The death of Judge Dredd by John Wagner

[SuperSurfer]

I thought this issue was wrapped up once and for all in one of our art comps. Dredd was shown in a retirement home having lost his marbles and was kept busy by serving food in the canteen with a saucepan on his head to remind him of his helmet. He was still a stickler for rules.

Can't remember who came up with that tosh but it was hilarious.

[Jim_Campbell]

Can't remember who came up with that tosh but it was hilarious.

That would have been this brilliant entry from Mardroid, back in September 2008, Honourable Mention winner in the 'This is the End' art comp:



Cheers!

Jim

[SuperSurfer]

Classic stuff. Thanks for retrieving that from the thrill vaults.

Perhaps in the future people will be saying: "If Mardroid didn't write it, it didn't happen".

[Richard]

I can understand the editor not wanting to kill off Rebellion's golden goose, but I doubt that there would really be any commercial implications for them if it was done in such a way that there was still a lead character called Judge Dredd in the strip by the end of the story -- if, for example, Judge Rico reverted to using his original name, which was Dredd (I assumed at the time of Rico's debut story that this was the reason Wagner started him out with the name Dredd to begin with, so it would feel less contrived when he went back to it). He looks like Dredd (they are clones), acts enough like Dredd and any new reader who came to the comic afterwards would be none the wiser and wouldn't need to know about it. (There have been more than one Robin and more than one Green Lantern -- does anyone know if sales of Batman and Green Lantern plummeted after that happened?)

My preference would be for something like that to happen, instead of some deus ex machina SF cop-out. But if they must keep the original Dredd going, bio-chipping was established all the way back in the The Judge Child, so it would feel like less of a cop-out than some new technology they make up specially for that story.

The worst thing they could do would be not to address the issue at all, and to have some octogenerian lawman hobbling around. This vague "rejuve" stuff can only be credible for so long, and "70 is the new 40" can only put the matter off for so long.

[Spikes]

Id hate to see Rico, or anyone, used as a replacement Dredd. An awful idea.
I agree that it will all need to be addressed, at some point though. Ive heard all the arguements, but i really dont get the resistance to using sci-fi tricks to prolonging Dredd's life. The fact that the strip ages in real terms, is one of the few consessions to reality. A lot of the strip, along with the world that Dredd inhabites is wildy fantastical.