Judge Dredd: Deadworld / Characters

Deadworld is a Mirror Universe ruled by four "Dark Judges" and their allies.

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In General

"Life was not the sacred institution that it is on your world. We were more enlightened in that way."

— Judge Death

The Bad Guy Wins: Fall Of Deadworld details Exactly What It Says on the Tin, showcasing the last years of life on Deadworld and its heroes failing to prevent the end.
Crapsack World: Dredd's Earth is already a cartoonish showcase of dystopia, but Deadworld's situation is so bad that it's paradise in comparison. Even before The Fall, Deadworld was a hellhole with a lack of structure, "policed" by murderous, tyrannical Judges hopped up on "morality inhibitors" that were at-best Card-Carrying Villains. Hell, the very notion of having dreams and aspirations was considered taboo and Psis that did so were met with torture by the "Dream Elimination Department." The Sisters Nausea and Phobia state that Deadworld was already doomed to begin with; they were simply speeding up the process.
Death World: Deadworld is a world in which all conceivable life was "judged" and destroyed. Judge Dredd and Judge Anderson haven't travelled there since the Sisters of Death woke up from their slumber, since their powers are a lot stronger on Deadworld and they would risk being mind-controlled. The Boneman from Visions of Deadworld states that not only had the ocean boiled over in the far future, but the atmosphere itself was even stripped of electrons and Eldritch Abominations from the First Veil stalked the globe.
Foregone Conclusion: The Dark Judges win and manage to scour this reality of all life long before Dredd encounters them.
The Necrocracy: After the Fall, the planet amounts to this. Deadworld's only remaining inhabitants are the Dark Judges holed up in their fortresses.
Villain World: The home-reality of the Dark Judges, who took over their world's Judges and used them to commit omnicide against life on their world.

The Dark Judges

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/justice_overdeities_dark_judges_2435.jpg

Left to right: Judge Fear, Judge Death, Judge Mortis, Judge Fire

An ensemble of extra-dimensional lawmen who consider life itself to be a crime, and seek to establish law by killing off any living beings in sight.

They are usually composed of Judge Death, Judge Fear, Judge Mortis, and Judge Fire, but other characters have occasionally joined their ranks either voluntarily or involuntarily.

