Sunday 3 July 2011

Whitewashing Mega City One?

Valhallahan
In a rare act of Bad Guy synergy, like Ash, I've recently been renewing my interest in 2000AD characters. Largely the peripheral characters like Button Man and classics like Dredd and Bad Company. Anyway, in my Dredd reading I picked up on something I'd long since forgotten: Chief Judge McGruder used to be black.

Exhibits A and B
In the world of Dredd Judge Hilda Margaret McGruder was head of the SJS (Judge Internal Affairs division) who later became Chief Judge of Mega City One, after making a poor decision she opted to take "The Long Walk" which is the Judges' retirement package. The long walk entails the retiring judge exiling themselves from the city armed with their Law-Giver gun to "bring law to the lawless" in the radioactive wastelands of the Cursed Earth (and our public sector think they're hard done by!). Years later during the Judge Dredd Mega-epic "Necropolis" which Ash kindly loaned me the other day, an exiled Judge Dredd happens upon former Judge McGruder in the radioactive wastelands, whom he teams up with to save Mega City One from Judge Death and his Bitches From Hell. To cut a very long story very short, at the end of Necropolis McGruder is reinstated as Chief Judge and all is well, except for the fact that her time in the Cursed Earth has turned her into a mental with a lady-goatee.

It also turned her white.

McGruder in post

McGruder taking The Long Walk

McGruder post-Necropolis
To my knowledge there's never been an in-story explanation for this, so what happened? Was it a colouring error? Had they always intended her to be white? Had they forgotten she was black? What the shit?
As an aside, in the 1995 "Judge Dredd" movie starring John Spartan, McGruder is portrayed as white. But then again, I wouldn't even know where to begin, listing the problems whith that movie.

Friday 1 July 2011

Happy Canada Day!

HAPPY CANADA DAY FOLKS!

Us Bad Guys are going to go get pissed with some genuine Canadians in Trafalgar Square, so should you.
Excelsior!


Valhallahan