"Origins" is one of the longest Judge Dredd storylines to run in the pages of British comic 2000 AD. Making extensive use of flashbacks, it tells the story of how the Judges of Mega-City One rose to power. It was written by John Wagner and illustrated by Carlos Ezquerra, who between them created Judge Dredd in 1977. The story ran to 23 episodes and was published from 2006 to 2007 to mark thirty years of the Judge Dredd strip. It is set in 2129, Dredd's debut story having been set in 2099.
Wagner explained:
2000 AD editor Matt Smith has expanded on this to touch on the contents:
Publication history
"Origins" was preceded by a five-episode story called "The Connection", written by John Wagner and drawn by Kev Walker. It appeared in progs (issues) 1500-1504 and was immediately followed by "Origins" in progs 1505-1519 and 1529–1535. It had been intended that the final episode would appear in the comic's celebratory thirtieth anniversary issue, but publication was interrupted because artist Carlos Ezquerra moved house during his work on the story. The editor decided to permit him time to finish the strip himself rather than replace him with another artist.
Plot summary
"The Connection"
The prologue story introduces a team of mutants from the radioactive Cursed Earth desert outside Mega-City One, who infiltrate the city. Working for an unseen character called Linus, their task is to deliver a small box to the Grand Hall of Justice in the centre of the city. They are all killed by Judge Dredd while accomplishing this task, but Dredd fails to retrieve the box. The contents of the box are not revealed until the first episode of "Origins."
Meanwhile, Dredd, between his efforts to catch the mutants, has recurring dreams about his clone father, Chief Judge Fargo, and his brother, Rico Dredd (both long deceased). The dreams hint about the epic story to follow.
"Origins"
Premise
The box is delivered to Chief Judge Hershey, who informs Dredd that it contains a ransom note and a sample of living tissue which matches the DNA of Judge Fargo, the first chief judge and the revered founder of the Judge System. (Forensic tests establish that toxins in the tissue show that the source lived through the last century, and so the sample must be Fargo's rather than Dredd's.) The note requires payment of a billion credits in exchange for Fargo's body. As required by the terms of the exchange, Dredd leads a small, lightly armed party on a mission across the hostile Cursed Earth to retrieve their esteemed "Father of Justice."
Since Fargo was believed to have died in the year 2051, and the mission takes place in 2129, much of the story consists of Dredd explaining to the members of his team how it is that Fargo might still be alive – a secret history which was concealed from the public for decades.
Flashbacks
The middle chapters of "Origins" cover Fargo's life history, and how he founded his Judge System in 2031. After serving twenty years as chief judge, however, Fargo succumbed to a moment of weakness and had an illicit affair with a female colleague, something strictly forbidden by the Judges' code of celibacy. Unable to cope with his own lapse in the exacting moral standards he had inflexibly demanded of his subordinates, Fargo tendered his resignation to the President of the United States. Spurning the entreaties of his two deputies, Judge Solomon and Judge Goodman, and of President Pierce, to reconsider his decision and resume his office, Fargo instead chose to commit suicide. However his attempt to take his own life failed, leaving him with significant brain-damage and without the use of his legs.
Fearing that their political enemies would use the scandalous circumstances of Fargo's resignation and injuries to destroy Fargo's legacy, Solomon and Goodman covered them up. Using sophisticated video technology, they faked footage of Fargo bravely sacrificing his life in the line of duty, gunned down in a brutal drive-by shooting. This enabled them to present Fargo as a martyr, increasing public support for the Judges. This deception had been conceived while Fargo's doctors had predicted that he would not long survive. However Fargo defied their expectations and began to slowly recover. He was therefore kept in a secret medical facility, isolated from the world so that the cover-up would not be discovered. When his condition began to deteriorate again, Chief Judge Solomon had him cryogenically frozen in suspended animation until such time as medical science could cure him.