haha that’s a new one to me too.
if that doesn’t happen it’s called a priapism and you need to go to the emergency room
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also the main story in the most recent judge dredd megazine is really interesting.
it concerns a character who recently appeared in mega city one, claiming to be dredd from another universe. they’ve checked him genetically and psychically, and it appears that he is at least genetically identical to dredd, and also truly believes what he says.
however! he appears to be decades older than dredd, as he hasn’t had the rejuvenation treatments, surgeries, and implants dredd has had. why is this? in his universe, mega city one became a democracy around 40 years ago, after the end of judge caligula’s reign! he explains that, having seen the world in which the comic takes place, that this was the right decision: his world is cleaner, safer, happier, and so on. with the end of the judge system, he’s even been able to live a life full of richness that dredd never could, having a wife and kids back there, and having been able to develop for himself a personality beyond the cultlike indoctrination of justice department.
over universes seen in dredd stories, like in most comic stories, tend to be world where everything is even worse (the big example being deadworld, the origin of the dakr judges), or ones where things are mostly just a different flavour (like the universes of both live action movies, that have crossed over more than once in the comics). so it’s interesting to hear of a world where everything has turned out better for everyone, including dredd himself, and it did so by rejecting the fascism that dredd embodies.
it creates an interesting dilemma for the character, too. as mentioned, dredd is a fascist, indoctrinated from birth with absolute belief in and loyalty to the system he serves. he’s ruined and ended countless lives in his day-to-day work, as well as personally committing genocide against east meg one. but all this horror was justified because in the post-nuclear world, absolute control had to be taken of the people, it was too dangerous not to, and things would get even worse if it weren’t for the judges. but now, there’s evidence that the continued existence of the judges has actually made everything significantly worse, and everything he has done and the belief system around which he’s built his life is objectively wrong.
i really hope it doesn’t all turn out to be a hoax, as i think the addition of this knowledge and the doubt it introduces is really interesting.
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I did wonder if they’d dealt with this idea when I was playing that PS2 Dredd game a while back. Surprised it hasn’t come up before. Hopefully the issue drifts to the background with no satisfactory answer rather than some sort of twist that the utopia is a more Huxleyan nightmare
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The only satisfying conclusion would be to cancel the Judge Dredd comic strip book series for good and replace it with a new title that takes place 50 years after the first visit with this time/dimension traveler entitled “Youth Minister Dredd”
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