Advance Preview – ‘Judge Dredd Case Files’ 43 Begins The Epic ‘Judge Dredd: Origins’ Tale

by Richard Bruton

The new volume of Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files, volume 43, contains one of the absolute epic Dredds – John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra’s Origins.

The Judge Dredd Case Files is a huge undertaking – reprinting every single Dredd story ever published in chronological order.

Volume 43 is coming out on 18th January, but now’s a perfect time to preview one particular epic Dredd that you’ll see inside, one that was great when it first appeared in 2006 – Judge Dredd: Origins by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra.

Origins is one of the longest Judge Dredd storylines and a hugely important one, going back in time to reveal exactly how the world went from our current climate to the post-nuclear world of Mega City-One. In Origins, you’ll discover the history of the Judges, the Justice Department founder, Chief Judge Fargo, as well as featuring moments from Joe Dredd’s boyhood during the Third World War.

It all begins with a mysterious package delivered to the Grand Hall of Justice, one that proves that the body of Eustace Fargo, the very first Chief Judge, founder of the Justice Department, and clone father to Dredd and Rico, may well be alive out there somewhere, held hostage.

That revelation forces Dredd out into the Cursed Earth in search of answers that will unveil the history of the Judges, and their ascent to total power.

It’s a masterpiece by Wagner firmly delivering a history lesson of Dredd’s life, the Justice Department, and the world they exist in. As Dredd ventures into the Cursed Earth, we slowly go back to a time before all that we know, with Wagner threading Dredd’s memories and the time where Fargo took law enforcement to a different level, the creation of the Judges and the Mega-Cities, and the devastating world war that created the Cursed Earth at the hands of the last President of the United States; Robert L Booth.

It’s one of those Dredd tales that has, quite rightly, been called “essential”. Indeed, it was included in the Essential Judge Dredd graphic novel series in 2021.

If you are new to Dredd, there are so many places to start and they’re all correct. That’s because the greatness of 2000 AD and its strips is that, although there’s a lot of continuity in one way, in others there’s just a joy to jumping in and picking things up. With Dredd especially you simply need to know a couple of things – future cop in a dystopian nightmare world of Mega-Cities, Dredd is the law.

So if you are new to Dredd, there’s a lot to be said for picking up a volume of the Complete Case Files to really get into the character. It’s a great way of reading them, as I frequently tell you when I’m previewing and reviewing them here, as doing it that way really allows you to appreciate that the brilliance of Dredd is that it still has the time and space to do all sorts of stories, one-off five pagers, multi-parters, and then the grand epic tales. And that’s exactly why it’s been so good for so long.

But this volume is particularly great as a jumping-on point with the inclusion of one of the all-time Dredd tales by the all-time pairing of Wagner and Ezquerra.

Of course, in addition to Wagner and Ezquerra and Judge Dredd: Origins, this 43rd volume of the Complete Case Files includes Dredd tales by Gordon Rennie, John Smith, and Simon Spurrier, with art by Colin MacNeil, PJ Holden, Laurence Campbell, Simon Fraser, Paul Marshall, Peter Doherty, Inaki Miranda, and Lee Garbett.