Backstory
The Judge Dredd comic strip is mostly set in Mega-City One in the 22nd century, on the east coast of the former United States. When President Robert L. Booth started the Third World War in 2070 (see Atomic Wars), the Judges – until then no more than a police force with extraordinary powers – deposed Booth, overthrew the Constitution and seized control of all institutions of government. Disillusioned with the elected politicians who had caused so much destruction to their country, much of the American public supported this move at the time. For the next four decades America was a dictatorship. (Mega-City One and the other American mega-cities became sovereign city-states early during this period, and the USA ceased to exist.) Although the Judges were initially popular, the citizens soon grew to resent their new leaders as much as they had the old, until activists began calling for a return to democratic government.
Although the events of 2070 were established early in the Judge Dredd strip (in 1978), the issue of the Justice Department's position in society was largely ignored for the first nine years of the strip's history. The only other references to the political relationship between the Judges and the citizens were the occasional brief appearances of the elected mayor of Mega-City One, who was shown to be subordinate to the unelected head of state: the chief judge. However in 1986 and 1987 co-writers John Wagner and Alan Grant finally addressed this topic seriously in two stories set in 2108 and 2109. As Wagner later explained:
| “ | Occasionally we'd get letters from children who seemed to be agreeing with his hard-right stance, so we made the strip more political to bring out the fact that we didn't agree with Dredd. We introduced a democratic movement in Mega-City One as a counterpoint. So in a way the readers helped the character develop. | ” |
Grant recalls a more random genesis:
| “ | "Letter from a Democrat" is still one of my all-time favourite Dredd stories. Funny to think it was originally titled "Letter from a Baffin Island Nudist", but 2000 AD rejected it on the grounds the art would necessarily have to show much nudity. We thought for about 5 seconds before we came up with Democracy as a replacement. | ” |
Read more about this topic: Democracy (Judge Dredd Storyline)