When you have millions of people to protect, you start to come up with interesting ideas. Judge Dredd is one such idea and probably the best that Mega City One could have ever hoped for. So, what is the idea that made Dredd possible? What are Mega Cities? Let’s find out!
During the 2030s to 2050s, the world would go through many global wars that would lead to the formation of Mega Cities, vast, walled off cities that would encapsulate what was once several states in America. Outside the walls were the Cursed Earth, a wasteland desert where scavengers tried to survive in the vast nothingness. To combat crime, a new form of law keeper was designed, the Judges. These individuals would be not only police, but judge, jury, and executioner, when needed. Able to mete out justice as they saw fit with their high-tech Lawgiver guns at their side.
Joseph Dredd was part of a cloning program, alongside his brother Rico Dredd, they were cloned from Chief Judge Eustace Fargo, who was the first Chief Judge of Maga City One’s Judges program. Joseph and Rico were born with accelerated aging, they were effectively born with the development and bodies of a five-year-old, then aging as normal people do. Their last name, Dredd, was chose for optimal psychological warfare against crime.
By the time the two were reaching their tenth birthday, they were already fighting in the Atomic Wars as temporary Judges. It was at this time that Joseph and Rico would meet their “father” who was believed dead but had been hidden away from the population. They would protect their father during the war until he could be cryogenically frozen, to be preserved due to being mortally wounded that their science was yet to repair. Joseph took to heart his father’s concerns of the Justice Department and the role they could play in forming Mega City One’s society.
When the war ended, the boys would continue with Judge academy and excel in their training, with Rico finishing top of their class and Joseph in second. While the two become well regarded Judges, Joseph uncovers that Rico had gone corrupt with the power given to him. Joseph would be the one to bring in Rico and have him sentenced to twenty years on a Jupiter prison colony. When Rico’s time was served, he would return to Earth and demand a duel with his brother, only to lose due to not being accustomed to Earth’s gravity yet.
Joseph’s reputation as a Judge was seen as incorruptible and the perfect example of his title. Thanks to his quick thinking and skill, Joseph is able to not only save Mega City One time and time again, but even the world when World War IV occurs. Spending decades upon decades of his life to the cause, the Judges often plead for Joseph to take the role of Chief Judge but he declines.
Realizing that Joseph was not only getting older but also more torn apart due to the hazards of the job, he had gotten cybernetic eye replacements after losing them in a fight. The Judges’ council would request that Joseph got through a “rejuve” treatment, making his seventy-two-year-old body regenerate to that of a much younger man. Joseph would begrudgingly accept, knowing he could serve the city better if he was spryer.
Knowing how much he means to the Judges; Joseph has used his career as leverage to help promote rights for mutants in the city or he would quit if nothing changed. Though he kept the words of his “father” a secret, Joseph did grow to see what the man feared and try his best to steer it away from such corruption. His father would even be unfrozen, sharing with Joseph that he now regretted the entire Judge program, wishing it never existed, having seen how dictatorial it had become, even with Joseph’s nudging against it as best he could within the system. The man would die, with Joseph keeping his final words a secret as well. While Joseph had gotten used to being the only clone of Eustace after he had to kill Rico, he would also learn that more clone “brothers” had been grown, some he would have to fight and others he would take on an older brother role to, ready to help raise the next generation of Eustace clones to help keep Mega City One, and perhaps, the world, safe.
There you have it! Judge Dredd has been fighting crime for forty-five years in our time and far, far more, in his own. There have been two big screen live-action adaptations of him so far with an animated mini-series and a future animated series on the way. Who knows what Judge Dredd will face off against in the future! See you next time!
Suggested Reading
2000 A.D.
Judge Dredd
Dr. Bustos
drbustos@comicattack.net