All Crimes Are Equal: They used to execute people for anything from actual crimes to untied shoelaces. Eventually they came to the conclusion that the simplest solution to the crime problem would be to make life itself punishable by death.
And Then What?: They succeeded in their goal of wiping out all life on their Earth... leaving them with nothing else to do other than just sort of kick around in the ruins, being gnawed at by boredom, with the lack of stimuli definitely getting to Fear and Fire, who started spending all day holed up obsessing over the boy who was not afraid of him and Sister Despair, respectively.
Ax-Crazy: The Judges of Deadworld were fed drugs (referred to as "aggressors and morality inhibitors") designed to make them more violent and brutal. Tellingly, Judge Death commented that they "made him feel normal," more than anything else.
Character Catchphrase: Two of them.
- "The crime isss life! The sentence iss death!"
- "You cannot kill what doesss not live!"
Co-Dragons: Judge Fear, Judge Mortis, and Judge Fire are Judge Death's most prized lieutenants and see him as a messiah.
Creepy Long Fingers: Depending on the Artist, but their hands are often drawn as being unnaturally long. The claws merely emphasize this.
Dark Is Evil: They're the Evil Counterpart of Mega-City One's Judges, and even call themselves the Dark Judges. During Necropolis they covered the city in perpetual darkness.
A Day in the Limelight: On occasion, each of them has been given a solo story either played for horror (Dreams Of Deadworld) or for laughs (Judge Fear's Big Day Out).
The Dead Have Eyes: At least Death seems to have eyes behind that helmet. His brothers not so much, although it's not clear whether Fear even has a face, let alone eyes.
Deliberately Bad Example: They make the regular Judges, who are pretty oppressive in their own right, look better in comparison with their own mass murdering tactics to combat crime.
Demonic Possession: They can take over human hosts (especially those with psychic abilities), but they need dead bodies to use their full powers.
Dirty Cop: Virtually all of the Dark Judges were on the take; they even admitted it in their recruitment posters, along with "shoot people (within reason)" and "free meal vouchers.". Judge Death ordered the liquidation of a gang who were trafficking cocaine after they broke an agreement with him. Under his guidance, the Dark Judges began executing every criminal they met, before taking over their world's Justice Department and slaughtering everyone.
Evil Counterpart: Even before they became zombies, the Dark Judges wore a more-menacing version of the standard Judge uniform: no red trimming on the helmets, and a pterosaur in splace of an eagle. Interestingly, pterosaurs still existed in present-day Deadworld before it got destroyed. Their Lawrider motorcycles were bone-white; the idea was to make them look like animal skulls when they got muddied.
Evil Makeover: Upon becoming undead, the Dark Judges adopted more menacing uniforms that were gifted to them by the Sisters, to reflect their "elevated status".
Evil Is Deathly Cold:
- In The Fall of Deadworld, a resistance member named Captain Tucker finds the helmet left behind by Judge Fear and is compelled to put it on, turning into a proxy of Fear. One of the Dark Judges (Casey) addresses him as Captain and tries to rummage inside the visor when "Tucker" doesn't answer in the affirmative. When Casey pulls his hand out, it's frozen solid.
- During Necropolis, the Serial Killer Edward Bernardo sought out Judge Death to try and kill him. This became relatively easy once he figured out the Dark Judges' abode was the coldest spot in the city.
Evil Is Hammy: Fool! You DARE call the Dark Judges some of the liveliest bad guys◊ in Dredd?
Evil Makes You Monstrous: Once human judges with a penchant for murder who were transformed into unstoppable ghost-zombies.
Expy: Of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
- Death pretty obviously corresponds to Death; the name aside, he's the one to bring Hell (in the form of dead fluids, Dark Judges, and genocide) wherever he rides and acts as the leader of the four.
- Mortis is either Famine or Pestilence: his Make Them Rot abilities and ghoulish "garden" of fungus-infested corpses invoke imagery of disease and sickness, while a panel in The Fall of Deadworld depicts him artificially manipulating weather and spiking urban food and water supplies with dead fluids to engineer a famine and wear down survivors.
- Fear is harder to place, but most likely corresponds to War: The Fall of Deadworld depicts him as being much more heavily armoured than his fellows, resembling a medieval knight in wartime, and he's the main physical threat toward the heroes, actively hunting them down and killing some of the main characters. He also invokes memories of war-caused PTSD in several ex-soldiers when he fights them, which he refers to as being "exquisite."
- Fire is also hard to place, but he likely corresponds to Conquest. The Fall of Deadworld indicates he was one of the most active Dark Judges in conquering sector houses and recruiting new Dark Judges, on top of the natural process of elimination.
Faux Affably Evil: Death tends to do this the most often with his mocking faux-pleasantries, whilst Fear is typically depicted as fairly no-nonsense.
Fighting a Shadow: Their physical shells can be destroyed, but this will only release their spirits to take over another body.
Forgot Flanders Could Do That: Much like DC's Joker, every now and again, the writers set out to make the Dark Judges 'scary' again. The Fall of Deadworld plays down the humor and centers on the horror of living on a dying world run by sadistic cops who don't see any value in it.
Hanging Judge: They'll kill anyone after judging them to be "sinners" (i.e. being alive). Judge Death acquired his alias in Law School when he executed twenty-seven cases in court with no rhyme or reason, including a civilian who was caught loitering!
Horrifying the Horror:
- Played for laughs with Judge Death when Batman villain Scarecrow uses his fear toxin on him. The demon judge is afraid of fluffy bunnies and other cute woodland critters.
- Played seriously with Judge Fear in the Dreams of Deadworld prequel. His biggest fear is the knowledge that someone doesn't fear him.
- Even the other Dark Judges give Judge Death a wide berth.
Humanoid Abomination: Omnicidal and powerful undead beings with Blue-and-Orange Morality at the very best. But the ones who stand out the most in looks and Lovecraftian attributes are Mortis and Fear.
I Love the Dead:
- Death claims he fell in love with Phobia and Nausea at first sight. Then continues to describe them as "ravishing creatures" after they're all way past their expiration date.
- At the end of The Fall of Deadworld, Death reanimates the cadaver of Collins (complete with a broken neck and missing ear) and sends her into Fairfax's cell to accost him.
Joker Immunity: Being undead and being able to Body Surf, they'll never truly go away. Even after being Dragged Off to Hell or stranded in the void between worlds, they always come back. Word of God says that they were created to be recurring villains because Dredd simply shoots perps or puts them away for a long time.
Judge, Jury, and Executioner: They have the same power of summary judgment that Judge Dredd does, they just use it as a thinly-veiled pretext to commit murder.
Killer Cop: An extreme version where their method of "law enforcement" is kill everything that lives.
Knight Templar: They're plainly evil and sadistic, but they claim to be the good guys.
Leaking Can of Evil: Even when they are confined in glass orbs, they can still exert psychic control over susceptible humans, which is why the security in the Tomb is so high and anti-psi devices are a necessity.
Lean and Mean: Obviously, since they're emaciated corpses, though they're very tall and unusually strong at the same time. Judge Death was already a pretty gaunt fellow when he was alive, however, especially if you compare him to the bulky Joseph Dredd.
Lighter and Softer: Their counterparts in the Funko Universe are far less horrific, fitting with the chibi art style. They use ray guns to turn their victims into zombies, a process that can easily be reversed. Using their own weapons against them turns them into the Love Judges, who believe everyone deserves free hugs.
Loves the Sound of Screaming: They often shape the architecture of the places they conquer into towers with swiss cheese holes. Why? When the wind rushes through them, it sounds like people screaming in agony.
Made of Iron: Courtesy of their nature as undead beings, they can soak up huge amounts of punishment before being forced to seek a new body. Special mention goes to Judge Mortis, who effortlessly endures getting his head blasted off his shoulders by a Hi-ex round during Necropolis.
Multiversal Conqueror: They already turned their own world into a graveyard before crossing the dimension span to spread their creed beyond their own borders.
Names to Run Away from Really Fast:
- Sidney De'ath. "The 'e' is silent."
- A group of Judges calling themselves Death, Fear, Fire and Mortis are unlikely to instill much faith in the legal system.
Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: While their rationale for butchering everyone they come across is that the dead can't commit any crimes, their actions, the sick enjoyment they take from them, their past histories and utterly flimsy justification for their crusade against life makes it abundantly clear that they're just a bunch of deranged sadists, doing what they do simply because they enjoy it.
Omnicidal Maniac: The Dark Judges themselves a believe that life itself is a crime worthy of a death sentence, which they will dispense to anyone they come across.
Perpetual-Motion Monster: They don't decay, meaning they'll just keep going after you until their body has been destroyed, and that only slows them down.
Possessing a Dead Body: Their host bodies are corpses prepared with chemicals known as "dead fluids", often belonging to their former victims.
Psychic Powers: They are explicitly psychic creatures, and possess abilities such as mind control and astral projection. This is why Judge Anderson is one of the few effective deterrents against them.
Rabid Cop: Even before they became undead creatures, they were overzealous in their judgements, even by the standards of their dimension. Death, even as a human, was notorious for executing people for minor infractions, such as a divorcing couple reconciling in court. Fire burned down a school for noise infractions. Once they become undead abominations, the Dark Judges set about wiping out their entire world and then crossing dimensions to do it to other worlds once they finish.
Red and Black and Evil All Over: Their original uniforms as Judges of the former Deadworld were pitch black with red pads and belts.
Rescued from the Underworld:
- All four of the Dark Judges were stranded in Limbo at the end of the Anderson: Psi-Division strip "Revenge", but the Sisters of Death-influenced Judge Kraken brought them back to reality in the strips leading up to "Necropolis".
- Judge Death was thrown into hell at the end of "The Wilderness Days", but the Sisters of Death somehow helped him escape and reunite with his brothers in "Dark Justice".
Sealed Evil in a Can: Whenever they're not actively rampaging through Mega-City One, they tend to be locked up in glass orbs, lifeless voids, or Judge Anderson. Of course, eventually somebody releases them by accident or design.
The Sixth Ranger: Occasionally, the Dark Judges temporarily add a fifth member to their group, such as Kraken, Whisper, and The Joker.
Skeletons in the Coat Closet: Their uniforms are adorned with human bones.
Sssssnake Talk: As undead, they all talk with a very noticeable hiss.
The Starscream: They took over their Justice Department through force by murdering the then-current Chief Judge.
Steven Ulysses Perhero: Judge Death's original name was Sidney De'ath.
Super-Strength: They're apparently capable of lifting many times their own weight, since Death has been shown to throw around people like rag dolls and lunge a giant boulder into the air after some mutants tried to trap him inside a mine.
Tailor-Made Prison: MC-1 has its own subterranean prison with particularly rigorous containment protocols in place to contain the Dark Judges dubbed the Tomb. After all, Iso-cubes are pointless if your prisoner can just leave through a crack in the walls.
Terrible Trio: On occasions where one of their members is missing (like when Judge Death escaped from prison before reuniting with his brothers years later in Dark Justice, or after Judge Fear is recaptured in the aforementioned story), the other three continue to wreak havoc, being only marginally less deadly than the gang of four.
Undead Barefooter: They forego the massive boots of the regular Judges, instead going around on bared zombie feet.
Villain World: They hail from their own universe called Deadworld, which is ruled by Judge Death ever since he made himself Chief Judge. Deadworld used to resemble Earth. Now it's a burning wasteland, filled with crypt-like skyscrapers with weird archtecture. (They look like a stack of upturned ziti noodles.)
Was Once a Man: They were all human before they became undead monsters as a result of the Sisters' dark magic.
You Can't Kill What's Already Dead: They inhabit corpses, so they can't feel pain. Shooting them with ordinary Lawgiver rounds is mostly useless; it usually takes dozens of Judges firing continuously to completely destroy their bodies, then hopefully have a way to trap their spirits before they can escape. Incendiary rounds have also proven more effective, well, except on Judge Fire.

