Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files #1
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeJudge Dredd: The Complete Case Files #1 is the gateway volume of the longest-running and most ambitious British comics reprint project ever attempted — Rebellion's chronological, uncut collection of every Judge Dredd strip from 2000 AD. It places the character's entire origin in one accessible package for the first time: the very debut appearance of Judge Dredd in 'Judge Whitey' (Prog 2), the first multi-part Dredd epic 'The Robot Wars' (Progs 9–17), and foundational character introductions — including Walter the Wobot, Max Normal, Rico Dredd, and Judge Giant — that shaped the strip for decades. The stories collected here, dense with dark satire on authoritarianism, police brutality, and consumer culture, established the creative DNA that made Judge Dredd arguably the most significant ongoing British comics character of the 20th century. As the opening volume of a series that would eventually run to 40+ instalments, it set the template for how the entire Dredd back-catalogue would be organised, archived, and handed to new generations of readers.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
When Rebellion acquired the 2000 AD publishing rights in 2000, it inherited stewardship of a strip that had run continuously since March 1977 but had never been systematically reprinted in full chronological order. The Complete Case Files series, launched in December 2005, was Rebellion's answer: an ongoing line of trade paperbacks collecting every Dredd episode in sequence, uncut. Volume 1 drew on stories originally published across Progs 2–60 of 2000 AD, written primarily by John Wagner and Pat Mills — who co-created the character and founded 2000 AD respectively — with art from the strip's founding artistic stable of Carlos Ezquerra, Mike McMahon, Ian Gibson, Brian Bolland, John Cooper, and Massimo Belardinelli. The 2005 first edition was a British market paperback printed in black and white; a separate US edition distributed through Simon & Schuster followed in 2010, and in 2015 Rebellion issued a hardcover anniversary edition with restored colour pages signed by Ezquerra.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Collects Judge Dredd stories from 2000 AD Progs 2–60, originally published March–April 1977 through early 1978.
- Contains the first-ever published Judge Dredd story, 'Judge Whitey' (Prog 2, 5 March 1977), drawn by Mike McMahon — not Carlos Ezquerra, who had designed the character but quit before Prog 2 appeared.
- Includes 'The Robot Wars' (Progs 9–17, 1977) — the first multi-part Dredd storyline, written by John Wagner and credited as the story that elevated Dredd to the top of 2000 AD's popularity rankings.
- First collected appearance of Walter the Wobot, Dredd's robotic manservant, who debuted in 'The Robot Wars' and became one of the strip's most beloved supporting characters.
- First collected appearance of Max Normal (Dredd's informant), Rico Dredd (Dredd's clone brother and antagonist, whose origin and death appear in 'The Return of Rico!'), and Rookie/Judge Giant.
- Written by John Wagner, Pat Mills, and a rotating team of early contributors (Robert Flynn, Kelvin Gosnell, Malcolm Shaw, Joe Collins); art by Carlos Ezquerra, Mike McMahon, Brian Bolland, Ian Gibson, John Cooper, and Massimo Belardinelli.
- Published December 2005 by Rebellion as a black-and-white softcover (336 pages); a US edition via Simon & Schuster followed in 2010; a 10th-anniversary hardcover edition with restored colour pages, signed by Carlos Ezquerra, was released in 2015.
- Volume 1 of a series that eventually exceeded 40 volumes, making the Complete Case Files the most comprehensive chronological reprint of a British comics character ever published.
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