Judge Dredd: 'Luna 1'

NAME
Judge Dredd: 'Luna 1'
(Barney implies that 'Marshall On The Moon' is an alternative title)

FIRST PUBLISHED
2000 A.D. Prog 42

DATELINE
10 Dec 77

PAGE COUNT
5

REPRINTS
The Complete Judge Dredd 4, Judge Dredd: The Early Cases 5 and Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files 01.

SYNOPSIS
Dredd is transferred to the Moon and someone is trying to kill him.

FIRSTS & LASTS
First appearance of Luna-1 and Judge Tex.

INFORMATION
The Grand Council of Judges is ruled by the Office of the Triumverate (presumably the Triumverate includes a representative of each of the three great cities of North America).

The international treaty of 2061 divided a million square miles of the surface of the moon between the three great cities of North America. A colony was established and named Luna-1. Every six months, one of the three cities would be required to supply a Judge-Marshall to govern the Luna-1 police force. There are at least seven volumes of Luna Law. Those governing weapons on Luna-1 are not rigidly upheld. Killjoy Destructor Missiles (or KDM's) are readily available.

Luna-1's Oxi-Dome Complex only covers a fraction of its territory, but outside there are mines, chemical works, a water collection plant. The Space-Port is within the Oxi-Dome has at least two terminals and houses the Armstrong monument. Teddy Lakers' Spacetrain operates from here.

The shuttle from Mega-City One's Kennedy Space-Port takes a half a day to reach Luna-1.

The Rent-A-Robot Agency rents out robots.

JUDGE DREDD
He has been appointed Judge-Marshall of Luna 1. His ship is shot at en route to Luna-1 and robot Fred 1 tries to kill him upon arrival. His new quarters are above Luna 1's Justice H.Q.

OTHER CHARACTERS
WALTER THE WOBOT
He is not pleased to see Dredd go to the moon and stows away in his trunk.

JUDGE TEX
He is Dredd's deputy.

FRED 1
A robot from the Rent-A-Robot Agency. He is programmed to kill Dredd. When he fails and is questioned about it, he self-destructs.

ARRESTS
None.

DEATHS
None. Does Fred 1's self-destruction count?

BEST LINES
Walter: "A bit wuff and weddy, but there's plenty of woom and - good gwief!...There's a wobot in your closet!"

WORST LINES
Walter: "Kwash! Judge Dwedd's done it!"

CATCHPHRASES
Dredd insults Walter with a "Drokk you". Judge Tex greets Dredd with a "Waal Howdy". Walter gives us awound, cwuel, destwoy, Dwedd, dwive, dwokk, gweetings, gwief, kwash, misewable, pwogwammed, stwange, wascal, weddy, went, wetainer, wip, wobot, woom, wotten and wuff, but he manages say greatest, Servo robot and Dredd without a problem.

CONTINUITY & CROSSOVERS
Kennedy Space-Port was last seen in The Return Of Rico.

INFLUENCES & REFERENCES
Teddy Laker's Spacetrain is a reference to Freddie Laker (1922–2006), British airline entrepreneur and founder of Laker Airlines, which traded between 1966 and 1982.

Moonbases were seen in the Doctor Who stories The Moonbase (1967), The Seeds of Death (1969) and Frontier in Space (1973), as well as Moonbase 3 (1973) and Moonbase Alpha of Space: 1999 (1975–1977).

MISTAKES
Triumvirate is unfortunately spelt triumverate.

RETROSPECT
None.

NOTES
Luna 1 shares its name with a Russian spacecraft launched in 1959 which was intended to impact on the Moon's surface and send back telemetry. Due to a mistake during launch, it missed the Moon and instead became the first spacecraft to leave geocentric orbit.

CREDITS
Script: John Howard
Artist: Ian Gibson
Letters: Tony Jacob

REVIEW
Well, this is a surprise. Mega-City One was still full of possibilities, but maybe we were a little too comfortable there. The artwork is great, but gives away very little of lunar life. The background we are given reveal more political and historical information than anything else. We don't yet know the scope of Dredd's role here, but it's obvious he has gone from big city lawman to small town sheriff in one step.

Next Prog: Showdown On Luna-1