"The crime iss life.
The ssentence iss...DEATH!"
The ssentence iss...DEATH!"
"ALL OF YOU, MY CHILDREN! EVERY LAST CORPSE ON PLANET EARTH! UP AND AT 'EM! SMASH DOWN THE WALLS OF THE MEGA-CITIES! FEAST ON THE LIVING FLESH WITHIN! LET NONE ESCAPE! KILL THE WORLD!"
— Sabbat the Necromagus, 2000 AD prog 789, "Judgement Day, Part 5"
Judge Dredd takes place After the End, but in a dystopia such as Mega-City One, which is a Vice City, Police State, and Crapsack World, Joseph "Joe" Dredd himself is an angel compared to several of his adversaries.
Groups, and works within groups, are roughly arranged by publication date/release date.
All spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!
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Comic Books
Examples
- Judge Death, born Sidney De'ath, is the leader of the Dark Judges and the Arch-Enemy of Judge Dredd and Judge Anderson. Originating from Deadworld, he murdered his entire family and became a Judge simply to be able to legally kill people for the flimsiest of reasons. Regarding life itself to be the source of all crime and gathering several like-minded followers, he allowed himself and his "brothers" to be transformed into undead monstrosities by his allies the Sisters of Death before murdering the Chief Judge and slowly killing off their homeworld through weapons of mass destruction, plagues, and death camps. Death then purged his fellow Dark Judges except Fire, Fear, and Mortis. Since then, the Dark Judges have invaded other dimensions as well to spread their creed, killing millions more in the process. Judge Death himself has engaged in innumerable crimes, including regular mass murder and torture; the brainwashing of others to kill in his name; and even the happy slaughter of children and babies to serve his dark purposes. By zombifying or inhabiting the bodies of those he's killed, Death and company always return to continue this twisted nihilism by sadistically murdering those who cross his path while seeking the destruction of all that lives and breathes.
- "The Apocalypse War" (includes "Block Mania"):
- East-Meg One Supreme Judge Josef Bulgarin first appears in "Pirates of the Black Atlantic"; when a Sov-Blok plot to nuke Mega-City One is found out—after several million deaths—Bulgarin, to avoid a war they would lose, has a Sov sektor destroyed with a nuke. Next, before the Apocalypse War itself, Bulgarin, who with his fellow Judges Vlad and Snekov form the ruling Diktatorat, has agent Orlok the Assassin contaminate Mega-City One's water with a Hate Plague, resulting in chaos and softening up Mega-City One; at this point, Bulgarin implements the next steps, which include a nuclear strike and space, air, and land invasion. This kicks off the Apocalypse War, which eventually results in hundreds of millions of deaths on both sides. Bulgarin is apathetic about the massive number of potential East-Meg One casualties, and later plans to invade other cities despite promising otherwise.
- War Marshal "Mad Dog" Kazan is the barbaric and merciless commander-in-chief of the East-Meg One military who, on Bulgarin's orders, led the ground invasion and captured and brainwashed Mega-City One Chief Judge Griffin. Kazan subsequently assassinates the Diktatorat to seize power. Kazan also treats the men under his command horribly, from exiling them to Siberia without clothing, forcing them to play Russian Roulette, or executing one of his generals for simply suggesting surrender. Kazan, continuing the war beyond any rational point, becomes more determined than ever to continue the war after East-Meg One is devastated in a nuclear counterattack, until even his own soldiers mutiny and permit Judge Dredd to execute him, with Kazan dying while regretting and apologizing for nothing.
- "Judgement Day" (Crossover with Strontium Dog): Sabbat the Necromagus is a lich who seeks to conquer the universe with an army of zombies. Born Soppi Walters, Sabbat murdered a friendly witch to learn her magic, then killed and resurrected his schoolyard bully to torment him for eternity. Sabbat killed all 2 billion settlers on the planet Bethsheba, but managed to escape into the past when Johnny Alpha tracked him down. Sabbat unleashes a Zombie Apocalypse on Judge Dredd's world, which would also erase Alpha's timeline, while having all planes in the world instantly crash to quarantine the cities from each other. Sabbat manages to wipe out five mega-cities with three billion people inside them, and when he captures Judge Dredd and Johnny Alpha he proceeds to torture them to death, assuring them that they'll be the last living humans when he ends their lives.
