Judge Cal

Judge Cal
Chief Judge Cal (drawn by Mike McMahon)
Publication information
Publisher	IPC Magazines Ltd; later Rebellion Developments
First appearance	2000 AD # 86 (1978)
Created by	John Wagner and Brian Bolland

"Helter Skelter"
The alternative universe Cal (painted by Carlos Ezquerra)
Publisher	Rebellion
Publication date	July – September 2001
Genre	Science fiction
Title(s)	2000 AD #1250–1261
Main character(s)	Judge Dredd; Chief Judge Cal
Creative team
Writer(s)	Garth Ennis
Artist(s)	Carlos Ezquerra; Henry Flint
Letterer(s)	Tom Frame
Editor(s)	Tharg (Andy Diggle)
Helter Skelter

Chief Judge Cal is a fictional character in the Judge Dredd comic strip in 2000 AD. He was loosely based on the Roman emperor Caligula as portrayed by John Hurt in the 1976 television show I, Claudius. He was the villain in the story The Day the Law Died! (1978–79).

Judge Cal was head of the Special Judicial Squad (SJS), the feared Internal Affairs unit of judges responsible for weeding out corruption in the Mega-City One Justice Department. However he exploited this position to blackmail errant judges into working for him as assassins, instead of arresting them, as he built up his powerbase and prepared to seize control of the city. He was known to be ambitious and hoping for the chief judge's office by 2099, and almost seized his chance when Chief Judge Goodman was briefly possessed by a mutant.

He became deputy chief judge of Mega-City One in the year 2100, after the death of the previous deputy Fodder. Chief Judge Goodman was unaware of Cal's corruption but still did not like his deputy: initially he felt Cal took himself too seriously and then later, when Cal said he wouldn't have bothered with a trial if he was chief, told him "then thank drokk you're not Chief Judge".

Soon afterwards he was ready to make his move. First he framed Dredd on his return from the Cursed Earth with the murders of a news vid editor and a photographer. Dredd was sentenced to twenty years on Titan; however he was able to escape and prove his innocence. A robot double had been used to frame Dredd, programmed with information only available to those within Justice Department. The search was on for the traitor within the department.

Cal had already had a taste of power in Dredd's absence, Goodman not being in a fit state to govern because of his grief over Dredd's sentence. Unwilling to wait any longer, Cal ordered his assassins to stab Goodman to death in the street, whereupon he automatically succeeded to the city's highest office. He had Judge Dredd shot and the mayor arrested, and immediately began a despotic reign of terror. By this time the power had gone to his head and he became openly insane. He appointed his own pet goldfish to the vacant position of deputy chief judge, and made criticising the chief judge a capital offence. He was able to get away with this because he had brainwashed the majority of the judges into obeying his every order.