Created at least partially to ram home the point that comic book superheroes and gun-wielding cops are inherently fascist, Judge Dredd – like Dirty Harry, the Punisher and Charles Bronson in Death Wish – wound up as an enormous success, demonstrating that even liberal audiences find certain types of fascism inherently appealing. In the chaotic future of MegaCity One, Dredd is part of a corps of judges who act simultaneously as arresting officer, legal system and executioner when dealing with criminal scum. Like another long-standing British comics institution, Desperate Dan, the Judge Dredd strip is partially a British viewpoint satire on the excesses of America and Americanism – and Dredd, like the cow pie-eating cowboy, is a violent, deranged but inherently decent take on the concept of the right-thinking American hero. A problem for writers on the strips has been coming up with villains so unreasonable that Dredd looks good – but they managed the trick with Judge Death.

FIRST APPEARED IN 2000 AD PROG 2 (1977)
CREATED BY JOHN WAGNER, PAT MILLS, CARLOS EZQUERRA