East Meg One

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East-Meg One is a fictional city in the world of Judge Dredd, the figurehead character of British weekly comic 2000 AD (comic). It was introduced in Prog 50 of 2000 AD but destroyed in Prog 267.

A judge of East-Meg One, drawn by Brian Bolland
A judge of East-Meg One, drawn by Brian Bolland

East-Meg One was intended to represent the remnants of the Soviet Union, and was centered on what had originally been Moscow. During the 1980s, at the tail end of the Cold War period in real-time, the city was often portrayed as hostile to Dredd's home city Mega-City One. Its peak population was said to be 500 million people. The city had its own Judge System controlled by a Supreme Judge, who headed up the city's ruling Diktatorat. It was Supreme Judge Bulgarin who initiated the Apocalypse War after years of careful planning. Bulgarin was quickly killed off on the orders of his most trusted War-Marshal, "Mad Dog" Kazan, who succeeded him as Supreme Judge.

The war broke out between East-Meg One and Mega City One when the East-Meggers invaded the American megacity and quickly subjugated it, killing half its population of 800 million. Judge Dredd lead a covert commando team into East-Meg One at the climax of the war, disabling its defences, and then personally pushed the button to launch the nuclear missiles that destroyed it. Numerous survivors and East Meggers who happened to be away from the city at the time of its destruction sought refuge in East-Meg Two, the sister city.

There are a small minority of survivors living in the radioactive environment of East-Meg's ruins, but the city officially no longer exists.