Judge Dredd: The Complete "Apocalypse War" Including "Block Mania" (Judge Dredd S.)

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It's the 2000 AD conundrum. The comic was a high-profile big beast in a period when the commercial comics sector was crowded and wildly fertile; now the publisher leans heavily into this historic persona while the comic is the last high street sci-fi anthology standing, sells a fraction as many copies, and tries to service a diffuse audience stretching from minors to the last of the baby boomers in a cultural climate that's been overhauled entirely, the prospect of its IP appearing in other media always tantalizingly on the horizon. Even the name of the comic is in reverse gear, a branding most marketing departments would insist went in the bin. Whatever anyone says, 2000 AD is not at peace with itself. Quarterly 'all-ages' issues, begun with a Free Comic Book Day special in 2018 and now running quarterly as "2000 AD Regened", would not have been initiated and persevered with if the publisher did not know in its heart that the existing readership was insufficient, and the transfer of all-ages material into the regular issues since then proves the point. From Book 1 of Brink (2016). Art by INJ Culbard, letters by Simon Bowland, written by Dan Abnett. Judge Dredd: Dredd Vs. Death was produced by Rebellion Developments and released in early 2003 by Sierra Entertainment for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2, Xbox, and GameCube. The game sees the return of the Dark Judges when Mega-City One becomes overrun with vampires and the undead. The player takes control of Judge Dredd, with the optional addition of another Human player in co-operative play. The game is a first-person shooter– with key differences such as the requirement to arrest lawbreakers, and an SJS death squad which will hunt down Dredd should the player kill too many civilians. The player can also go up against three friends in the various multiplayer modes which include " Deathmatch", " Team Deathmatch", "Elimination", "Team Elimination", "Informant", "Judges Vs. Perps", "Runner" and more. [122] A novel was based on the game. [123] In November 2012, IDW Publishing began a new monthly series written by Duane Swierczynski and illustrated by Nelson Daniel. [91] It lasted for 30 issues.

Svensson, Peter (11 July 2015). "SDCC '15: Panel Blow By Blow As IDW Announced Dredd, TMNT/Batman, Rom, Micronauts and More". Bleeding Cool News. Avatar Press . Retrieved 22 October 2019. A trilogy about the Dark Judges, The Fall of Deadworld, was written by 2000AD's editor, Matt Smith, and published by Abaddon Books: The Day the Law Died (progs 89–108; prologues in 86–88). It's 2101. The insane Judge Cal, head of the Special Judicial Squad (SJS), arranges the assassination of Chief Judge Goodman and then assumes the man's position himself. By brainwashing Judges and employing alien mercenaries, Cal rules Mega-City One like a new version of Caligula. Dredd rallies together a few other Judges and Judge-Tutors to lead a resistance movement, and eventually Fergee kills Cal. This story introduced the alien Kleggs and saw Chief Judge Griffin assume the Chief Judgeship after Cal's death. It was eventually discovered that the cause of the civil strife was a psychotropic agent in the city's water supply which increased people's aggression and tribal instincts simultaneously. The dissipated old roué Max Normal, who only drank shampagne and therefore remained completely aggression-free, was a vital part of this discovery. The water had been contaminated by Orlok, a spy from the Sov city of East-Meg One. Orlok compounded his offence by killing Judge Giant, Snr., a popular character whom many readers felt deserved a better death. Lambie, Ryan (17 March 2016). "The Judge Dredd Arcade Game That Never Was". Archived from the original on 9 January 2017 . Retrieved 20 August 2016.Miasma Jennings' decision to release doctored footage of a rejected Justice Department plan for dealing with the infected note Which amounted to loading infected people onto hovercraft under the pretence of them being taken to a vaccination center, then gassing them to death mid-flight and dumping their corpses into burial pits dug after the Bug began to ravage the city; notably, Chief Judge Francisco was utterly horrified by this plan and vehemently rejected it, before reluctantly authorising its use during the final days of the outbreak, which near-singlehandedly destroys any remaining chance of the Judges containing the disease. For something written in 2011-12, it's a sober reminder of the horrific damage that fake news can cause. Dumaraog, Ana (4 September 2018). "Karl Urban Still Wants to Play Judge Dredd in Mega-City One TV Series". ScreenRant . Retrieved 10 September 2018. Multiple references to the 1995 movie are made on the sitcom Scrubs, notably by J.D. at the end of the episode " His Story II", while being wooed by Elliot. [146] Their solution? Use human surrogate mothers instead of Uterine Replicators. But they didn't just take volunteers. No, they effectively kidnapped women for the role, selecting a mixture of women in carehomes for "mental defectiveness" and ultra-violent criminals. I hated that plot. It was Dredd pressed through the Hollywood cliché mill, a dynastic power struggle that had little connection with the character we know from the comic. [97]

