The death of Judge Dredd by John Wagner

[Tiplodocus]

It wasn't much. He just said he'd written to Rebellion and DNA singing the praises of Minty and asking if anything could be done to make it more official so the effort the crew had put in could be recognised or rewarded better (or something along those lines).  He said he hadnt received a reply back.

[Molch-R]

First I've heard of this. Approaches were made by DNA to have Minty included on the DVD release as an extra, but the distributors said no.

[strontium71]

...but the distributors said no.

For the shoddy amount of extras that were on the UK edition , you'd think that they would have jumped at the chance to have something of quality on there.

[shaolin_monkey]

How about he dies of old age at 140?

[IndigoPrime]

Realises he's been an old stick in the mud for so long, quits the system—but for real—phones DeMarco and invites her out on a date. Tries to put his helmet on the top shelf in the cupboard, but falls off the stepladder and bangs his head on a sideboard containing all of his Book of Law collection. A massive and unnecessary sound effect says IRONY in yellow. The department no longer keeps tabs and DeMarco's annoyed she's been stood up. She emigrates with a giant gorilla called Dave, while Dredd slowly bleeds out in his room, dreaming of what might have been.

Dredd's found seven days later after Rico checks up on him. The strip then abruptly shifts in tone as Dredd refuses to leave the city he loves and becomes Ghost Judge. His new catchphrase is "You won't have a ghost of a chance", and every speech balloon sentence has to end with an exclamation point. There may also be a Bash Street Kids crossover.

[strontium71]

I don't know how the art comps work , but what about a comp where the task is to draw a panel or a mini-strip showing how JD dies?

[Frank]

I mentioned the idea on another Death of Dredd thread that Carlos and John should do the story and lock it away.

It's getting difficult to tell where you end and I begin, neebs: http://forums.2000adonline.com/index.php/topic,35801.msg672051.html#msg672051

Seriously though, there's no reason why your original idea of some kind of Dark Knight Returns (i) shouldn't be the capstone to Wagner's time on Dredd, and - considering Carlos's recent health worries - there's every reason for that story to be published while they can both still enjoy the financial benefits which such a story would bring.


(i) in his preface to that book, Alan Moore points out how critical their respective death scenes are to our understanding of the legends of Robin Hood and King Arthur, and that knowing how those characters meet their fate doesn't diminish either their legend or our our enjoyment of stories which predate the characters' ends.

[HdE]

This thread seems as good a platform as any for me to wax lyrical about my perspective on this:

Now, I don't mean this as a slap in the face to anybody who has posted their eloquent, well thought out ideas on the subject... but I don't want to witness Judge Dredd's death in a comic. Ever. 

This comes purely from a place of me being a fan of the character. I'd have no interest in reading a strip entitled 'Judge Dredd' that didn't have Dredd in it anymore. I HATE the idea that killing off a lead character in a story somehow adds weight, meaning and gravitas... to me, that's just a downbeat resolution to a popular character, and not the sort of story development I find entertaining.

And...really, no disrespect intended to John Wagner, because I'm nobody to question anybody's artistic or authorial intents and integrity... but the whole comics business needs to sit up and pay attention to the fact that killing major characters is already a stale, low-return tactic. It's become almost impossible, in my opinion, to have such a thing resonate with readers now. Check message boards and comics shop chatter, and there's a real sense of fatigue that pours out whenever conversation on the topic begins.

Just my tuppence.

[TordelBack]

... but the whole comics business needs to sit up and pay attention to the fact that killing major characters is already a stale, low-return tactic. It's become almost impossible, in my opinion, to have such a thing resonate with readers now. Check message boards and comics shop chatter, and there's a real sense of fatigue that pours out whenever conversation on the topic begins.

I think there's a distinction to be drawn between a The Death of Dredd! event, which you rightly deride, and the death of Judge Dredd.  Dredd is mortal, ages in real time, one day he's going to have to die: Wagner should get the chance to determine what form that end will take.  Killing Dredd would be far less disruptive to the strip than letting him live forever. 

[Colin YNWA]

Seriously though, there's no reason why your original idea of some kind of Dark Knight Returns (i) shouldn't be the capstone to Wagner's time on Dredd, and - considering Carlos's recent health worries - there's every reason for that story to be published while they can both still enjoy the financial benefits which such a story would bring.

The only trouble with that is as Wagner (through choice or otherwise) defines what is 'canon' in Dredd if he was to do such a story it'd become definitive and thus whatever included in the story would become predestined in the mind of many fans and thus other writers would become hampered.

Killing Dredd would be far less disruptive to the strip than letting him live forever.

From Tordelback (but I can't insert multiple quotes alas). Anyway yeah the more I think about this the more Dredd needs to die (He must die damn him!) at some point. Doesn't need to be anytime soon but in my mind at least as Dredd goes on he gets more and more human and, alas what is more human than to die, well given he doesn't pay tax I assume. So its necessary to complete his tale and however scary it is so very 2000ad and needs to be done. Dunno if they will have the courage to do so, and as I say they got time , but  think it needs to happen at some point.

I'd go as far as to say since I reached that conclusion, only recent, a bit of me (a tiny bit) wants it to happen quite soon. Like ripping a plaster off lets get it done otherwise it will become more and more a burden. For the most part I'm happy to wait as long as possible but a bit of me...

[Steve Green]

First I've heard of this. Approaches were made by DNA to have Minty included on the DVD release as an extra, but the distributors said no.

I know John said at Thought Bubble he'd have a word, but considering the UK distributors didn't include a doc that was included on the US release, or any of the Dredd panels, or footage from the Dredd screening from Reuters I wasn't surprised.

I just think that after the theatrical take it was always going to be a fairly bare bones release.

[Frank]

Seriously though, there's no reason why your original idea of some kind of Dark Knight Returns (i) shouldn't be the capstone to Wagner's time on Dredd, and - considering Carlos's recent health worries - there's every reason for that story to be published while they can both still enjoy the financial benefits which such a story would bring.

The only trouble with that is as Wagner (through choice or otherwise) defines what is 'canon' in Dredd if he was to do such a story it'd become definitive and thus whatever included in the story would become predestined in the mind of many fans and thus other writers would become hampered.

Soap's original idea mentions the possibility of divergent timelines (à la new Trek), and I'm fairly certain something like that is to what Wagner's mention of doing such a story without "harming the strip" was referring. As I mentioned on that previous thread which I linked to above, killing Dredd solves nothing anyway - whatever form the strip took after the character's death, the temptation to bring Dredd back from the dead would be impossible to resist for any publisher.

[Lenny_Zero]

I honestly thought the cancer was going to lead to the long walk, and the long walk would be left open-ended.

[JOE SOAP]

It's getting difficult to tell where you end and I begin, neebs: http://forums.2000adonline.com/index.php/topic,35801.msg672051.html#msg672051

I'm first in the human-centipede.


Alan Moore and DC successfully did something similar in Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow and Moore's Twilight of the Supeheroes proposal had a built-in get-out clause structured around the end of the DC universe and John Constantine meeting the love of his life. Not that any kind of time-shennanigans need be involved but it could be written as a stand-alone story with a certain long-term narrative/time-line ambiguity.

[Link Prime]

Alan Moore and DC successfully did something similar in Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow and Moore's Twilight of the Supeheroes proposal had a built-in get-out clause structured around the end of the DC universe and John Constantine meeting the love of his life. Not that any kind of time-shennanigans need be involved but it could be written as a stand-alone story with a certain long-term narrative/time-line ambiguity.

A very nice idea.