Dredd into the sunset

[uncle fester]

I've been thinking recently (dangerous, I know), about the whole Dredd timeline in 'real time' and how it keeps things interesting with age-related scenarios.

Do you think the powers that be have an eventual "End Game" for Judge Dredd? So he's in his sixties now, and presumably with technology of the era, he can keep pootling along for another 10, but sooner or later - unless there's some "Bobby Ewing" type plot twist* - he's going to run out of steam and either get killed on duty on take another Long Walk.

Do you think there is a plan afoot at Rebellion towers? If so, how do you close the curtain on the 7th best (listed somewhere else) comic book hero of all time? And if that was the way to go, who do you think should be given the task of writing and drawing it? Is there a secret plan drawn up and locked away in a vault already?

If that were the case, how would you see a fitting end to Dredd? Would it be an all-guns blazing last hurrah? Cloned again or operated on in some cryogenic stem cell crowbar plotline to open up another sixty years on the streets? Or just one final sneer?

Personally I don't like heroes to end up as undefeatable, incorruptable, time-defying lemons (See Marvel). I prefer something a bit grittier.

Curiosity is all.

*If you don't know, ask your parents.

Apologies if this has been a thread before, but I couldn't find it. Feel free to contribute anyway

[bluemeanie]

As someone who has only recently come back to Dredd I was surprised to find they had aged him and am really liking him more as a grumpy old bastard.
As for his end I cant see how they could do it as its his name, not a mantle he could pass on to someone and I doubt people would buy a cloning or time cheat.

If it was me though and I had to do it... I'd have him go out against Judge Death. Set up a story where Death is bringing back villains Dredd has killed from "the other side" so you get a nice rogues gallery of cool villains people miss, then eventually have Dredd go down finally taking Death out. And in doing so he gets transported to this other realm where all those he has Judged roam free... but not for long.
So even if Dredd is dead, you know he is still giving out justice somewhere.

[Richmond Clements]

Nah, As I've said before, if and when he goes, the death has to be utterly pointless- killed in a car accident or shot in the back by some no-one perp.

[Colin YNWA]

Given there various aliens and magics and stookie glands in Dredd's world there are a million options for a cheat and to rejuvinate Dredd.

Something tells me however that Wagner will do something different. I'd lay money that he has a plan by now, even if its vague and not set in stone. How could you write such subtle development in a character over so long and not allow yourself to think ahead to the end?

Maybe when he finally retires he plans on taking the original Dredd with him. There's a certain appeal to that... though I hope its a long long way off.

[Emperor]

As for his end I cant see how they could do it as its his name, not a mantle he could pass on to someone and I doubt people would buy a cloning or time cheat.

Well we do have the clone in place and I've always felt he was moved into place to act as a replacement.

My guess would be that when John Wagner feels he doesn't want to carry on writing Dredd he'll make him take the Long Walk (possibly disgruntled with the mutie rights issue), although I like his lordship's idea - that it is just a random and meaningless street killing (although that idea is going to make m scared each time I open the prog from now one, as it could happen at any time). As a tribute Judge Rico changes his name back to Dredd and perhaps even uses the old man's (battered? rusty?) badge.

This would mean that, when time permitted, John Wagner could come back and write a few "Long Walk" stories in the Megazine. A younger, but still familiar, Judge Dredd would allow the other writers to step up and make this Dredd their own.

I think it'd work just fine because, on one level, Dredd is a window into the world of Judge Dredd and it is partly the city and its inhabitants which provide a lot of the stories. Dredd himself helps drive other storylines being a senior judge interested in mutant rights, so a different Dredd will lead to different stories (more of a street-level take on events) but I don't think it'll be worse just... different.

If everything goes down along the lines of the above, it also means we could get two Dredd stories for the price of one.

[radiator]

The groundwork for Dredd's retirement has been built up slowly over the last few years. There is Rico II, a direct clone of Dredd, who is now approaching the age the real Dredd was when the strip started, and there is Fargoville, where Dredd would surely head to were he ever to take the long walk.

Not that I'm saying I think this will happen any time soon, mind.

I'd like to think that when Wagner retires, we'll see Dredd retire too, leaving Rico to take on the Dredd name (which he was called originally anyway), and new writers to come in and take over the strip with what is essentially a new lead character. To the casual observer, however nothing has changed - Dredd is still on patrol in Mega City One.

[Richard]

Dredd has already taken the Long Walk before, and I don't think he'll do it again, because when he came back he told McGruder something along the lines of "running away from your problems doesn't solve them. My place is here in the city." So I don't think he'll flounce off in a huff over mutant rights or any other issue.

The Rico replacement is a good idea, but I recall reading somewhere on another thread a couple of years ago that Wagner had scoffed at that idea as being a cliche.

The simplest solution is to use the biochips that Wagner himself introduced all the way back in "The Judge Child." Because it goes all the way back to the earliest, classic black-and-white Dredd era, it doesn't have the last-minute deus ex machina cop-out feel that most of these "comic-book death" get-outs have. Also it would avoid the continuity-heavy legacy of having two Judge Dredds -- the original one and the new one -- which would be off-putting or confusing to new readers who pick up 2000AD after the switch from Joe Dredd to Rico II.