The Judge System has spread world-wide, with various super-cities possessing similar methods of law enforcement. As such, this political model has become the most common form of government on Earth, with only a few small areas practicing civilian rule. The description of the Donut beyond the slums of the Overlords paints a picture that is less pretty and more " Death World". Local predators included giant sabertooth tigers, insects whose venom brings instant death, killer fish, a species of thorny plant that will try to rip apart any living creature it can reach, and a species of intelligent spiders that would construct cunning traps for larger mammals so they could be paralyzed and then implanted with eggs — these last ones, the Nandies hunted to extinction. Environmental habits include random and deadly solar flares, and weeks-long windstorms where the gusts can reach up to five hundred kph. Swierczynski, Duane (7 November 2013). "Judge Dredd #3 – Dredd's Comportment Chapter 3: The Birth of the Law – Douglas Wolk". Duane Swierczynski. Judge Fear's Big Day Out and Other Stories (2020), a collection of short stories by various writers which originally appeared in the Judge Dredd Megazine, edited by Michael Carroll.

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. Inferno (progs 842–853). Escaped rogue Judges from Titan take over the city, forcing the Judges into exile out in the Cursed Earth.

As mentioned above, the cloned dinosaurs that inhabit the Cursed Earth aren't just incredibly dangerous predators, they're outright addicted to human flesh, and some of them follow the caravan through the hellscape, pausing only to eat the settlers who die on the journey and buried by the road. Their craving for human meat have effectively turned an already apex predator into a Super-Persistent Predator. While not related to the dangers of the journey itself, there's the mutant daughter of one of the settler families; they left Mega-City One so they wouldn't have to abandon her, but her mutation is very severe, as she no longer looks even close to human, instead resembling a mix of a crab and a snail that needs to be kept in a tank of water. She's still an infant too, and the veteran guide leading the settlers even wonders exactly what she's going to grow into. We never find out either way, even though her family are among the few survivors, as she scuttles off into a stream shortly after arriving in the territories, and is never seen again. Thrower, Matt (21 January 2019). "Play Matt: Judge Dredd: The Cursed Earth Review". There Will Be Games . Retrieved 19 February 2019.Judge Logan. Dredd's assistant for a number of years, later promoted to sector house chief. [73] Dredd encourages Logan to become Chief Judge when Hershey resigns. His public endorsement is instrumental in Logan attaining that office. [74] Mutants in Mega-City One (progs 1542–1545). The first in a series of short stories in which Dredd campaigns to change the apartheid laws prohibiting mutants from entering the city. This results in Chief Judge Hershey being voted out of office and replaced with Judge Francisco. A four-issue miniseries, Under Siege, began in May 2018. It is not connected with any previous IDW Judge Dredd series.

Fargo clan. A town occupied by the mutated descendants of Ephram Fargo, the twin brother of Chief Judge Eustace Fargo. These mutants, who share the common mutation of an overly large, exaggerated chin, are relatives of Judge Dredd himself, and consider him a "cousin". This led to Dredd campaigning to have Mega-City One's mutant segregation laws repealed. [71] There have been multiple Judge Dredd games released for various video game consoles and several home computers such as the ZX Spectrum, PlayStation and Commodore 64. The first game, titled Judge Dredd, was released in 1986. Another game, also titled Judge Dredd, was released in 1990. At one time, an arcade game was being developed by Midway Games but it was never released. It can however be found online and has three playable levels. [117] [118] [119]

It's noted that Dennis introduced two rival militant atheists to the Donut to destroy the Nandies' faith in their goddess, Korax, seemingly for no reason other than to bring about the complete destruction of the Nandies and the Overlords both.