Rico Dredd

Not to be confused with Judge Rico.

Rico Dredd
Rico Dredd (drawn by Mike McMahon)
Publication information
Publisher	Rebellion Developments
First appearance	2000 AD prog 30 (1977)
Created by	Pat Mills and Mike McMahon

Rico Dredd is a fictional character in the Judge Dredd comic strip in 2000 AD magazine. He is the brother of Judge Joe Dredd, the strip's eponymous lead character.

Appearances

Rico first appeared in "The Return of Rico" in 2000 AD #30 (1977), written by Pat Mills and drawn by Mike McMahon. This story was retold in 1995, when Mills was asked to write an extended three-episode version of it to coincide with the release of the 1995 film,^[1] in which Rico appeared. As well as introducing the character of Rico Dredd, the 1977 story also revealed Joe Dredd's first name. (As the first editor of 2000 AD and the commissioning editor of the Judge Dredd strip, Mills had also given Dredd his surname, which originally had been going to be "Judge Dread."^[2])

Although Rico was killed off in his debut story, he occasionally recurs in flashbacks, most extensively in the story "Origins" (2006–2007) by John Wagner. His term of imprisonment on Titan is also a major plot point in the audio play Judge Dredd: Trapped on Titan.

Alternative versions of Rico from parallel universes also appeared in the novel "Dread Dominion" (1994) by Stephen Marley, in which he played a major role, and in the comic strip story "Helter Skelter" (2001) by Garth Ennis (in which he appeared as part of an ensemble cast of villains).^[3]

Rico Dredd's badge reads "Dredd." (Picture by Mike McMahon.)

Badge

Although in the original story, Rico was depicted wearing a judge's badge with the name "Dredd" (see image, left), some artists in later stories have erroneously drawn him with a badge labelled "Rico" as though it were his surname. This error was also included in the script to a story by writer Gordon Rennie.^[4] This is possibly based on confusion with the character Judge Rico, whose surname is Rico and whose badge therefore bears that name (see image here).

Character biography

Rico Dredd (2066–2099) was the "clone brother" of Joseph Dredd, which is to say that they were both cloned from the same genetic source, in their case Chief Judge Fargo.^[5] Their growth in the cloning tanks was artificially accelerated, so that within 16 months they emerged with the physical development of children aged five years. They also had their brains electronically induced with knowledge and training which greatly surpassed their apparent physical age, so that they could immediately begin training in law enforcement.^[6] Rico was removed from the cloning tanks twelve minutes before Joe, and so he habitually referred to Joe as his little brother (or "Little Joe").^[7]

At the Academy of Law Rico consistently demonstrated higher levels of skill than Joe, and he graduated at the top of their class in 2079, with Joe coming second.^[8] During his time as a cadet, he requested to join the older cadets in restoring order to the streets of Mega-City One in the immediate aftermath of the Atomic Wars of 2070. Rico and Joe served with distinction, and were personally chosen to take part in the raid on the White House to depose President Booth (who had usurped his office and had started the War).^[9]

However, following an injury during a training mission in the Cursed Earth, Rico began to become more aggressive, underhanded, and determined to prove himself better than Joe. After graduation, Rico began engaging in criminal activities, including extortion, assault and racketeering. Joe suspected that this was the result of exposure to radiation when Rico was injured on a training mission in the Cursed Earth.^[10] Joe's efforts to persuade Rico to change his ways fell on deaf ears. When Judge Kenner, Rico's former Assessing Judge, became suspicious, Rico secretly murdered him and hid the body.^[11]

Eventually Rico allowed his brother to find out about his crimes (except for Kenner's murder). When Joe witnessed Rico murder an innocent cafe owner who had refused to pay him protection money, Joe arrested him. Rico resisted arrest by opening fire, but the shots went wide. Given Rico's skill with a firearm, Joe would later posit the theory that Rico was trying to commit suicide by cop out of a deep disgust at what he had become, rather than trying to kill him.^[12] Rico received the mandatory sentence for corrupt judges – twenty years hard labour on the prison colony of Titan, where he grew to hate his brother. While he was there he illicitly fathered a daughter, Vienna Dredd, with a reporter who was interviewing him.^[13]

After serving his time on Titan, Rico returned to Mega-City One seeking revenge on Joe. Confronting him at his home, Rico challenged him to a duel to settle their differences, knowing that with his superior skills he could always outdraw his brother. However he had grown used to the weaker gravity of Titan after his twenty years there. This slowed him down by a split second and allowed Joe to shoot him dead. Carrying his brother's lifeless body out into the street, Joe declined a paramedic's offer of assistance, allowing the writer, Pat Mills, to conclude the story with a line from the Hollies song, "He ain't heavy - he's my brother!"^[14]

Film version

Rico Dredd in Judge Dredd portrayed by Armand Assante.

Rico appears as the main villain and antagonist in the 1995 Judge Dredd movie, in which Joe was played by Sylvester Stallone and Rico by Armand Assante. In this version, although they were cloned from identical DNA, they did not look the same. Rico was portrayed as a straightforward psychopath, having reached a point where he killed the innocent on the grounds that the division between guilt and innocence was merely a matter of timing and everyone would commit a crime in time. His deviant behavior was attributed to something going wrong in his creation which made him the perfect criminal. They were both friends in school (Joe was unaware of their true kinship, but it is unclear when Rico learned about their connection), but when he became a murderer, Joe judged him and sentenced him to life imprisonment, and his death was faked to reassure the public and prevent the truth of the clone program coming to light.

Rico later broke out of prison with help from Judge Griffin and killed a reporter who had been investigating the Judge program. Since he and Joe had the same DNA, Joe was wrongly convicted of the murder and given a life sentence. Griffin, Rico, and a scientist named Ilsa Hayden (Joan Chen) began working to reopen the cloning lab that created Rico and Joe. Griffin planned to create a new generation of Judges to enforce his views on the populace, but Rico wanted to create clones of himself to take over Mega-City One and killed Griffin to get him out of the way. Once Joe returned to the city, Rico tried to persuade him to join the effort; when Joe refused, Rico tried to kill him. The two fought atop the Statue of Liberty, and Joe threw Rico over the edge to his death.

See also

• Judge Rico
• Judge Kraken
• Other clones of Fargo and Dredd

References

External links

• Rico Dredd 2000 AD website profile