Has Judge Dredd been soft Retconned?

[The dude]

Fellow Dredd heads following on from my previous posts and the weather of Dredd knowledged shared with me I have come to ponder this question;

Given Dredd now being late in his 70s' but receiving a recent top and tail rejuv is Rebelion now quietly letting the old arthritic and slow Joe Dredd slip into quiet obscurity and let this 25 year backstory starting with the death of Judge Morphy and a "Letter to Judge Dredd",  Democaracy etc all be for nothing. I mean seriously how long could they clog this horse without the storing him. Obviously this would never do for Rebellion Dredd book sales, so the easier option to let it go. 

Those more learned than me in Dredd lore have a handle on this. I would appreciate your thoughts

[Leigh S]

Not as many times as this thread has!

[The dude]

Sorry what do you mean?

[Leigh S]

Sorry what do you mean?

I think this is pretty much a continuation of the "rejuve thread" and will spark the same circular arguments - Has Dredd beensoft rebooted?  Well, he was with the Apocalypse War, and again with Question of Judgement, an again with Necropolis, and again with America and again with Day of Chaos - the low key rejuve story is the least of his reboots!

Wagner himself acknowledges Rebellion won't let him kill the Golden Goose, but I don't think that necessarily means he will ever be more rebooted than those previous examples - unless you read more into that one-off than I suspect anyone involved intended

[JOE SOAP]

He got some new Russells and a hide that no longer sags in his pleathers but he's still the same old Dredd inside- I'd say he's disgusted with himself.

http://forums.2000adonline.com/index.php?topic=44029.0

[The dude]

I think it goes. Sound the last thread I made in that if they wanted to let it play out adnauseum they would not have thrown in that one off. That face it they have been flogging a dead horse for years. It was either" shit or get of the pot" time. I prosnally would have dearly liked to see the actual finish to this never ending saga of tight boots and self doubt. Not this cheats way out. That's just my opinion

[sheridan]

If there wasn't a constant supply of good stories the accusation of flogging a dead horse would have some substance (unless you're talking about The Man Comes Around?)

Not sure what this talk of soft reboots after mega-epics is all about - having a long story doesn't mean everything has been rebooted, it means that the major events in the story had consequences.

[CalHab]

Not sure what this talk of soft reboots after mega-epics is all about - having a long story doesn't mean everything has been rebooted, it means that the major events in the story had consequences.

I agree. "Soft reboot" sounds like a complete misunderstanding of what both the comic and character are.

[IndigoPrime]

Mm. Dredd's never really had any kind of reboot. The early years had a while of figuring out what the story and Dredd's world were, but that merely resulted in inconsistencies and continuity issues (cops milling around in early stories; the tiny number of judges; that MC-1 was initially showcased as almost a utopia as far as Goodman thought regarding employment – or the lack thereof).

[The Adventurer]

More of a 'hand wave' really.

[Trout]

ISTR answering this question last week. I disagree that it's been retconned. The storytelling style developed over 40 years, and some writers ignore parts of continuity, but there are precious few examples of past history bring changed by a new story. Maybe Origins did that, although I feel like it just filled in gaps.

[Jim_Campbell]

ISTR answering this question last week. I disagree that it's been retconned.

I agree. There's been some modest tidying up from the early, multiple-writer, throw-everything-at-the-walls-to-see-what-sticks, period, but the narrative of Dredd is more or less a straight line from Prog 2 to today, with the odd thing swept under the carpet, and the occasional gap filled in (like Origins).

(Nobody has ever said that the more outlandish humour stories never happened, for instance… they're just not directly referred to these days.)

[Trout]

I'd love to see the Stupid Gun come back. Just saying.

[sheridan]

I'd love to see the Stupid Gun come back. Just saying.

Haven't you seen politics and mass media in the last two decades?

[Frank]

Given Dredd's rejuve, is Rebellion now quietly letting the old and slow Joe Dredd slip into quiet obscurity and let this 25 year backstory - starting with the death of Judge Morphy and a "Letter to Judge Dredd",  Democracy etc - all be for nothing

Those storylines were about Dredd's disenchantment with the system and his role in it, not his physical age*. Nobody rejuved the character's brain, so that conflict and that storyline haven't gone away.


* Dredd quit because of Wm Wenders' letter, not because he was being replaced by a younger model. By failing Kraken, Dredd thought he'd prevented his younger double joining him on the streets of MC1, yet he still quit. According to the story Sector House, Justice Department had seven younger Fargo clones either on the streets or in the Academy, and Dredd gets on fine with the only two of them we've ever met - Rico II and Dolman. In fact, he did his best to persuade Dolman to stay on and take his place.