Counting down my Top 10 Judge Dredd epics and episodes – essentially as a running list updated as I finish each volume of the collected Judge Dredd Complete Case Files in my ongoing Mega-City Law reviews (presently up to Case Files 16).
I distinguish between epics and episodes – with epics as longer storylines over a five or more episodes. However, that still leaves a distinction for me with respect to episodes – episodes that encapsulate their storylines within the single episode (probably most of the comic) as opposed to those that have a longer story arc over 2-4 episodes (with four episodes being perhaps the most common standard for such mini-epics).
There is a real art in encapsulating a story within a single episode – and a mere six pages or so at that – akin to writing a short story, typically with a twist in the tale, as opposed to a novel. Some of the stories in the Judge Dredd comic which had the most impact on me or which defined the comic for me are stories of a single episode. These are my top ten episodes of Judge Dredd, standing on their own as single episodes.
(10) A, B OR C WARRIOR
(CASE FILES 18: prog 824)
“Well, citizen Colon. Can you guess what happens now? Is it a) we let you go? b) you get off with a five cred fine? or c) we lock you in the psycho cubes and throw away the key?”
A, B, C Warrior is easily my favorite single episode in Case Files 18 – involving yet another citizen gone mad in Mega-City One, or ‘futsie’ as Mega-City slang goes for people suffering from ‘future shock’, who have snapped from the pressure of just living in “a society where every single thing has become monstrously overwhelming” (as per Chris Sims).
In this episode, the futsie is a citizen with an unfortunate surname, Mori Colon – and the even more unfortunate madness from losing his job as a pollster. Although given the nearly universal automation of jobs in Mega-City One, I’m not sure how he ever had it in the first place since it would seem a job where a robot would be first in line.
Anyway, he’s adapted his former occupation as pollster to his new preoccupation as serial killer. As one Judge observes – “It’s incredible, Dredd. He’s killed over fifty people – all so he can ask them these insane questions!”.
That is of course after Colon is apprehended by Dredd. We’re introduced to him at the opening of the episode “polling” a resident of Frank Hovis block, as usual named for a character in a British television comedy series contemporary to the date of publication rather than someone you’d expect it to be named for in a twenty-second century American megalopolis. And by “polling”, I mean asking some of those inane questions – as multiple choice between options a, b, and c, hence the title – before shooting his victim. As in what will the victim do when Colon brandishes a gun – a) try to jump me b) beg for mercy or c) run for it. (The answer in this case was b).
The sound of gunfire is reported by neighbors – which is how Dredd is called to the scene. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have much to go on for clues at the scene, particularly given the insane polling that is Colon’s modus operandi, but fortunately Colon decides further “research” is needed at a local club (where Colon laments that he should have thought of “polling” a crowd further). Research such as whether on learning of their impending deaths they will a) pray to Grud…b) pray to Satan…c) start to cry. (In fairness, Colon is researching whether religious belief is declining in Mega-City One because of the reactions of previous victims).
So as nearest Judge, Dredd is called to the club when Colon’s latest disturbance is reported and catches Colon in mid-massacre. Colon even polls Dredd which ammunition he will use. (Dredd choses an option that wasn’t on the poll, shooting through a table – and Colon’s arm – with an armor-piercing round). Although I do have to give Colon mad props for his justification to Dredd – “but I’m conducting an opinion poll!”
And that leads to us to the line I quote at the outset Dredd’s deadpan snark with his facetious “poll” to Colon after he recovers from med-bay treatment. And like the readers, Colon easily guesses the answer – “at a wild guess…c?”. Which if you recall was throwing him in the psycho-cube without a key – “You got it. Take him away.”
RATING: 4 STARS****
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(9) FIRST OF THE MANY
(CASE FILES 16: prog 775)
An episode which revisits Dredd’s very first arrest or more precisely, in which it revisits him – “I’m Bert Dubinksi. I’m the first guy you ever arrested.”
This episode is worth revisiting in some detail, flashing back as it does to such a monumental moment in Dredd’s history – his first arrest, as a rookie under Judge Morphy – but also featuring the art of one of my favorite Dredd artists, Cliff Robinson (as did my other favorite episode from Case Files 16, Watch Dogs).
