Judge Dredd

Judge Dredd is character from the same-named comic that has been printed in the British comic magazine 2000 AD since 1977. Set 122 years into the future where most of the world has been blown to fuck and the remains of humanity have packed into massive "mega-cities" where all law enforcement and justice is carried out by "Judges;" supercops who act as judge, jury and, oh yes, executioner. Over the years Dredd has dealt with robot uprisings, mile-tall habitation blocks trying to kill each other, dirty commies, rampaging fatties, interdimensional horrors, mutants, psychics, aliens, zombies and other crazy shit.

The series is simultaneously grimdark, silly and just plain awesome.

Hence, /tg/ fucking LOVES Judge Dredd.

Judge Dredd and its fellow 2000 AD titles have been a huge influence on British science fiction and gaming over the last 30 years. Warhammer 40,000 owes much of its background to 2000 AD, just look at the Adeptus Arbites for one of the more obvious influences. In fact, Games Workshop put out a board game in 1982, a RPG in 1985, and the skirmish game Block Mania in 1987. Years later, Mongoose Publishing put out a d20 RPG in 2002 and then another in 2009, this time using their version of the Traveller system.

If you're trying to present an oppressive, dystopian science fiction setting, but you don't want to get too serious, read some Judge Dredd.

Two movies have been made. The first came out in 1995 and starred Sylvester Stallone and Rob fucking Schneider. While it got a lot of the visuals right and even featured a ABC robot, the rest was just plain awful. Judge Dredd's creator John Wanger fucking hated it. The second came out in 2012 and is better. While the visuals have been towned-down and is a lot more grimier then in the comics, the feel and spirit is much more true to the source. Go see it.