Dredd - greatest comic hero ever.

[Mr Mystery]

How do?

Inspired by Yorkie's latest TLR, I want to sing the praises of 2000AD's iconic character, Judge Joseph Dredd.

We first encountered Judge Dredd (well, the world did. I wasn't even a twinkle in the milkman' see. Come to think of it, neither was my elder brother) in March 1977. And to be fair, whilst an interesting character, he was really quite one dimensional. After all, how much depth can the Judge, Jury and Executioner be when you, the reader, have totally just watched the Perp do the crime, and then get shot in the face for their troubles?

Yet....39 years on, Dredd continues to be one of the greatest comic characters ever, and definitely one of the most iconic. How? How did they take Sir Just Sorts Of Shoots Them, and make him interesting?

Well, the genius was his home turf, Mega City One. Here's a map



Lookit! It's enormous! It's pretty much the whole east coast of Northern America.

But, it's also completely and utterly bat**** crazy. It's got every social problem we do, but writ large in a techno punk dystopia - and world so utterly unhinged that it turns out, time and again, the sheer brutality of Justice Department is the only way to maintain any kind of control over the cits. The city itself is as compelling a character as you'll find anywhere.

And in that background, Dredd has thrived as a character. Over the 39 years, we've seen Dredd lose faith in the law, change the law, walk away, come back, shoot his clone twin, he's rescued the city time and again......and the best part? All in a single, never retconned timeline.

What gets done, stays done. Apocalypse War? That happened, and decades later lead to Day of Chaos - a 48 issue event in which, ultimately, 87% of Megacity One Cits lose their lives - all because of the events of the Apocalypse War.

I can't think of any other comic character that's had that sort of run, or indeed any other comic. Nothing is ever truly forgotten, and favourite characters have a habit of popping up now and again (except villains, who tend to very much stay dead).

And from the get go, it's been impressively progressive for such an ultra violent script. Female Judges featured early on - possibly even from the very first strip (will need to double check that!) and it wasn't long until we had regular female characters. Dredd himself was originally drawn to be ethnically ambiguous, something which was quickly abandoned.

It tackles real world issues such as racism and homophobia through parables - Muties instead of ethnicities etc (racism and homophobia themselves don't seem to be a problem at all in MC-1) and it does so in a thoughtful and non-moral soap box manner.

In short, if you're a comic book fan, do yourself a favour and read some Dredd. [url=https://www.amazon.co.uk/Judge-Dredd-Complete-Case-Files/dp/1904265790/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1472817867&sr=8-1&keywords=Complete+case+files+1]This is the best place to start. It's relatively cheap, and starts at the beginning of Dredd, which is of course the best place to begin, the beginning[/url]

I'm 90% sure you won't be disappointed!



And a final, bonus, 'my favourite comic art ever' pic....