OMAC YOUR ENTHUSIASM (23)
By:
June 23, 2026
One in a series of enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, analyzing and celebrating our favorite… Seventies (1974–83) sci-fi novels and comics! Series edited by Josh Glenn.
JUDGE DREDD | JOHN WAGNER & CARLOS EZQUERRA | 1977–ongoing
“Nobody’s innocent, citizen. We’re just here to determine the level of your guilt,” says Judge Dredd to a stuttering denizen of Mega-City One. Set 122 years in the future, Dredd is a Street Judge, part police officer, part judge, part executioner within the “Judge System” which includes all different types of Judges like telepaths and accountant judges. The system has not only replaced due process but also governments entirely. Joseph Dredd himself is never seen without his eye-covering helmet; only his mouth is visible, the slight movement of his lips the sole indicator of human expression.
Science fiction writers are the closest thing we have to prophets. Debuting in 1977 in a British sci fi weekly magazine, 2000 AD, Dredd emerged during a peak era of the lone-lawman love affair. Think, Dirty Harry. In Britain rising unemployment and social instability, followed by the austerity of Margaret Thatcher, left the working class feeling powerless. Conservative politicians peddled divisive rhetoric driving wedges between the population. Dredd became a form of wish fulfillment: an incorruptible authority who could cut through bureaucratic paralysis and impose order where politics had failed.
In Dredd, world wars have left most of the planet decimated and toxic, and the majority of the population live in huge mega-cities. With automation and AI eliminating the need for labor, much of the population is left idle and unemployed, desperate, and drawn toward vice. Crime, drugs, and gang affiliation become substitutes for purpose, reducing entire city blocks to tribal battlegrounds. If Star Trek imagines a post-labor future as utopia, Judge Dredd offers something much more frightening. In 2026, its world feels less like satire and more like a plausible extension of the present — even with its mutants, demons, and genetically modified animal people.
In the comics, the Judges eventually reject “Robot Judges,” recognizing that automated justice ends in mass death. It’s a rare moment of clarity. I don’t see our world showing the same restraint. Flawed facial recognition and predictive policing systems are already used to assess where crime will occur, and who is likely to commit it. Currently in our world’s bloodiest battles, near-autonomous weapons and targeting systems are being tested with less and less human oversight.
Today’s enforcers don’t wear stylized helmets or ride “Lawmasters”, ICE agents appear in dingy camouflage and body armor. They drive shitty unmarked minivans and SUVs, their faces are obscured by snoods. The inverse of Dredd, only the eyes remain, no lips, no expression. Punishment without due process increases, as the public grows accustomed to it, absorbing executions and disappearances the same way we absorb the endless stream of violent imagery from distant wars scrolling past on our screens, some of it real, increasing dopamine and outrage with every swipe.
Judge Dredd began as a dark joke about strongman fantasies, austerity politics, and techno-authoritarianism. Its power now lies in how little it feels like parody. The comic still runs after all these years, and has experimented with prescient themes like Defund the Police, as one judge proposes to spend less on killing and chasing gear and more on community resources. God bless them for trying.
OMAC YOUR ENTHUSIASM: INTRODUCTION by Josh Glenn | Mark Kingwell on RIDDLEY WALKER | Carlo Rotella on THE FACE | Sara Ryan on DREAMSNAKE | Matthew Battles on THE WORD FOR WORLD IS FOREST | Ramona Lyons on HIGH-RISE | Adam McGovern on SHADRACH IN THE FURNACE | Deb Chachra on THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY | Tom Nealon on DHALGREN | Michael Grasso on FLOW MY TEARS, THE POLICEMAN SAID | Stephanie Burt on BRIGHTNESS FALLS FROM THE AIR | Nikhil Singh on SABRE | Gordon Dahlquist on VALIS | Miranda Mellis on THE DISPOSSESSED | Marc Weidenbaum on SOFTWARE | Peggy Nelson on THE TRANSMIGRATION OF TIMOTHY ARCHER | Josh Glenn on ENGINE SUMMER | Mimi Lipson on A SCANNER DARKLY | Douglas Wolk on THRILLER | David Hirmes on ARZACH | Anthony Miller on THE SHOCKWAVE RIDER | Annie Nocenti on JIMBO | Seth on MR. MACHINE | Alex Brook Lynn on JUDGE DREDD | Joe Alterio on THE INCAL | Jason Grote on JOSIE AND THE ELEVATOR.
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