The Dead Man
| "The Dead Man" | |
|---|---|
The Dead Man (foreground) and Yassa (drawn by John Ridgway)
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| Publisher | Fleetway Publications |
| Publication date | 28 October 1989 – 20 January 1990 |
| Genre | |
| Title(s) | 2000 AD prog 650–662 |
| Creative team | |
| Writer(s) | John Wagner |
| Artist(s) | John Ridgway |
| Editor(s) | Tharg (Richard Burton) |
| The Dead Man | ISBN |
| "Judge Dredd: Tale of the Dead Man" |
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|---|---|
| Publisher | Fleetway Publications |
| Publication date | 20 January – 3 March 1990 |
| Title(s) | 2000 AD #662–668 |
| Creative team | |
| Writer(s) | John Wagner |
| Artist(s) | Will Simpson, Jeff Anderson |
| Editor(s) | Tharg (Richard Burton) |
| Judge Dredd: The Complete Casefiles 14 | ISBN |
The Dead Man was a science fiction strip in the British comic 2000 AD by writer John Wagner and artist John Ridgway, published in black and white in 1989–90. Although it was not billed as a Judge Dredd story, it featured Dredd as the amnesiac protagonist known only as the Dead Man. It was part of a series of stories that set the scene for the main Judge Dredd story of 1990, "Necropolis".
The story is told from the point of view of Yassa Povey, a young boy living in the Cursed Earth, a radioactive desert in post-nuclear war America where the whole story takes place. Yassa discovers the body of a man with appalling injuries caused by acid burns, leaving him so badly disfigured that he effectively has no face left. At first believing the man to be dead, Yassa is startled when the man regains consciousness, and he runs home to get help. The townsfolk collect the injured man and take him back with them, fully expecting him to die during the night, but he survives. When he has finally recovered enough to talk, it transpires that the mental trauma caused by his injuries has caused him to lose his memory, and he has no idea of who he is. Therefore Yassa nicknames him "Dead Man," and for want of a better alternative the name sticks.
Once the Dead Man has finished recuperating, he resolves to set out on his own and retrace his steps in an effort to find out who he was. Yassa's father gives him a rifle and some clothes: a brown overcoat and a wide-brimmed hat, giving him the appearance of a character from a Western. The Dead Man sets out alone, but is followed by Yassa and his dog. When the Dead Man discovers Yassa, he forbids him to accompany him any further due to the exceptionally dangerous terrain they will be passing through, but Yassa disobeys and the Dead Man gives up trying to stop him.
The rest of the story tells of their hazardous journey through the Cursed Earth, during which they are attacked by various hostile inhabitants. Throughout the story the Dead Man is plagued by enigmatic nightmares and half-memories of the circumstances of his near-fatal injuries.
During their journey they not only encounter the usual Cursed Earth mutants, but also are occasionally visited by a strange, supernatural presence: a woman dressed in black. At first beautiful, she later transforms into a terrifying monster before disappearing.
Eventually the pair reach a river of acid, where the Dead Man finds traces of the clothing he was wearing when Yassa first found him. His memory slowly begins to return as he recalls running through the river, pursued by an unseen foe, and then losing his footing and falling into the acid. Soon after they reach a small town called Crowley, where they both sense the presence of some great evil and Yassa's dog refuses to go any further. Entering the town, they find the whole place has been burned down, and the streets littered with corpses. There are no survivors.
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Wikipedia