Dredd Suggestions

[Rio De Fideldo]

Obviously this is just a bit of fun because John Wagner is the master when it comes to Dredd but I would love to see some Dredd stories from different time periods and not just the strict 122 years in the future chronological stories we're used to.

I love what he's doing in the strip at the moment,I've got a bad feeling about Dredd's ache in his left side,but I think it would be great to juxtapose this older 'pro mutant' Dredd with stories from his past. The arrogant Dredd from 2099, the toughest law man of all who is prepared to throw in his badge over every little sleight, the no doubts Dredd zipping half way across the galaxy on quests, the full of doubt Dredd struggling coming to terms with the bloodline and his time in the Cursed Earth pre Dead Man. You get my point.

It would be interesting to see fresh interpretations of the past based on what we know now happens.

[Ignatzmonster]

Y'know, Field, I would find this appealing. Wagner's done such an amazing job NOT making quick transitions in Dredd's character that the changes that do happen seem that much more siginficant. Young Dredd would've kicked the mutants out  and high-exed Mandroid, in the first chapter, back to the stoneage without pause.

Another boarder suggested the early misadventures of Rico: The Decline and Fall of Rico. The big selling point of something like that would be seeing the as fresh-faced-as-he-is-brutal young Dredd.

[Pandy]

This may sound like sacrilege, but I'm beginning to wonder if some sort of reboot is inevitable for Dredd. Having started reading a few weeks before Question of Judgment/Error of Judgment/Case for Treatment the issue of Dredd doubting his role as a judge and the system he served was always part of it, so when it eventually led to Dead Man/Necropolis I was actually disappointed that it ended with him becoming a judge again and everything going back to 'normal' (to the extent I stopped reading for a few years). So while I now realise that in concluding that arc it was not necessary to kill the prog's strongest character off, we're now nearing the point where Dredd is just too old to keep going on for another ten years or so, and any fountain-of-youth resolution to that would be a betrayal of the real-time ageing of the character that has been so important so far. How about a natural end to 'this' Dredd then, and, after a few weeks of mourning, a new, younger, hard-ass, willing-tool-of-the-fascist-police-state Dredd? It would have to be essentially the same character, not some Stallone/DC abomination, but the background and setting could do with some retooling, given Dredd's origins in the 70s (Sovs? No, not anymore, and Mega City One is still ridiculously large even after the Apocalypse War's destruction of the south sectors). I'm not suggesting Dredd needs to be updated to appeal to today's yoof (it didn''t work for Dennis the Menace, whom I believe took to wearing shades and skateboarding for a brief period some time ago) but restarting the character at an earlier point would allow some good old-fashioned ass-kickery and let a new generation of readers see the character progression that current old-timers have been fortunate to witness over the years.

[mogzilla]

hi pandy, i'm in the camp that think the new rico is being groomed to replace joe when he shuffles off. if he does a kraken and (re)adopts the dredd name as technically he is dredd. Reboot? spider-man did that and look where that ended up.
 the growth in his side could be his final "long walk" hes done it a couple of times or resigned and then not. maybe he'll take edgars way out and refuse treatment.
   I would however like to see a special like the elseworlds series dc did ,it was discussed on here ages ago  about a steampunk 2000ad . we could have a dredd in an alteernate universe or historical take. imagine a witchfinder judge .!

[Richard]

I think a more likely outcome is Rico ending up braindead and Dredd getting a full body transplant.

As for elseworlds Dredd, Andy Barnes did a  "Dredd of Drokk Green" in the 1996 JD Special, featuring Dredd as a British police constable in the 1960s.

[mogzilla]

brain dead rico's a good idea but it doesnt get rid of dredd's doubts unless he gets a new lease of life!!!

the dredd of drokk green was ace ! probably subconciously prompting me to think along those lines .

[Wils]

I think a more likely outcome is Rico ending up braindead and Dredd getting a full body transplant.

Nooooo. That's a fucking *terrible* idea, and I'll personally kick Wagner's dustbin over if he did that to us (although, tbh, I don't think he'd ever even consider it for a second).

During Bristol (and over beer), Satchmo and I came up with possibly the *only* decent way to close things: Joe takes the long walk, never to be seen again. End of. Rico changes his name back to his original, thus having a Dredd on the streets of Mega-City One, but this time with no underhandedness as with the Kraken episode. What we'd have in essence would be a young Dredd, with similar attitudes to the Joe of 2099, but more complicated, already having the whole bloodline thing on his shoulders together with relatives in the form of Vienna, Dolman etc, and of course, his amazing bionic jaw.

While we were discussing this, Malchi informs me that Satch and I were both "very excitable". Heh. :)

[Peter Wolf]

I wouldnt have any problem with JD taking the long walk.Not because i dont like the character but because its the logical conclusion and it happens with other Judges and it leaves you wondering what will happen to JD in the cursed earth.

 Then clone JD and start again.

 but expanding the existing material is good to but please please please dont let JD just become ageless or whatever and just go on and on and on like some Marvel comics character who never dies or ages.