Death

Judge Death

"This city is guilty! The crime is life! The sentence is death!"

Real name: Sidney De'ath

Species: Undead

First appearance: 2000 AD #149 (January 26, 1980)

The leader of the group and "Chief Judge" of Deadworld.

Appropriated Appellation: "Judge Death" was Sidney's nickname in the Law Academy given to him by fellow students who were disgusted by his methods. He took such pride in it that he started referring to himself as such from then on.
Arch-Enemy:
- Judge Death is often described as one to Judge Dredd, being his longest-recurring nemesis. Suffice to say that Death's claim to speak for the ultimate law pisses off Dredd on a more personal level than most other enemies he faces.
- Death is also the arch-enemy of Judge Anderson (who was introduced in the same comic), and their hatred of one another is even more intense. They shared her mind for more than a year, she's been an Unwitting Pawn in his schemes multiple times, and their fates appear to be tied.
- It's hinted that Death may have had his own arch-nemesis in his native dimension, namely the little girl who is destined to become that universe's Judge Child.
- Another candidate for the position is Ava Eastwood, a senior Judge from Deadworld who saw through Sidney from day one. He murdered her lover because of it, forcing Ava to go into hiding.
Attention Whore: In addition to hunting down and exterminating all life, Judge Death also really wants to be recognized as a merciful reaper bringing justice to the living and is rather incensed at their repeated "ungratefulness". He dictates his biography to Brian Skuter to reach more people then kills him when he does a poor job, but Judge Dredd sensibly has the notes classified to prevent this. He also jumps at the chance to be worshipped by the Mortarians and perform on stage with the Lizard Lords.
Bad Boss: There used to be numerous Dark Judges; the most loyal of them all were transformed into mutants with various superpowers, owing to their own bloodthirsty nature and prior exposure to Dead Fluids. Once every living being on Deadworld was gone, Death turned on his own followers and sentenced them to death, leaving behind only Fuego ("Judge Fire") and the unnamed Judges Fear and Mortis.
Bad Is Good and Good Is Bad: Death keeps one of the Dominion survivors alive specifically so she can read him gruesome literature and poetry about torture and murder. He also Loves the Sound of Screaming.
Bait the Dog: Mrs. Gunderson is the one person who he has judged innocent, and as such he has restrained himself from killing or otherwise harming her... directly. He is fine with trying to kill her through proxies or indirect means.
Big Bad: The most prominent Villain in the series.
Enfant Terrible: When Death was a young lad he was already busy killing off his family, schoolmates, and teachers at Law School. The Fall of Deadworld further expands on this by revealing he gained a taste for watching people die at an early age, and assisted his father (a psychotic dentist) in several murders before selling him out to the Judges and executing him.
Even Evil Has Standards:
- Zigzagged Trope. Believe it or not, Judge Death won't kill Mrs. Gunderson because he believes her to be the only innocent person he's ever met. Other stories feature him possessing people to try to murder her or opting to use her as a Human Shield.
- Two examples happen in the "Three Amigos" story. Firstly, Judge Death is repelled at the idea of working with Mean Machine Angel, who he sees as a psychotic oaf^note. Secondly, after possessing President Clinton Box, he notes that whilst he finds possessing the living unpleasant in any case, there's something particularly "repellent and slimy" about being inside of Clinton Box's head.
Dead Guy on Display: Death keeps his father Sigmund around (in full dentist regalia) just so he can converse and play Chess with him.
Dream Walker: Death was able to get into Judge Anderson's dreams despite being stuck floating in space millions of miles from Earth.
Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: He has a penchant for finding humor from death and mayhem.
Evil Laugh: Death has a pretty terrifying laugh on the rare occasions he does.
Evil Mentor: During his academy days, Judge Death took his mentoring duties very seriously - when a Judge-Tutor failed his secret appraisal, Death shot him without a moment's hesitation. Furthermore, the three other Dark Judges were regular thugs until he instilled order and discipline into them. He intended the same for Judge Fairfax, his first protegé.
Evil Overlord: Whenever Judge Death gets into a position of power, he'll play the part of an supernatural tyrant obsessed with death and suffering in all its forms and shapes his realms accordingly.
False Prophet: Death and his fellow Dark Judges are worshipped as divine figures by the Death Cults. If sinners are willingly walking towards slaughter, why would they stop those fools?
Freudian Excuse: Death's father, Sigmund De'ath, was a psychotic traveling dentist who took pleasure in causing his patients agony. (Judge Death is sporting a big, toothy smile which is supposed to reflect his dad's profession.) Eventually his father went berserk and started killing patients because "their brain are full of worms." Death decided he had no choice but to inform on his father to the Judges, who granted him a chance to perform the execution as a treat (at Death's request). The dentist's last words were, "Good boy."
The Heavy: As The Leader of the Dark Judges he tends to take this role, either by directing the other Dark Judges against Dredd and the living or directly dispensing "justice" on people. The Fall of Deadworld depicts him as more of a Non-Action Big Bad responsible for manipulating others and directing his lieutenants until directly confronted, upon which he proves himself a lethal threat to the heroes and their allies.
Laughably Evil: Judge Death from time to time. When he escaped to Gotham City he had to get his clothes from a particularly stupid henchman, and ended up wearing a biker uniform too small for the rotted corpse he inhabited, with a plucked whole chicken carcass and rack of ribs replacing his pterodactyl and shoulder armor respectively, (the henchman had rides the morgue’s kitchen beforehand,) and a cute little piece of paper in place of a badge (with the word Deth on it). He then proceeded to spread fear through the city by hijacking a rock concert, and jamming on stage with a guitar all the while murdering people, singing, and making bad puns.
Meaningful Name: Judge Death was once known as Sidney De'ath.
"Not So Different" Remark: Death refers to Dredd as the most irritatingly persistent individual he has ever met to which Dredd responds that Death is no slouch in that department himself.
Not Using the "Z" Word: While he exists in a state of living death, he does not like being called a zombie because he is nobody's slave, i.e. a Voodoo Zombie.
Ominous Opera Cape: Judge Death also wears a cape in "The Torture Garden".
Rank Scales with Asskicking: Not mentioned often, but Death is actually a Chief Judge (unsurprisingly, he slaughtered his way to the top position). He's easily the most dangerous one, both in terms of fighting skills and psychic powers, given how he can instantly kill anything he touches, in contrast to the other Dark Judges, whose powers work slower or are more gimmicky (Mortis and Fire have to wait for their victims to die out via rapid decay or immolation, while Fear literally has to get up on someone's face). Even the other Dark Judges prefer to steer clear of their boss.
Self-Made Orphan: Death executed his own father via the electric chair after turning him in to the Judges. Boyhood of a Superfiend indicates he also murdered his mother and sister immediately after becoming a Street Judge.
Slasher Smile: Judge Death sports a permanent one, as his lips have rotted off.
The Sociopath: Judge Death, who slaughtered his family and tossed his mother off a cliff while remarking that her cries bored him. And that wasn't even his first or last display of his psychotic madness. He was also keen to adopt a Mask of Sanity when it suited his purposes—it fooled even several of his teachers at Law School.
Tom the Dark Lord: They're led by the cadaverous, world-destroying menace... Sidney? Lampshaded when Judge Death is embarrassed when Brian Skuter asks him for his real name.
Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: Death once tried to body-snatch the Joker while searching for a Gothamite to inhabit. Joker was either too evil or too crazy even for Judge Death, and he fled Joker's body just as quickly as he entered it!
Übermensch: The universe that they hail from wasn't pretty to begin with, but Judge Death was the first to put forth the radical new philosophy of what came to be the Dark Judges, which boils down to life being sinful and the purpose of law and justice is to fight life.
The laws of physics, nature, and humanity are of no concern to me. In the end, there is only ONE law that matters... the law of death.
Unreliable Narrator: Judge Death's youth differs ever so slightly when we see the events through his own memory and when he tells them to Brian Skuter, such as how old he was when he joined the Law Academy.

