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75-451: He was originally a Mega-City One Street Judge but took to working undercover ("Wally Squad"), pretending to be a private investigator: his cover story is that he was dismissed as a Judge for excessive use of force. As part of his disguise he pretends to be a simp (see below). He works in Sector 13, known as Angeltown, a notoriously corrupt sector of Mega-City One run by the mysterious Boss, and

150-460: A "United Cities of North America" of three megacities was mentioned in prog 42 and then itself dropped in favour of Mega-City One being an independent entity. In early strips, the Judges existed alongside a regular police force, were popular with the citizens, and the people enjoyed robots doing the work, with the "Grand Judge" saying they would not consent to work more than ten hours a week. Over time,

225-591: A Black Ops Division of Judges. Under Judge Bachmann, their agents were brainwashed to worship the city as a god. Following "Day of Chaos", the regular military (particularly the Space Corps) have been helping to keep order in Mega-City One. Tensions exists between them and the Judges. By 2136, following Chaos Day and a dual war with the Xhind/colonial insurgency, Mega-City One no longer had the military power to stop

300-558: A Defence-Div, 1990s spin-off Maelstrom had heavily armed STAR (Strategic Target Attack Retaliation) Judges to carry out targeted strikes, and the Insurrection serials give the Special Judicial Service its own space fleet and armed force to stamp out rebellions. In contrast, stories by John Wagner have presented the military as a separate group, with some members believing the Judges are too lenient. Uniforms differ depending on

375-521: A Judge a twenty-year sentence of hard labour on Saturn 's moon, Titan , after surgical modification to enable the convict to survive Titan's atmosphere . They were also expected to live in celibacy, to avoid personal attachments that might bias them or make them vulnerable to manipulation and blackmail. The Justice Department has its own domestic intelligence division (the Public Surveillance Unit), and their own medical facilities. There are

450-410: A bridge. The population remained at around 400 million from 2104 until 2134. Mega-City One has a far greater population density than any city in the present-day world. Most city dwellers (citizens) live in huge apartment blocks (50,000+), though many citizens live a perpetually nomadic existence in vehicular mo-pads ( mobile homes ) due to inadequate housing provisions. These citizens travel the city via

525-470: A cameo role by a character referred to as "City Father Washington," whose status and role in the city's history has not been elaborated on. Judges are the product of many (normally 15) years' of training and psychological conditioning. Training takes place in the Academy of Law and generally begins at age five. The Judges recruit promising children, and also grow their own clones. Their standard issue firearm

600-541: A hospital, gymnasium, school, and shopping district. A citizen can quite literally live their whole lives without leaving their block. Due to the high unemployment rate, boredom is rife among citizens – this, coupled with the high loyalty citizens develop to their blocks, along with a city-defence militia for most city blocks, leads to many "Block Wars", riots (more like small wars) between two or more blocks. Blocks are named after famous or historical figures, often with current events in mind. A typical example – shortly after

675-423: A lot of the city's diplomats, but they always report to a Judge before making any decisions. Not all valued skills are the same as the real world ones, examples of this are human taxidermy and professional gluttony. Most of the highly intelligent citizens end up in crime such as PJ Maybe, and Nero Narcos, as they are very limited in the wealth or power they can attain (the amount of real power a citizen can gain though

750-422: A minor mistake (anything where the citizen is alive and not in an intensive care ward) such as wrongful arrest or search, they do have to pay the citizen a compensation fee if there are no crimes to be charged with. On that basis, if they can't find any evidence for the main charge, then they will look for any minor crime or misdemeanors to charge to citizen with to get themselves off the hook. Firearm possession

825-432: A number of specialist divisions within the Judges, notably Psi Division, which consists of psychic judges used to predict the future and read minds, and Tek Division, made of forensic scientists and engineers. The SJS (Special Judicial Squad) monitors and polices the Judges internally. Block Judges (Judges assigned to a particular city block) also hear civil cases in each City Block , where they try civil claims. When

