20 Best Comic Covers Of 2014

2. Judge Dredd: Mega City Two #2 By Ulises Farinas

Judge Dredd has had a hard time taking off in the US. What with the futuristic fascistic cop being a commentary on both the actual American police force and the right-wing depictions of their "justice" seen in Hollywood movies since time immemorial, perhaps that's not surprising. And it's probably not surprising that their first attempt to make a Judge Dredd movie wound up imitating all of those troubling tropes rather than being critical of them, with Sylvester Stallone barking "I AM THE LAW" like an unironic catchphrase and - worst of all - taking off the helmet. IDW have since got the license to a bunch of 2000 AD characters, attempting to bring the classically British sci-fi stories across the Atlantic.

With, admittedly, mixed results. Probably the most successful so far was Douglas Wolk and Ulises Farinas's Judge Dredd Mega-City Two: City Of Courts, with the artist providing a totally new style than the usual applied to 2000 AD's number on character, and working with Wolk to drop him into a world totally outside of his usual turf. That is, California, where the decadent, narcissistic LA lifestyle has gone way out of control. That subversive take on Dredd was made all the more clear by one of the covers to the second issue, which let you dress up the Judge however you liked! And, crucially, kept his face a mystery...