Chief Judge Fargo
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| Chief Judge Fargo | |
 Chief Judge Fargo (painted by Carlos Ezquerra) |
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| Publication information | |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Rebellion Developments |
| First appearance | 2000 AD prog 559 (1988) |
| Created by | John Wagner |
| In story information | |
| Full name | Eustace Fargo |
Chief Judge Eustace Fargo is an important fictional character from the Judge Dredd comic strip in 2000 AD. 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 was 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 actually inaccurate. Details of his history were fleshed out in the story "Origins".
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[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 with combatting 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. Fargo served as chief judge for twenty years.
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. Fargo was revived and made relatively stable, meeting his two clones Rico and Joe Dredd and being called in to help guide the Justice Department. Under his guidance, the Judges assumed command of the United States using the Declaration of Independence as legal precedent. Booth learned Fargo was alive and, thinking he could use this fact to discredit the Judges, tried to capture him and reveal his existence but failed due to the actions of Joe and Rico Dredd.
By 2070, Fargo served secretly as an advisor to the chief judge, with most people believing he had died in 2051. In his last year of life he began to deteriorate mentally, and lost faith in his Judge System. He became increasingly despondent as a result, disliking that the Judges had become a dictatorship.
He was placed into suspended animation once more, only for his body to be stolen by renegade judges and eventually lost in the Cursed Earth. His body and stasis pod became an object of worship for a mutant tribe. In 2129 persons unknown – later revealed in progs 1530-31 to be the New Mutant Army led by Booth – contacted the Justice Department demanding cash in return for Fargo's body. The Justice Department retrieved Fargo and revived him, but the long period frozen had damaged his body and he soon died. His last words were to Dredd, telling him the Judges' rule was wrong and that he had to reverse it.
Fargo is also notable for his DNA, from which Judges Joe and Rico Dredd were cloned. Morton Judd also proposed genetically engineering the citizens of Mega-City One, but Fargo believed the Judges were meant to serve the citizens rather than control them, and vetoed the plan.
Fargo's hometown still exists and has been renamed Fargoville in his honour. There everyone's first name is Eustace and 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:
Rico Dredd fathered a daughter, Vienna Dredd, who genetically speaking could be Fargo's daughter. (She is Joe Dredd's niece.)
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 Fargo clones (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] Other versions
[edit] Film version
In the 1995 feature film, Fargo was played by Max von Sydow. After taking the Long Walk, Fargo comes to the rescue of Dredd who is being held captive by the Angel Gang but sacrifices his life in the process. As in the comics, the film version of Fargo is also the clone father of Dredd and Rico.
[edit] DC Comics version
A short-lived Judge Dredd comic published by DC Comics between 1994 and 1995 featured a very different version of Fargo, who turned out to be evil. Chronologically, his first appearance is in 1998 as a hotshot District Attorney prosecuting an environmental terrorist. When supporters of the defendant raid the courtroom in an attempt to rescue the suspect, Fargo draws a firearm and kills them, arguing to the judge that such is the result of a weak justice system. It's implied that this event allowed Fargo to rise to power and eventually instate the judges as arbiters of the law. As this version of Fargo is a grown man in 1998, three years before the "mainstream" Fargo is even born, he is much older during most of the comic series.
[edit] References
2000 AD progs 559, 1505-1519 and 1529-1535.
[edit] External links
| Preceded by New office |
Chief Judge of the United States 2031–2051 |
Succeeded by Hollins Solomon |
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