Fans were exposed to a whole new rendition of the legendary 2000 AD character in the 2012 film Dredd, directed by Pete Travis and starring Karl Urban. Dredd was gritty and grounded than earlier versions of Judge Dredd (along with the iconic 1995 movie starring Sylvester Stallone), and it got positive critical acclaim but very little box revenue attention. Following its home distribution, the film went on to become a cultural touchstone among admirers of the character.
The weak box office performance of Dredd has deemed a sequel film doubtful, however fierce fan support has kept the notion alive. Dredd: Final Judgement (by Arthur Wyatt, Alex De Campi, and Henry Flint), a two-issue mini-series, was released in 2018 as a result of this support. The series is a worthy succeshttps://www.starburstmagazine.com/reviews/dredd-final-judgemensor to the 2012 film, and it follows Judge Dredd’s adventures in the alternate dimension portrayed in the film.
Dredd: Final Judgement
In the opening scene, Judge Dredd is trying to nab a vicious arsonist. Later, he comes across a massive number of unusual mass suicides. He is perplexed when three scientists are dead, and four are missing from the lab. With the help of another Judge, Maxwell, he learns that an experiment to generate extra-dimensional energy went tragically wrong which resulted in the creation of a gateway between their dimension and an alternate world that had surpassed utter mayhem.
This city so found is the perfect replica of the real one, the only difference being it is utterly dead. He encounters beings called Judge Fire, Judge Mortis, Judge Fear, and Judge Death, or might say The Dark Judges. These Judges used bodies of the lost scientists as portals onto their home dimension. When Dreed finds killing them impossible, he formulates a last-ditch effort to stop the Dark Judges. With Dreed destroying the corpses of the missing scientists, Dark Judges vanish without their energy conduits, and the Dead World vanishes with them. Except for Dredd, who lives alone in Dead World after killing himself to save his world, Mega-City One is safe, and the remaining Judges rejoice.
Dredd: Final Judgement is a bold narrative that takes the universe of the 2012 film in a better direction. The Dark Judges, Dead World, and how Dredd deals with them were introduced in only two issues, but it was an original perspective on the characters that wrapped on a solid cliffhanger. If this narrative had been done as a sequel film, it would have required a longer run time to give the Dark Judges fair. Judge Dredd: Mega-City One is a TV series that was announced by Rebellion and IM Global Television in 2017 and is now in pre-production. Fans will have to wait and see if the show is a straight continuation of the 2012 film or if Judge Dredd will start on entirely new adventures within Mega-City One while the show is still in the making.
