In "Dead Reckoning", Dredd does it again. Guess Judge Fear never learns.
The conclusion of the Cold DeckStory Arc, which crosses over with The Simping Detective and Low-Life. Though the lead in was pure awesome too. Special mention goes to the moment in Prog 1807 where Judge Dredd kicks a door down between his own strip and The Simping Detective, with a change in creative teams mid-kick revealing the whole thing had been linked all along.
The revelation that The Dead Man was Dredd all along. To elaborate, the story was presented as a completely unrelated Spin-Off set out in the Cursed Earth written under the Pen Name of Keef Ripley. Dredd stories were still printed concurrently so as not to give the game away. The story itself feels almost like a Genre Shift from science fiction to outright horror with Weird West elements.
Dredd literally crawling to Mega City Two to finish his mission at the end of The Cursed Earth.
And before this, Spikes Harvey Rotten makes a Last Stand against an army of robots so Dredd can get the vaccine to Mega City Two.
Dredd's motorcycle gets one in "The Judge Child." Dredd allows himself to be enslaved by the followers of Filmore Faro, telling his motorcycle to follow at a discreet distance. The motorcycle drives up to the entrance to Faro's compound.
Guard #1: Maybe we oughta speak to it in bike... Phut, phut, phut! That means stop!
Guard #2: Yeah! Ha-ha! Vroom vrooom! That means scram or we open fire!
PJ Maybe gets one during Day Of Chaos. The Dark Judges come knocking on his door, looking to kill anyone in sight. PJ kills the bodies they inhabit and strikes a deal with them, giving them new bodies in exchange for a quick death. PJ manages to bottle the three of them up, trapping them for when he needs them for his own purposes.
At the end of the Democracy arc, a group of 2 million people march on the Grand Hall, believing the referendum to have been rigged. Dredd decides that a more tactful approach than using riot squads is called for. He walks up to them, unarmed, and convinces their leaders that he is the law.
Dredd stuffing the microphone down the throat of a smarmy reporter who treats war as a trivial sport.
Judge Dredd once arrested two rather stupid and oblivious criminals who broke into his apartment while he was off-duty. All of this while he was having a bath, which he didn't get out of.
After decades of genetic apartheid, Dredd forced the government of Mega-City One to allow mutants to be citizens, despite the damage this did to his career and the social strife... because something being hard didn't mean it wasn't the right thing to do.
Judges making use of Stub Guns against Sov armour.
Souster's Dying Moment of Awesome, which he pulls off by diving off the overzoom and slicing through the entire Dan Tanna junction with his Stub Gun, cutting off the Sov advance. It's even recognised as being awesome In-Universe, with an observing Judge (who may or may not be Dredd) commenting that Judge Souster knew how to go out.
Dredd infiltrating Sov-occupied Grand Hall of Justice to assassinate a brainwashed Chief Judge Griffin on live tv, faking his own death and fighting his way out, burning down the Grand Hall in the process.
Dredd puts together a commando team to take the fight to East Meg One. They succeed through an epic gambit involving a hijacked tunnelling nuke and manage to wipe East Meg One off the map using their own missile silos.
After being captured, Dredd is released by Izaaks, who has had enough abuse from Kazan. Dredd executes Kazan with a gun given to him by Izaaks, then cooly orders the remaining Sovs to stand down. This is enough to end the war.
In Incubus, Dredd's team is attacked by a Xenomorph that kills several Judges in short order. Does he stand by and call for back-up? Nope, he immediately crawls into the vents to chase it down. He then single-handedly defeats the 8 foot tall, armor-plated killing machine in close quarters combat.
At the end of "Judgement Day", in order to distract Sabbat, Johnny Alpha projects an image into Sabbat's mind altering the appearance of Dredd armed with Sadu's katana to the Grim Reaper with his scythe. Sabbat, being immortal, seriously freaks out begs not to be killed. Dredd sticks his head to the lodestone instead, leaving him trapped forever.
"Punks Rule!" set just after "The Day The Law Died" has Griffin, Pepper and Dredd discussing an area of the city that has been taken over by a gang known as the Cosmic Punks. Griffin and Pepper want to send in a 50 man squad. Dredd, thinking that this idea gives the punks too much credit, decides to go in by himself and clear the place out with a garbage truck.
Prog 1998 finally sees Dredd get his man by pushing PJ Maybe off a ledge, shoot him on the way down and cause him to blow up thanks to the grenade Maybe tried to use to kill Dredd. It's astoundingly cathartic to witness Maybe's Joker Immunity finally come to an end in quite explosive fashion.
In Prog 2000 Anderson turns the tables on Judge Death when he uses his psychic powers to invade her dreams. She roundly trashes him after pointing out she's the boss inside her own head and tells him that she'll finally wipe every last trace of him from her mind. She stomps on his head and wakes up fresh as a daisy. This is even more awesome if you remember that the Dark Judges originally became recurring enemies when Judge Death managed to mess with Anderson's dreams enough to convince her to dimension-jump back to Deadworld, where the Dark Judges would possess her and use her as a vassal to regain physical form. It shows just how far she's come.
