctioning and starts attacking people, it created a diversion for looters. A team of Judges arrives at spot sortly to take control but Dredd ended up blowing the tree when it helped those creeps get away and are attacked by a small group of robots right away.
Leading their trail, Joe only found a few headless corpses and the only surviving bandit got his head blown out before talking. Then they go to stop a Block War, where his partner Judge Myers nearly got killed by rebel sanitation robots. Aiding his fellow Judge has led him to dig deep into a sinister scheme of framing Myers.
With help from Anderson, he is declared clean but then an old record showed them of an encounter he had a decade ago, where he took down a corrupt Judge named Lou Thompson and since Thompson was a psychic, it is very possible that he has been hiding in plain sight by residing within Myers' consciousness for some time.
Lou is eventually got busted and taken to custody while Anderson transferred Myers' psyche into a droid. Then Justice Department fell into a crisis of clone conspiracy where family members of the Mega-City One wealthiest families are kidnapped for billions of dollars of ransom amount and Dredd became the bagman.
Along with Judge Tarjay, he heads for delivery only to be ambushed midway that he thwarted successfully. Then his partner turned out to be a mole clone placed with him by those ruthless kidnappers but Dredd took him before taking on their entire ring. When he came back freeing all hostages, Tarjay was already dissolved in his hovercraft.
The Long Fail
Joe goes back to an abandoned Zuckerberg Pleasure Mall with Myers, who is now living inside a droid body and working undercover for Dredd. Myers informs him about picking up some recent talk of some sort of upcoming robot revolution but their conversation was then cut short by a call for emergency at infamous Urban-Garland Block.
Dredd responds to a case of a robot torturing his owner in U-G Block and rescues best-selling crime thriller writer Lee Preteen from his guard droid Crumley. It turned on his master and hired bunch of goons to hurt him and intends to write his own book detailing that thriller but Joe intervened and managed to get out with Preteen.
By then, entire Mega-City One has plunged into chaos when technology mysteriously starts falling apart in everywhere. They find themselves amidst a city-wide robot revolt and Dredd goes to see Myers only to find out that he too is compromised. However, his head is recovered and taken to Hall of Justice for further interrogation.
Judge Anderson of Psi Division updates him that all clones of kidnapped elitists have disappeared lately. She takes care of Myers for good after learning of a techno-terrorist group called Circuit Court and Dredd goes to talk to one of the Surgeons, which leads him to Cursed Earth looking for answer after two dozen citizens went missing.
Into The Cursed Earth
Joe kept following trail of their hovercraft and it took him to visit Cursed Earth where he came across Woodrell County Park. He tangled with the muties over a vehicle there only to get captured and thrown into a maze-like prison Mirrored Madhouse. Inside, he found a multi-eyed precog named Dannn, who helped him escape from it.
At night, they rigged every ride of the park and when Woodrell came to get him, launched an all-out attack on his gang. After destroying their park, Dredd hit the road with Dannn but are quickly apprehended by members of Angel Gang. To marinate him before cooking, they send Joe to Butter Lady and cooks eyeballs of his mutant ally.
When Dredd is thrown into a lake full of green liquid substance, he realized it is sentient and probably alien in nature. It communicated with him expressing wishes to be one with its love; Mega-City One but he refused to let it consume his city. However, when it saw that he came fighting for its love, he is revived and sent back immediately.
So, he went back to face Angel Gang with an army of orphan mutant kids after dumping the Butter Lady into her own lake. With their help and a bit from his newfound slimy ooze, Dredd wraps up their wasteland dinner party pretty quick and even effortlessly took down entire Circuit Court with it before going back to his home in MC-1.
Thirteen Badges
During his trip to Cursed Earth, Joe tacked with Woodrell County Park mutants and Angel Gang before finding a means to defeat Circuit Court. Back in Mega-City One, someone has been killing street Judges and Judge Cal confronts Dredd about his recent disappearances while an attempt on taking out Anderson has been made.
Though she survived because of intervention from Dann, they failed to catch the killer and were ambushed once again. However, trying to attack suspected rogue lawman Tarjay only caused a few civilian lives and Joe is taken into custody by Cal.
Cassandra Anderson continued looking for Tarjay when Dredd was being interrogated at SJS headquarters. Her encounter with their rogue suspect has led to a grim end that sets off Joe to act aggressively but caught him eventually. Tarjay kills himself in front of everyone and Joe is sentenced to Titan moon for colluding with a fugitive.
The American Way of Death
When rogue Judge Tarjay killed off thirteen street Judges on duty before committing suicide, it was him working for Dark Judges to make a way for them to enter Mega-City One and their leader, Judge Death unleashed a bloody rampage alongside his fellow lieutenants and Dredd was sent off to Titan moon for serving time.
Though Chief Justice and a few Council of Five members made it out of MC-1 with help from Judge Cal, many civilians and SJS officers were outright slaughtered on street. Judge Blank of Dark Judges sends Judge Omar to Titan, who then informed Joe about current situation of Sector One and urges him to return in action.
He also found one of his former colleague Harvies, whose body is currently housed by a girl named Pachoda. Together they head back to MC-1 but not before everyone living has long abandoned it and all is in ruins. Dredd was fighting back but soon gets arrested by men sent by Cal and he then forced Chief Justice into complying.
