Nicholas Lezard

Judge Dredd: the prescience of a 45-year-old comic strip

‘Immediate Justice’, the government’s new policing initiative of pursuing petty criminals, reflects the black-clad law-enforcer’s 1970s methods exactly

Sylvester Stallone as Judge Dredd in the 1995 film. [Richard Blanshard/Getty Images] 
issue 24 June 2023

In 1977, an enduring character was created for the pages of the IPC comic 2000 AD: Judge Dredd, lawman of the future, the most visible symbol of police procedure – a helmeted, black-clad, motorbike-riding policeman patrolling the streets of Mega-City One, a vast metropolis stretching along the eastern coast of the US, whose remit also allows him – as his honorific implies – to be an on-the-spot judge, jury and, when the occasion demands, executioner.

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