Guru Mog.

JUDGE DREDD NEVER TAKES HIS HELMET OFF (except when…)

• …he’s missing presumed dead!

When a young lad named Yassa Povey discovers an horrifically burnt and naked body in his native Cursed Earth he assumes that he has stumbled upon a corpse…

…and then the charred corpse stirred!

This weakened amnesiac, now dubbed ‘Dead Man’, is taken into the care of Yassa’s family where he is nursed slowly back to health.  Still looking barely human and disfigured beyond recognition by Hell-hot supernatural heat, Dead Man begins to slowly and painfully recover his memory.

Who is The Dead Man…

…and where is Judge Dredd?

“YOU COULDN’T KILL ME THE FIRST TIME, PHOBIA - WHAT MAKES YOU THINK YOU CAN NOW?” - The Dead Man, prog 662.

Readers of 2000ad had no idea that they were following the adventures of a post-long-walk Judge Dredd when The Dead Man first appeared in the guise of a back-up strip scripted by the psedonymous Keef Ripley in prog 650.  But as events unfolded over the ensuing weeks it became apparent that this blue-eyed, parchment-skinned, lipless, hairless, noseless husk of a man was actually Mega-City’s Finest…

…events came to a head in the epic Necropolis.

Various scans from The Dead Man -2000 AD prog 650 - 662 (28/10/89 - 20/01/90) by Keef Ripley, with art by John Ridgway.

thedailydredd:

A prime page from one of the most justly lauded Dredd one-offs, ‘In the Bath’ from Prog 626. Two ignorant perps try to break into Joe’s Rowdy Yates apartment, and Dredd, in contemplative mood, arrests them without getting out of the bath! Classic stuff.

JUDGE DREDD NEVER TAKES HIS HELMET OFF (except when…)

• …he’s in the bath.

Reblogging a The Daily Dredd scan taken from In the Bath 2000 AD progs 572(13/05/89) by John Wagner, with art by Jim Baikie.

JUDGE DREDD NEVER TAKES HIS HELMET OFF (but…)

• his clone brother used to!

This isn’t Joe Dredd, nor is it Fargo; it’s ex-Judda, new-Dredd-in-waiting, angst-ridden-youth and Dark-Judge-croney Rookie Judge Kraken.  Like Joe and Rico before him, Kraken was a clone of Chief Judge Eustice Fargo.

Kraken was not the product of Justice Department, but part of a rogue army of ‘Judda’ clones created from the DNA of Mega-City One’s greatest judges by AWOL science loon and megalomaniac ex-Judge Morton Judd.

Kraken was the sole survivor of Justice Dept’s Blitz Krieg of Ayers Rock - beneath which Morton Judd and his ever-growing army of Judda had a secret base.  Secretly inducted into Mega City’s Academy of Law, forward-thinking Chief Judge incumbent Silver felt he might have found a natural successor to Joe’s badge should the time ever come…

Will Simpson drew the strip for this prog, showing perhaps too much of Kraken’s face, and giving him blue eyes and dark brown eyebrows on the full-colour centre spread before totally obscuring his face in shadow for the black & white pages.  It is usual for rookie judges to be shaved bald…

Scan from Bloodline  -2000 AD prog 583 (16/07/88) by J.Wagner, with art by Will Simpson.

 JUDGE DREDD NEVER TAKES HIS HELMET OFF (but…)

• his clone father used to!

We’ve seen Joe Dredd’s clone father, Chief Judge Fargo, on several occasions over the years but we’ve been shown Fargo’s face clearly only once…*

[ * excluding the DC line of comics cera 1994 in which Fargo features widely and always unhelmeted - but DC’s line was, to my mind, non-canonical, overly-convoluted and rather dull despite some nice artwork. ]

In an expositional flash-back during prog 377’s Dredd Angel part one we’re given a singular, long and lingering look at the face of Fargo; The Father of Justice.

Although; it wasn’t until Prog 389’s A Case for Treatment (by T.B.Grover and Ron Smith; published 27th Oct 1984) that we actually learn that Joe Dredd is a clone of Fargo…

…chances are that Ron had no idea he was drawing Dredd’s face, which might also explain Fargo’s more-than-passing likeness to Dredd-creator John Wagner (aka T.B.Grover, John Howard, etc)

“How do you feel about your origins - about being a clone?”

“…to be of the same blood as Fargo - The Father of Justice, it was a great honour.”

- Psychiatric Examiner Rheinhart and Judge Dredd. (Prog 389)

Scan from Dredd Angel; Part One  -2000 AD prog 377 (04/08/84) by T.B.Gover, with art by Ron Smith.

JUDGE DREDD NEVER TAKES HIS HELMET OFF (except when…)

• …he’s a friggin’ werewolf!

Dredd has dared venture into the foreboding, lawless and nebulous Undercity - the concreted-over remnants of pre atomic-war civilisation that lies beneath Mega City One - on several occasions before.  In prog 328 he’s engaged in the investigation and pursuit of a pack of werewolves….

…and then one of the big, furry buggers bites him!  Fighting the blood-curdling rage within him, Judge Dredd manages to wipe out most of the fanged fiends before succumbing to the lycanthropic virus which infects him…

“DROKK! IT’S IN A JUDGES UNIFORM… AND THAT BADGE - DREDD!” - Judge Prager.

