Dark Judges
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The Dark Judges are recurring villains in the fictional Judge Dredd universe recounted in the UK comic 2000 AD. They are Judge Death, Judge Fire, Judge Fear and Judge Mortis. Later storylines added the "Sisters of Death" (Phobia and Nausea), to their ranks. Former Judge Kraken was also a Dark Judge for a brief time during the Necropolis story.
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[edit] History
The Dark Judges were originally a group of lawkeepers from a parallel dimension. They were led by Judge Death, who had determined that all crime was committed by the living. Thus, by his logic, all life was a crime. Originally mortal, the four Judges encountered Phobia and Nausea (the Sisters of Death) in a cave. The Sisters were death cultists and mass murderers with supernatural powers, and the four Dark Judges became undead beings, subsequently murdering the entire population of their world.
Dimension-travelling visitors chanced upon the now 'Deadworld' and found the Dark Judges. After 'judging' (ie, killing) them and taking their dimension jumping warp devices, Judge Death travelled to Mega-City One, against the opinions of his colleagues, in order to 'dispense justice'. Death was eventually defeated by the combined efforts of Judges Dredd and Anderson, his body having been destroyed, and his spirit form held inside Judge Anderson, herself encased in the miracle plastic Boing on display in the Justice Department's Hall of Heroes.
Having sensed Death's peril, his comrades Fear, Fire and Mortis crossed the dimension warp to rescue him. Released from imprisonment and with a new body created, the four Dark Judges continued their 'judgement' upon Mega-City One claiming thousands of victims. Dredd and Anderson intervened, and pursued the Dark Judges back to Deadworld using a Dimension Jump Globe liberated from the Dark Judges. There, the spirits of the Dark Judges' millions of victims flowed through Anderson and seemingly extinguished their spirits forever.
However, the Dark Judges were not destroyed but merely weakened, and four years later, Judge Anderson was duped into returning to Deadworld, where she was forced to resurrect them. Armed with teleporter technologies, the four returned to Mega-City One, leaving Anderson for dead. Anderson survived, however, and used the dimension warp technology against the Dark Judges, consigning them to limbo, the void between dimensions. This is where they were to remain for the next few years.
Following Judge Dredd's resignation and his replacement by the ex-Judge Kraken (recounted in the Judge Dredd stories Tale of the Dead Man and Countdown to Necropolis respectively), the sisters of Death - Phobia and Nausea - used their powers to influence Kraken and rescue the Dark Judges from Limbo. With the Mega-City One judge force under their control, the Dark Judges created Necropolis - the city of the dead, killing 60 million citizens. Judges Dredd, Anderson and Chief Judge McGruder, together with a handful of cadet judges, returned via The Undercity to defeat them - returning the Sisters of Death to Deadworld, imprisoning Fear, Fire and Mortis within secure containment, and executing Kraken, who had become a fifth Dark Judge. Judge Death eluded capture by hiding in the burial pits of the Cursed Earth, but was eventually captured by Dredd with the aid of Batman (see Judgement on Gotham).
The Dark Judges escaped and were recaptured numerous times, until on his last attempt Death beat Anderson into a coma so she couldn't track him and escaped into the Cursed Earth. He then went on a killing spree, taking out Las Vegas, before seemingly being destroyed.
[edit] Character Details
The Dark Judges are undead and, as such, cannot be conventionally killed. They are ghostly spirits that must first inhabit dead bodies in order to do physical harm. This raises the question of how the four of them might reincarnate at once, but that was answered by the episode in which the spirits of the Dark Judges possessed and tricked Judge Anderson into preparing bodies for them. Reincarnation involves obtaining a fresh, dead body, either by murder or chance. The judges then summon elaborate machinery that produce "dead fluids" that bring the body to "full ripeness," then the spirit inhabits and animates the body. The incarnate Dark Judges are all emaciated, zombie-like humanoids with sharp claws, with which they frequently stab victims through their heads. All four speak with a hiss.
At this point, the Dark Judge dons a uniform, or "robes of office," which gives him his unique identity. It is rarely made clear how the uniforms are obtained. The first Batman crossover humorously treated this subject by showing the Scarecrow's henchman dress Death in biker garb. All the Dark Judges' uniforms are variants of the traditional judge uniform, with specific modifications based upon the judge's personality.
Judge Death appears in something close to a Judge's helmet, though its modified visor resembles a portcullis. Many 2000 AD illustrations make use of the visor as a visual shorthand for Judge Death. His mouth is pulled into a rictus. On his right shoulder is a pterodactyl, as opposed to the Judges' eagles. His left shoulder pad and elbow pads are festooned with bones. His tunic is fastened with crude stitches rather than a zipper, and his badge and belt buckle are shaped like a human skulls with extended fangs, the latter with bat wings. Death's preferred attack is to reach directly into his victim's chest and squeeze the heart until it bursts.
