Judge Dredd
| Judge Dredd | |
|---|---|
|
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| Publication information | |
| Publisher |
Former IPC Media (Fleetway) Current Rebellion Developments |
| First appearance | 2000 AD no. 2 (5 March 1977) |
| Created by |
John Wagner (writer) Carlos Ezquerra (artist) Pat Mills (editor) |
| In-story information | |
| Full name | Joseph Dredd |
| Team affiliations |
Mega-City One Justice Department Academy of Law Luna 1 Justice Department |
| Notable aliases | The Dead Man |
| Abilities | Excellent marksman Expert in unarmed combat Bionic eyes grant 20/20 night vision and reduced blinking rate |
Judge Joseph Dredd is a fictional character who appears in British comic books published by Rebellion Developments, as well as in a number of movie and video game adaptations. He was created by writer John Wagner and artist Carlos Ezquerra, and first appeared in the second issue of 2000 AD (1977), a weekly science-fiction anthology comic. He is the magazine's longest-running character.
Joseph Dredd is a law enforcement officer in the dystopian future city of Mega-City One in North America. He is a "street judge", empowered to summarily arrest, convict, sentence, and execute criminals.
In Great Britain, the character of Dredd and his name are sometimes invoked in discussions of police states, authoritarianism, and the rule of law.
When Pat Mills was developing 2000 AD in 1976, he brought in his former writing partner, John Wagner, to develop characters. Wagner had written various Dirty Harry-style "tough cop" stories for other titles, and suggested a character who took that concept to its logical extreme. Mills had developed a horror strip called Judge Dread (after the British ska and reggae artist Alexander Minto Hughes ) but abandoned the idea as unsuitable for the new comic; but the name, with the spelling modified to "Dredd" at the suggestion of sub-editor Kelvin Gosnell, was adopted by Wagner.
The task of visualising the character was given to Carlos Ezquerra, a Spanish artist who had worked for Mills before on Battle Picture Weekly. Wagner gave Ezquerra an advertisement for the film Death Race 2000, showing the character Frankenstein (played by David Carradine) clad in black leather on a motorbike, as a suggestion of Dredd's appearance. Ezquerra added body-armour, zips, and chains, which Wagner initially objected to. Wagner's initial script was rewritten by Mills and drawn up by Ezquerra. The hardware and cityscapes Ezquerra had drawn were far more futuristic than the near-future setting originally intended; in response, Mills set the story further into the future.
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