Scan from Cry of the Werewolf part 7 -2000 AD prog 328 (06/08/83) by T.B.Gover, with art by Steve Dillon.

JUDGE DREDD NEVER TAKES HIS HELMET OFF (except when…)

• …he has faked his own death and Sovs get curious.

Prog 262 sees Dredd’d daring infiltration of the Sov-held Grand Hall of Justice during The Apocalypse War.  Having assassinated the brainwashed turncoat Chief Judge Griffin, Dredd - realising there is no chance of escape - seemingly kills himself with a single bullet to the heart…

..curious Sov Judges remove Dredd’s helmet.

Later Dredd, who had shot himself with a bullet rigged by Armourer Teape with a charge so small as to barely penetrate the flesh, wanders the corridors of The Grand Hall; helmetless and bleeding to death…

Scan from The Apocalypse War part 18 -2000 AD prog 292 (01/05/82) by T.B.Gover, with art by Carlos Ezquerra.

JUDGE DREDD NEVER TAKES HIS HELMET OFF (except when…)

• …his head hurts.

Prog 89 saw Dredd fall foul of an assassin’s bullet in an SJS plot to put Joe out of the picture permanently during Judge Cal’s rise to despotic power.

The following prog saw a bandaged Dredd almost back to his curmudgeonly old self and on the run despite having had a bullet pass through his cranium.

“The speed-heal machine works wonders.  He’s coming around already.” - Robo-Doctor, prog 90.

Scan from The Day the Law Died and The Tyrant’s Grip 2000 AD progs 89 - 90 (28/10/78 and 11/11/78) by John Howard, with art by Mike McMahon.

JUDGE DREDD NEVER TAKES HIS HELMET OFF (except when…)

• …he’s wearing someone else’s face in Prog 52’s The Face Change Crimes.

Dredd resorts to bare-faced subterfuge when he undergoes a temporary face-change operation to beat a gang of bank robbers at their own game.

The face he chooses is that of one of the gang’s cohorts; a bent lawyer named Manny Bloom, drawn with apt wit by Brian Bolland to resemble Rondo Hatton! 

Scan from The Face Change Crimes 2000 AD prog 52 (28/1/78) by John Wagner, with art by Brian Bolland.

JUDGE DREDD NEVER TAKES HIS HELMET OFF (except when…)

• …he’s being a drama queen in Prog 49’s The Oxygen Desert pt 2.

Dredd makes a couple of mistakes and so resigns his post as Judge of Luna City and takes up a the job of a lowly street-sweeper - I guess taking The Long Walk on the Moon was out of the question!

ian Gibson draws Dredd’s face obscurred by shadow or out of frame, and later hidden behind the dust-visor of a street-sweeper’s helmet.

Dredd’s uncharacteristic resignation and self-pity turn out, of course, to be a cunning plan to lure his perp elusive perp into the open…

Scan from The Oxygen Desert 2000 AD prog 49 (28/1/78) by John Wagner, with art by Ian Gibson.

JUDGE DREDD NEVER TAKES HIS HELMET OFF (except when…)

• …he’s ordered to by a gang of perps in Prog 8’s Antique Car Heist.

This is a particularly problematic moment in Dredd’s continuity and history in retrospect; the perps’ reactions to Dredd’s revealled face suggests he is grossly and grotesquely disfigured.  But in an insane future city where being ugly is a fashion statement, Otto Sump is a media celebrity, mutants are commonplace and an orang-utan was once mayor, why would hardened criminals react in such a way to a face that was, well, just another ugly face?

No - Dredd might not posess matinee idol looks, but nor is he likely to be particularly grotesque or disfigured.  There must be another reason for the gangsters’ outrage at the face that is usually concealled by the helmet.

In this dystopian future the historic figure of Judge Eustice Fargo is reveared to a point of almost being deified; his face graces banknotes and propaganda posters, history books and tee-shirts, he is immortalised in museums and in statue form the length and bredth of Mega City One - he even has a public holiday and city-wide procession of honour in his name…

…and then this two-bit cop takes named Dredd - hated and feared by the entire criminal fraternity - takes off his helmet and…

…the face of Judge Eustice Fargo glares at them.  It’s a younger face and it is far less benign, but it is also unmistakably the face of the great and beloved leader from the history books, museums, banknotes and statues in public parks.

BLASPHEMY!  It’s horrible; with a face like that Dredd shouldn’t be allowed to live!

- well, that’s my take on it thirty-odd years later!

- Guru Mog.

Scan from The Antique Car Heist 2000 AD prog 8 (16/4/77) by Charles Herring, with art by Massimo Belardinelli.

I know this photo is a re-post, but it is possibly my favorite photo of me in my Judge Dredd costume last Halloween - so, indulge me! :-D

I’m working on another helmet, by the way…

…stay tuned!

Photo:

Guru Mog (left) and Mark (zombie) in The Swan with Two Nicks, Worcester, UK -  Oct 30th 2010.  Photographer: Andy Knight.

Jeez - it took me months of work to knock out just one of these suckers..!

I am SO psyched about this film, and it’s UK release is still over a year away!!

Visor finished.

Helmet finished. :-D