You have to love that introduction as Dredd signs off after having “been on the streets a hundred hours straight” – bonus points for the Rowdy Yates Block sign in the background, Dredd’s destination as his rostered block of ‘residence’ as block Judge (and as I’ve noted, a sly reference to his source of influence in Dirty Harry as the name of Clint Eastwood’s character in the TV Western series Rawhide).
Just as Dredd pulls up in what appears to be the parking bay for his Lawmaster (and is awaiting the security door as it opens), that’s when Dubinski approaches him with that declaration. Dubinski seems friendly enough but it bodes trouble that he just happens to be there when Dredd is coming off shift and in that suspiciously long coat as well.
The episode flashes back to the arrest, with Dredd as a hotshot rookie in his first street assessment by Judge Morphy. Father figure and mentor to Dredd. Oh – and it’s good to see you again, Morph, in your prime to boot (those tight boots – yes, it’s a plot point in Judge Dredd). He was killed in the line of duty in the countdown to Necropolis just a couple of Case File volumes back – an important factor in Dredd’s breakdown and decision to take the Long Walk. (Dredd got better…and came back).
Anyway, here he is with Rookie Dredd at the dawn of Dredd as the Judge we know and love. Prompted by the same gunman approaching him thirty-five years later, Dredd recalls his very first arrest, as a rookie Judge eighteen years of age. Which would of course make Dredd fifty-three years of age – as at the time of this episode in 1992 (or 2114 for Dredd in Mega-City One). Since each year passes at the same rate in the comic as in the real life – that would make him eighty-four years of age in 2023 (or 2145 for Dredd in Mega-City One). Lucky he has those rejuvenation treatments mandated by Justice Department.
Rookie Dredd coolly assesses the situation of a gunman having killed two people in a shop – “Don’t want to start a firefight in a crowded street if we can help it. I’ll try and take him quietly”.
And that’s exactly what he does. Of course, it helps that the gunman appears to be a ball of nerves, backing away from the scene of his offences, so all Dredd has to do is quietly come up behind him and hold a Lawgiver to his head. “Pays to look where you’re going, meathead! Drop it!”
And Dredd does the same thing here as Dubinski tries to gun him down, having foolishly turned away from Dredd before doing so – “Getting’ a sense of déjà vu, Dubinski?”
Dredd is quite the deadpan snarker arresting the first person he ever arrested…again.
In hindsight, perhaps they should have sentenced Dubinski to a psych cube thirty-five years ago – his motive in his original offence appears to be the two people in the shop weren’t “friendly” and that appears to be a motive here, as he becomes enraged at Dredd before pulling out the gun from his coat.
This time, however, Dubinski is not prepared to surrender quietly – not surprisingly as he doesn’t want another stretch in the cubes and he opts for suicide by cop. So Dredd calls in a meat-wagon for Dubinski, much to the bemusement of Control – “Wilco. Uh…would that be Dubinksi who was released from Iso-Block 10 this morning? One of your old perps?”
And Dredd has his own moment of hindsight, with his characteristic deadpan snark – “Yeah. Might have been better if I put a bullet in him first time round. Would have saved us both a lot of trouble.”
RATING: 4 STARS****
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(8) WATCHDOGS
(CASE FILES 16: prog 739)
“Attaboy Dreddy! Give ‘im the old judicial excess!”
The Citizens Watchdog Committee may regard Dredd’s use of force as shocking, disgusting, and disgraceful – but their audience loves it.
The Committee and their audience are watching Dredd as he performs his duties – we are introduced to them as Dredd apprehends muggers. And so is Dredd, asking Justice Department Control whether they have spy in the sky surveillance on him – “Somebody has. I count at least two of them. Check into it”.
No rest for the wicked – or those who judge them, as Control directs Dredd to the next incident, a brawl at the Dire Straits bar. Meanwhile, we see more of the Committee – three people watching Dredd on screen while sitting behind a desk with the banner Citizens Watchdog Committee, with another man sanctimoniously narrating Dredd’s use of force, all four of them in terms of utmost opprobium.