Fear

Judge Fear

"Gaze into the face of Fear!"

Real name: Unknown

Species: Undead

First appearance: 2000 AD #224 (August 8, 1981)

One of the original four, Fear is a Dark Judge who kills his victims through... well, fear.

Abstract Apotheosis: Judge Fear is hinted to have become something like this. When a junior psychic Dark Judge tries to read him, she notes that he's a complete blank, like he was replaced with a shadow or an idea.
Achilles' Heel: Fear's powers only work if people actually fear him. His attempts to use them on people who don't feel fear (such as Dredd) tend to go badly, as Dredd demonstrated during Fear's debut comic.
Bear Trap: Judge Fear makes use of these to snare and kill victims.
Body Surf: Fear demonstrates a unique case of this - when his initial body is destroyed during The Fall of Deadworld, his helmet seemingly latches onto the fears of a Resistance soldier and compels him to put it on, allowing Fear to hijack his body.
Emotion Eater: Judge Fear seems capable of this - he relishes the sensations of a Resistance soldier's PTSD as he induces a fatal heart attack in her, even comparing the sensation of it to a fine wine, while deriding another's feelings of guilt and cowardice as "roadkill".
The Faceless: Zig-zagged. It's unclear whether or not Fear actually has a face behind his helmet, and the only times he's shown with his helmet's visor open are either from the back (hiding his face) or while scaring a victim to death, which leaves it unclear whether the features shown are manifestations of his victim's fears.
Fright Deathtrap: Seeing Fear's face typically terrifies people enough that they die, though people with an exceptionally strong will can resist the effect and survive.
Horrifying the Horror: A downplayed example. Mortis is visibly unnerved and distrustful when discussing Fear with Death during The Fall of Deadworld, calling him an "unknown" and expressing doubt that they can control him.
Ironic Fear: Judge Fear's biggest weapon and the core of his character is the fear he causes in others. But the one thing he's afraid of above all else is that people don't fear him; the memory of killing a child who was not afraid of his Nightmare Face is enough to rattle him long after the Fall of Deadworld.
Nightmare Face: Judge Fear's signature attack is to show his victims the face behind the helmet, which can literally scare people to death. Spectacularly subverted when he tried it on Dredd himself, who rammed his fist through Fear's skull. Also subverted during the Fall of Deadworld when a young boy isn't scared by Fear's face, forcing him to throw him out a high-rise's window instead.
Ominous Opera Cape: Judge Fear is the only one of the four who wears a large black cape, enhancing his menacing silhouette and sinister appearence.
Torture Technician: Judge Fear was apparently a master at getting information out of captives through creative means. His custom uniform, with the cape, shoulder pads, and helmet with wings is modelled after those of the SJS torture units who operated under Deadworld's original Justice Department. His Establishing Character Moment in The Fall of Deadworld depicts Fear looming over a tied-down Resistance prisoner with a cage full of hungry rats strapped to his face, while casually informing Death about the locations of anti-Judge Resistance cells.
Transformation Horror: Fear has the unique ability to latch onto a victim's fears and use them as a host body as their bodies slowly transform into Fear's visage, basically consuming them from the inside out.
Your Mind Makes It Real: Judge Fear's Nightmare Face powers only work on those who are actually afraid of him in the first place. Of course, given his intimidating presence, this works on most people. Dredd, fearing nothing, is immune and punches through his face instead. During the "Dreams Of Deadworld" prequel, he attempts to use his powers on a young boy and discovers that it doesn't work on him and kills him through more traditional means instead.

Fire

Judge Fire

"Let the flames of Justice consume you!"

Real name: Fuego

Species: Undead

First appearance: 2000 AD #224 (August 8, 1981)

One of the original four, Fire is a Dark Judge who prefers to incinerate his victims.

