Judge Dredd

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Major Judge Dredd storylines

There have been a number of Judge Dredd storylines that have either significantly developed the "Dredd mythos" or have been "epic" in scale (i.e., been multi-part stories). Some of these include:

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• The Robot Wars (the Mega-City judges face an uprising by the city's robot servant workforce led by carpenter-droid Call-Me-Kenneth)
• The Return of Rico (prog 30) (Joe Dredd's clone brother Rico Dredd returns from Titan (a penal colony for Judges who themselves have broken the law) seeking revenge)
• "Lunar One" (progs 42-59) Dredd is made Judge Marshall of Mega-City One's Lunar Colony. During this mission we meet for the first time Judges from East Meg One.
• The Cursed Earth (progs 61-85) was the writers' take on the basic plot of Roger Zelazny's Damnation Alley: Dredd, accompanied by punk biker Spikes Harvey Rotten undertakes an epic journey across the deserts of the Cursed Earth in order to bring the vaccine for the deadly 2T(Fru)T virus that is devastating the population of Mega-City Two)
• The Day the Law Died (progs 89-108) (the tyrannical and insane Chief Judge Cal takes control of Mega-City One with disastrous consequences for the population. This story introduced the Kleggs, a crocodile-like race of interplanetary mercenaries)
• Judge Death (progs 149-151) (the first appearance of both Judge Death, perhaps the Mega-Cities' darkest foe, and Judge Anderson)
• Judge Child (progs 156-181) (The space opera style search for the mutant child Owen Chrysler, who Mega-City 'pre-cog' Psi-Judge Feyy has predicted will have the power to save the city from an unspecified future disaster. This story introduced several characters into the Dredd mythos such as Judge Hershey, The Angel Gang (including the ever popular villain Mean Machine Angel), Murd the Oppressor and the bizarre Jigsaw Disease, whose victims literally disappeared piece by piece)
• Block Mania (progs 236-244) (contamination of water supplies by Orlok the Assassin leads to all out war between Mega-City One's many city blocks. This story is a prologue to Apocalypse War)
• Apocalypse War (progs 245-270) (weakened by the effects of Block Mania, Mega-City One is attacked and invaded by the forces of East Meg One. Dredd leads the resistance)
• City of the Damned (progs 393-406) (the Judges develop time travel technology. Dredd and Anderson travel into the future to discover more about the disaster predicted by Psi-Judge Feyy. However they learn that the Judge Child Owen Chrysler has in fact caused the events rather than preventing them from happening)
• Oz (progs 545-570) (Dredd visits the Australian Mega-City of Oz on the trail of renegade sky-surfer Chopper. At the same time the Mega-City One Judges are attacked by the Judda, a 'lost tribe' of clones of Chief Judge Fargo who share Judge Dredd's bloodline)
• The Dead Man ((NB. This was not billed as a 'Judge Dredd' story when it first appeared in 2000 AD) a mysterious disfigured stranger with no memory wanders the deserts of the Cursed Earth. In the final episode of the story this turns out to be Dredd, who has encountered the Sisters of Death. In this story Dredd is shown throughout without his famous feature-covering helmet, although his face has been badly burned and scarred.)
• A Letter to Judge Dredd (prog 661) (Dredd receives a letter written by a child who has been killed as an indirect result of the Judges' suppression of a pro-democracy demonstration, causing him to seriously question the entire ethical basis of the Judge system, and setting in motion the chain of events recounted in the episodes that follow)
• The Tale of the Dead Man (progs 662-668) (Dredd resigns and takes the Long Walk following his assessment of ex-Judda Cadet Judge Kraken, and his crisis of faith in the Law that he had always sworn to uphold. This story acts as a prologue to Necropolis)
• Necropolis (progs 669-673 (Countdown to Necropolis) and 674-699) (manipulating the confused mind of Judge Kraken, the Sisters of Death are able to use the body of Psi-Judge Agee in order to take control of Mega-City One and create a trans-dimensional bridge enabling The Dark Judges to once again manifest themselves)
• Democracy (the long running tensions between the totalitarian Judge system and the movement for the restoration of democracy in the Mega-City at last come to a head...)
• Judgement on Gotham (a 'cross-over' story co-published by DC Comics and Fleetway in which Dredd and Batman reluctantly join forces in order to defeat Judge Death, who has used dimension-jump technology to breach the DC Universe and attack Gotham City). This issue was also notable for painted artwork by Simon Bisley.
• Judgement Day (progs 786-799) (Sabbat the Necromagus reanimates the corpses of the dead and uses them to attack the Mega-Cities of the world, leading to the deaths of billions. This story includes the teaming up of Dredd with Johnny Alpha, a character from another long running 2000AD comic strip, Strontium Dog (Dredd and Alpha had however previously crossed paths in an earlier story)
• Mechanismo (after Necropolis and Sabbat's zombies, Mega-City has lost far too many judges. To combat this, the Chief Judge test-runs ten robot judges with disastrous results.)
• Wilderlands
• Helter Skelter (in an alternative dimension, Judge Cal (see The Day the Law Died) was not defeated by Dredd, and has obtained dimension jump technology from the Dark Judges. He uses this to cause chaos between the dimensions, bringing back many of Dredd's greatest foes from other alternative dimensions, as well as a variety of characters from other 2000 AD stories (including cameos from Halo Jones, Rogue Trooper, D.R. and Quinch and others). On the verge of the total collapse of all universes (Helter Skelter), Dredd defeats Cal with the help of dimension technician Darien Kenzie.)
• Judge Dredd - Terror and Total War (a combined mega-epic that deals with the actions of a terrorist cell in Mega-City 1. Fanatically dedicated to the democratic cause, Total War smuggle a dozen nuclear devices into the vast megalopolis and threaten to detonate them all unless the Judges leave the City. A standard thriller plot made more significant through explorations of Judge Dredd's extended family, including his niece Vienna, daughter of Rico Dredd, and a Dredd clone, Nimrod).