The proudest 9 and a bit minutes of my career. Written by me for the beautiful and talented Whitney Duff as a showcase for her limitless talent after a conversation we had earlier this year when we were both having a rough day. Couldn’t be prouder of her work- and everyone else involved in bringing this to life.
Sinister Dexter - The Cover Story!
If you’re ‘lucky’ enough to live in the UK, and have Comedy Central, they’re showing one of the all-time great movies right now, Pulp Fiction, the inspiration for the future city of Downlode’s premier hitmen, or gunsharks, Finnegan Rapunzel Sinister, and Ramone Algonquin Winnebago Dexter!
Tune in now (or watch it on +1, if you missed the start!).
Here are our favourite covers & pinups…
- First Sinister Dexter cover Prog 981: (1Mar’96) - Jason Brashill
- Finnigan Sinister - Up Close and Personal! - Prog 1102: ( 8Jul’96) John Charles
- ‘Gun Lovin’ Criminals!’ Prog 1134: (3Mar’98) - Simon Davis
- Sinister vs. Dexter - Prog 1164: (6Oct’99) - Greg Staples
- Finny shows off his Kung Fu: “Vayase!” - Greg Staples
- Ramone Dexter - “Wanted by the D.C.P.D.” - Simon Davis
- Finny & Ray “Say Goodnight! - Neil Roberts
- Sinister Dexter - Prog 1956 - Jon Davis-Hunt
- Finny, Ray & Billi (Octavo), too! - Prog 1661 - Simon Davis
- Sinister Dexter - Prog 1876 - Alex Ronald
We know who we’d rather cross - and it ain’t Vincent & Jules we’d be as scared of (well, maybe a little!).
The Special Judicial Squad aka - The Judges Who judge the Judges!
All StarScans by Judge Dredd supremo, Cliff Robinson.
A quick rundown on the workings of the feared Special Judicial Squad, the ruthless, leather-clad department of paramilitary Judges who investigate any members of Justice Department who may have transgressed the rigid, ethical moral codes, or laws, expected of men and women of their station.
Shown in page 2 of this restricted file, is then head of the SJS, (who later, of course, went on to become a popular Chief-Judge in times of turmoil for the city - twice!) Judge Hilda Margaret McGruder - an effective, but respected SJS chief. Some may compare this frighteningly hardlined woman, the first female Chief-Judge of Mega-City One, with another ‘Iron Lady’ of the ‘80′s (McGruder became Chief-Judge after the “Apocalypse War”, first published in weekly Prog 270, (26Jun’82) right in the middle of Margaret Hilda Thatcher’s reign of terror, as Prime Minister of Great Britain (1979-90). She, needless to say, was not as popular a leader as her namesake, Chief-Judge McGruder, although, possibly, both quite as mad at the end of their tenures!
Some great StarScans of the best and worst, top Judges ever to patrol or rule over the most dangerous city on Earth:
- Top: Judge Dredd - Undoubtedly, Mega-City One’s greatest Senior Judge. Highly respected by his peers, feared and admired in equal measure by the public and the scourge of criminals everywhere. However, the city’s greatest hero has had his fair share of run-ins with the SJS, some trying to unsettle the implacable Dredd, others like the bully-boy squads under the insane Chief-Judge Cal, arresting him for murder! Nowadays, with an equally ruthless approach, the SJS operate with a much more even-handed manner, led by hard-but-fair former Street Judges.
