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Judge Dredd

Judge Joseph Dredd is a fictional character created by writer John Wagner and artist Carlos Ezquerra. He first appeared in the second issue of the British weekly anthology comic 2000 AD (1977). He is the magazine's longest-running character, and in 1990 he got his own title, the Judge Dredd Megazine. He also appears in a number of film and video game adaptations.

Judge Dredd is a law enforcement and judicial officer in the dystopian future city of Mega-City One, which covers most of the east coast of North America. He is a "street judge", empowered to summarily arrest, convict, sentence, and execute criminals. Judge Dredd stories often satirise American and British culture, with a focus on authoritarianism and police brutality.

Judge Dredd made his live-action debut in 1995 in Judge Dredd, portrayed by Sylvester Stallone. Later, he was portrayed by Karl Urban in the 2012 adaptation Dredd. In audio dramas by Big Finish Productions, Dredd is voiced by Toby Longworth.

When comics editor Pat Mills was developing 2000 AD in 1976, he brought in his former writing partner, John Wagner, to develop characters. Wagner had written a Dirty Harry-style "tough cop" story, "One-Eyed Jack", for Valiant, and suggested a character who took that concept to its logical extreme. In a 1995 interview, Wagner said: "When Pat was putting together 2000 AD, we realised from the success of "One-Eyed Jack" this was the kind of story the paper should have – a really hard, tough cop."

Mills had developed a horror strip called Judge Dread (named after the stage name of British ska and reggae artist Alexander Minto Hughes), before abandoning the idea as unsuitable for the new comic; but the name, with the spelling modified to "Dredd" at the suggestion of sub-editor Kelvin Gosnell, was adopted by Wagner. According to Mills, the name Joseph – given to Dredd in a story written by Mills which appeared in "prog" (short for programme or issue) no. 30 – refers to where he went to school, St Joseph's College, Ipswich.

The task of visualising the character was given to Carlos Ezquerra, a Spanish artist who had worked for Mills before on Battle Picture Weekly. Wagner gave Ezquerra an advertisement for the film Death Race 2000, showing the character Frankenstein (played by David Carradine) clad in black leather on a motorbike, as a suggestion of Dredd's appearance. Ezquerra added body-armour, zips, and chains, which Wagner initially objected to, commenting that the character looked like a "Spanish pirate." Wagner's initial script was rewritten by Mills and drawn up by Ezquerra. The hardware and cityscapes Ezquerra had drawn were far more futuristic than the near-future setting originally intended; in response, Mills set the story further into the future, on the advice of his art assistant Doug Church. The original launch story written by Wagner and drawn by Ezquerra was vetoed by the board of directors for being too violent. A new script was needed for the first episode.

By this stage, Wagner had quit, disillusioned that a proposed buy-out of the new comic by another company, which would have given him and Mills a greater financial stake in the comic, had fallen through. Mills was reluctant to lose Judge Dredd and farmed the strip out to a variety of freelance writers, hoping to develop it further. Their scripts were given to a variety of artists as Mills tried to find a strip which would provide a good introduction to the character. This Judge Dredd would not be ready for the first issue of 2000 AD, launched in February 1977.

The story chosen to introduce the character was submitted by freelance writer Peter Harris, and was extensively re-written by Mills, who added a new ending suggested by Kelvin Gosnell. It was drawn by newcomer Mike McMahon. The strip debuted in prog 2. Around this time Ezquerra quit and returned to work for Battle. There are conflicting sources about why. Ezquerra says it was because he was angry that another artist had drawn the first published Judge Dredd strip. Mills says he chose McMahon because Ezquerra had already left, having been offered a better deal by the editor of Battle.

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