In the Helter Skelter story, Dredd uses his Lawgiver skills to take out an H-wagon (massively armed hover ships) by himself by sniping the cockpit, the equivalent of a guy with a Beretta taking out an aircraft carrier.
While Dredd wouldn't be the beloved character he is without being the hidebound fascist asshole he is, the fact he is a hidebound fascist asshole means that it's still good to see him get his comeuppance once in a while. The fact it happens so rarely means that it's always memorable when somebody gives Ol' Stoneface a good punch on the chin.
When Mean Machine's short-lived "team-up" with Dredd is ended due to the brain surgery wearing off, Dredd decides to try and subdue Mean Machine with his bare hands, his idea of a "thank you" for the sincere help Mean Machine provided on the mission. The crazed cyborg proceeds to beat Dredd so savagely that Dredd promptly changes his mind, grabs his gun and shoots out Mean Machine's knees out of fear for his life.
In their first encounter, Stan "Deathfist" Lee truly cements his in-universe reputation as one of the greatest martial artists in the world by delivering Dredd the first ever legitimate Curb-Stomp Battle that Dredd had been on the wrong side of.
At the climax of the Skysurf 10 story arc, out of respect for Chopper, the new world champion deliberately rams Dredd with his board so that Dredd misses his shot on the fleeing Chopper. Then an Oz Judge pulls his own Lawgiver on Dredd and gives him a "The Reason You Suck" Speech, getting right into the face of a man already considered In-Universe to be a Memetic Badass and telling him to get out of the country, making it very clear that the Oz Judges will not lift a finger to bring Chopper in.
In one short story, an Asian mystic named Yu-Tsu comes to Mega-City One in search of Enlightenment. Dredd proceeds to brutally interrogate him, suspecting him of being a Sino-City Spy, and then, when forced to admit that he's an innocent traveler, demands that Yu-Tsu leave without having seen the city. At this, Yu-Tsu gives Dredd his own "The Reason You Suck" Speech and then belts him right in the kisser with a strong left hook.
When Dredd first crosses paths with Batman during "Judgment on Gotham", he knocks the vigilante out cold with a sucker-strike from his daystick. Shortly afterwards, Batman returns the favor by busting out of his interrogation chair and flooring Dredd with a good punch to the face, then literally kicks him whilst he's down for good measure. He follows this up by getting a good blow or two to Dredd in both of the subsequent parts of the quadrilogy - "Vendetta in Gotham" and "The Ultimate Riddle".
During the first Luna City arc, there's a land rush on a newly-opened section of the Moon. A group of thugs captures an old woman who acquired a particularly choice plot of land (and has refused to sell it to them). They place her in a Mind Control device, turn it up as high as it can go without destroying her mind completely, and order her to sign a contract turning the land over to them. She starts writing her signature - and then suddenly scratches it out. An old woman has as much strength of will as Dredd himself.
"I won't sign!"
A few Awesome moments could be found in "Judge Dredd: Origins", both in the mission to recover the 'Father of Justice' Chief Judge Fargo and in the flashback sequence to the early days of the Justice Department and how it came to power.
The year was 2070 and America was in dire straits. The Atomic Wars launched by the warmongering imperialist President Booth have come and gone, and much of the world had been reduced to an irradiated wasteland. The Justice Department is desperate to get rid of him, but are hamstrung by their own laws, and any impeachment proceedings would take too long, during which Booth would use the chance to end the Justice Department. So how did they eventually unseat Booth? At the advice of a recently-defrozen Fargo, they invoked the oldest law of the land: The Declaration of Independence, charging Booth and his administration for having become a threat to Americans' natural right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness with his mad war, and using it as the legal basis to end his tenure effective immediately. Though the Atomic Wars was the twilight of American democracy and unity with the coming of Judge rule and the Mega Cities going their own way, through the Declaration the Founders of America still managed to have the last laugh by helping to get rid of the president whose war help ushered its downfall.
What the Justice Department did as an immediate follow-up was also a political masterstroke. They have evidence from one of the president's advisors, and a video secretly taken, that President Booth had stolen the presidency via vote-rigging and murdered another advisor, Arnold Benedict, who knew about this to silence witnesses. While neither was enough to directly implicate Booth, the Justice Department still used the testimony and tape to have Booth Convicted by Public Opinion by broadcasting them nationwide post Atomic Wars. Together with the devastation of the war, it was enough to turn the once adoring public of America against President Booth (resulting in a massacre in front of the White House) and shatter the morale of the armed forces loyal to the President which helped the Justice Department win the subsequent Second American Civil War against Booth.
American Citizen: [Protesting at White House] Hanging's too good for you, Booth!
The film's main theme song and score by Alan Silvestri is quite stirring.
After Brisco is killed during his Leeroy Jenkins rush, Dredd goes on a mini-Roaring Rampage of Revenge and pumps multiple forms of ammo into the mooks in the room.
Admit it - Dredd pumping his gun as a salute to Justitia in the ruined High Court was pretty cool. He's looking up at her as if he's only now remembering all that Lady Justice stands for and empowers. The theme to the scene goes from sad, as Fargo's just died, to drop-dead epic.
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