How many of your most anticipated upcoming films are based on comic books? Well, there's all the Marvel stuff - the second Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy - and DC's attempt to muscle in on that scene with Batman vs Superman. Then you've got the other studios who are attempting to build out their own universes, with all the sequels, spin-offs and reboots of Spider-Man, X-Men and Fantastic Four in the offing. You can see why people might get a little burned out on the superheroics. Which is why Dredd is so unique. Not only is Judge Dredd a British-born character, but he's significantly different to his spandex-clad brethren. It's a totally different genre, for one thing: Dredd is more of a gritty crime thriller than a fun, action-packed blockbuster the way superhero movies are. The first Dredd also bypassed the usual route comic book franchise's opening episodes take by skipping over any sort of origin story and giving us Judge Joe fully formed. The way it differed most, though, was in the stakes. Pretty much every superhero movie - or every blockbuster, period - has the whole world, or even the whole universe in peril. Those are crazy big stakes! But they're used so often, it's started to get stale. Dredd, meanwhile, is just about its two central protagonists escaping with their lives. It's more relatable, in a way, even though the main character is a fanatical enforcer of the law who never takes his helmet off.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
