Chief Judge Fargo
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Chief Judge Eustace Fargo is an important fictional character from the Judge Dredd comic strip. He is Judge Dredd's clone father.
Fargo was commonly known as the 'Father of Justice', as he was responsible for the founding of the Judge System and Mega-City One's first chief judge. Consequently there is an annual Fargo's Day Parade in his honour, and his body lies in a sarcophagus in the Hall of Heroes in the Grand Hall of Justice. Officially he was born in 2001 and died in 2051, though these dates are inaccurate. Details of his history are currently being fleshed out in the story "Origins".
[edit] History
Graduating from Harvard with a degree in Law, he went into politics and by 2027 he had been appointed Government Special Prosecutor for Street Crime by President Gurney, tasked to combat the rising gang violence in the vast urban sprawl joining Washington to New York (which would eventually become Mega-City One). After armed gangs stormed the White House and were able to avoid jail sentences by intimidating juries, Fargo outlined a New Deal to scrap the principle of due process and create a combined police and judicial force who could fairly dispense instant justice - the Judges. When the Judges were first deployed in 2031, they acted mainly as an upgraded police force but soon rivalled Congress in power.
In 2051 Fargo - despite having established a rule of celibacy for the judges - had a moment of weakness and was caught having sex with a government colleague. While the incident was hushed up and Deputy Chief Judges Solomon and Goodman were both willing to ignore it, Fargo was left feeling guilty over his failure to live up to his own standards. He resigned his position and attempted suicide, though the wound only left him comatose. To cover this up and to use his martyrdom as a symbol, Solomon made up a cover story of Fargo being killed in a drive-by shooting. It was not expected that he would recover but he did, though this was also covered up, and he was placed in suspended animation.
When President Booth initiated the Third World War in 2070, the Judges were forced to take on the job of governing the Mega-Cities of America. Revived from suspended animation, Fargo usurped the president and took charge of the United States.
Fargo is also notable for his DNA, from which Judges Joe and Rico Dredd were cloned. Although Fargo didn't originally object to the cloning of judges, he took objection to Morton Judd's proposal of genetically engineering the citizens of Mega-City One, arguing that the Judges' primary task was to serve them, not control them.
The story "The Connection" by John Wagner and Kev Walker and "Origins" reveals that Dredd occassionally dreams of Fargo, and it is hinted that Fargo possibly began to go insane. It has also been discovered his hometown still exists and has been renamed Fargoville in his honour, with everyone's first name being Eustace and where there is a museum about his life.
[edit] Clones and Family
Eustace Fargo had a twin brother, Ephram Fargo, who the people of Fargoville refuse to speak of and have wiped from their historical records. Ephram's mutant descendants still inhabit the Cursed Earth, led by Randy Fargo. Eustace also had a sister, Arden Polders, who died shortly after the Apocalypse War of 2104.
Although most judge cadets at the Academy of Law are recruited from the citizens at a young age, the Justice Department also runs a cloning programme, in which the DNA of Mega-City One's most successful judges is used to create new cadets. Clones created from the same DNA as Fargo and Dredd include:
After attempting to assassinate Fargo, rogue judge Morton Judd fled the city with a batch of stolen genetic material, including Fargo's, and used it to create the "Judda", a private army of clones (including Kraken). Joe Dredd personally killed Kraken and another of Judd's warriors (whose name was not given in the comic), and arrested another called Simeon (who was presumably later executed). All of the Judda were eventually killed.
[edit] External link
| Preceded by: New office |
Chief Judge of the United States 2031–2051 |
Succeeded by: Hollins Solomon |