- Judge Hershey, at the time of her picture above, was the youngest member of the Council of Five - five Heads of Department, who advise the Chief-Judge - but, Hershey went on to become C-J herself - as Acting Chief-Judge, during Judgement Day, becoming Chief-Judge Proper in 2122, and served until 2131, the longest run of any Chief-Judge since Clarence Goodman. Ousted by corrupt Deputy Chief-Judge, Martin Sinfield, Hershey was sent off-planet by popular , new Chief, Dan Francisco, reality TV star, who was being drugged by Sinfield. Sinfield, himself, was stopped and sent to Titan. Francisco was reinstated, but the stresses of Chaos Day proved too much for him, wracked with guilt and shame he reinstalled Hershey as top cop, once again, in 2134. A reluctant Barbara no longer wished to do the job again, but knew that she must, to somehow rebuild her decimated city. Hershey remains in office to this day. Judge Dredd himself described her as “the best Chief-Judge we’ve ever had, “
- Chief-Judge Silver - Possibly the worst Chief of all time, apart from the insane Judge Cal, of course. Silver was an obvious right-wing hardliner, and made many mistakes during his tenure; when a military wing of Justice Department’s Space Corps was responsible for the genocide of an entire planet, Silver had it hushed up, summarily executing the soldiers involved; Silver was also vehemently opposed to the democracy movement, ordering Dredd to start a smear campaign against the leaders of Democracy Now, the biggest threat to the Judges’ autonomous control, after organising a massive march of millions through Mega-City One. Silver ordered a full crackdown, ordering the Judges to use deadly force, leaving hundreds dead, and thousands injured. Dredd turned against Silver’s regime, when in 2112 a young boy was brutally murdered by a man who had been brain-damaged by a Judge during the Democratic March, Dredd’s reservations came to a head and he tendered his resignation and took the Long Walk out into the Cursed Earth. In Dredd’s absence things just got worse; it turned out Silver was a supporter of Morton Judd (a scientist who had started his own Judge cloning program in secret, and had a vision of a whole populace bred from clones - the ultimate docile, and easily trained citizens! Instead, Judd was banished from the city, but secretly set up a base deep beneath Ayers Rock, which would later come back to haunt the city. This was realised during the Juddas’ invasion of MC-1, using pinpoint teleportation devices to appear in the middle of the Grand Hall of Justice, during the Oz saga. The Judda are overcome, either destroyed in their homebase, or killed in the Grand Hall, thanks to a tip-off from Judge Dredd, in Oz himself. However, a few are captured, but only one survives interrogation. With Dredd gone and the one remaining Judda, Kraken, cloned from the same DNA as Fargo, Dredd and his brother, Rico, Silver sees an opportunity, to install Kraken as the new Dredd - even demanding that he wear the hero’s badge! Unfortunately, soon after Mega-City One is attacked by the Dark Judges and the Sisters of Death, turning the city into a charnel house - a veritable… Necropolis! To make matters worse, Kraken has been corrupted by the Dark Judges and as for C-J Silver, having failed to commit suicide, was turned into a living zombie by Judge Death, leaving him with all of his faculties, ensuring his endless torment as he watched his city burn. Fortunately, out in the Cursed Earth, Dredd heard the call of his dying city, and despite having been hideously disfigured by the Sisters of Death, Dredd led a ragtag band to take back his city, capturing all but one of the Dark Judges.Judge Death escaped to city bottom, whilst the the Sisters were banished back to Deadworld. Silver again fled and hid, fearing that in his undead state he would be summarily destroyed by the survivors of the disaster. Only when several months had passed did he dare to return to the city. Once there he argued that Chief-Judge McGruder’s election to Office had been illicit, pointing out that whilst he had never resigned, Hershey had after she took the Long Walk out into the Cursed Earth. She however pointed out that Silver was clinically dead! He recounted by reminding McGruder that she had disbanded the Council of Five, and that there was no one to oppose his reinstatement. The constitutional crisis was finally resolved when both litigants agreed to abide by Judge Dredd’s verdict. Dredd actually ruled in Silver’s favour, but then convicted him of gross dereliction of duty for deserting his command in time of war. Dredd executed Silver and McGruder became Chief-Judge by default. With no fanfare, the once courageous Senior Judge, now just a pile of ash, was swept up by a janatorial droid, and ignominiously disposed of.
- Back on the Streets! After all that bureaucracy, Judge Dredd is back, astride his Lawmaster, ready to tackle the craziness that is an average night in Mega-City One - and he loves it!
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ALL SEVEN NEW ‘X-MEN’ COMIC BOOK SERIES!
As part of Marvel Comic’s upcoming ‘ResurrXion’ initiative, seven brand new X-men series will be starting in Spring 2017. This includes two new flagship series; ‘X-men Blue’ and ‘X-men Gold’, as well as new series for Jean Grey, Iceman, Cable, Weapon X, and Generation X!