Judge Death
Eric S Brown
Judge Death, misguided entity from an alternate dimension, is a malevolent spectral being determined to wipe out all life. His powers include hopping from one corporal body to another, super strength and endurance, and the ability to kill with a single touch. As a judge on his world, he determined that all crime came from life, because only the living committed crimes. Because of this, Judge Death and his Dark Judges cleaned their dimension of everything living, then ruled there in peace until extra-dimensional travelers mistakenly transported into their realm. He killed the travelers and realized that there were worlds beyond his own that needed justice. Using the technology obtained from his extra-dimensional victims, he traveled to Mega City One on Judge Dredd’s Earth. There he began his work of exterminating. Judge Dredd confronted him but was powerless to stop him. Psi Judge Anderson answered Dredd’s call for help to stop Death and succeeded, but at the cost of her own life. Trapping Judge Death within her own body, she had Dredd encase her in a kind of super plastic, thus sealing sealing herself, and Death, away forever.
Forever turned out to be short lived, however. The Dark Judges traveled to Mega City One to free Death from his captivity, and together they declared war on the living. In preparation for the war, Death and the Dark Judges return to their realm to better prepare but Judge Dredd and Judge Anderson follow them there. Anderson, channeling the power of all those who were slain in Death’s dimension, defeats them, then she and Dredd return home. But as Judge Death is fond of saying, “You can not kill what does not live!” And he, and his Dark Judges (whose number continued to grow far beyond the original three: Judges Mortis, Fear, and Fire), continued to plague Judge Dredd even through the comics that IDW published.
In 2012, a second Judge Dredd movie, simply titled Dredd, was released. It created a new, rebooted version of Judge Dredd existing in a separate reality from the original character. Judge Death crossed over into this world in the pages of Dredd: Final Judgment. In this universe, Judge Anderson is not present, and though Dredd won the day, the cost was so high it left many fans reeling. The ending is bittersweet and one that, at least to date, has concluded the stories told within the Dredd universe.
