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Comics Part 3: Judge Meant - The Early Unpublished Dredds
- Thread starter AndyC
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I spent a while coming up with the title pun.
Coincidentally, this month's Magazine has a Mega-City 2099 strip - alternate versions of Dredd based on the very earliest strips - and it's about the regular police of the MCPD
Death's Companion
General Ugg Apologist.
Interesting stuff, I think what we landed on OTL was a superior product.
Dredd and the Justice Department really work best as a bunch of warrior monks pretending they aren't human because it lets you have your cake and eat it story wise. You can cheer them on as they rule a dictatorship because by and large they believe what they say and the world they live in is insane enough you can see the in universe ideology of a thin line against total anarchy and show them somehow keeping Mega City 1 alive against the odds. But you can also do stories about their unaccountable authoritarian regime constantly failing to deliver its promises and as the disasters pile up go through endless long nights of the soul wondering if the trade off of liberty for safety doesn't actually deliver the latter what have they done and where do they go from here?
It really helps that the strip has gone on for several decades now and is mostly in real time so we've seen Dredd see billions die on his watch and see the city no better off and indeed worse despite him endlessly cranking the handle to the meatgrinder and we've seen a long list of younger supporting characters who Dredd has mentored and protected and sees as the only possible answer to the question that has haunted him for decades.
And a few of those supporting characters have serious and deeprooted doubts in Justice Department's right to rule themselves.
Ultimately the strip has made peace with Dredd being an Anti Hero who is allowed to just be wrong sometimes and the world he inhabits is a flawed and brutal one but not one devoid of the chance of getting better.
Dredd and the Justice Department really work best as a bunch of warrior monks pretending they aren't human because it lets you have your cake and eat it story wise. You can cheer them on as they rule a dictatorship because by and large they believe what they say and the world they live in is insane enough you can see the in universe ideology of a thin line against total anarchy and show them somehow keeping Mega City 1 alive against the odds. But you can also do stories about their unaccountable authoritarian regime constantly failing to deliver its promises and as the disasters pile up go through endless long nights of the soul wondering if the trade off of liberty for safety doesn't actually deliver the latter what have they done and where do they go from here?
It really helps that the strip has gone on for several decades now and is mostly in real time so we've seen Dredd see billions die on his watch and see the city no better off and indeed worse despite him endlessly cranking the handle to the meatgrinder and we've seen a long list of younger supporting characters who Dredd has mentored and protected and sees as the only possible answer to the question that has haunted him for decades.
And a few of those supporting characters have serious and deeprooted doubts in Justice Department's right to rule themselves.
Ultimately the strip has made peace with Dredd being an Anti Hero who is allowed to just be wrong sometimes and the world he inhabits is a flawed and brutal one but not one devoid of the chance of getting better.
@Death's Companion the strip is so defined in its tone, setting, and general ethos that it's really weird to learn over four years in, after Cal and Sovs and Judge Death & Cass, Pat Mills was going to give Dredd an ex-girlfriend (Wagner vetoed it)
Death's Companion
General Ugg Apologist.
Which would have ruined the emotional beats of at least two stories plus a hilariously awkward one shot where he has to flirt with his stalker.
"I can date, Galen, I'm just not into you."