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900-412: A number of weird and wonderful futuristic hobbies and attractions, including: The high population density of Mega-City One requires a complex system of transport. This often serves as accommodation as well as a means of getting around the city. Pat Mills Patrick Eamon Mills (born 1949) is an English comics writer and editor who, along with John Wagner , revitalised British boys' comics in

975-483: A political choice to deal with the high crime rate. Most ordinary citizens are sent to the Iso-Cubes, tiny cells located within huge prisons. For example, one strip saw a citizen sentenced to a month in the iso-cubes for littering, while in another story a citizen was given 6 months for jaywalking. Judges impose immediate sentences on the spot, usually lengthy sentences of imprisonment (or "encubement"). In extreme cases, even

1050-584: A rebellion on Titan. Many crimes in Mega-City One are controlled by flamboyant mob bosses : Most work in Mega-City One is carried out by robots ; this has led to problems with boredom and unemployment. Boredom has fostered many problems in the city, with citizens spending their leisure time rioting over jobs, experimenting on their neighbors, and running amok in the streets. Weird fads include Block Wars (wars between neighboring apartment blocks, waged by each block's defense militia ), "ugliness clinics", and odd fashions. Leisure in Mega-City One consists of

1125-542: A referendum was held in which the people were allowed to decide whether to restore democratic government, but by this time the memory of democracy had become so distant that the majority of citizens did not bother to vote, and most of those who did opted to retain the status quo . In the early years of Judge Dredd , Mega-City One had not been established as a dictatorship – "The Purple People Breeder" ( 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special 1978 ) mentioned "presidential candidate Howard Surb", while "Ryan's Revenge" ( Dan Dare Annual 1979 ) had

1200-600: A reserve force composed of citizens. Each city block contains a Citi-Def force in case of crises, though usually they turn up in Dredd as rogue factions waging block wars. In very rare, desperate and often last stand scenarios the Justice Departments auxiliaries are issued weapons and fight alongside Judges, such as in the latter stages of both the Apocalypse War and Judgement Day. Mega-City One also runs spy networks and

1275-493: A rising tide of violent crime and to speed up the process of justice. While there was heavy protest in Congress over the idea of abandoning due process , the electorate was in favour and President Gurney (who supported Fargo's plan) was re-elected with a massive majority. The original uniforms heavily resembled those of normal American police officers, albeit with helmets and heavy body armour, and rode Lawranger motorcycles. Following

1350-534: A story set in 2141 stated that the population had been revised upwards to 130 million, due to a number of reasons, including the overestimation of the number of deaths in Chaos Day, a declining death rate since then, and births and immigration. It also confirmed that many citizens fled either before or during the Chaos plague and have been slowly returning in the seven years since, and that the Chaos bug disproportionately killed

1425-593: A street judge retires from service at the end of his career, he may choose to take the "Long Walk", leaving Mega-City One for exile outside its borders. He may do this either in the Cursed Earth, a radioactive desert outside the city walls, or in the Undercity , the ruins of New York that lie beneath the mega-city. The Long Walk begins with a brief ceremony at the city gates, wherein the retiring judge walks through an honour guard of judges as they discharge their firearms into

1500-402: A successful war-themed weekly, Mills was asked in 1975 to develop a rival title for IPC. Based in the girls' comics department to avoid the attention of the staff of the boys' department, Mills, along with Wagner and Gerry Finley-Day , worked in secret to create Battle Picture Weekly . Battle' s stories were more violent and its characters more working class than IPC's traditional fare, and it

1575-567: A super-powered government agent drawn by John Higgins , and Defoe , a 17th-century zombie hunter drawn by Leigh Gallagher , began in 2000 AD prog 1540. Mills has formed Repeat Offenders with artist Clint Langley and Jeremy Davis "to develop graphic novel concepts with big-screen potential" and the first project is a graphic novel called American Reaper , serialised in the Judge Dredd Megazine (2011–2015). It has been optioned by Trudie Styler 's Xingu Films and Mills has written

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1650-526: A violent, anarchic tone, perhaps as a reaction against the politically worthy Crisis , and a creator-owned ideal. Many of the stories were created by Mills and co-writer Tony Skinner , including Accident Man , an assassin who makes his hits look like accidents. Toxic! lasted less than a year, but gave a start to talents such as Duke Mighten and Martin Emond . He has had little success in American comics, with