Bad Is Good and Good Is Bad: Judge Fire fails a cadet during The Fall of Deadworld for "insufficient cruelty," briefly lecturing them on how simply shooting a defenceless citizen in the head doesn't make them Dark Judge material before ordering their fellow cadets to execute them "[with] some imagination and flair".
Devil's Pitchfork: Fire wields a flaming trident in battle, and he's unquestionably an evil bastard.
Even Evil Has Loved Ones: The Fall of Deadworld reveals that Judge Fire was in love with a female Dark Judge, being the one who petitioned Death to let her join their ranks. This eventually came to an end when she betrayed the Dark Judges' cause to feed her own sadistic tendencies; she ultimately committed suicide to spite Fire, though he still pines after her in the present day.
Flaming Skulls: Judge Fire is just a flaming skull with no helmet. In The Fall of Deadworld, Judge Fire's skin looks like charcoal and is glowing from within; he hasn't been completely immolated yet.
Flaming Sword: Judge Fire carries around a flaming trident as his weapon. Interestingly, this makes him the only Dark Judge to use an actual weapon, Death and Mortis use their hands in battle, and Fear uses his fear gaze and his bear traps.
Hot-Blooded: As befits his powers, he is the most emotionally volatile of the Dark Judges and quick to anger.
Javelin Thrower: Judge Fire is a very good throw with his fiery trident. Dredd easily gets pinned down by it in his first appearance, and Fire practically makes a sport out of it on Dominion.
Kill It with Fire: Judge Fire's MO, since he's Wreathed in Flames. He got the name from burning down a school with all the students and staff still inside... for violating noise regulations.
Meaningful Name: Judge Fire was once an undercover Judge named Fuego.
The Mole: He used to work as an undercover Judge, infiltrating the resistance movement on Deadworld that opposed their increasing corruption and "shoot everything that moves" tactics.
Pyromaniac: Judge Fire's favorite way of killing is to burn those he deems guilty to a crisp, and he expresses open glee at being ordered to burn anyone not loyal to the Justice Department during The Fall of Deadworld.
Villainous Crush: Judge Fire is shown to have had a toxic, love-hate relationship with a female Dark Judge, Sister Despair. She modified the dead fluids to act as a drug, inadventently turning Fire into an walking Action Bomb and causing him to wipe out a town (along with a cadre of prospective Dark Judges) when he used it too much, prompting Death to forbid his subordinate from seeing her. When Fire continued to pursue her ^note she obliterated herself out of spite.
Wreathed in Flames: Judge Fire is, as the name implies, constantly on fire.

Mortis

Judge Mortis

"The touch of Mortis brings decay!"

Real name: Unknown

Species: Undead

First appearance: 2000 AD #224 (August 8, 1981)

One of the original four, Mortis is a Dark Judge who possesses the power to cause decay in anything he touches.

Achilles' Heel: Strangely, gold seems to be immune to his decay-inducing touch and an outright anathema to him. A single Sino Judge with a golden bullet almost killed Mortis during the Fall by shooting him in the head with it, which paralysed and nearly killed Mortis before another Dark Judge revived him.
The Dragon: The Fall of Deadworld implies that Mortis serves as this to Death, being referred to as his "old friend" and repeatedly directed by Death to carry out critical stages of their plans, such as distilling dead fluids into a powerful Fantastic Nuke or seizing control of weather-manipulating tech.
Faux Affably Evil: Mortis acts as this in a memorable scene from the "Dreams Of Deadworld" arc. He meets a bunch of aliens who think he's a good person living alone on the earth whose inhabitants he helped slaughter. He shows them a nightmarish device that grinds up and ferments bodies into a ghastly concoction that he eloquently compares to fine wine. He offers them a cup to freak them out and then murders them all, turning one into his ghoulish half-dead companion and tricking the rest into coming down to Deadworld so he can slaughter them as well.
I'm a Humanitarian: Mortis enjoys making wine out of human corpses then drinking it during his spare time.
Losing Your Head: Necropolis features Mortis getting his head blown off with an explosive round by a cadet Judge. It does nothing beyond mildly inconveniencing him, as his body quickly picks the head back up and reattaches it before resuming his pursuit.
Made of Iron: Mortis is tough, even by Dark Judge standards. During Necropolis, a Hi-Ex round capable of blowing up a human body only knocked his head off, without any damage to the rest of his body beyond mildly inconveniencing him.
Make Them Rot: Judge Mortis brings instant decay to anything he touches, corroding metals and rotting away flesh. Strangely, gold seems to be immune to this effect. His Dreams of Deadworld arc implies it works through temporal manipulation of some kind, and can be 'extended' to slow down thoughts and create negative emotions.
Number Two: Judge Mortis is heavily implied to be this to Judge Death - The Fall of Deadworld comic has Death address him as an "old friend" and refer to him for advice, on top of Mortis being in charge of at least two projects Death felt he couldn't trust the other Dark Judges or the Sisters of Death with.
Skull for a Head: Judge Mortis's head is a sheep's skull.
Who Wants to Live Forever?: Downplayed in Judge Mortis's case. He's bored by the monotony of eternal undeath, passing the time in between genocides by using corpses to create his own morbid artwork.

Whisper

Judge Whisper

Real name: Rafael Sabatini

Species: Undead

First appearance: Judge Dredd Megazine #401 (November 20, 2018)

A Space Corps veteran and psi named Sabatini who allied himself with the Dark Judges so he could join them.

Defends Against Their Own Kind: He eventually betrays the Dark Judges and protects Roscoe and her allies from them. Together with Um, he puts the other four in a trance that keeps the Dark Judges as a Sealed Evil in a Duel for 25 years.
Green Thumb: Plants grow from his body. Eventually, his roots cover the entire planet of Thanatopia.
Heel–Face Revolving Door: He starts as a Space Corps marine, then he becomes a Dark Judge, then he turns against them and decides to help Roscoe when his plant mutation causes him to become even loopier than usual.
Plant Person: After his first defeat on Dominion, the plants on the planet start growing inside him, turning him into a half plant, half zombie creature.
One-Steve Limit: Averted. There is another Judge Whisper from the Fall of Deadworld storyline who is unrelated to him.
Psychic-Assisted Suicide: His standard method of attack is to compel his victims to kill themselves.
Token Heroic Orc: Whisper is the only benevolent Dark Judge, especially after he becomes a Plant Person. This is in large part because his power set is inherently life-giving. Over time, while he initially intended to kill Roscoe, he eventually befriends her and seeks to protect her from his fellow Dark Judges. Naturally, the other Dark Judges despise him as a traitor.
The Unishment: He is ultimately made to answer for his crimes when he return to MC-1 and is locked up in a Tailor-Made Prison, but Whisper's physical form is like a bundle of dead leaves; since most of his consciousness is covering the planet of Thanatopia and feeding its inhabitants, he eventually sprouts another humanoid that can walk around.

Joker

Judge Joker

Real name: The Joker

Species: Undead

First appearance: Batman/Judge Dredd: Die Laughing (December 1, 1998)

The Clown Prince of Crime himself. Joker used a dimensional transporter to travel to Judge Dredd's universe, where he forged an alliance with Judge Death and became a Dark Judge in the process.

Monster Clown: An evil, superpowered clown who loves murder.
Super-Scream: As a Dark Judge, he possesses the ability to create hypersonic sounds with his Evil Laugh, causing people's heads to explode.
Villain Team-Up: Joker was already a supervillain in his own right when he aligned himself with the Dark Judges. However, while he enjoyed his new powers, he quickly came to the realization that endless killing is boring.

Other Deadworld Denizens

Sisters of Death

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/7593d76cb42cd356dd2226c2d8368bae.jpg

Phobia and Nausea

A duo of powerful, malevolent spirit entities known as Phobia and Nausea. Allies and overseers of the Dark Judges, these two sister witches are responsible for their transformation into living dead.

