Mega-City One has been the target of violent coups, crime wars, otherworldly onslaughts and foreign invasions – each being the brainchild of a villain wanting to see the city, Justice Department and/or Dredd himself perish…
“The Crime Iss Life… ” – Judge Death
The citizens of Mega-City One are all too familiar with stringent laws and the Judges who enforce them, but one Judge, in particular, has proven to be the harshest…
Hailing from an alternate Earth, hardline law-enforcer Sydney De’Ath had already earned the moniker ‘Judge Death’ before he encountered the witches Phobia and Nausea. Transformed into an undead simulacrum of a Judge by the witches, he began a quest for what he termed ‘total justice’: the eradication of all crime through the extermination of all life.
Aided by his fellow Dark Judges Fear, Fire and Mortis, Death wrought genocide upon what is now known as ‘Deadworld’. Not content with his work, he then used dimensional jump technology to reach Earth…
Arriving in Mega-City One in the year 2102, he found a city—and indeed a whole planet—rife with the living and the lawless. Bent on continuing his mission, he began slaughtering the occupants of Mega-City One. Only Dredd and Psi-Division’s Judge Anderson were able to stop Death, and even then only by sealing the Dark Judge—his spirit trapped within Judge Anderson—inside an impermeable slab of the miracle plastic, Boing®.
Enter Fear, Fire and Mortis
Death—and Anderson—remained sealed inside this slab of Boing® and confined to the Grand Hall of Justice. However, his Deadworld cohorts Fear, Fire and Mortis engineered Death’s release from his Boing® tomb and provided a new host body for his incorporeal form. Reunited with his fellow Dark Judges, Death resumed his crusade against Mega-City One, sealing themselves inside Billy Carter Block along with its occupants.
The intervention of both Dredd and the revived Judge Anderson could not avert the resulting massacre as the Dark Judges slaughtered masses of the block’s residents. Following a confrontation with Dredd and Anderson, Death and his compatriots fled to Deadworld, only to be pursued by the two Judges. There Anderson channelled the myriad spirits of the Dark Judges’ victims, using the force of their collective to seemingly destroy the Dark Judges.
The Revenge of the Dark Judges
Lured back to Deadworld by visions of Judge Death, Psi-Judge Anderson was tricked into resurrecting the quartet of Dark Judges. When Death and his fellow fiends then used teleportation devices to travel to Mega-City One, they brought yet more carnage to the megalopolis. Anderson followed them back and—in a tense confrontation—destroyed the Dark Judges’ teleportation devices, confining them to what appeared to be an eternity in Limbo…
Necropolis
Death and his fellow compatriots, however, would return to visit even greater devastation on Mega-City One. Aided by the witches Phobia and Nausea, the Dark Judges emerged in 2112 to find MC-1 lacking Dredd’s protection. Unimpeded by his nemesis, Death oversaw a slaughter of biblical proportions which brought Mega-City One to the edge of oblivion. Only Dredd’s return from the Cursed Earth—and his reuniting with his old ally Anderson—saved the city, but not before the Dark Judges had killed sixty million of the population.
Classic Moment
Judge Death Lives (2000AD prog #224–228 / Judge Dredd The Complete Case Files 05)
Judge Death is reunited with his fellow Dark Judges Fire, Fear and Mortis. Together they bring their unique form of justice to the residents of Billy Carter Block.
Further Reading
Young Death: Boyhood of a Superfiend (Judge Dredd Megazine volume #1, issues #1–12 /Judge Death: Young Death)
When journalist Brian Skuter is granted an interview with Judge Death he discovers the grotesque events which shaped the uniquely driven—and evil—creature.
Extract From Dredd’s Comportment
“No one in the history of MC-1 has murdered more of its citizens than Death and his Gruddam cronies. And not only are they stone-cold killers, but they’re drokkin’ hard to kill.”
Appropriately, Judge Death is one of the deadliest perps in the Judge Dredd Miniatures Game. Although he has no ranged attacks whatsoever, he has a natural Fight stat of 5, and his signature Heart Squeeze attack gives him an extra dice when determining potential damage. This coupled with the fact that his targets cannot roll Resist dice when hit by Death—places him amongst the game’s most lethal exponents of melee combat. To make matters worse, Death also has an Evade stat of 5; one of the highest in the game…
The Red Right Hand – Orlok the Assassin
There has always been an enmity between the western mega-cities and the Sov Block. Most of the time this mutual distrust has merely simmered, but in some instances the cold war has boiled over, leading to catastrophic exchanges and horrifying violence. Mega-City One has suffered these exchanges many times, with Sov attacks ranging from nuclear assault to clandestine infiltration. One Sov agent above all casts a long shadow over MC-1…That man is Orlok the Assassin.