1725-446: A year before being withdrawn in the face of media protests. It was briefly revived in neutered form before being merged into Battle . His next creation was the science fiction-themed weekly 2000 AD , launched in 1977. As with Battle and Action he developed most of the early series before handing them over to other writers. He took over the development of Judge Dredd when creator John Wagner temporarily walked out, and wrote many of

1800-569: Is also a play on The Singing Detective . The name 'Jack Point' itself comes from the character of the same name from the Gilbert and Sullivan opera The Yeomen of the Guard , who is a wandering jester. Point's first major case involved investigating the Crystal Blue drug, which led him into a conspiracy involving the corrupt new Sector Chief Daveez, a nun-run school for troubled juves (who were producing

1875-494: Is illegal when done for voyeuristic purposes, but legal when done under the authority of a Judge. If any of these ever get out of hand and there is no legal justification for banning, Judges simply impose a heavy tax on them, restricting them to only the few very wealthy citizens. Most are poorly educated and many can barely read or write, some sectors are said to be entirely illiterate, but Judges aren't that concerned, as it makes it easier for them to control and they can weed out

1950-495: Is now the Eastern United States and some of Canada, the city's exact geography depends on the writer and artist working the story. From its first appearance it has been associated with New York City's urban sprawl ; originally presented as a future New York, it was retconned as the centre of a "Mega-City One" in the third issue. The Architects' Journal placed it at No. 1 in their list of "comic book cities". When

2025-519: Is of the essence due to the city being in severe danger (or the Justice Department's authority is). They used that reason to torture Total War cell leaders, leading to the deaths of several of them. The Judges covered this up, "arresting" them by faking heart attacks, strokes or whatever was realistic or convenient at that time and then told their next of kin they had died, with this they could do whatever they wanted to them. They also used torture on

2100-415: Is only legal with the proper firearms permit , which is very hard to obtain. The only real exception is for Citidef units, which may use heavy weapons. (Since Block Mania the security on these is extreme and they are only issued during wartime.) In spite of this, many firearms are in circulation; some are sold on the black market while others are left over from the various invasions that have occurred over

2175-480: Is the Lawgiver handgun, which can fire six different kinds of ammunition. It has a handprint-reading sensor which only allows its owner to use it, and a self-destruct device to kill or maim unauthorised users. Judges ride Lawmaster bikes, which are heavily armed and have artificial intelligence. The Judges themselves are not above the law – a violation that would earn a citizen a few months in an Iso[lation]-Cube may earn

2250-416: Is very limited) legally. Mega-City One's laws are harsh, with many crimes not found in present-day law. Possession of sugar, for example, is illegal, as is the smoking of tobacco outside of licensed Smokatoriums, and coffee is banned as an illegal stimulant. The laws are enforced by the Judges, who are a combination of a judge and police officer. Ordinary laws are enforced more harshly than the present day, as

2325-409: Is well known for his clown garb, distinctive noir-pastiche speech patterns, high perversity, and un-judicial habits such as drinking Jack Daniel's and sexual liaisons. The strip name "The Simping Detective" comes from Point's habit of wearing clown accoutrements like a rubber nose and bow tie – in the fictional universe of Judge Dredd , "simping" is slang for dressing like a fool or simpleton. It

Jack Point - Misplaced Pages Continue

2400-604: The Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise separation there was an episode with block war breaking out between the "Kidman" and "Cruise" Blocks. A proposed crackdown on civil rights in Britain led to a block being named David Blunkett Block in one story. Since the abolition of democratic government in America in 2070, Mega-City One has been a dictatorship run by the Justice Department. It subsequently became an independent city-state following

2475-463: The Third World War of 2070 and discovering that President Booth had stolen the election, the Judges seized power. The citizens are shown to be a mixed bag. 98% are unemployed (due to advances in robotics) and range from lazy and sloth-like to highly rebellious violent criminals, bent on destroying and killing as much as they can for whatever reason they can think of at that time, if any. Most of