Achilles' Heel:
- Due to being ghost-like Eldritch Abominations, they require a physical (preferably psychic) vessel to anchor themselves in the physical world. If that vessel is destroyed (as was the case in Necropolis, with Kit Agee), the Sisters of Death will immediately be sucked back to Deadworld.
- Similar to Judge Fear, their illusionary abilities only work if their target believes they can be hurt by them. Dredd is quite resistant to their powers after Tale of the Dead Man as a result.
Admiring the Abomination: That Judge Death was fascinated with the Sisters' murderous experiments and even took them as his lovers while alive goes to show what a piece of work he really was.
Card-Carrying Villain: Nausea admits this point blank while terrorizing Yassa: "You are right to be afraid, boy. You have no idea how sick I am!"
Do Not Adjust Your Set: During Necropolis, they held daily news reports on their brethren's purges to terrify the citizens.
Dark Mistress: To Judge Death. While he does not go into much detail, as a Nightmare Fetishist he was enthralled by them and admits that he would bring them victims before engaging in "dark rituals" together.
Dream Walker: The Sisters and their "cousins" Pustula, Ephemera, and Dementia have invaded Anderson's dreams at least once.
Early-Installment Weirdness: They wore uniforms in their first appearance that made them resemble the Dark Judges, but after Dredd figured out that they weren't real they haven't bothered duplicating their appearance again and usually appear in a Black Cloak.
Eldritch Abomination: Fall of Deadworld reveals that the Sisters are actually extradimensional monsters, with their human forms being little more than guises they use to interact with the world.
Fantastic Drug: The Dead Fluid they create has this effect if ingested by a Dark Judge, giving them hallucinogenic visions and often amplifying their powers even further.
Fighting a Shadow: As Kraken and later Justice Department's armored units find out, shooting them is pointless. They're astral beings with no physical presence, and can only be sent back to Deadworld by destroying the psychic vessel they use to anchor in another dimension.
Generic Doomsday Villain: Unlike the Dark Judges, the Sisters have no real rationale for why they want everything dead besides general antipathy, and while they were initially indicated to have once been human like the Dark Judges, later stories would make it clear that they are really some kind of mysterious Eldritch Abominations who are not even native to the Deadworld (and also there are more of them). They exist mainly to provide an explanation for the Dark Judges' supernatural powers and to act as support for them in stories like "Necropolis."
Glamour: Their human forms, which hides their real visage of rotting corpses.
The Heavy: Of the Necropolis arc. The plan to free the Dark Judges using Kraken as a puppet is masterminded by them, and once they're banished back to Deadworld, their mind control of the city's Judges wears off and their brothers are forced to retreat.
Heel–Face Turn: While Nausea and Phobia are as evil as can be, Fall of Deadworld reveals they have a third (so far unnamed) sister who turned against them years ago and is actively supporting the living Resistance.
Human Sacrifice: Their dark magic is derived from ritualistically killing humans.
Humanoid Abomination: In "Young Death: Boyhood of a Superfiend", they're depicted as insane human witches who use dark magic and psi-craft to transmute themselves into ethereal entities. After a Revision, it's indicated that unlike the Dark Judges they were never really human to begin with, being some sort of extra-dimensional monsters anchored in the physical world by using human shells. There are a lot more of them, Phobia and Nausia are just the ones we see most regularly.
I'm a Humanitarian: They're shown making soup out of a victim's blood and flesh. Judge Death implies that he joined in.
I'm Not Afraid of You: Their greatest weakness is that, if someone isn't scared of them and refuses to believe the Sisters can hurt them, there's nothing they can do to that person.
Master of Illusion: Their psionic powers as spirits allows them to imprint horrific images into receptive minds.
More than Mind Control: The Sisters claimed they targeted Deadworld because it was in terminal decline, and that they merely "accelerated" its destruction. While they are responsible for making the Dark Judges undead like themselves, they started their campaign of omnicide entirely of their own volition.
Necromancer: They had enough control over life and death to resurrect Death and his colleagues as unkillable ghosts.
Our Ghosts Are Different: They're very powerful (being able to black out all light in the Meg and mind control a fair number of Judges) ghost-like beings resembling rotting corpses. They can also project illusions that depend on belief to have real world effects. Their abilities seem to be psi-based.
Pet the Dog: Inverted. PJ Maybe remembers (in what was possibly a psychotic hallucination) that during Necropolis, Phobia reached down and patted him on the head after reading his mind and seeing what a rotten piece of work he is.
Psycho Serum: The Sisters supplied the Judges with "Dead Fluid" to turn them into obedient slaves. Usually it kills whoever imbibes it, but for those who survive, it has a side-effect of granting them Lovecraftian Superpowers and telepathy. Eventually the Judges leaked the Dead Fluid into the water table and food chain to flush out dissenters and create more acolytes.
Shapeshifting Seducer: Early on in The Dead Man, Nausea appears as a beautiful woman before decaying into her rotting carcass form.
Sssssnake Talk: Same as with the Dark Judges.
The Starscream: During Fall of Deadworld, they were scheming to remove Judge Death from power in favour of a more "unpredictable" candidate due to Death's approach not destroying Deadworld fast enough for their liking.
Undead Abomination: They're undead monsters sometimes taking human shape with a desire to devour more life, having allied themselves with Judge Death and his cohorts for this express purpose.
Villainous Friendship: With Judge Death and his three lieutenants, but only because of their shared love of murder. He's reminded them that they are not "irreplacable" when he got annoyed with their courtroom intrigue.
Wicked Witch: They're pure evil witches who enjoy murdering people and torturing them to death. Appearance-wise they're quite haglike, and barely resemble human beings in their spirit forms.
Would Hurt a Child: Nausea burns out poor Yassa Povey's eyes while boasting about enjoying the suffering of children.
Your Mind Makes It Real: Their hallucinatory powers only work if you believe they can actually hurt you.

Deadworld Judges

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fyryrgfx0amfcjg.png

The members of the former Justice Department on Deadworld.

Asshole Victim: Assisting four zombies with their global genocide? They had what was coming to them.
Les Collaborateurs: The Dark Judges took control of them when they seized power and sent them out with instructions to execute all "lawbreakers". After the Judges had finished with the civilian population, the Dark Judges killed the Deadworld Judges.
Evil Counterpart: They were far more corrupt than the Judges of Judge Dredd's universe, often executing citizens for the flimsiest of reasons. The Judges of Mega-City One better have a damn good reason for their use of force in case the SJS comes looking around.
Police State: They were the real power in Deadworld's alternate America, but unlike Dredd's world they allowed the civilian leadership to exist as a rubber stamp after their Atomic War. The President is still alive during the Fall and the simultaneous Sov war.
Red and Black and Evil All Over: Their uniforms were solid black leather with red pads and silver metal. MC-1 Judges wear blue leather with green/yellow pads and gold metal.

