Judge Dredd

Joseph Dredd is the most famous of the Street Judges that patrol Mega-City One, charged to instantly convict, sentence, and execute offenders.

Dredd is armed with a "Lawgiver" pistol (programmed to recognise only his palm-print, and capable of six types of ammunition), a daystick, a 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.

Dredd's entire face is never shown in the strip.

This began as an unofficial guideline, but soon became a rule which artists are required to follow.

As John Wagner explained: "It sums up the facelessness of justice - justice has no soul.

So it isn't necessary for readers to see Dredd's face, and I don't want you to."

On rare occasions, Dredd's face has been seen in flashbacks to his childhood.

These pictures lack detail.

In an early story in prog 8, Dredd is forced to remove his helmet and the other characters react as if he is disfigured.

However, his face was covered by a faux censorship sticker.

In only one other prog has Dredd's face been on view.

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.

In Carlos Ezquerra's original design, Dredd had large lips, "to put a mystery as to his racial background."

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 finally dropped.

Time passes in the Judge Dredd strip in real time, so as a year passes in life, a year passes in the comic.

The first Dredd story, published in 1977, was set in 2099, whilst stories published in 2014 are set in 2136.

Consequently, as former editor Alan McKenzie explains, "every year that goes by Dredd gets a year older – unlike Spider-Man, who has been a university student for the past twenty-five years!"

Therefore Dredd is over seventy years old, with over fifty years of active service (2079–2136), and for some time characters in the comic have been mentioning that Dredd is not as young and fit as formerly.

This remains a theme of many stories, and in prog 1595 (2008) Dredd was diagnosed with benign cancer of the duodenum.

It is not known whether there are any long term plans to address this issue (although Mega-City One has cloning and brain transplant technology).

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."

Links
h2g2.com
Judge Dredd Wiki

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