New York City formed the centre of Mega-City One. Over time, most of the city (particularly Times Square) was concreted over and became the a areas known as Undercity[1]and also known as Old New York ; the Empire State Building and others were moved up to the main city for the tourist trade.[2]Either urbanisation stretched across the sea to Liberty Island or the Statue of Liberty has been moved, as it's now part of Mega-City One. There's a weak point in the fabric of time at Times Square, where two old Indian paths meet.[3]
History[]
In Indian legend, Manhattan Island was known as Man-a-Hat-Ta, 'the garden of heaven'. A race of immortals lived there, committing acts that angered "the Star Lords" that created them. Twenty thousand years ago, the Star Lords sent in Judge Mathew Laza who ordered the immortals to reduce their lifespans to a thousand years (and exterminated those that resisted). A surviving immortal, Paul Klesa, murdered three young women at Times Square (or its predecessor Long acre Square) every 150 years, as part of a birthday ritual that allowed him to see his dead family. He was caught and sentenced to jail for his most recent killings in 1980.[4]
A Predator hunted in New York in the late 20th century.[5]
In 2001, the city was hit by a heatwave (temperatures reached 100 degrees farenheight for 18 days), the Son of Son of Sam stalked the city, and severe riots broke out in Harlem. Unrecorded in history was that a time-travelling Judge Dredd murdered several New Yorkers to stop an alien plague from spreading in his time.[6]
By the 2020s, New York had become part of a growing megacity sprawl.
When the first Judges came in, the Governor of New York attempted to oppose the Judges on constitutional grounds, quietly helping to escalate tensions to help his career. During a major storm that flooded the city in 2034, however, two Judges would save the governor from a murderer they were hunting down. This exposed the governor's machinations and removed another obstacle to Justice Department.[7]
In June 2047, to root out an anti-judicial terrorist group called the Patriots, Justice Department locked down New York for most of a fortnight. Queens was turned into a warzone but the Judges eventually pacified it. By getting away with this lockdown, their power and position was consolidated.[8]
After the Autonomy Act was passed, New York was now formally part of a megacity. At some point, large parts of it were built over by the new city and the Undercity took root.
In the films[]
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a view of New york city looking west as the sun sets centered on a Unnamed sector in or near what is now New York in the year 2134.
- The Statue of Liberty can be seen in the 1995 film. This indicates Heavenly Haven Block is located somewhere in the vicinity of Old New York.
Notes[]
- The Lenape name for Manhattan ("Mannahatta") actually means "land of many hills", not "garden of heaven". The 'Indian' mythology mentioned in "Birthday Boy" was made up by Pat Mills.
- Judge Dredd was originally meant to be set in a future New York City and his first strip, "Judge Whitey", was explicitly set there. However, Carlos Ezquerra's design of the city was so futuristic that it prompted a rethink.[9] and the very next strip expanded that to "New York - part of the vast Mega-City 1 in America"[10].
References[]
- â Prog 36-7: "The Troggies"
- â Tempest: Time Zero
- â Birthday Boy and Tempest: Time Zero
- â Prog 1613: "Birthday Boy part 1 and 2"
- â Judge Dredd vs Predator - either a reference to Predator 2, with John Wagner forgetting that was set in Los Angeles, or a reference to the first Predator comic
- â Progs 919 to 927, "The Exterminator"
- â Judges: Lone Wolf novella
- â Judges: The Patriots
- â Pat Mills's blog, September 22, 2012 (retrieved November 12, 2012)
- â Prog 3