The Fall of Deadworld

Dark Judges (Fall of Deadworld)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/darkjudges_deadworld.png

During the Fall of Deadworld, Judge Death and his compatriots recruited numerous regular Deadworld Judges to assist in their omnicide of the living. These Judges were granted similar powers to the original four Dark Judges, but were exterminated at Death's command following the Fall.

Body Horror: The designs for the Dark Judges are a veritable cornucopia of this, with special mention going to Judge Gates; his body has been so badly mutilated that he's little more than a decaying head mounted on a grotesquely-outsized cyborg body, which is itself built from a jumbled mass of corpses fused into a massive robotic shell.
Card-Carrying Villain: Chief Judge Casey Tweed's response to being warned that Mortis is a complete maniac? Maniacal laughter, before proudly retorting "So am I."
Combat Tentacles: Judge Scourge possessed several barbed tentacles in place of arms, which he used to attack his victims.
Deadly Doctor: Sister Despair is confirmed to have been one of Deadworld's Med-Judge equivalents before her transformation, and she kills her victims with a medical bone-saw.
Emotion Bomb:
- Sister Despair's power, appropriately enough, allows her to induce a crippling sense of suicidal despair in the living.
- Judge Whisper's psi-powers include this; near the end of his mini-comic, he psychically influences a man and his pregnant wife into remaining calm even as he surgically mutilates them both.
"Everybody Dies" Ending: After the Fall of Deadworld, Judge Death executed them all as an example to his three lieutenants, deeming them weak, unfit, and driven more by the desire for power than zeal for enforcing the law.
Face–Monster Turn: Casey Tweed becomes a Dark Judge after one of Fear's dead fluid-driven parasites bites and psychologically alters him during their attack on a Resistance stronghold.
Facial Horror:
- The upper half of Judge Reaper's face is just completely gone, leaving only his exposed lower jaw. Concept art for Dreams of Deadworld indicates Judge Death tore it off for reasons unknown.
- Judge Silence's eyes, ears, and mouth have all been burnt away, while the sides of his head and face display massive burns in the shape of two clawed hands (presumably Fire's work.)
Fighting a Shadow: Surprisingly enough for Dark Judges, this is averted. When they're killed by the protagonists ( Gates, Whisper, Reaper, etc.), they stay dead rather than simply possessing a new corpse. Fall of Deadworld: Sydney implies that this is because they're still attached to their humanity, as opposed to Death and co.'s rather thoroughly inhuman natures.
Heel–Face Turn: Sister Psiren ends up turning against Judge Death after a Resistance member's psi-attack destabilizes her identity and allows her to recover her pre-transformation memories, participating in the attack on the capital and even killing Judge Whisper.
I'm a Humanitarian: The Dark Psi-Judges are shown eating from piles of human eyes at several points, which seems to empower their scrying abilities. A few of the more 'normal' Dark Judges (Gavno and Mimir) are also shown cannibalising corpses and living bodies alike.
Killed Off for Real:
- Judge Whisper suffers a catastrophic cranial rupture from a Resistance psi-attack, along with several other members of Psi-Division.
- After dodging death twice, Gates is finally put down by a redeemed Sister Psiren and her allies in the Resistance, who make sure to char his body to ash afterwards so he can't be resurrected again.
- All the Deadworld Dark Judges that survived the Fall are unceremoniously exterminated by Death and his lieutenants during his mini-comic through the use of a "psi-drain" device; considering they never reappeared despite the abundance of dead bodies around them, odds are they're gone for good.
Mad Scientist: Casey Tweed becomes this after his Face–Monster Turn, gleefully thinking up technologies such as servers running on human brains and recklessly experimenting with the highly mutagenic dead fluids. He's also the one to rebuild Judge Gates after Fairfax butchers him and Psiren dumps his head in a jar of acid.
Manipulative Bastard: Sister Despair exploits Judge Reaper's feelings for her to persuade him into acting as her bodyguard. It's also implied she did the same to Judge Fire during their brief relationship, though the ending of their mini-comic leaves it ambiguous as to whether her feelings toward him were genuine.
Multi-Armed and Dangerous: After his rebuilding, one of Judge Gates' original arms is replaced by a mass of arms taken from corpses.
One-Steve Limit: Averted. Judge Lucien Whisper is not related to Judge Whisper from The Torture Garden and Dark Judges: Deliverance. The former is a denizen of Deadworld, the latter a Mega-City One citizen who both became Dark Judges with psychic powers.
Playing with Syringes: Sister Despair hid the last of Deadworld's living beneath the sea to perform horrific experiments on them, turning them into multi-limbed, grotesque masses of flesh to satisfy her own curiosity. She was doing similar things even before this, self-experimenting with Dead Fluids during her liaison with Fire.
Psycho Serum: They became Dark Judges after being transformed by "dead fluids," amplifying their normal ruthlessness and aggression to much greater heights while also physically mutating them in some fashion.
Sanity Slippage: Psiren is already somewhat unhinged due to being a Dark Judge, but over the course of the story she starts becoming more unstable, lashing out at her subordinates in sudden fits of aggression and frequently flashes back to her pre-transformation self. This ultimately results in her pulling a Heel–Face Turn as her original personality resurfaces.
The Speechless: The aptly-named Judge Silence never speaks onscreen for the entirety of his short appearance. Considering Judge Fire burned his eyes, ears, and tongue out, it's probably not voluntary on his part.
The Starscream:
- Casey Tweed waits for the human assassin Destyny to wound Death during the Resistance's attack on the capital before bursting in with a high-calibre gun, which he uses to promptly blast Death's head clean off and seize control over the Dark Judges.
- Judge Lucien Whisper barely even tries to hide his ambition to take command from Sister Psiren, the current head of Psi-Division; she notes that he's constantly probing her psychic shields to try and find a weakness, while his dialogue all but states he'd love to take over. He even tries to manipulate the Chief Judge Casey Tweed into a paranoia-fuelled breakdown as part of his ambitious plans, which nearly gets him fatally punished had the Resistance not attacked HQ at that moment.
Steven Ulysses Perhero: Sister Psiren's original name was Lisa Soren.
Time Master: Judge Chronos' powers worked like Judge Mortis's in reverse - he would reverse his victim's age until they simply vanished.
The Unintelligible: Judge Mimir never speaks coherently, only screaming or roaring during his appearance during the events of Transpolar.
We Hardly Knew Ye: Most of the Dark Judges, aside from the main four and those connected to them (such as Psiren, Despair, and Whisper), are given the bare minimum of characterization before dropping out of the story or dying. Particularly egregious during Death's mini-comic, in which a dozen Dark Judges are introduced and then unceremoniously slaughtered by Death on the grounds that they have failed to live up to his standards.
Wolf Man: The one-shot Dark Judge Judge Fenris is essentially an anthropomorphic undead wolf in a Judge's uniform.
You Have Failed Me: After the Fall of Deadworld Death executed the remaining Dark Judges (besides Fear, Fire, and Mortis), due to their failure to dedicate themselves purely to the "sacred mission" of purging all life.
Your Head A-Splode: If a Dark Psi-Judge overstrains their powers, they risk anything from Psychic Nosebleeds to this being the result. The Resistance's psionic and the redeemed Sister Psiren exploit this to kill Whisper during their raid on the Dark Judges' HQ, by forcing his powers into a feedback loop that violently detonates his head.