The narrator is heckled by the Committee’s wider audience of citizens, who are wildly enthusiatic for Dredd’s onscreen actions in a manner consistent with a crowd at a gladiatorial arena. Are they not entertained? Yes. Yes, they very much are – and loving it. The Citizens Watchdog Committee only have themselves to blame – we see the two large signs outside their venue, emblazoned in the style of a boxing match or wrestling show:
No wonder they got fans of “judicial excess”, cheering on Dredd’s every bone-crunching tooth-breaking act by their affectionate nickname for him – “Nice one, Dreddy!”. Although I’m not sure I’d want to be too casual with calling him that in person, albeit Dredd seems to brush it off in this episode.
Control did “check into it”, tracing the serial numbers from the spy in the sky camera drones – using their own counter spy in the sky – to the Citizens Watchdog Committee, who are conveniently just across the road from the Dire Straits bar where Dredd is mopping up the brawlers.
So of course Dredd attends the Committee in person, asking them “You jokers got a licence to operate this vid show?”
Meanwhile, the audience loves it – “Go get ’em, Dreddy!”, “Break some face!” and “You shoulda heard the things they were sayin’ about you!”
The Committee spokeperson – the one narrating the drone camera footage with such outrage and indignation – protests that they don’t need a licence as they’re “exercising our right to scrutinise the actions of our Judges”. Dredd smoothly counters – “But you do if you’re using the image of a Judge for the purposes of entertainment”. All the spokesperson can do is stammer “But it’s not entertainment!”
And the audience goes wild – “Oh-yes-it-is!”
Case closed – and Dredd arrests all four of the Committee. As he does, one of the audience asks “Hey Dreddy, any chance of you getting’ a regular slot prime time?”
If only, Mega-City One citzen, if only. Where’s the Judge Dredd TV show, Hollywood?
For that matter, where’s the sequel to the 2012 film?!
That wraps up the Watchdogs episode – and the Citizens Watchdog Committee. Iso-cubes all round, I bet.
Although if we were to think about it, perhaps we should identify with the Citizens Watchdog Committee rather than their audience or even Dredd himself. After all, they do have a point with that whole judicial excess thing. Indeed, it goes to the heart of the comic itself, although as we’ve seen, the authoritarian violence of the Judges in general and Dredd in particular is a lot more nuanced than that. Arguably, that nuance defines the comic, which essentially walks the line as to whether that authoritarian violence may be a necessary evil amidst the dystopian satire of it.
Aptly enough, it walks a similar line to that of the character that inspired Dredd, Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry – that as much we might admire the character’s personal code of honour in service of the law akin to an instinct for justice, perhaps we might not want our police (or judges) to actually be like Dirty Harry, let alone like the over the top authoritarian violence of Dredd and the Justice Department he serves.
RATING: 4 STARS****
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(7) THE LURKER
(CASE FILES 9: prog 440)
Another of my favorite single Judge Dredd episodes, with a blackly comic twist to the tale worthy of Roald Dahl.
The episode involves the titular lurker, essentially a nocturnal criminal scavenger equivalent to one of those bottom-feeding fish but in Mega-City One’s underworld, picking up the scraps left behind by more powerful predators such as muggers.
Tonight, however, is his big score – or so he thinks, as he picks over a mugging victim after the muggers made off with a briefcase and the victim manages to blurt out “my case…tell Judges – ten million”. Naturally, the lurker thinks the case contained ten million creds, the currency of Mega-City One. So the lurker follows after the muggers, hanging back as they attempt to open the case – and gets his break when they flee Judge Dredd, leaving the case behind. Equipped with a las-knife, he makes more progress on the case, which is too heavy for him to move.
Meanwhile, Dredd apprehends the muggers (well, one of them as he shoots the other) as an alert comes through from control – the victim was courier for Nukco and the case contains radioactive isotopes giving out, you guessed it, ten million rads. Just as the lurker pries open the case – and is instantly snap-fried by the radiation with a flash that even Dredd sees at his distance.
RATING: 4 STARS****
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(6) THE SQUADRON THAT TIME FORGOT
(CASE FILES 9: prog 446)
World War Two comes to Mega-City One!
Literally – in the form of an actual German air squadron displaced in time from Stalingrad.