- "Helter Skelter": Chief Judge Cal differs from his mainstream counterpart from "The Day the Law Died" in that he's not insane, just evil. Originating from a Villain World where he murdered Judge Dredd and has ruled Mega-City One as a despot ever since, he invades the Prime Universe with an alliance of other supervillains whom he all intends to dispose of when opportunity permits. While taking over the Justice Department, he has any Judge who is immune to his brainwashing either immediately executed or crucified. However, Cal's worst crime is knowingly escalating the Helter Skelter effect, tearing apart entire universes to enable multidimensional travel and thereby recklessly condemning billions of people to a Fate Worse than Death just so he can kill a version of Judge Dredd whom he's never even met.
- "Origins": U.S. President Robert Linus Booth is a hardline imperialist who starts bloody wars of conquest and unleashes a global nuclear war that claims the lives of billions after murdering a potential whistleblower, deluding himself that America's missile shields would protect it. Booth orders the massacre of hundreds of protestors and provokes a Civil War when the Justice Department moves to depose him on tyranny charges. Resurfacing in the Cursed Earth after spending years in hibernation, Booth spits on the mercy Judge Dredd shows him and instead forms an army to retake America, sating himself with trying to have Dredd executed after a show trial. As the man who is most responsible for creating the Death World of the comic, "Bad Bob" Booth shows absolutely no regret for his actions and is only concerned with his own power.
- Anderson: Psi-Division's "WMD", "Lock-In" & "City of Dead": Judge Elan Fauster is the head of the occultist department within Psi-Ops. When Judge Anderson is infected with Half-Life, a psychic virus from Deadworld, Fauster volunteers one of his men to act as his mole during the rescue mission inside Anderson's mind. The mission succeeds with high casualties, with Fauster ensuring that another Judge will be killed after being falsely identified as a carrier for the virus. He links the virus to his own nanomachines so they can repair his body and grant him immortality, causing the virus to spread out to the Psi-Judges before an outbreak in the general population occurs. The victims of Half Life become both homicidal and suicidal, slaughtering themselves and other people en masse through immensely brutal ways. Almost all of Mega-City One is affected before the Judges can deactivate the bots, ultimately causing at least a million deaths citywide. Fauster merely considers all the carnage he caused an acceptable sacrifice for his own immortality, boasting that he can afford to outlast any punishment that's in store for him.
Examples
- 1994-1996 series:
- Issues #6-7: Warden Clarence Suskind is the revolting head of Mega-City One's Department of Incrceration, who always looks for a way to get himself more money. Having his former prisoner develop a VR machine that created a virtual world with people feeling like all the things in it were real, Suskind first sold it to a gang, which used it to plug innocent people into the virtual world, causing them to be reduced to barely-sapient madmen, if they ever were removed from the machine. After Judge Dredd busted this operation, Suskind found another use for VR machine, making the virtual world a living hell and plugging all the prisoners in it, so all of the them would be tortured for eternity to the point of insanity.
- Issues #9-11: Vice President Robert Booth is a power-hungry madman who desires to be president. Joining in on Chief Judge Fargo's scheme of manipulating the population in giving Judges all the power, Booth, after learning that Ministry of Sin failed to kill President Frankowski, simply walked into the White House and murdered him personally, convincing Frankowski's butler to work for him and give him the code to the safe containing the control system to all the country's nuclear warheads. Later growing paranoid and mad with power, Booth unleashed all the nuclear warheads upon the world, reducing everything to a wasteland, aside from a few Mega Cities, with hundreds of millions of people either dying or getting horribly mutated. After people demanded his resignation for this, Booth ordered his troops to massacre them, killing thousands, leading to a war with Chief Judge Fargo, in which he has his troops kill thousands more.
