How old is Dredd currently

[Richard]

Michael Carroll bought Dredd some extra time with his story The Carousel a couple of years ago, in which Dredd has regular rejuvenation surgery. But that's just a sticking plaster solution in the long run. I think that finally addressing this issue properly could make a good story, in the right hands.

[Jacqusie]

Dredd's birth as being in 2066 ...so he's chronologically 76 but biologically 81

Thanks for everyones input on this and one day John Wagner may do a Dredd which addresses this in only the way he can and perhaps should do rather than anyone else.

I'm still all about his brain though, despite the carousel rejuve nonsense, an nearing 80 year old brain is still an 80 year brain! 

[Bolt-01]

One thing that has occurred to me this morning. Dredd is a stickler, right? He's had issues with facial hair and general comportment of judges throughout his career. Yet in a firefight he slings profanities around like Roger Mellie on open-mic night!

[IndigoPrime]

There's a lot of "operating like a man nearly half your age". Clearly, Dredd is an outlier, but it also showcases ways in which key considerations of the strip took a long time to come into being. After all, we saw 100-year-olds in MC-1 look like prunes, and Judges younger than Dredd looking fit for nothing.

See also: Michael Carroll's comments on MC-1's population, which in hindsight make no sense. 800 million might have seemed a big number at the time, but the original city population should have been significantly higher—or the city should have been much, much smaller. Even now, in its radically cut back form, MC-1 has a population less than twice that of the UK, but with a much larger land area, and with load of massive City Blocks that house more people than my entire town.

[IndigoPrime]

Dredd is a stickler, right? Yet in a firefight he slings profanities around like Roger Mellie on open-mic night!

Ah, but only Justice Dept approved legal profanities. Or something.

[Jacqusie]

Dredd is a stickler, right? He's had issues with facial hair

Which is why I always find it rather odd that artists draw him with heavy stubble, he probably even has a Remmington 500 in a belt pouch for cursed earth jaunts.

The other thing that goes with old age is sudden incontinence under stress, or just general flatulance, which I'm sure with all his Judge Training he's not cracked under the strain...  yet...

[Funt Solo]

"You drokkin' ... 'scuse me ... legally-challenged perps better surrender or ... uh-oh ... hang on, bit of a problem here ... emphatically drokkin' Depends are starting to leak out! One chance! Emergency TP rations!"

[JayzusB.Christ]

I remember one of the specials had a MC1 glossary - apparently 'drokk' was a judicially-approved expletive, whereas 'spug' wasn't.  Also, I don't remember any Wagner Dredd where he used 'drokking' as an adjective - I might be wrong, but that seemed to be the domain of Ennis et al.  Also, the only time I remember a citizen using 'drokk' in a Wagner Dredd was on a banner in 'The Hitman' (and has anyone noticed the similarities in that story to Button Man?  Not you, Watson; as you were.).

'Stomm' had gone the way of 'my dok' until other writers resurrected it, and decided it meant 'shit' - fine by me, it works.

'Spug' is up there with 'sneck' - the perfect made-up swear word.  Just dirty-sounding enough.  Although Wagner Dredds of late have had more familiar sounding made-up swearing - 'vugging' and 'fux' to name two.

   

[Richard]

80 year old brain is still an 80 year brain! 

True, but I've met some very sharp nonagenarians.