Judge Dredd: Year One #3

The penultimate chapter of "The Long Hard Road" arrives with a striking Greg Staples cover that plants a young Judge Dredd — badge gleaming, Lawgiver drawn — amid a devastated cityscape littered with skulls and skeletal remains, birds circling through a haze of rubble and ruin. It's a fittingly grim image that captures Dredd as a lone figure of law standing resolute in a world already well-acquainted with death. With Matt Smith writing and Simon Coleby and Leonard O'Grady bringing the interior Mega-City One to life, this 2013 IDW series continues to make a compelling case for exploring Dredd's earliest days on the streets.