Biography
Judge Joseph Dredd is a fictional character created by writer John Wagner and artist Carlos Ezquerra. He first appeared in the second issue of 2000 AD (1977), a weekly anthology comic magazine. He is the magazine's longest-running character. He also appears in a number of movie and video game adaptations. Joseph Dredd is a law enforcement and judicial officer in the dystopian future city of Mega-City One, which covers most of the east coast of North America. He is a "street judge", empowered to summarily arrest, convict, sentence, and execute criminals. In Great Britain, the character of Dredd and his name are sometimes invoked in discussions of police states, authoritarianism, and the rule of law.Judge Dredd made his live action debut in 1995 in Judge Dredd, portrayed by Sylvester Stallone. Later he was portrayed by Karl Urban in the 2012 adaptation Dredd.