- Legends of the Law:
- Issues #1-4—"The Organ Donors" arc: Doctor Euphorian Bliss is a gifted surgeon who specializes in organ transplants. In reality just a remorseless, selfish psychopath, Bliss has his men kidnap countless innocent people, whom he painfully dissects in his secret laboratory for organs. Keeping all his captured victims alive until there is nothing left of them, Bliss disposes of the people who died from his operations by dumping them into a hole, which causes them to merge into a mutated blob. Rigging all his henchmen to explode if they ever talk, Bliss, while talking about his supposed good intentions, showcased nothing but sadistic glee and greed during his atrocities, revealing himself to be nothing but a vile criminal out for himself.
- Issues #11-13—"Dredd of Knight" arc: Victor Van Petten is an ancient vampire who relished in the carnage he caused, brutally slaughtering many people, causing his vampire mentor Giorgio to leave him in disgust. Many years after the Nuclear War, in which he was seemingly killed, Victor was able to resurrect himself, setting his way to Mega-City One and massacring the mutant village along the way. Starting off his killing spree in Mega-City One, Victor sadistically murders countless people, before transforming them into his loyal ghouls and using their energy to block out the sun. Bringing on the eternal night, Victor transforms thousands more into his undead slaves, planning on feasting on the entire population of Mega-City One.
Examples
- Issue #1's "Future Crimes": Jonas Bleeker is an elderly man who found a way to keep himself young and immortal. Capturing thousands members of a small sapient alien race called the Stookie, Bleeker put them in his giant cage in a farm, where he has them butchered and carved apart to create a drug which halted the aging process. Killing thousands of Stookies this way, Bleeker tried to kill Judge Dredd when the latter discovered this operation.
- Issues #6-7's "Quake" two-parter: Shockwave, real name Orion Gulch, was once the best demolition man in Mega-City One before he was replaced by a robot. Angered by this, Orion enhanced himself with cybernetics and decided to force the city to destroy all the robots within it. Destroying the Jim Carrie Block of the city and killing most of its residents, Shockwave put forward his demand, threatening to destroy more city blocks if denied. As the Judges manage to save most of the residents of the Van Damme Block before he destroyed it, and send Dredd after him, Shockwave prepared to destroy the Jurgen Klinsmann Block, just to teach the Judges a lesson.
- Issues #21-23's "Invasion" three-parter: Lord Commander is the leader of a shapeshifting alien race, who decided to show humanity "who are the rightful rulers of the galaxy". Responsible for the events of "Monster" and "First Strike" stories by sending his spies to Earth to gather information, Lord Commander then has his agents sabotage the city defenses and create chaos on the streets, allowing him to attack Mega-City One with his fleet, bombing entire sectors of the city and killing thousands. Demanding surrender, Lord Commander openly intends to either destroy all the population of Mega-City One, if they refuse, or turn them into his slaves and food for his army, if they accept.
Dredd (2012) tie-in comics in Judge Dredd Megazine
Examples
- Issues #340-342's "Underbelly": "Beauty and The Beast" are a duo of slavers who decided to fill the power vacuum in the wake of Ma-Ma's death. Creating a powerful drug called "Psych", the duo started to mass produce psych and spread it throughout all of Mega-City One. To this end, the duo lures countless mutants, who are desperate to get into the city, to their base and enslaves them, working them to death in horrible conditions that ensure their slow and painful demise. Using Psi people as a secret ingredient in their drug, the duo kidnaps a young Psi boy, intending to dissect him to create more doses.
- Issues #392-396's "The Dead World": Sidney De'Ath is a former member of the Tek Division within the Justice Department, who was always fascinated by death. Discovering the Dead Dimension, Sidney led the scientists in opening a portal there, despite the warnings. After being sucked into it, Sidney liked how "peaceful" the whole Dead Dimension was and was furious when fellow scientists brought him back. Starting a killing spree, Sidney has a whole group of school girls commit suicide to take over the body of one of them. Adopting the name Death, Sidney orders three other scientists, who were given powers from the Dead Dimension, to kill as many people as they can, while he uses their physical bodies to bring the Dead World to Earth, fully intending to kill everyone within Mega-City One.
