Judge Dredd was always about a fascist police state but when John Wagner wrote the America storyline (illustrated by Colin MacNeil), it tipped the series into a new place. Previously, Dredd was an enforcer of the law, doing what he believed was for the good of the people, albeit in a tough and unquestioning manner. After America’s pro-democracy story, in which Dredd crushes a groundswell of democratic feeling to protect the power of the Judges, we couldn’t look at Dredd in the same way again.
30 years later, Wagner’s original script has been unearthed. It has been reproduced in this book, along with the original story, as it appeared in the Judge Dredd Megazine back in the early 1990s. The book also includes a script commentary from Wagner, and new introductions written by Wagner and Garth Ennis.
America: Lost & Found will be released in hardcover on 30 September 2020 and is available to pre-order exclusively at the 2000AD webshop.
If you’d rather ditch the script and get more comics, Essential Judge Dredd: America is also out soon, reprinting more of the stories that came before and after this classic.