2550-510: The audiobook version himself. (The title is the catchphrase of the villain in his series Nemesis the Warlock .) In 2018 the film Accident Man was released, based on his comic strip for Toxic! In 2019 Mills announced that he would publish a new all-ages science fiction anthology comic called Spacewarp , to be released in 2020, and that the artists would retain the copyright on their work. In 2021 he published another volume of memoirs with

2625-602: The 1970s, and has remained a leading light in British comics ever since. He has been called "the godfather of British comics". His comics are notable for their violence and anti-authoritarianism. He is best known for creating 2000 AD and playing a major part in the development of Judge Dredd . Mills started his career as a sub-editor for D. C. Thomson & Co. Ltd , where he met Wagner. In 1971 both left to go freelance , and were soon writing scripts for IPC 's girls' and humour comics. After D.C. Thomson launched Warlord ,

2700-619: The 1980s and was produced by Big Finish as " The Song of Megaptera ". In 2023, a 1980 Fourth Doctor comic he penned (with artist Dave Gibbons) for Doctor Who Magazine was adapted into the Fourteenth Doctor special "The Star Beast." In 2017 he wrote, with Kevin O'Neill, and published two novels, Serial Killer and Goodnight, John-Boy , part of a planned series of four books. Also in that year, he published his memoirs, Be Pure! Be Vigilant! Behave! 2000 AD and Judge Dredd: The Secret History in print and as an e-book. Mills also narrated

2775-581: The 21st century to cope with the escalating population crisis in the United States and – as a solution chosen to deal with the high crime rate – led to the introduction of the Judge system. Mega-City One was one of three major areas to survive the nuclear war in 2070, due to an experimental laser missile-defense system built not long before. The other two being Mega-City Two (encompassing California, Washington and Oregon) and Texas City. Apart from those megacities,

2850-511: The French market, one of his life's goals, with Sha , created with French artist Olivier Ledroit . He continues to write Sláine , Bill Savage , Black Siddha and ABC Warriors for 2000 AD , and also the Franco-Belgian comic Requiem Vampire Knight , with art by Olivier Ledroit , and its spin-off Claudia Chevalier Vampire , with art by Franck Tacito . Two new series, Greysuit ,

2925-603: The Judges show a lack of empathy towards them. For example, in his Christmas message, Chief Judge Francisco asked citizens if a large number that were on welfare could commit suicide in order to help balance the budget for the following year. Some Judges openly view citizens as a nuisance to be removed, or like Judge Manners, as a sub-human race to be used and abused as the Judges see fit. The citizens occupy their time with many strange and outright bizarre hobbies, such as simping (recreational stupidity), bat gliding, sky surfing and peeping (spying on people at home and in public), which

3000-650: The Judges until they were a match for the United States Army , as a precaution against President Booth. When Booth was overthrown after the Atomic Wars, the remains of the US Army were routed and finally destroyed in 2071's Battle of Armageddon. (In the immediate aftermath of the war, military discipline broke down and the Judges had to kill or arrest soldiers that were preying on the citizens.) Mega-City One's military forces are inconsistently portrayed. During crises inside

3075-667: The Mayor giving orders to Justice Department. The Luna-One story arc briefly mentioned the governing body "the Grand Council of Judges" and "the Triumvirate", part of a unified state called the United Cities of North America, but this was dropped by prog 61. (This is not a complete list of mayors, but only of those who appeared in the comic.) The identity of the current mayor is not known (as of May 2024). A story in 2000 AD #32 featured

Jack Point - Misplaced Pages Continue

3150-489: The United States has been reduced to the Cursed Earth. Eventually, Mega-City One extended to Miami, Florida, which became a holiday resort, and spread west into Ohio and/or West Virginia . The megacity was built over the top of the old cities and the polluted Ohio River, creating the lawless Undercity , though a few buildings like the Empire State Building and Statue of Liberty were moved to Mega-City One for