Examples
- 2012 series, written by Duane Swierczynski: Judge Death is the leader of the Dark Judges. Possessing the former Judge Tarjay, Death starts killing Judges, along with several innocent people in the process. Gathering up 13 bodies of the Judges that he killed, Death transforms them into the new Dark Judges who obey his will. Unleashing the Dark Judges upon Mega-City One, Death slaughters everyone he sees, while leading the other Dark Judges to brainwash people or kill them in horrific ways. Massacring the entire sector and reducing it to ruins, forcing the Judges to separate it from the rest of the city, Death plans to capture Dredd, intending to use him to pass through the Ooze Wall, so that he could spread death and destruction upon all of Mega-City One.
- Year One & Anderson, Psi-Division, written by Matt Smith (not that one): Ashberry is the mastermind behind everything bad happening in both miniseries. Starting off as a common conman, Ashberry discovers a powerful Psi mutant, after which he killed the rest of his gang and had scientists transfer part of mutant's powers to him. Gaining Psi abilities, Ashberry uses his mutant to travel to other dimensions and manipulate the natives into killing each other, while he steals their valuables. At one point setting up the "Four Mothers" scam, he brainwashes Psi kids into attacking Mega-City One in the other dimension and reducing it to ruins, while also trying to do the same in his own world. Wiping out the mutant village and transforming several Psi people into bombs, Ashberry uses them to kill his rivals, while intending on taking over Mega-City One completely.
- Mega-City Zero issue #6—"#NotAllMen", written by Erick Freitas & Ulises Fariñas: Granpa is the sexist leader of the Yes-Men gang, whose rule is not taking no for an answer. Setting up a laboratory and a Virtual World where men rule, Granpa has his men kidnap women and young girls and plugs them into his machine, forcing them to live in his world, where they are treated as things, brutalized, violated, abused and eventually killed. At one point capturing Dredd and 3 feral girls, Lolo, Quill and Iggy, Granpa tries to force Dredd to live by his rules, until he decides to kill Iggy when Dredd rebelled, traumatizing the heroes for the rest of the comic.
- Under Siege, written by Mark Russell: Talleyrand is a human-looking mutant who desires to live in Mega-City One. Gathering up a large mutant army, Talleyrand invades Patrick Swayze Block and has his mutants take hundreds of people hostage and assault the population. After Judge Dredd interferes with his scheme, Talleyrand tries to force the population to kill him by declaring that he will kill 50 of his hostages every hour until Dredd dies, dropping first fifty to their death immediately. Thus manipulating the whole population of the Block to start slaughtering each other, Talleyrand reveals his scheme of detonating a chemical bomb in a heavily populated location to have its effects spread all over Mega-City One and kill tons of people, before it will transform the next generation into mutants. Abandoning all his fellow mutants to die and even eagerly killing one for questioning him, Talleyrand showcased a lack of care for anyone but himself.
- Toxic!, written by Paul Jenkins: Spencer Richards is the xenophobic leader of the Anti-Alien League, who claims to desire to "preserve humanity's genetic pool". Uncovering the existence of benevolent sapient parasitic aliens, Spencer "merged" with one to keep himself immortal and has his followers seek to destroy every other member of that species. Rallying his men to attack the factory with many chemicals, leading to the deadly toxins being unleashed upon Mega-City One and killing tons of people, while also causing acid rain, Spencer orders his men to hunt down and kill all "off worlders" they can find, leading them to assault the Judges and attempting to kill the alien Queen.