Prelude to War
The product of a brutal childhood in the Stalinist Sov Block, Orlok was raised as a weapon. Those years of training were finally put to the test when Orlok was unleashed on Mega-City One in 2104. Upon arrival in MC-1, he began to contaminate the city’s water supply with a drug designed to increase the population’s nascent aggression. Drug-fuelled and murderous, MC-1’s citizens duly sank into the bloody depths of the so-called ‘Block War’.
One by one the blocks of MC-1—towering conurbations each designed to house thousands of citizens—launched vicious and unremitting attacks on one another. With each block possessing squads of well-armed (and badly trained) militia units known as Citi-Def, these clashes resulted in huge bloodshed. As Orlok continued to poison more and more blocks, so the loss and life and collateral damage escalated. Soon the entirety of Mega-City was embroiled in escalating violence.
Orlok was finally apprehended and imprisoned by Judge Dredd, but not before the Justice Department’s resources struggled to contain the spreading chaos. It was against this background of strained Judges and a vastly depleted Citi-Def that Orlok’s Sov-Block masters revealed the true extent of their plan: the invasion of Mega-City One. The following conflagration—known as the Apocalypse War—led to the death of 400 million MC-1 citizens and the destruction of East-Meg One.
Mars and Judge Anderson
Disavowed by the Sov Block following the war, Orlok was confined in a Justice Department iso-block. He was freed by a rogue Sov agent and fled to Mars to plan the next stage of what had become a personal crusade against Mega-City One.
Assuming a new identity on Mars he encountered both Psi-Judge Anderson and the race of aliens who had created humanity. With these aliens now intent on eradicating mankind, Orlok and Anderson acted together to thwart them and save the human race.
Following the incident, Anderson resigned as a Judge and let Orlok go free.
The Trial of Dredd
In hiding on a distant planet, Orlok learned of a bounty placed on Judge Dredd by East-Meg One’s government in exile, now known as the Diktatorat. Believing that only he had the right to kill Dredd, he travelled back to MC-1 during the Second Robot War and captured not only Dredd, but the newly reinstated Judge Anderson.
With the two Judges now his captives, he found a way out of the war-torn city and brought his prisoners before the Diktatorat. There Anderson was forced to act as Dredd’s counsel for the defence as he was tried for the destruction of East-Meg One and the deaths of half a billion of its population during the Apocalypse War. The Diktatorat broadcast the trial live across the Earth.
However, a skilled defence by Anderson forced Orlok to admit Dredd acted purely in defence of MC-1 during the Apocalypse War; a war the Sovs had instigated. Cognisant the trial was being transmitted live, the Diktatorat had no choice but to find Dredd not guilty, but not before arranging for Dredd to be assassinated. The assassination failed and Orlok—enraged by his masters’ deception—killed the Diktatorat. Dredd and Anderson took this opportunity to escape to freedom, leaving Orlok behind.
Classic Moment
2000AD prog #244 / Judge Dredd The Complete Case Files 05
Cornered by Dredd at the climax of the Block War storyline, Orlok engages his nemesis in hand-to-hand combat.
Further Reading
The Trial of Orlok (2000AD prog #224–228 / Judge Dredd: Satan’s Island)
Orlok returns to Mega-City One to release a biological agent that kills 80,000 citizens. This time, however, Dredd catches Orlok, and the assassin is finally tried for his crimes…
Extract From Dredd’s Comportment
“This creep is one of the deadliest perps in the history of Mega-City One; he’s right up there with P.J. Maybe and second only to Judge Death. I have never stood toe-to-toe with anybody as quick as him, as tough as him, or as skilled as him. If the Sov block had cloned him the same way we cloned Fargo, the Apocalypse War would have ended a whole different way.”
Orlok’s stat line is almost on par with Dredd’s, and skills like Martial Arts Master—which allows him to roll a an extra Evade dice in close combat—ensures he can go toe-to-toe with Joe any day of the week. The Indestructible skill also means Orlok’s stats are unaffected by wounds and stun markers, and his war surveillance drone allows him to automatically dodge one successful shooting attack per game. Little wonder then that ol’ stony face himself is so wary of this master assassin.
Inmate Judge – Judge Grice
Grice was a formerly influential Judge who became vehemently opposed to a restoration of democracy in Mega-City One, earning the ire of Dredd.
Vote ‘No’ to Democracy!
Mega-City One’s pro-democracy activists had, by the year 2113, gained enough momentum to pose a dilemma to the Judges of Mega-City One. The movement demanded a referendum on whether or not to retain the Judge’s system of totalitarian government or return to the democratic system lost in the aftermath of the Atomic Wars. Fearing that, by allowing such a referendum, they would sow the seeds for their own demise, the Justice Department continued to suppress the pro-democracy organisation and ignore the calls for a vote. One man in particular was virulent in his opposition to a referendum: Judge Grice.