Fairfax

The main protagonist of The Fall of Deadworld, Judge Fairfax is Judge Death's prized student and protégé back when the latter was still human. When the Dark Judges took over, Fairfax rebelled against his mentor's wishes to transform him with the Dead Fluids and fled.

Abusive Parents: Fairfax was physically abused by his father, resulting in life-long emotional issues that Death exploited to make him into one of his lieutenants.
Berserk Button: Making fun of his abusive past. A trio of cadets beating him up then taunting him over it prompted him to go from silently enduring their blows, to beating all three of them to a pulp within seconds.
Doomed by Canon: Deadworld is wiped out by the time of Necropolis, with all life there being exterminated. One way or another, Fairfax certainly isn't around by the time of the comics.
Foregone Conclusion: Since we already know the Dark Judges exterminated all life on their Earth, there was never any way for Fairfax to win.
Heel–Face Turn: Fairfax used to be Judge Death's fixer and enforcer, being the one to murder Judge Eastwood's lover and partner when they came close to uncovering his corruption. By the time of The Fall of Deadworld, he's more of a Nominal Hero who gradually develops into a Unscrupulous Hero over the course of the comic.
Heroic Willpower: Despite being micro-dosed with Dead Fluids to the point of showing Dark Judge-style mutations, Fairfax manages to retain his sanity and keep fighting against Death out of sheer willpower.
Nominal Hero: Fall of Deadworld initially portrays him as one - he's a rude, abrasive jerkass that has no problems with press-ganging a group of terrified civilians into service for his own selfish motivations, and fights Death's men mainly because they want to forcibly recruit him to their cause.
Reforged into a Minion: Death's intent for Fairfax is implied to be this. All but confirmed in the third Fall of Deadworld comic, where a captured Fairfax is repeatedly dosed with Dead Fluids until he starts showing mutations similar to a Dark Judge. He even comments that he's "one of them now," before Jess snaps him out of it.
Unscrupulous Hero: After being called out by his Byke's AI and Jessica Childs, Fairfax begins to develop into this. He's still pretty ruthless and has a few jerkass tendencies, but he does overtly care about things other than himself and fights Death for reasons other than survival or revenge.

Jess Childs

The deuteragonist of The Fall of Deadworld, Jess Childs is a young girl from the countryside whose family are all killed during the Fall. After saving Fairfax's life, he takes her on as his charge.

Alternate Self: She's Deadworld's version of the Judge Child, albeit a much less evil one compared to her mainline counterpart Owen Krysler.
The Chosen One: As Deadworld's Judge Child, she's fated to oppose Judge Death and his corrupted version of the Justice Department.
Disappeared Dad: Her father left Jess and her mother years before the comic began. They briefly re-unite when she meets Sergeant Tucker at the Resistance base; though Jess never realizes his identity, Tucker recognises her as his child and stays away from her.
Doomed by Canon: Deadworld is already wiped clean of life prior to Necropolis, so it's safe to say that Jess won't be able to defeat Death.
Expository Hairstyle Change: During the early stages of the comic, Jess's hair is long and visibly unkempt. After she starts developing into more of a leader and combatant during the Resistance's attack on the capital, she starts wearing it in a much shorter and more controlled style, representative of her Character Development from "terrified young farmgirl" to "Deadworld's Judge Child."
It Sucks to Be the Chosen One: Jess is The Chosen One of a world in terminal decline, under attack by a cult of Omnicidal Maniacs bent on exterminating all life. In the space of a few weeks, she loses all of her family members to roving death-cultists (having to kill her uncle when he involuntarily joins them), is repeatedly attacked by the aforementioned cult's enforcers, and is seemingly dragged into the First Veil to a so far unknown fate. Oh, and she's doomed to fail and die anyway.
Kid Hero: Jess is just shy of thirteen years old during the Fall; she's also The Chosen One, seemingly destined to stand against Sydney De'ath.
Yank the Dog's Chain: Fall Of Deadworld makes it seem as though Jess has a chance: The villains are rife with in-fighting, two of the Dark Judges' top-picks for enforcers are on her side and she's gained the confidence necessary to pick Fairfax out of his funk and confront the Dark Judges. What looks like a freak accident drags her into the First Veil before she can do so and it's presumed the resistance is picked apart without her as an anchor.
You Are Better Than You Think You Are: When Fairfax keeps angsting over how Death has turned him halfway into a Dark Judge, Jess tells him that she gave him his helmet back so that he could be a "real Judge" and reminds him that he truly can be the man he knows he can be.

The Boneman

An enigmatic, seemingly immortal figure that walks the wastes of a future Deadworld, waiting for justice to return to the world.

Ambiguously Human: While he looks very much like a human he's also seemingly ageless and needless; his grey, corpselike skin and reddish eye colour also closely resemble the appearance of the Dark Judges, lending further ambiguity to exactly what he is.
Failure Hero: Is the only thing protecting Deadworld from monsters that try to invade through the First Veil. Is also the only thing in Deadworld.
Non-Linear Character: Despite existing in the far future, he's able to perceive Jess Childs' presence during a present-day psychic vision and warn her to "Save Judge Fairfax from himself".
Sole Survivor: He's the only (currently) confirmed organism active in Deadworld, Walking the Earth in the hopes of change coming one day.
Time Abyss: The Boneman is old enough to consider the Fall of Deadworld a distant memory, noting that the Dark Judges' monuments have crumbled to ruin from the passage of time and that Deadworld is even more of an inhospitable waste than before.
Unhappy Medium: He can see the dead as part of his unspecified "visions." Unfortunately, he's also stuck on a world where literally everyone is dead, making these visions "unwelcome" at best.
Vagueness Is Coming: He warns Jess Childs that Judge Fairfax needs to be saved "from himself" before the Resistance's psychic breaks the connection.
Walking the Earth: According to the Boneman's Visions of Deadworld comic, he's been roaming Deadworld ever since the Fall (at least) as part of a promise he made to the last human on Deadworld.

Characters / Judge Dredd: Deadworld

The Dark Judges

The Dark Judges