I’ve read about a half-dozen Judge Dredd trades over the past couple months and something I didn’t notice until today: the reflections of light in his visor seem to be, more often than not, in the shape of lightning bolts. Further, most of those instances they appear to be lightning bolts similar to the SS ones (although the one on the right is reversed so it’s more of a “S2” than “SS.”
Now, I certainly don’t mean to imply that there’s an element of Nazi-worship in these works, but I’m wondering: is this a purposeful comment on the extreme nature of Dredd’s (and the Judges’ in general) version of the law? Or does it just look cool and I’m making an association that wasn’t intended?
It’s a British satire of fascistic elements in American over-the-top action heroes. And yes, Brian Bolland slipped those in there delibrerately. (Unless Carlos Ezquerra did it first…) It’s a sci-fi send-up of Dirty Harry and Death Wish-type movies.
That’s what I thought, those cunning Brits (I should probably have figured it out sooner but going over my collection, it turns out that nearly all of the ones I’ve read were written by Ennis who is generally not subtle enough to throw something like that in (especially at that point of his career). I’ve got a couple written up by Mills & Wagner, so I’ll be delving into what the creators had to say shortly (Apocalypse War, here I come!).
The political satire increased as the strip matured and developed: the early strips portrayed the Judges, and Dredd in particular, as heroic avatars of Justice, stern and sometimes violent, but fair and just, protecting Mega-City One from criminal anarchy.
Later strips began to question this, and as John Wagner and Alan Grant’s writing matured, the Judges were often portrayed in an ambiguous or critical light: were they protectors or oppressors? This trend in the scripts particularly developed in the mid 80’s, at the height of Thatcherism in Britain: Judges were seen as doing such things as tranquilising the population to keep them docile, forcibly lobotomising habitual offenders, and in particular stamping out any political dissent. The violence in the strip also increased: where Dredd would have once punched someone out, he now casually shot them.
Dredd’s character slowly grew to be less of a hero and more of a tyrant: this reached its height in the Democracy storyline, where the Justice Department countered a growing political movement calling for an end to the absolute rule of the Judges and a return to democracy: Dredd was given carte blanche to stop this, and orchestrated a harassment and smear campaign against the movement’s leaders: when the Democrats took to the streets to protest, they were violently suppressed, and the leaders arrested and imprisoned. Dredd’s transformation into a fascist tyrant was complete.
However, an older and wearier Dredd gradually began to question his role, and eventually grew so disillusioned that he resigned as a Judge and went into voluntary exile in the radioactive wasteland beyond the city walls.
He came back to save the city from the Dark Judges, of course, and once he had resumed his role as a Judge the writing duties shifted from Wagner and Grant to Garth Ennis, with a corresponding drop in quality: any political commentary was largely abandoned, and the strip degenerated into an immature and ultra-violent self-parody, with added toilet humour.
In the very first Dredd story, a mother admonishes her little son to behave or Judge Dredd will come to get him. There’s a knock on the door. It’s Dredd, and he’s after the kid (who turns out to be a robot).
I once had one of my drawings printed in an issue of 2000AD. I drew a New Zealand Judge. I got an LRD out of it (Liquid Refreshment Dispenser i.e. a coffee mug)
It was labelled Kiwilander, drawn more like a Ron Smith style I suppose, though not deliberately. It was really drawn in my own style.
By the way, Judge Dredd’s timeline did have an SS style of Judge, called the Special Judicial Squad, or SJS, who emerged during Judge Caligula’s reign and lingered around long after his downfall.
I figured that this was probably the case. I checked out some recent issues of 200AD on the stands and was likewise not impressed. I’ll have to go try to find the DEMOCRACY collection. Any early stories I should try to pick up?
Here’s another JD question: Ezquerra in HELTER SKELTER and DEATH AID draws Dredd with a “force field” for lack of a better term. He has a heavy black line aroud him (as comic characters are wont to do) with “blocks” (that is, heavier sections creating a “dashed” look). Earlier Ezquerra issues (JUDGE DEATH collection) don’t seem to have this. What’s with this?
BTW, it’s worth mentioning here that DC is currently engaged in a long-term deal with Rebellion/2000 AD to reprint TPB collections of a lot of 2000 AD material. So far there are only a couple Dredd collections (which I’m told aren’t very good ones) but more are in the pipeline, and DC has already published a lot of good non-Dredd stuff like Nikolai Dante, Sinister Dexter, Robo-Hunter Verdus, etc. (See my posts in the last month or two of WCD threads for more info.)