3225-583: The Warlock . Artist Kevin O'Neill was involved in the creation of all three. Another strand of his 2000 AD work was Sláine , a barbarian fantasy based on Celtic mythology and neo-paganism , which he co-created with his then wife Angela Kincaid (with whom he also created the children's series of books, The Butterfly Children ). Mills also had a hand in IPC's line of comics aimed at girls , such as Chiller (a horror comic), Misty (supernatural stories) and Jinty (science fiction). In 1986 he edited

3300-469: The air, while another judge formally bids him farewell. Judges who take the Long Walk are expected never to return, but to die "bringing law to the lawless." Alternatively, retiring judges may instead be placed in administrative or teaching posts instead of taking the Long Walk. The Judge System was created by Eustace Fargo , then special government prosecutor for street crime, between 2027 and 2031, to combat

3375-520: The break-up of the United States and had already been granted autonomy within the Union in 2052. Its ruler is the Chief Judge, in current stories (as of September 2023) Judge Logan . He is accountable to a council of five senior judges. The citizens are permitted to have an elected city council and mayor, but with no significant power: the idea is that a facade of democracy will placate most people. In 2113

3450-564: The citizens docile and easier to control. Some show huge promise, intelligence, and have extremely useful skills, many top scientists and engineers are not Judges. Most of the city's biggest advancements in areas such as food, new materials, technology (unrelated to weaponry), medicine and architecture and construction design (including the Halls of Justice) came from ordinary citizens. All the major businesses and entertainment (apart from Justice Department propaganda channels) figures are citizens as are

3525-460: The city stretched from Montreal to Georgia and had 150 million citizens; it was part of the "United States of the West" (USW). Prog 4 then established that Mega-City One was surrounded by wildernesses from the Atomic Wars. The 150 million population was later revised to 100 million in earlier strips and abruptly bumped to 800 million later on. The United States of the West concept was dropped entirely;

3600-412: The city, regular Judges or Citi-Def are almost always shown doing the fighting instead and the military is usually mentioned in outer space – "Day of Chaos" eventually explained that they're unlicensed to act against the civilian population. From "The Cursed Earth" onwards, the city's armed forces have usually been presented as a branch of the Judges ("Judge-Troopers"): stories by Gordon Rennie introduced

3675-606: The colonies. (When originally introduced in The Corps spinoff, they were Judges from the Academy of Law but in later stories these are recruited citizens.) Another force are the Genetic Infantry: genetically engineered men, bred in a lab to be dedicated soldiers. (The story Warzone had an ex-Genetic Infantry soldier who was a primitive version of the Genetic Infantry from Rogue Trooper . ) The Citi-Defs (Citizen Defence) are

3750-449: The death penalty may be imposed, although relatively sparingly compared with the present day, and reserved for mass murder or the endangerment of the security of the city, but sometimes it is used simply to make an example or to intimidate the citizens. Nevertheless, many criminals are shot to death while resisting arrest, and resistors who survive Judge assault often receive a whole-life cube term. The Judges themselves are not exempt from

3825-484: The drug), and the vicious alien predators known as the Raptaurs, whom the drug is manufactured from. He just barely managed to destroy all the Raptaurs and adopted the offspring of one - dubbed Cliq - as a pet and back-up. He has since been involved in several cases alongside and conflicting with fellow PI Galen DeMarco , as well as investigating a new incarnation of the mass-murdering Hunters Club. He made an ally and crush in

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3900-446: The early stories, establishing the character and his world, before Wagner returned. In 1978 IPC launched Starlord , a short-lived companion title for 2000 AD . Mills contributed Ro-Busters , a series about a robot disaster squad, which moved to 2000 AD when Starlord was cancelled. Ro-Busters was the beginning of a mini-universe of interrelated stories Mills was to create for 2000 AD , including ABC Warriors and Nemesis

3975-451: The elderly ensuring a higher number of fertile age survivors to repopulate the city. By this point then Chief Judge Hershey believed the city could once again safely absorb such a vast increase in numbers, as many undamaged blocks remained available to be re-inhabited. Mega-City One has protectorates and colonies outside of the city walls: Blocks are huge and can be considered to be a small town in themselves. Each one will typically possess