- False Witness, written by Brandon M. Easton:
- Pendleton Snipe is a mutant from Cursed Earth who managed to get inside Mega-City One. Initially suffering because of bigotry, Snipe decided to use this for his own benefit, changing his appearance and taking the name of Dr. Galen Filth, after which he created a program "Filthy Language", where he constantly blamed the unregistered people and Judges for all the problems within Mega-City One, causing riots and civil unrest. To get himself in the good graces of the elites, Snipe kidnapped dozens of mutant children from his hometown and put them in his modified Resyk chamber, where they were dissolved and their genes were absorbed by the elites to prolong their lives.
- Shannon McShannon is Dr. Filth's protege and the head of the program "Straight Shooting' with Shannon", where she spreads bigotry and hatred across the population of Mega-City One, causing many people to gather and start attacking unregistered people and the Judges. Assisting Dr. Filth in his kidnappings of mutant children, Shannon also regularly injected herself with the genes of the children, as soon as they dissolved, to keep a healthy appearance. After discovering Dr. Filth's mutant origin, Shannon has him killed and framed Mathias Lincoln, leading to civil unrest within Mega-City One.
Examples
- Batman/Judge Dredd, written by Alan Grant & John Wagner:
- Judge Death is the Arch-Enemy of Judge Dredd and, much like his original counterpart, presented as a psychopath who believes life itself is a crime deserving of death. Having kicked off his mission to purge the universe of all life by slaughtering his entire home world, Death arrives at Gotham City in Judgement on Gotham to continue his bloody rampage, killing numerous people before being stopped by Batman. Escaping in ethereal form, Death allies with the Master of Fear, Scarecrow, and, after failing to betray and murder the man when he outlives his usefulness, teams up with him in massacring a rock concert of dozens of people in grotesque ways, planning to move onto the rest of Gotham afterwards. Later allying with the Joker in Die Laughing, Death turns him into a Dark Judge and proceeds to butcher thousands of people in Mega-City One, and is stopped only after wiping out an entire amusement park of adults and children. With a love of killing and a philosophy to enable it, Judge Death is truly the worst foe in Dredd's enemy line-up.
- Judgement on Gotham: The Scarecrow is a sadistic criminal obsessed with terrifying others and spreading widespread fear, and is thus ecstatic when meeting Judge Death. Watching in fascination as Death kills Scarecrow's own assistant, Scarecrow then cows Death with his patented Fear Gas, forcing the evil Judge to become his partner, and then, wanting Death to show him a "feast of fear", brings him to a highly-populated rock concert and watches in glee as he sics Death on the thousands of concertgoers, even videotaping the whole ordeal in sick amusement.
- Die Laughing: The Joker is as usual portrayed as a lunatic who wants nothing more than to torment and kill everything he can as a form of entertainment and "humor". Infiltrating Mega City One, Joker kills numerous people to enable the release of Judge Death and his Dark Judges, and, requesting to be made a Dark Judge himself, Joker uses his new abilities to go on a slaughter spree with Death. Personally using his new power of screeching laughter, Joker kills dozens of people at a time by making their heads explode, and, after wiping out every man, woman, and child at an amusement park, proclaims his intentions to head back to Gotham and showcase his new powers to its millions of inhabitants.
- Predator vs. Judge Dredd vs. Aliens, written by John Layman: Dr. Niels Reinstot is a scientist obsessed with the improvement of the gene pool. After being driven off Mega-City One for experimenting on orphans, Niels set up a laboratory in Wildlands, where he grew an army of animal-human hybrids. Discovering the Xenomorphs and capturing a Yautja warrior and the Judges, Niels immediately experimented on them, implanting a Face Hugger on the Yautja and one of the Judges, while transforming another Judge into a mindless abomination. Later on taking control over the Yautja ship and using his remaining hybrids as hosts for Xenomorphs, Niels unleashes them in Mega-City One, leading to a slaughter, while he transforms himself into a Xenomorph Queen and plans to kill off the entire population of Mega-City One.