Judge Fear is an imposing figure with a black, iron helm obscuring his face. It is just as well since his primary attack is to open his faceplate before his victims, showing them the face of Fear and frightening them to death. His trademark phrase is "Gazzzzzze into the Face of Fear!". Judge Dredd however once responded by punching him and saying "Gaze into the Fist of Dredd!" The actual face under the helmet has only been seen once, and is shown to be a mass of eyeballs. (This is the face which Judge Dredd promptly punched through.) He has an assortment of bear traps dangling from his belt and is known to throw them at his enemies in order to immobilize them. His belt also holds an enormous padlock which he uses to secure his victims' potential exit routes. He wears a thick robe with ornamental bear traps on the shoulders. His belt buckle is a shrunken head.
Judge Fire is immersed in flame, but otherwise his uniform resembles Death's. He has a human skull for a head and wields a flame-spewing trident. As such he has the greatest kill capacity of his brethren. As a human, he was an undercover Judge named Fuego who had infiltrated a resistance group. He eventually led the group to the newly-created Judge Death to become his first kills. He earned the name Judge Fire when he was human, he burned a school down for breaking noise regs at playtime.
Judge Mortis is in a perpetual state of disintegration. Like Fire and Fear, he spent his early years as a trainee Judge at 'Law School' (a colloquialism for Deadworld's equivalent to Mega-City One's Academy of Law) and graduated after Judge Death. He quickly developed an admiration for Sidney's methods and beliefs and became one of his three lieutenants. He shared his comrade's zeal for passing arbitrary death sentences. His touch brings swift decay, and he is sometimes employed by Judge Death to prepare the Dark Judges' host bodies. His head is a sheep skull and he has a bony tail. His uniform's right shoulder is a bird skeleton and his left shoulder is protected by a perforated mantle. Mortis' badge is a stylized horse skull with his name emblazoned in wood. On more than one occasion, he uses the phrase "You cannot resssissst ussssss!", which is usually directed at Judge Anderson.
[edit] Additional characters
- Nausea is a haglike, decayed humanoid with an assortment of gory tentacles, claws and eyeballs on her right shoulder and elbows. Her left shoulder has two apparently live human heads on it. Her badge is a human skull, much like Death's. Both she and Phobia have incredible supernatural & psychic powers, even having the power to increase decay and darken the sun over the areas they've dubbed a Necropolis. As spectral beings, they cannot be physically damaged and need only a psychic anchor in Mega-City One to attack our world.
- Phobia looks much like her sister but has an extended proboscis and has live heads as earrings. Her right shoulder is covered by a large scorpion and her elbows and knees by spiders (although Carlos Ezquerra draws the latter with just six legs). Snakes wrap around her arms. Her left shoulder is a mass of worms, and her badge is a spider.
The undead incarnations of Nausea and Phobia normally only appear as spirits, although they do appear in their mortal form in the Judge Death prequel story, Judge Death: Boyhood of a Superfiend.
- Judge Kraken, while a Dark Judge, was appropriately decayed. He suffered the loss of his right hand by inadvertently trying to use another judge's lawgiver, thereby setting off its self-destruct mechanism. He wore the usual Judge's uniform, though it was cracked and deformed.
- Pustula, Ephemera and Dementia are the most recent characters to be introduced. They are three 'cousins' of the Sisters. Pustula is an obese, boil & pus-ridden monster who spreads the blisteria-101 virus which turns its victims, including robots, into a mass of boils. Ephemera is a naked ghostly figure with a mane of hair, who creates heavy poltergeist activity. Dementia resembles a normal human, wearing only a bikini made out of bats (which surround her) and toxic mud on her hands, who inspires waves of suicidal dementia.
- Half Life was a formerly human victim of the Sisters, before being turned into an insect-headed, poison-spreading monster. His toxic, disease-ridden spirit was turned into a psychic virus, one that Judge Death infected Anderson's mind with when he defeated her in 2124. When modified by the insane Judge Fauster of Psi Division's Department of Magic, it became a psychic infection inspiring a wave of mass-murder across Mega-City One.
[edit] Deadworld Judges
The Judges of Deadworld wore similar uniforms to those of Mega-City One judges, coloured black with red trim; and a pterodactyl device on the right shoulderpad. They were brutal and a law unto themselves: a recruitment poster exhorted candidates to join the Judges and offered such incentives as "Beat people up. Kill anyone you like (within reason). Good rates of pay. Plenty of graft. Vicious nature a plus. LUNCHEON VOUCHERS." (Young Death: Boyhood of a Superfiend, Judge Dredd Megazine issues 1-12). Unsurprisingly they easily attracted psychopaths like the future Dark Judges; and in their last days applied the death penalty for even the merest of misdemeanours. When the Dark Judges seized power, the Deadworld Judges were inspired to join them and assisted in the massacre of the entire population before being killed themselves.
The Deadworld, despite having a Judge system and having some degree of future tech, did not possess City Blocks or most of the features the Mega-Cities do, instead being very much like 20th Century Earth. Dreaming was considered abnormal and dangerous, and those who dreamt repeatedly were often Psis, who were rounded up by the Judges.
[edit] External links
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