Predator vs. Judge Dredd

Published: October 22 to December 24, 1997 (cover dates October to December 1997)
Writer: John Wagner
Artist: Enrique Alcatena
Colors: Perry McNamee and Jimmy Johns, with John Hanan III and Dave Stewart on #1
Lettering: Gary Fields
Covers: Brian Bolland (#1), Dermot Power (#2), and Igor Kordey (#3)
Editor: Philip Amara
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics, with Egmont Fleetway
Format: Three-issue miniseries, collected in 2014 and 2016
Setting: Mega-City One and the ruins of old New York beneath it

Predator vs. Judge Dredd is a three-issue crossover miniseries written by John Wagner and drawn by Enrique Alcatena. Dark Horse Comics published it with Egmont Fleetway from October to December 1997. A lone Predator landed outside Mega-City One and began hunting the city's Judges, killing them on the streets, in a shopping complex, and on the rooftops. Judge Dredd tracked it with the help of Schaefer, a psychic descendant of Dutch Schaefer, down to the ruins of old New York beneath the city.

Plot Summary

Landing Outside Mega-City One

The Predator crouched in the wreckage outside Mega-City One, watching its pod drill into the ground as Gomer and his robot Ben look on

One night in the junk-strewn wasteland outside Mega-City One, an old man named Gomer and his robot Ben were stuck with a broken axle on their rad-truck when a shooting star came down nearby. Gomer had seen one as big as the truck fall in 2115 on a run to Texas City, and he noticed that this one made no impact. They found a Predator pod drilling itself into the ground, and Gomer hoped the Judges would pay a reward for news of it, while Ben wanted to fix the axle and get back to the city.

The Predator watched them from the wreckage. It marked Ben's head with the three red dots of its laser sight and blew the robot's head off. When Gomer drew a pistol and shouted for it to show itself, the dots settled on his chest, and a plasma bolt from its shoulder cannon killed him. The Predator stood over the old man's body with its spear and turned toward the lights of the city.

Ambush On The Zoom Line

At one in the morning, the Judges were out in force in a city of 400 million people. Judge Dredd broke up a riot outside the Red Rag bar and shot two armed robbers before an alert sent him to a juve gang fight at Yeltsin Block. Skyboarders on flying boards were battling a gang on the ground there, while a cloaked Predator watched from the girders, repeated one juve's taunt in his voice, and opened fire.

The gangs scattered when the Judges arrived. Judges Rourke, Tulk, and Sola cornered some of the juves below the zoom line, an elevated monorail track, and Rourke threatened them with his daystick until the two younger Judges objected that if Judges broke the law, there would be no law. The Predator shot Rourke dead from the zoom line and wounded Sola with a second blast. Dredd arrived on his Lawmaster motorcycle and ordered Tulk to check the track with infra-red, which showed a tall figure firing from its shoulder.

Dredd In The Zoom Shed

Dredd fired high-explosive rounds from his Lawgiver pistol and blew the Predator off the track and through the glass roof of the zoom shed. Leaving Tulk with the wounded Sola, he went in alone, as he reasoned the creature might be alive, and followed a trail of green Yautja blood through the dark machinery. The Predator ambushed him and fired a barbed harpoon on a cable from a handheld launcher into his left shoulder, then hauled him up toward the girders by the line.

His boot knife could not cut the cable, so Dredd swung himself up and kicked the Predator in the face, knocking off its mask. He tore the harpoon out and fought the unmasked hunter with a metal pipe against its wristblades, but it was stronger than him and threw him down onto a rail below. The Predator left as the other Judges arrived, and although they searched the shed on infra-red, they found only Dredd, alive.

Schaefer Of Psi-Division

Dredd woke five hours later in the med-bay of the Grand Hall of Justice, with a patched shoulder and a bruised back, and got up and into uniform to the surprise of Sola, who was recovering in the next bed. In the meantime, the Predator had killed two more Judges, Phillips in Mercy Plaza and Koch on the roof of a mile-high block in the next sector. When Koch was found, his head and spine had been ripped out.

Dredd turned down Case Judge Morse's advice to return to the med-bay and took back the case in Operations Room Nine. Forensics had identified the killer from a sample of its blood as a Predator, one of a race of alien sport hunters whose camouflage made them practically invisible except in infra-red. The files named one possible weakness, that Predators could not survive long without the filters in their helmets, and they recorded earlier visits in the 20th century to the district that had been old New York.

Morse had called in Schaefer, a telepath and Psi-Division auxiliary, hoping she could get a psychic fix on the hunter. She was the great-great-granddaughter of Dutch Schaefer, the only survivor of the first human encounter with the creatures, and she explained that Predators lived for a challenge, took trophies, and followed a warrior code that made them ignore defenseless victims. In Mega-City One, the most dangerous prey was the Judges, and in its lair the Predator turned a Judge's badge over in its claws beneath a Judge's helmet and spine hanging as a trophy.

The Shoppera

Two young scavengers broke into an old block that was being demolished and found Koch's head and spine hanging on the top floor. Judges from an H-wagon stormed the building with concussion grenades and heavy fire, but the Predator had left its base, and blood traces showed only that it had been there recently. Dredd booked the two scavengers for trespass. Schaefer got only vague impressions from the blood sample, and she told Dredd that she disliked guns and normally worked on missing persons.

Meanwhile, the cloaked Predator followed a Petty Crime Unit Judge to the Shoppera, a domed shopping complex, and slipped in through a grating in its skylight. While the Judges below were arresting a petty thief, it blew one Judge's head off with a plasma bolt, dropped among the shoppers, and killed a second Judge with its shoulder cannon. It ran a third through with its spear on the stairs as it fled upward, and Dredd ordered every available unit and aerial surveillance to seal off the complex.