Other Media
Examples
- Dice Man issue #1's "House of Death": Judge Death is, as usual, presented as a maniac who desires to spread death across the world. Brought back with the dimensional generator, Judge Death used the Brotherhood of Baal to kidnap and murder hundreds of people. When Judge Dredd arrived to investigate the matter, Death sends his fellow Dark Judges after him and then tries to kill him personally, succeeding in one of the endings, after which he proudly announces his intention to slaughter the entire population of Mega-City One.
- Dread Dominion novel, by Stephen Marley: Chief Judge Joe Dread is a parallel version of Street Judge Joe Dredd from a timeline where he shot his clone-brother Rico Dredd instead of arresting him. Days later, Dread shot out a man's kneecaps for jaywalking and gave him 10 seconds to crawl the five meters back to the pedway before he executed him—only to kill him anyways because the man's toecap was still touching the slipway. From there, Dread facilitated his way into becoming Chief Judge, brutally unified Mega-Cities One, Two, and Three, then launched a war which saw him consolidate power and nuke the "expendable" parts of the Mega-Cities into oblivion. This in turn became the excuse for a campaign of world domination, which reduced Australia to a radioactive Death World. A bona fide Multiversal Conqueror after this point, Judge Dread masterminds horrors such as the "Conglomeration" or the "Orchestra," each of which run on the eternal torture of thousands of victims at a time. His idea of "fun" includes instigating literal blood orgies called "Carnal Carnivals" and feeding living people to corpse-recycling machinery, especially enjoying putting whole families on the treadmill to watch them betray each other for a few moments more of life. When finally defeated, Dread attempts to murder his and Judge Dredd's shared younger self, an act that will annihilate both their timelines, out of sheer spite.
- 1995 film: Rico Dredd is Judge Dredd's megalomaniac of a half-brother who, as a Judge, degenerated to murdering people based on the possibility they might commit a crime in the future. Too much for even the decadent Mega-City One, Rico Dredd breaks out of the penal colony he's trapped in while leaving a slew of bodies behind him, murdering a store clerk to steal a powerful robot and teaming up with the corrupt Judge Griffin to bring order to the city. Rico betrays the law by gleefully massacring Judges by the dozens and causing explosions to go off through the city, even brutally murdering Griffin when he no longer suits his plans to instead create an army of clones to take over the city. Rico finally attempts to throw his own brother off the Statue of Liberty on the charge of being a man "when we could have been gods!"
- Dredd vs. Death:
- Video game:
- Judge Death is as evil as ever. A former Judge from his homeworld, Death decided that all crime is committed by the living and thus life itself is a crime. Creating Dark Judges, Death wiped out all life in his world, reducing it into a wasteland filled with undead abominations. After being released from his prison, Death uses an Apocalypse Cult to fatally torture four Psi-Judges in a ritual that gives him and his fellow Dark Judges physical bodies. Sending the other Dark Judges to spread death and destruction all over Mega-City One, Death takes over the Resyk facility and slaughters nearly everyone there, before turning them into zombies. After Dredd destroys his body, Death flees back to Deadworld with the immortal body of Dr. Richard Icarus to possess it and make himself invulnerable. When confronted, Death reveals to Dredd that he has captured the Psi-Judges and plans to drain them of their energy so he can use it to merge Deadworld with Dredd's universe, killing everything in Mega-City One.
- Dr. Richard Icarus is the creator of the PetRegen serum, who seeks complete immortality. Desiring to perfect his immortality serum, Icarus infected countless people with his PetRegen virus, transforming them into mindless vampires and zombies, who were then unleashed upon Mega-City One, slaughtering many innocents. When Judge Dredd broke into his facility, Icarus, uncaring about the deaths of his men, tried to kill him by unleashing the vampires on him.
- Novelization, by Gordon Rennie: Judge Death, the twisted leader of the Dark Judges, led his comrades in the utter eradication of their entire world into a barren wasteland of ghosts and wraiths. In Mega-City One, Death has countless innocents rounded up and subjected to "judgement" by himself and his brothers before being sealed off, only to return and direct the Dark Judges on new paths to slaughter until he merges his Deadworld with Earth to kill all that lives for the sin of life.
- Video game:
