10 Most Evil Things Judge Dredd Has Ever Done

10. Executing Surrendered Criminals

Judge Dredd first appeared in Prog 2 of 2000ad however that wasn't supposed to be the case. He was actually supposed to appear in the very first Prog the week before.

A story was written and drawn by series creators John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra all ready to go. It opened with a bang too, quickly establishing the cruel authoritarian world Dredd lived in. We're told that the Judges of this world have complete authority to sentence criminals how they like, they are judge, jury and executioner. This is brought into stark relief when, after foiling a robbery, Dredd commands the surrendered criminals to get down on their knees, whereupon he sentences them to death and shoots them in the back of the head.

The image of the protagonist coldly executing people in such a way was a hell of a way to open this new comic and really showed what a bastard Dredd was right from the get go. Unfortunately, 2000AD's target audience at the time was young children and this was considered inappropriate by the publisher. Dredd's debut was pushed back while a replacement story was created, and Dredd was mostly shown killing in self defence thereafter.

Fortunately that original story was later reprinted in Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files 01 and it's well worth checking out.