Having introduced time travel in City of the Damned in Volume 8, the Judge Dredd comic continued it with enthusiasm. Of course, in City of the Damned, that was Justice Department’s own prototype time travel technology, but they continue to advance it for further use in subsequent episodes. In this storyline, the time travel is more of a natural displacement or rift in spacetime, in so far as such things are natural although of course I am referring to it not occurring through any human agency. The German air squadron just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time to find themselves mysteriously in the wrong place at the wrong time – Mega-City One in the twenty-second century as opposed to Stalingrad in 1942.
So naturally I’m a huge fan of this episode, ranking it in my Top 10 Judge Dredd episodes – at least for the first decade of Dredd. For one thing, I’m a fan of Second World War history, and for another, I’m a fan of time displacement or travel stories involving the Second World War, so this one’s a double delight. Although most time displacement or travel stories with which I’m familiar involve time travel in the opposite direction – from the present day to the Second World War, such as the 1980 film The Final Countdown, or John Birmingham’s Axis of Time trilogy
RATING: 4 STARS****
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(5) THE POWER OF THE GODS
(CASE FILES 12: prog 600)
Judge Dredd does Bruce Almighty (or more precisely has it done to him), but with small gods instead of God – or Grud, as they say in Mega-City One, presumably to avoid restrictions in British comics publishing at the time.
One of my favorite episodes from it and the Judge Dredd comic as a whole – and an example of the tongue-in-cheek absurdist or black comedy that tends to predominate in my favorite episodes. Of course, it’s a little silly and starts to fall apart when you take its premise – actual gods of Mega-City One – too seriously, so of course we’ll have a bit of fun doing that too. We’re talking actual magic here – a similar premise to that we saw in The Genie. But it is one of the most hilarious humorous episodes – and features some of the best art of Judge Dredd, when he is forced by the titular power of the gods, to be…nice. You can just feel his pain.
As for the gods themselves, they are introduced at the start of the episode – Comus, god of consumer spending and credit cards, and his sister, Venus Muncia, goddess of unemployment. Cosmus does not have a high opinion of Mega-City One’s citizens. Well – he’s got that right. They’re lovable idiots. Cosmus is complaining about their idiocy, while Venus Muncia argues for their lovable nature. And so they have a bet – Cosmus bets that if he bestows his power on an ordinary citizen for an hour, that citizen will have screwed things up within the hour.
Judge Dredd crosses paths with the divinely empowered citizen, who wishes the Judges would all be nice.
That does it – Dredd is transformed into being…nice (and apparently kinda…gay?)
There are the nice touches in transformation to his uniform as well – with his name badge replaced with a smiley face and the fierce eagle on his shoulder pad transmogrified into, well I’m not sure it’s an eagle but some sort of happy bird, with a flower in its beak. And then the citizen goes about wishing Mega-City One into paradise.
Of course that won’t do. It’s the Law vs the power of the gods. Dredd manages to outwit the citizen (not a high bar), firstly to wish Dredd back to normal and then to do the same to Mega-City One itself.
As for the gods, Judge Dredd is the Law, even to the very gods themselves – “Meddle in the affairs of this city again and you’ll answer to me!”
That would explain why we have never seen them since. Well that and we’re not meant to take the concept seriously – it’s one of those blackly comic one-off episodes that recur in Judge Dredd, with Judge Dredd facing off against characters from other fiction (or analogues of them), and even as here from outright fantasy or involving magic, typically with Dredd arresting or warning them off. As the punchline went when Dredd arrested a literal genie with magic wishes – “magic is no defence from the law”.
It’s usually best not to take them seriously, or at least regard them as non-canonical in terms of narrative continuity – because if you did, their implications tend to break the narrative world of Judge Dredd right open. (Usually I suspect it’s just the writers having fun playing around with fantasy fights for Dredd).
But I think we can still make this work even if we do take it seriously – well, part seriously and part joking, for fun. These gods – Cosmus, the god of consumer spending and credit cards, and Venus Muncia, the goddess of unemployment – seem more like Terry Pratchett’s small gods. They’re certainly not big gods in the sense of God – or Grud as he is called in Mega-City One, and indeed Dredd references as such in this very episode (“my Grud!”)
So like Pratchett’s small gods, they are coalesced from belief – or rather the omnipresent force of the phenomena they represent. In other words, they came into being from the omnipresent consumerism and unemployment in the minds of Mega-City One citizens.