4050-491: The exception of Metalzoic and Marshal Law , published by DC and Epic comics respectively in the late 1980s, both drawn by O'Neill. Mills' Toxic strips Accident Man and Brats Bizarre were reprinted as their own US-format titles (by Dark Horse Comics and Epic, respectively) and Mills wrote Punisher 2099 for Marvel, Zombie World for Dark Horse, and Death Race 2020 (reuniting Mills with Kevin O'Neill) for Roger Corman's Cosmic Comics . In 1995, he broke into

4125-548: The ground with no visible means of support – was so futuristic that it prompted a rethink, and a whole new city was proposed. Art director Doug Church suggested that the city should extend along the entire Eastern Seaboard, and be called Mega-City One, and his idea was adopted. While the first Judge Dredd story is set in "New York 2099AD", prog 3 retconned that and said New York was just part of Mega-City One. The back of prog 3 included an Ezquerra "Futuregraph" poster of Mega-City One (a page from an unused Dredd story), which said

4200-463: The law; in fact they are expected to obey it more strictly than any other. A violation that would earn a citizen a few months in an Iso-Cube would get a Judge a twenty-year sentence, served as hard labor on Saturn 's moon, Titan , after surgical modification to enable the convict to survive outside without needing an expensive space suit . (Titan is a moon of Saturn in reality, but was located over Jupiter in an early Dredd strip.) When Judges do make

4275-399: The leading democrats before the democratic march, such as keeping an elderly democrat awake all night and then releasing him without charge, knowing he would have to march all day the following day and making severe threats to another involving his young children. The original United States Armed Forces no longer exists: the explanation in "Origins" was that Chief Judge Goodman had built up

4350-527: The loss of the entire south in a saturation nuclear strike. The north-west and upper north were also lost, leaving the city stretching from roughly New Hampshire through North Carolina and losing the Canadian territory. A small part of the north west survived: the North West Hab Zone, separated from the rest of the city by a stretch of radioactive wasteland called Nuke Alley and linked to the main city by

4425-468: The main city. The North-West Hab Zone encompasses sectors 301-5. The Hab Zone was mostly ignored by the city and Sector 301 became disparagingly nicknamed "The Pit" due to its high crime rate, until Chief Judge Volt had it cleaned up in 2118. Other slum areas have been called "Angeltown" (Sector 13's slums) and "the Low Life". Following the events of the 2011–12-story Day of Chaos (set in 2134), Mega-City One

4500-552: The many public transport routes available, rarely stopping. Some mo-pads are quite luxurious, complete with swimming pools. Most of the city's energy supply is covered by geothermal energy in the form of a controlled volcano called the Power Tower. For administrative purposes the city is divided into 305 sectors, most of them renamed to fit the new size of the city after the Apocalypse War, and clumped into Central, North, South, East, and West. Sectors 1 (the centre) to 300 constitute

4575-424: The more intelligent simply when major crimes occur. Those that can read though are not much better, for example, when a book that detailed how to commit suicide was released, thousands of previously non-suicidal citizens (including the book's author) killed themselves since they had read how to do it in the book. At one point in some of the more dangerous blocks, Judges put sedatives into the air systems to help keep

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4650-443: The mysterious PVC-clad Miss Ann Thropé, who helped him on several cases; it turned out she was manipulating him to kill Cliq and gain a nest of new Raptaurs as a result, though only one survived and was adopted by Point as a new pet, Larf. She is currently trying to get him to quit the force and join her team of ex-Judge mercenaries. In 2134, after Angeltown barely survived Chaos Day , Point was drawn into Judge Smiley's conspiracy (in

4725-425: The past thirty years. Some families still possess twentieth-century handguns that have been handed down through the years. These are sometimes found by crime blitzes and will usually earn culprits the same penalty as a lasblaster from their time period. Torture is normally illegal, but in extreme circumstances and with orders from the Chief Judge they employ it (both physical and psychological), for example when time

4800-410: The plague overseas and off world. By October 2137 the population stood at seventy two million and was growing rapidly reaching 100 million around 2139. However the destruction of the Academy of Law during Chaos Day has disrupted the supply of cadets, and it is all the remaining judges can do to cope with the expanding population as it will be years before replacement of losses is reliable again. In 2019