An influential and senior street judge prior to the events of the Necropolis, Grice rose to prominence following the defeat of the Dark Judges. With the public angry at the Justice Department for its failings during the Necropolis, Grice advocated a hardline approach to the growing unrest. This stance, however, placed him in direct opposition to Judge Dredd, who proposed allowing the pro-democracy movement—and the citizens of Mega-City One—a referendum. This referendum would offer a binary choice: retain the current system of government as imposed by the Judges, or to revert to the democracy that had prevailed beforehand.
Grice believed such a referendum to be madness, leading only to the deconstruction of the Justice Department. His ire only increased when Dredd imposed his will on the council of senior judges and the incumbent chief judge, McGruder, acquiesced and ordered a referendum be organised. Enraged, Grice led a conspiracy to assassinate Dredd and scrap the vote. His assassins, however, failed and the referendum proceeded with—as anticipated by Dredd—the citizen’s voting to retain the current system. Dredd then arrested Grice and sentenced him to twenty years on Titan, Justice Department’s penal colony on one of Saturn’s moon.
Grice, however, led a breakout of fellow prisoners after enduring only two years of his sentence on Titan. Overwhelming the guards, Grice and his small army of violent prisoners assumed control of the colony. It was then that Grice discovered the colony hid a secret bioweapons project dedicated to the research and development of the so-called ‘Meat Virus’: a contagion which melted flesh on contact. He then seized the colony’s flotilla of starships and—with the Meat virus safely stored onboard—he set course for Earth…
Arriving at Earth, Grice crashed his stolen starships into the city and unleashed the Meat virus on MC-1. Weakened by the effects of the virus, the city’s Judges were overwhelmed by Grice’s army of vicious criminals.
Defeated, the remaining Judges fled to the Cursed Earth, leaving MC-1 at Grice’s mercy. Assuming the title of Chief Judge, Grice began to pass insane laws and demonstrate increasingly unhinged behaviour, even going so far as to kill one of his most loyal supporters with a chainsaw.
Meanwhile Dredd had been marshalling the remaining Judges. Although their numbers were diminished by the Meat virus, the Judges stormed MC-1 and overwhelmed Grice’s men. Sensing his grip on the city weakening, Grice set about the interior of the Grand Hall of Justice with a flamethrower. Dredd and Grice then faced one another for the last time, surrounded by this inferno. Whilst Grice was able to physically overpower his adversary, Dredd ordered his Lawmaster’s computer to repeatedly run over Grice until the tyrant was crushed to death.
Classic Moment
2000AD prog #853 / Judge Dredd The Complete Case Files 19
Two years after being humiliated by Dredd, Grice—now quicker, stronger and meaner—meets his weakened enemy for one last showdown.
Further Reading
America (Judge Dredd Megazine volume 1, issues #1–7 / Judge Dredd: America)
Recounting the stories of young activists America Jara and her friend Bennett Beeny, America details the beginnings of Mega-City One’s democracy movement, and the inception of the militant organisation Total War.
Extract From Dredd’s Comportment
“There’s only one thing worse than a perp, and that’s a rotten Judge. Grice is a case in point. All that training, all that trust, and the creep turns on us … on ME … just so he can get his way. Well, he got his way alright; his way to Titan.”
Grice’s background as a former senior Judge makes him a dangerous foe. His stat line is every bit as impressive as you would expect for a man with his training, and his Cool of 5 makes him harder to kill than most perps. Not only that, but his Fortitude skill means he can ignore the effect of one wound or stun marker on his stats.
Offensively, Grice is armed with a Justice Department standard-issue M2000 Widowmaker. However, his weapon of choice is a flamethrower. This fire-spewing ranged weapon makes Grice even more effective at range, with a +4 modifier against any targets within short range (16”).
The Arch Villains of Mega-City One boxed set contains:
- 5 Warlord Resin arch villain miniatures – Nero Narcos, Judge Death, Judge Grice, Mean Machine Angel and Orlok (with his Satellat).
- Plastic bases
- 5 Character cards
- 1 Armoury card: Stealth Suit
- 1 Big Meg card: Rotten Judge
For more info on Mean Machine Angel, check out this article on the Cursed Earth Raiders and for more on Nero Narcos – try this article on Mega-City Robots…
2 comments
I think Judge Death looks a little lonely (even alien super fiend need friends !!), any chance of getting the other 3 Dark Judges ??!!
Yes. Boxed set with all four… Would be great! Death Fear Fire and Mortis……oh, plus the two sisters (whose name I forget… it’s been a while since I read the stories…. 😉 )
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