And on that basis, when he’s not ambushed by their divine power, Judge Dredd can go toe to toe with them as the literal embodiment of justice in the minds of Mega-City One’s citizens – as the one figure or even name citizens identify above all others as representing the Judges, Justice Department and the Law.
So quite literally, Judge Dredd is legend – for the Law.
RATING: 4 STARS****
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(4) THE SAGE
(CASE FILES 12: prog 577)
Judge Dredd does Lao Tzu, with the latter not faring so well for it.
One of my favorite episodes from Case Files 12 and the Judge Dredd comic as a whole – as an example of the tongue-in-cheek absurdist or black comedy that tends to predominate in my favorite episodes.
The Sage picks up right where the legend of Lao Tzu left off, riding a magical water buffalo into the sunset – give or take almost three millennia and another continent or so. The titular sage is not quite presented as Lao Tzu himself, but the resemblance is uncanny, down to riding a buffalo from the Cursed Earth in search of perfect enlightenment and the name of Yu Tzu. He also apparently has a disciple narrating his story to followers in an unknown location (but seemingly not Mega-City One itself), which is the framing device for the episode. How and why he ended up at the gates of Mega-City One is not clear – his disciple narrates that he had “seen the greatest cities of the world – yea, even the fabled summer city of psi-lords of Ji” – and even less clear is why he thought that Mega-City One, of all places, had anything to teach him about enlightenment. Judge Dredd – of all people, as luck would have it, doing duty on the city walls – tells the sage as much: “Enlightenment, huh? You’ve come to the wrong place, pal! Beat it!”
Mega-City One tends not to be hospitable or receptive, particularly to visitors from the Cursed Earth. And things continue to get worse for the sage, which belies his wisdom in seeking enlightenment in Mega-City One, as Mega-City One and Judge Dredd dish out to indignities to sages seeking enlightenment within their walls.
Firstly, Dredd requisitions the buffalo for meat – and showing more wisdom than the sage, it magically makes its exit. As for the sage himself, he is decontaminated, interrogated, shaved (a particular indignity as he’d vowed not to do so as a symbol of his quest) and interrogated again, this time with electrical torture. Dredd finally accepts the sage’s account of himself as true – but then ejects him from the city anyway. This is the final straw for the sage – “And finally I have learned that even a wise man – a man whose whole life has been dedicated to understanding and non-violence – has a limit to his tolerance, and I, my friend, have reached that limit!”
As the zen koan goes, if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him – and if you meet Judge Dredd in Mega-City One, punch him.
He punches Dredd – and in that moment achieved enlightenment. “For as you know, enlightenment is the gift from heaven. And for Yu-Tsu, the moment when his fist struck face was that time. Buffalo – city – judge – self…all merged into no-thing. Yu-Tsu was finally enlightened. And he laughed long and hard at the cosmic joke. It is only unfortunate that he had to spend the next ten years in a Mega-City kook cube!”
RATING: 4 STARS****
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(3) A CHILD’S TALE
(CASE FILES 13: prog 631)
One of the most genuinely heartbreaking episodes in the Judge Dredd comic – an individual tragedy born from the casual brutality of Mega-City One, recorded by Justice Department as the accidental death of a citizen.
“Sweet Grud! Didn’t you hear me? What’s the matter? Are you…”
She was deaf, Dredd.
Judge Dredd hits – and kills – a female bystander with his Lawmaster motorcyle while in pursuit of perps and despite his shouted warning to clear the way. He stops to try to assist – an event that is drawn by the child himself, who records Dredd’s exclamation before turning his head and simply stating “Oh” as he sees the Deaf Club from which she and her son had just left.
And the effect on her son is devastating – as she was all he had in the world…
We see the heartbreaking effect on the orphaned son of his mother’s accidental death caused by Judge Dredd, in the poignant form of the child’s own words and drawings (which Dredd reads).
The boy writes “It was an accident. It couldn’t be helped. They put my mom in a meat-wagon. And it couldn’t be helped. Now I’m upset all the time. Sometimes I feel mad. Sometimes I feel like being very bad. But mostly I feel sad…I just want my mom back”.