4875-564: The screenplay. He has also written two Doctor Who audio plays , " Dead London " (2008) and " The Scapegoat " (2009) for Big Finish Productions , featuring the Eighth Doctor and Lucie Miller . The first audio play was released as the first part of the second season of the Eighth Doctor Adventures and the second as part of the third season. In 2010 Mills adapted a story that had been started by him and Wagner for Doctor Who in

4950-520: The series Judge Dredd was being developed in 1976–77 it was originally planned that the story would be set in New York, in the near future. However, when artist Carlos Ezquerra drew his first story for the series, a skyscraper in the background of one panel looked so futuristic that editor Pat Mills instructed him to draw a full-page poster of the city. Ezquerra's vision of the city – with massive tower blocks and endless roads suspended vast distances above

5025-509: The short-lived comic Diceman , which featured characters from 2000 AD, Mills wrote nearly every story. In 1988 he was involved in the launch of Crisis , a politically aware 2000 AD spin-off aimed at older readers. For it he wrote Third World War , drawn initially by Carlos Ezquerra . The title lasted until 1991 and launched the careers of talents such as Garth Ennis , John Smith and Sean Phillips . In 1991 Mills launched Toxic! , an independent colour newsstand weekly comic with

5100-494: The story Trifecta ): after waking up with no memory, he accidentally killed a brainwashed Wally Squad judge who had been carrying a jester doll. Daveez, working with the corrupt Black Ops Division, attempted to blackmail Point by kidnapping DeMarco; Point saved her, preventing her from killing him by claiming he was going to arrest him "by the book", but then murdered the Sector Chief himself. Escaping Black Ops agents, he found he

5175-568: The story. The STAR Judges were given an origin as founded in 2108 by Commander Brand, with Brand and his original squad secretly left to die after committing an act of genocide in 2111 (this was covered up as a legitimate act of war and the STARs turned into martyrs, allowing Mega-City One to still claim the devastated planet). The main military force mentioned is the Space Corps , composed of marines and fleets, who fight against alien races that threaten

5250-462: The strip would have the Judges as a feared police-state force with sole power; prog 118 (written when unemployment was going up in Britain) established that citizens resented being unemployed and took up bizarre crazes to deal with the boredom, and this remained part of the strip from then on. Mega-City One evolved out of a growing conurbation stretching from Boston to Washington DC , which took form in

5325-527: The tourists. Maps of the city show that in the early 22nd century, it stretched roughly from southern Maine down through Florida and to the north-east has absorbed the Quebec City-Windsor Corridor in Canada. 800 million citizens lived in the city at this point. The population and city sprawl were halved by nuclear attack and Soviet invasion in 2104 (in the 1982 story " The Apocalypse War "), with

5400-499: The whole thing had been set up as part of a secret investigation into Black Ops, in which he himself had been involved, and he rejoined Justice Department. Characters who have appeared in the series include: Jack Point appears in the following stories: Mega-City One Mega-City One is a fictional city that features in the Judge Dredd comic book series and related media. A post-nuclear megalopolis covering much of what

5475-414: Was an immediate hit. Having made the comic ready for launch, Mills resigned as editor. He would later write the celebrated First World War series Charley's War , drawn by Joe Colquhoun , for the title. After launching Battle , Mills began developing a new boys' title, Action , launched in 1976. Action' s mix of violence and anti-authoritarianism proved controversial and the title lasted less than

5550-403: Was left in ruins and almost 90% of its population was killed. After decades of being the main megacity and superpower on Earth, the city is now bankrupt and in severe decline with many judges considering the situation unsustainable. However over the following few years the city began to grow again due to immigration, taking in of refugees and the gradual return of millions of citizens who sat out

5625-426: Was now listed as a rogue judge. He turned to Miss Ann Thropé for help and she steered him to a buyer for the doll, which turned out to contain stolen Justice Department data: Judge Dredd then burst in on the sale, revealing the judge Point had killed was Wally Squad chief Folger and he was under arrest for treason. Point barely escaped, abandoned Larf to Black Ops, and tried to flee offworld. He eventually discovered that

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