Joe takes them all to Cursed Earth to seek help from a primordial ooze only which can save Mega-City One from invasion of Dark Judges. He and his fellow Judges were getting upper hand in the fight but are all sent to different places by Blank. Judge Dredd ended up in a devastated Sector One and his associates found themselves on moon.
Black Light District
Due to being in a psychic link with Dredd when she was killed off in Deadworld by Tarjay, Judge Anderson now resides within his mental block. Overwhelmed by Dark Judges in a fight, Joe plans on run Judge Death through the sentient slime but his enemies didn't jumped hoops as he expected and only he came out on other side a month later.
Since he is a wanted fugitive, Joseph Dredd ran into heavy fire on order from new acting Chief Justice Cal and forced to go back to Sector One only to get ambushed by Death and his allies in crime. Anderson explains that Dark Judges plans on cloning him to make flesh suits for them to pass through that slime wall after capturing him.
Realizing only he can pass through that ooze barrier alive, he threatens Death and his cronies to kill himself. When they claimed him to be bluffing, Dredd simply blew up his head before falling onto the slime. It took him three months to come out on other side and he equipped himself with some exorcist rounds to fight back Death's alliance.
Dark Judges however, were ready for him to come back and just as he showed up, they caught him up in chains to drag him to his doom. Anderson sends out a distress signal that Pachoda came responding to aid him in purging them back to Deadworld. Meanwhile, Cal ordered to blast off a spacecraft carrying Council of Five members.
Mega-City Manhunt
Now that Death and his associates are defeated, Judge Dredd deems to apprehend Cal for some questioning. What he didn't realize is that Cal already predicted his inevitable arrival and took precautionary measures by making several clones to transfer is psyche into while taking entire MC-1 under a very strict surveillance state.
In the aftermath of Dark Judges invasion, a small group of SJS operatives came looking for and one of their own, Judge Verrity was keen to learn what really happened here. For which, she intended to capture Dredd alive but her colleagues were seemingly under order to eradicate all evidence, she got into a fight with them and got wounded.
She survived and came back to Justice Department only to have a confrontation with Joe who came here to have Cal answer for his crimes. Dredd ran into a heavy fire on street by a mob of deputized citizen-Judge and shot fatally. A paranoid Judge Cal attempts to enter his mental block to see if he shared his knowledge with anyone else.
Though he invaded into Joe's mind with immense power, Anderson managed to take over when Cal was distracted and she woke up in his body to order a discharge for her friend. Around this time, Mega-City One came under attack by cyber vigilantes called Guardians of Drokk AKA G.O.D. who hacked into major surveillance networks.
They hacked into SJS server and revealed to the world of Cal's involvement into taking down Council of Five. Judge Dredd came in to rescue just in time when citizens rabidly go after Cal in a fit of rage and Anderson decides to end this charade immediately. Just as they swapped her in a cloned body for Cassie, Verrity walks in to close the case.
Judge Dredd (Comics) Wikipedia
Judge Dredd (Comics) Wikia
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| Dredd of Criminal Scourge |
Here is your links to buy "Judge Dredd" comics from IDW Comics on Amazon.
Judge Dredd – Complete Case Files 05
Judge Dredd – The Cursed Earth Saga
Judge Dredd – The Day the Law Died
Judge Dredd – The Judge Child
Judge Dredd – The Dark Judges
Judge Death – Death Lives!
Judge Dredd – The Apocalypse War
Judge Dredd – America
Judge Dredd – Democracy Now
Judge Dredd – Necropolis
Judge Dredd – Mechanismo
Judge Dredd; Tour of Duty – The Backlash
Judge Dredd – Origins
Judge Dredd; Day of Chaos – The Fourth Faction
Judge Dredd; Day of Chaos – Endgame
Judge Dredd – City Limits
Judge Dredd – The Long Fail
Judge Dredd – Into The Cursed Earth
Judge Dredd – Thirteen Badges
Judge Dredd – Black Light District
Judge Dredd – Mega-City Manhunt
Conceived by John Wagner, Carlos Ezquerra and Pat Mills, Judge Dredd is a popular fictional protagonist character debuting in pages of 2000AD. The series was first published as a strip by IPC Media, then removed to Rebellion Developments and DC Comics for some time and finally it starts printing from 2012 by IDW publishing.
Throughout its run, artist Mike McMahon, Brian Bolland (Batman – The Killing Joke, Camelot 3000) and Ron Smith drew Dredd's character apart from Ezquerra and writers including Garth Ennis (Hitman, The Pro), Mark Miller (Huck, Wanted) and Grant Morrison (Flex Mentallo, Joe the Barbarian) have also plotted a few stories as well.
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| Ain't Scared of None |
Joseph Dredd has starred in a few company-wide crossovers stories with other publishers; Batman from DC Comics and both Aliens and Predator titles from Dark Horse Comics over time other than appearing in many of its own spin-off series.
First IDW volume of the named comic-book has produced a series of interconnected stories over its 30 issue run by writer Duane Swierczynski (Godzilla, Harbinger Wars) and artist Nelson Daniel (Joe Hill's The Cape, Wild Blue Yonder) before eventually ending on a high note after delivering so much action-adventure in a short span.
So far, two motion pictures has been adapted on the character and one of them came out in 1995 simply titled "Judge Dredd", starring Sylvester Stallone while another one was released on 2012 simply titled as "Dredd" starring Karl Urban in lead role. Audience was preferably in more favor to the latter rebooted one, which stayed true to its source.
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