It’s even more poignant as you can see its effect on Dredd himself. He’s been regularly visiting the welfare unit treating the boy for three months since the incident and offers to try to talk to the boy, but that’s rejected by the treating medical practitioner as too destructive for the boy’s psyche. There’s really nothing Dredd can do to make it right. Dredd may seem unshakeable in his demeanour as Judge, but you do see the effects such as these – even more poignantly as they originate from his own actions, unintended or unavoidable as they might be – and they accumulate as cracks in his demeanour or faith in the Law. And soon, those cracks start to fall apart.
RATING: 5 STARS*****
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(2) THE THIRTEENTH ASSESSMENT
(CASE FILES 8: prog 421)
And now we come to one of my favorite single episode storylines in the Judge Dredd comic – and one that I intend to make into a Mother’s Day card.
It involves the titular assessment of a Judge Cadet at the Academy of Law, consisting of an on-street investigation – essentially through a drone or “spy in the sky” camera – in which the cadet directs the actions of a street Judge. In this case, the cadet is Brisco and the street judge is of course Judge Dredd.
Brisco directs Dredd through an investigation into three juve gang slayings, which as luck would have it, ultimately leads to Brisco’s own mother, as part of an eldster gang trying to spark off a juve gang war. That’s life in Mega-City One for you – almost everyone’s in some gang or other.
“Do you wish to discontinue the assessment?” Dredd asks Brisco. Brisco declines “No sir, I’ll carry on” – to which Dredd replies approvingly “Good”.
Dredd then arrests Brisco’s mother for conspiracy to commit murder. When she (falsely) protests her innocence, it is cadet Brisco himself who admonishes her through the drone. She pleads with him – “You don’t understand, Harald! You don’t live on the streets. You don’t know what it’s like having to walk in fear all the time! Those wicked juve gangs, always beating us and mugging us – and the older we are, the harder they hit us!”
Cadet Brisco remains stern with her – “There’s never a time to break the law, mother. I want you to give Judge Dredd the names and addresses of all those involved”. She is shocked at the idea of informing on her co-conspirators and refuses. Cadet Brisco reprimands her – “It hurts me to do this, mother, but I must be strict with you. Withholding evidence is a crime. So I’m going to start counting! Every number I count is another year added to your sentence.” He counts to three before she stops pleading with him as his mother and cracks, confessing the name of twelve other residents. Dredd asks Brisco’s direction for sentencing – for which Brisco directs Dredd fifteen years for each of them, except for his mother who receives eighteen years.
With that the assessment is over, Dredd advising Brisco through the drone “you’ll be informed of your grading in due course”. The Judge Tutors ask Dredd his grade, but is there any doubt about Dredd’s assessment? “Pass. With distinction” of course – “any cadet that can put his mother away for eighteen years has got the makings of a damn fine Judge!”
There’s my Mother’s Day card right there!
RATING: 5 STARS*****
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(1) LAWMASTER ON THE LOOSE
(CASE FILES 4: prog 202)
My favorite single episode, perhaps because it encapsulates so much of the character of Judge Dredd and the dystopian satire of Mega-City One in its few pages. As the title suggests, it deals with a rogue Lawmaster. It’s always been an amusing part of Judge Dredd’s dystopian satire that Mega-City One Judges ride the streets on their Lawmaster motorcycles armed with their Lawgiver guns. Both are as over the top as the Judges’ uniforms.
As one comics commentator (Chris Sims of Comics Alliance) marvelled at Dredd’s uniform and motorcycle:
“The one thing you can get just by looking at that dude? He has a lot going on. The costume is blindingly ornate, almost overwhelming in just how much there is to it — you can’t really take it in all at once, and when you throw in the fact that he’s riding on a motorcycle with five headlights, four exhaust pipes, two machine guns and a Crash Bomber stuck to it, it’s ridiculous. There’s just too much. Which is, at a single glance, the perfect representation of Dredd and his world”.
So of course when a Lawmaster goes rogue (from damage to its computer), it is deliciously over the top. We get to see one of the finest uses of Dredd’s catchphrase (“I am the Law!”) and some black humor at the collateral damage the Judges do in keeping Mega-City One ‘safe’ (from their own equipment).
