Science Fiction critic Damian Walter has recently published a video essay about Dredd — primarily the 2012 film but also the comic and I guess I have a couple of things to say about it.
Firstly, I think his comments about the film are all fair enough. I love the 2012 film; I recently rewatched it and it held up. But I can say that while also admitting that besides being a fun action film (your mileage can vary) it fails in large part to actually criticise the authoritarian police system that it ostensibly parodies. I mean, I can squint a bit and read a bit of a critique here or a satirical remark there, but it’s me doing the work not the filmmakers. And there is very little getting around the fact that it employs a lot of unfortunate tropes, which I’m sure the makers will defend as ironic and “grounded” but which fail to ultimately subvert the racism and authoritarianism that they’re rooted in. He’s right to say that Paul Verhoeven would have done a better job with the source material, although it’s worth noting he in fact did — with 1987’s Robocop.
I find myself feeling a little more defensive when it comes to Judge Dredd the comic. First of all, quickly, I feel the need to come to artist creator Carlos Ezquerra’s defense here to point out that Dredd’s uniform is not a parody of a Nazi uniform but of a Franco fascist (mixed with 1970s punk chic). It’s often overlooked that Dredd’s original artist was Spanish, grew up in a fascist state, and that a lot of it’s sensitivity is rooted in that experience.
More substantially though, is Judge Dredd the long running comic series just the same joke told again and again? To an extent, sure. So is most serialised fiction. Superhero comics certainly are repetitive; so are soap operas. So is Sherlock Holmes. I love the Far Side but it’s just the same comic beat every time. And, I don’t mean to blow your mind or anything, but Charles Dickens really did have a bit of a thing about social iniquity in Victorian London.
With that said, there’s a lot more going on in Judge Dredd than just Dredd going around shooting a different wacky criminal every week, and there’s a lot more divergent material than just “America” which Damian singles out in his essay.
Right from the beginning, there’s a lot more going on. John Wagner’s first published Judge Dredd story (the early development of Judge Dredd is quite complicated and involved both creators quitting the strip and a rotating team of writers and artists taking over; fortunately Wagner returned after just four months), “Robot Wars”, is a sci-fi take on slavery and civil rights. As with much of early 2000AD it is problematic, with robots standing in as analogues for Africans, and with Walter the Wobot we get the “good slave” who doesn’t want freedom. Nonetheless, for a comic aimed squarely at 8 year old white British kids, its overt anti-racism message is pretty clear, and it was a far cry from the early strips focused on Dredd tackling criminals with a mad sci fi gimmick every week.
A year later, the strip took a complete left turn. This began with Pat Mills, Mike McMahon and Brian Bolland’s “Cursed Earth” which takes Dredd out of Mega-City One and has him wandering through the wilderness and the nuclear blasted remains of the United States (Tom Ewing has recently written a great essay about this story, which is worth reading in full). This was followed by “The Day the Law Died” in which Dredd (and writer John Wagner, as well as artists Mike McMahon and Ron Smith) returns to Mega City One only to immediately find himself a fugitive as the city is taken over by an insane Chief Judge (this story formed the basis of the 1995 Judge Dredd movie).
My point here is that even from the earliest days, the creators and editorial team of Judge Dredd were concerned to avoid the strip from simply becoming a repetitive gimmick-of-the-week, “one joke” wonder. Its longevity (49 years next month!) has depended on that. Sure, “America” is a stand out strip, but don’t let the fully painted format and older target demographic fool you into thinking it was a particular departure. John Wagner and his writing partner for much of the 1980s Alan Grant, had been building up to “America” for literal years in the weekly strip.
Speaking personally, I find “Revolution”, a 3 part story by Wagner, Grant and artist John Higgins, a far more effective and chilling takedown of the Judge system than “America”. “America” is very much of its time; an attempt to elevate the medium in the eyes of the public and critics by adding painted colour and slower-paced character development (it’s a tribute to Wagner that despite this, his cheeky sense of humour remains and he avoids going full Watchmen, which was an unfortunate trend at the time). “Revolution” is an 18 page slap in the face, spelling out in exacting detail how an authoritarian regime can dismantle a democratic movement with ease and complete impunity. It was the first time Judge Dredd had really shocked 12 year old me.
And this only takes us to 1990; 2000ad has been in continual publication for 35 years since “America” and John Wagner, along with numerous other writers have addressed the fascist elephant in the room repeatedly. In “Origins”, Wagner and artist Carlos Ezquerra have Judge Dredd meet Fargo, the man who founded the Judge system. Dying, Fargo tells Dredd that the whole thing was a mistake and urges him to dismantle it — something which Dredd responds to by simply pretending it didn’t happen (except it’s more complicated than that, because it’s always more complicated than that with John Wagner).
More recently, in “A Better World”, writers Rob Williams and Arthur Wyatt, and artist Henry Flint have been exploring how the Judges and the rest of Mega-City One would respond if they received irrefutable evidence that it would be more effective to dismantle the Judge system and replace it with spending more on education and social welfare. Badly, it turns out.
I’d also recommend Dreadnoughts, a prequel series by Michael Carroll and artist John Higgins, which is set in an uncomfortably near future America where the Judge system has just been introduced. It does a great job at bridging the present developments in policing and the more futuristic setting of Judge Dredd itself. It’s a grim, meat grinder of a strip that uncannily resembles the ongoing ICE raids in the US.
Finally, I don’t think any discussion on Judge Dredd and its relationship to modern policing should happen in 2026 without reference to Michael Molcher’s excellent (and Eisner Award winning) book I Am The Law, which looks at this theme in far more detail. It’s important to remember that ultimately Dredd is a British comic that was bouncing primarily off of policing trends that were (are) happening in the UK at least as much as what is unfolding in the US.
Is it possible to misread Judge Dredd as pro-fascist? Does the strip frequently like to have it both ways, matching entertaining ultraviolence with social commentary? Does it sometimes miss the mark? Sure. But again, this is not exceptional. There’s a reason why Facebook is obsessed with convincing me that the 1984 David Lynch adaptation of Dune, in which Paul Atreides is an uncomplicated hero with (ulp!) super powers is vastly superior to the Denis Villeneuve version with its “woke” tendency to spell out that, actually, Paul is really the bad guy. And there’s a reason why the Torment Nexus meme is, well, a meme. I just think it’s unfair to suggest that in the case of Judge Dredd this problem isn’t addressed in the text itself.
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