"but the background and setting could do with some retooling, given Dredd's origins in the 70s (Sovs? No, not anymore, "

 [Sovs? Yes they are back.

[Pandy]

OK, given recent events you could say the Sovs are back, but it's not the Soviet Union, it's Russia, so I think the point still stands: the future as envisioned from now has to be different from the one that the writers of the 70s imagined. And as far as Dredd's departure is concerned, well he's already taken the long walk, and while he may deserve a herioc send off I think something a bit more tawdry would be truer to the way of life and death in Mega-City One, like the way Morphy was killed. I'd rather not see Rico take over because he isn't Dredd, nor would any other clone be, so that's why I see the reboot route as the only one that can keep the character going and still remain the same character, not some next generation stand-in.

[Roger Godpleton]

If the following changes are not made to Dredd, 2000 AD will go out of print.

1. There needs to be at least 1 racial slur for every 3 panels. You could just have one panel that contains all of that week's words, or you could spread it out. It needs to happen.

2. Dredd needs to have a favourite sector house where he can visit at the end of every story so he can chill with all his favourite juves and they can have dance offs to rap music and we get a free CD of rap music every week. It needs to happen

3. Psi Judge Karyn needs to come out of being possessed so she can replace Anderson. We have to see the final disgrace of Anderson where everyone finds out she killed Hammy Blish and Karyn and Shakta who isn't blind anymore can call her a murdering whore. It needs to happen.

4. We need to bring back Max Normal so that he can be played by Snoop Dogg and he calls Joe "Jizzle Drizzle". This will cause Dredd to want to have sex with Galen DeMarco but Jack Point objects and we have a twelve month mega-epic of them fighting a violent war. It needs to happen.

5. Dredd has to go into PJ Maybe's office and confront him because he knows the truth. But then at the last second of the episode he says "...and I want in n*****". It needs to happen.

6. Dredd has to be killed after he cannot be on the streets anymore and he goes mad and he can't take the new liberal judges so he goes on a killing spree but then America Beeny kills her because the twist is that she has been turned into a fascist. It needs to happen.

[Cthulouis]

then America Beeny kills her because the twist is that she has been turned into a fascist.

And the bigger twist is that Dredd was a woman all along.

Come to think of it, maybe Beeny should become brain-dead, then Dredd can have a full body transplant...

[Richard]

but it's not the Soviet Union, it's Russia, so I think the point still stands: the future as envisioned from now has to be different from the one that the writers of the 70s imagined.

There's no reason why there could not be a Second Soviet Union between now and 2104.

[TordelBack]

And as far as Dredd's departure is concerned, well he's already taken the long walk, and while he may deserve a herioc send off I think something a bit more tawdry would be truer to the way of life and death in Mega-City One, like the way Morphy was killed.

Absolutely agree, or maybe  even what happened to Minty, gives a perp the benefit of the doubt.  The die was cast along time ago when Dredd was encased in real time, and his eventual death has to follow as a consequence - although it doesn't have to be soon, or spectacular.   Something utterly prosaic would answer: intervenes in a juve rumble, stabbed in the back by a teenager he failed to disarm.  Or if it has to be heroic, just takes a bullet meant for a citizen in a bat-glider strafeing.  'Course it is possible that a judicial civil war is on the cards as Joe keeps pushing reform as per Fargo's request: Dredd, Hershey and the young 'uns versus the old guard while the city burns, it'd be a fun way to go if it has to be 'epic'.

If I was to look to the future, I'd like to see Beeny (the most intriguing character) and/or Dolman (an interesting 'version' of Fargo) step into the tight boots (not Rico or Giant, who despite promising origins frankly lack distinctive personalities), but still go under the Judge Dredd title, in a Taggart stylee.  It'd give the strip the integrity it thrives on.  Let an Ultimate Judge Dredd run concurrently that still stars a version of Joe to satisfy the marketing boys.

[JOE SOAP]

I'm all for mutant judges, especially from the Fargo clan.

[Peter Wolf]

but it's not the Soviet Union, it's Russia, so I think the point still stands: the future as envisioned from now has to be different from the one that the writers of the 70s imagined.

There's no reason why there could not be a Second Soviet Union between now and 2104.

 Thats true in a sense but a lot of ex soviet block countries now want to join Nato if they havent done so already.Others that were not Soviet countries but were Communist have now joined the EU.

 So the whole Communist call it what you like ethos is becoming archaic.

 Russia is becoming more and more archaic and isolated unless you count their allies like Syria and Iran and not forgetting China.Russia hasnt moved with the times.

 I cant ever see Russia merging with the West anytime soon so its possible that Russia as we know it will exist in a 100 years or so but really anything can happen.

 Its also interesting how China has adopted Capitalism to survive in the 21st century so what you have there is Capitalism and Communism both at the same time :Communo-Capitalism otherwise China would be where Russia is now economically.

 The EU is Socialist and i will tell you now that plans are afoot to merge the US with the EU in the long term [2014 -15] if they get their way.

 Thats just more NWO/Globalist/One World Government bullshit that i dont think any of the writers would have imagined happening but there is a lot of similarities between the politics in MC1 and Socialism/Communism and the left in general.