The Lawmaster is introduced with a spiel that with its “Synitron GK13 Audio Computer, Notron 4000CC engine and Cyclops Phylon TX laser cannon”, it is one of the most deadly fighting bikes ever devised. Although there’s not exactly a large pool of candidates for that title, as a motorcycle lacks that primary advantage of other vehicles, fighting or otherwise, for its operator – cover.
As the episode opens, we see a Judge Gorman shot and injured by munce raiders – munce being the main synthetic meat product of Mega-City One, although I wouldn’t have thought there was enough of a black market in it for raiders. Worse, his Lawmaster’s computer is damaged – by a lucky hit as Gorman calls it, or an unlucky one for everyone involved, as it first goes out of control mowing down the perps and then turns on Gorman:
“Bleeding on the public highway is an offence against the Litter Act! The sentence is six months!”
Of course, by six months, it means gunning Gorman down, or rather, dead. After all, its law enforcement options are limited to its bike cannons. It’s as limited in its design as the ED-209 law enforcement droid in Robocop, which doesn’t have any options other than the two cannons for ‘arms’. Or for that matter, the Jedi with their lightsabers in Star Wars – whose minimum response is limited to lopping off a limb or two.
Dredd responds to the alert call – he has to as we’re told that a rogue Lawmaster is automatic priority one rating and all judges in the area must respond. And no wonder given the sheer danger a rogue Lawmaster is to Mega-City One citizenry: “Loitering with possible intent! Sentence – three months probation!”
Of course, it makes no difference what sentence the Lawmaster pronounces – it’s all the same sentence as it guns everyone down.
The responding Judges attempt to bring it down, but that’s not easy. “Lawmasters bear extensive 12mm armor plating. Firelock all-weather tyres are bullet-proof. Only an accurate shot – or a lucky one – can damage them”. (So there you have it – every Judge is the equivalent of Batman with the Batmobile).
“Conspiracy to damage Justice Department property! 2 years penal servitude!”
The Lawmaster continues to evade the efforts of the responding Judges (although Dredd remains in pursuit) – all the while continuing with its garbled pronouncements of crimes (with sentence of death by gunfire, regardless of what it says):
“Lawbreakers in force! Taking avoiding action! I’m letting you off with a warning this time, citizens!
“Walking on a public walkover! Remanded for psychiatric reports!”
Dredd tries to intercept it, but not before it gets on a monorail and pronounces sentence on the passengers with virtual glee:
“What have we here? More lawbreakers by the look of you!…All must be punished!”
Dredd successfully boards the monorail, but unfortunately not before the Lawmaster’s shooting spree of the passengers. The two of them face off in a futuristic gunfight. The Lawmaster pronounces “Interfering with a Lawmaster in the execution of its duty is a serious offence. Sentence – 20 years”
And perhaps the primary reason why this is my favorite one-off episode of Judge Dredd – the classic example of his catchphrase, in reply to the rogue Lawmaster:
“I AM THE LAW!”
And of course there’s the conclusion to the episode. As the episode pointedly repeats, “only an accurate shot – or a lucky one – can disable a Lawmaster”. Dredd’s shot is accurate – piercing the fuel tank with a high explosive round, which takes out what little was left of the monorail train. Although the lone survivor does thank him, with a nice touch of black humor.
RATING: 5 STARS*****
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MEGA-CITY LAW – TOP 10 JUDGE DREDD EPICS & EPISODES:
EPISODES (TIER LIST)
This is my running tier list of Top 10 Judge Dredd Episodes up to and including Complete Case Files Volume 18 – classifying episodes as those consisting of a single episode rather than a longer story arc over multiple episodes
S-TIER (GOD TIER)
(1) LAW MASTER ON THE LOOSE
(2) THE THIRTEENTH ASSESSMENT
(3) A CHILD’S TALE
A-TIER (TOP TIER)
(4) THE SAGE
(5) THE POWER OF THE GODS
B-TIER (HIGH TIER)
(6) THE SQUADRON THAT TIME FORGOT
(7) THE LURKER
(8) WATCHDOGS
(9) FIRST OF THE MANY
X-TIER (WILD TIER)
(10) A, B OR C WARRIOR