However, I personally feel that to have Dredd go on and on using biochips or full-body-transplants or whatever would be annoying. Dredd aging in real time is a great strength of the series, it's almost unique, and to make him effectively immortal would undermine that. It should be confronted head-on. Dredd should be killed off, he should be replaced by a new Dredd (whether Rico or another one), and Wagner should write that story just before he retires. I hope that happens because I don't want the original Dredd to carry on under a new writer after Wagner retires or dies. If Wagner really doesn't like the Rico idea then I hope he comes up with something better.

As for how Dredd should die, I favour the anti-climatic shot in the back way, but I suspect I am in the minority, given that it was really unpopular when they did it to Judge Giant senior. A spectacular blaze of glory would be cool too, but a bit less "2000AD."

[Jim_Campbell]

I've said before that I think an ideal -- and more-or-less open-ended -- solution would be the Star Trek: TNG route, where they took the traditional lead role and essentially split it in two, giving the authoritative, senior officer gravitas stuff to Picard and delegating the running around, action stuff to Ryker.

I could certainly stand to see Dredd move into the background of the strip as, say, Chief Judge whilst Rico II does all the action hero stuff. Of course, Dredd being Dredd, he's much more likely to blow off a Council of Five meeting to go and work a fistful of 59Ds than previous Chief Judges, so it wouldn't be hard to keep him as a presence in the strip without making him the focus of the strip.

Cheers

Jim

[Steven Sterlacchini]

I can't really see the point of Dredd dying, as they would only have to find some way of reversing it later. Which would only lead to people saying "the old Dredd was better", or "it's not the real Dredd".

Whenever other comics have 'killed' off leading (profitable) characters in the past it always seems to be a big mistake.

As already mentioned, there's plenty of scope for keeping the old guy going - rejuvenation, cryogenics, there has even been a full brain swap of a Judge in a past story.

I'm happy that the character and story still manage to forge new ground, which is amazing.

[radiator]

Cool avatar, el lopo!

[vzzbux]

It has to be the [spoiler]cancer that was spotted a few months ago[/spoiler].










V

[TordelBack]

Back when all this was tried in the actual strip (Dredd takes the Hike, is replaced by a young clone, and I believed it might actually be permanent), I remember being initially nonplussed, and then quite excited.  He may only have had one or two strips on the street as Dredd during the Countdown, but I was definitely rooting for Kraken by the time Necropolis proper started.  As I've bored older boarders with before, one of my all-time favourite 2000AD moments was that opening splash of Necropolis with Kraken's smooth jaw and then the caption "Dredd feels it".  I almost think it could work, if Rico II was a slightly more interesting character (in the way Kraken was), and if they hadn't already done it.

Kraken, we hardly knew ya.

[Toni Scandella]

I used to think that Dredd should be retired / killed off as it often sort of irritated me that he was considered a suprehero when in fact he was just a Judge - one amongst hundreds equally as capable.  I considered the Dreddverse as not really needing a lone figure standing above every drokker else lording it and being the cool one, because the _setting_ was the star, and could continue without Dredd perfectly well.

But I have been absolutely loving watching stuff unfold with Dredd still there at the centre of it all.  I don't think he needs to retire just yet, I want to see his world through his eyes for a while longer - but I don't think this really needs to be shown through him on active street patrol running around like a blue arsed fly and breaking heads for ever - it's going to start looking overly unrealistic if he's still on the streets at 90... so, following Rico's progress but with Dredd in the background as mentor might be a way to go - but, meh.  John Wagner does this stuff better than me so I'll just see what happens

[Pete Wells]

Gah, I'm really in two minds about this. I love the fact that Dredd ages in real time and the distinct, almost tangible possibility that the next epic could well be his last. At one point I was totally in favour of Rico taking over the name, however...

It's this new Batman malarky; the writing is aces, the art is beautiful but when I'm reading it, it just doesn't feel right. He ain't Bruce Wayne so he hasn't got the pathos, history or right to take the mantle. It doesn't sit well with me and I worry that Rico Dredd wouldn't too, especially as he's so young. To be totally honest, I think I prefer the cliched transplant Dredd's brain into Rico's bod, despite Wagner's (and pretty much everyone else's!) reluctance to do so.

[HdE]

Hi everybody! This'll be my first post proper on these forums, so I'll try not to upset too many people... 

I'd really, really be gutted if Dredd was decisively killed off. I mean, I've been reading comics (or more specifically graphic novels and trade collections) again for abot - what? - not quite two years. I've had a lot of fun revisiting Dredd, and I really feel as enamoured of the character as I did when I was 11 years old, reading Judge Dredd back in the late 1980s.

The guy is an icon. He's one of my heroes, as far as that applies to fictional creations. And I'd be a broken man if I ever saw a comics panel depicting or even broadly suggesting his demise.

I wonder, what would be so wrong with simply changing direction? Mega City One is supposedly a hotbed of civil unrest and perpetual crim. Maybe an episodic approach could be used here and there, to 'fill in the gaps' maybe, and highlight crimes that Dredd solved 'when we weren't looking' before? 

That's just one of a dozen ideas I've got rattling around in my brain!