Judges Millar and Rodman followed the Predator into the roof section. It shot Millar with a plasma bolt, struck Rodman with a barbed bolt, and finished Millar with its wristblades while he was telling Rodman to get out. The Judges who reached the roof found both men strung up dead with their badges missing, and the Predator escaped by clinging to the underside of a passing zoom train.

Dredd And Schaefer

Five Judges died at the Shoppera, and a sixth was found mutilated on 2049th Street soon after, his badge also taken. Dredd judged that the Predator was no amateur, since it struck and ran in the only way a single hunter could fight superior numbers, and that it seemed to have accepted the challenge of taking on the whole Justice Department. By the evening, the news was reporting that eight Judges had died that day, bringing the toll to eleven.

Dredd reasoned that the Predator had lost its base that morning and would have found a new one where it was unlikely to be discovered. When Schaefer said she was exhausted and wanted to try again in the morning, he told her she could not turn her ability on at all and that he would call in other telepaths from Psi-Division. She walked out on him, and Dredd admitted that he was angry at himself for failing to stop the Predator when he had the chance.

The Predator's Blood

Driving home in anger, Schaefer realized she had forgotten to hand in the vial of the Predator's blood. A truck hit her car, the vial broke, and when she put her bloodied hand to her mouth she saw the Predator's face in a sudden vision. She drank the rest of the sample in front of the shocked truck driver, who asked her if she was some kind of vampire.

Fueled by its blood, her psychic link grew stronger, and in its lair the Predator sensed her probing its mind. Schaefer went into a trance and saw a captive Judge named Breen, and she called Dredd from the scene of the crash. At the Grand Hall of Justice, Dredd learned that Judge Frank Breen had gone to investigate Undercity Gate 2012 after finding it forced open, and had not been heard from since. Dredd sent a hover unit for Schaefer, ordered an assault squad to the gate and guards on every exit within a sector radius, and rode out with Tulk.

Judge Breen

In its lair beneath the city, the Predator had hung Breen up in chains, and the Judge taunted it to finish him. It slashed at him with its wristblades, then clutched its chest in pain, and outside the gate Schaefer felt that pain herself. The Predator picked up Breen's Lawgiver, which Breen urged it to fire at him, and pried open the grip, and Breen realized that it had spotted the booby trap built into the gun.

At the gate, the Judges were joined by two Mark 7 War Droids armed with napalm, laser cannon, and automatic trackers. Schaefer told Dredd that the creature was sick and possibly dying, and the Judges waited so that she could guide them. When the Predator tore into Breen's chest, she felt him die, and Dredd ordered the squad in.

Battle In The Undercity

After the Great Atom War, much of old New York had been left a contaminated ruin, and it had been cheaper to build over it in concrete than to clear it. Dredd led the Judges and the War Droids through the dark streets with helmet lights after their radios were blanked out. In a way he admired the creature's single purpose and its readiness to face impossible odds, qualities he shared, but he was determined that it would become the prey.

Schaefer warned them that the Predator had heard them coming, and the droids found it on the spire of a ruined cathedral. It fired its shoulder cannon down into the squad, and Tulk, the squad leader, was burned through his armor while shielding Schaefer. The droids answered with napalm, and the burning Predator fell from the spire with its spear and crawled out of the flaming rubble without its mask. Dredd sent the casualties back up with Schaefer and refused her plea to let her try to communicate with it.

Dredd sent one of the War Droids into the cathedral first to draw the Predator's fire. The Predator speared that droid's face, took a high-explosive round from Dredd, and leapt onto a droid, and laser fire aimed at it hit a napalm tank. The explosion destroyed a droid and left Dredd stripped to the waist and burned, and the Predator rode the last droid, slashing it and biting through its cables until it malfunctioned and collapsed.

The Final Fight

The burned Predator holding Judge Dredd's Lawgiver as Schaefer pleads with it and Dredd, stripped to the waist, draws his boot knife

Dredd shot and wounded the Predator, but Schaefer, who had followed him in, ran into his line of fire and begged them to stop. The Predator struck Dredd from behind, slashed him with its wristblades, and knocked the Lawgiver from his hand, then picked up the human weapon for itself. Schaefer stepped between them and told the creature that they could help it, but Dredd drew his boot knife and ordered her out of the way, and the Predator knocked her aside.

Dredd dared the Predator to use the gun. When it fired, the Lawgiver, which could recognize the heat print of its own Judge, set off its anti-personnel device and exploded in the Predator's hand. Dredd closed in while its arm burned and stabbed it with his boot knife, and the Predator roared with its mandibles spread before falling dead on its face.

Afterward, Schaefer told Dredd that the Predator had known the gun was booby-trapped. She believed it was sick and dying, in so much pain that it wanted to die, and Dredd concluded that it had taken on one final challenge that it knew it could not win. Schaefer told him that he should be honored.

Key Characters

Judge Dredd stabbing the Predator with his boot knife as its arm burns after the Lawgiver exploded

Judge Dredd blew the Predator off the zoom line, was harpooned and thrown onto a rail in the zoom shed, and left the med-bay to lead the hunt. He killed the Predator in the undercity with his boot knife after his Lawgiver exploded in its hand.
Schaefer was a telepath and Psi-Division auxiliary descended from Dutch Schaefer. She drank the Predator's blood to find its lair, tried to stop the killing in the cathedral, and survived.
The Predator was a lone hunter that killed Gomer and more than ten Judges, among them Rourke, Phillips, Koch, Millar, Rodman, and Breen. It was sick and in pain by the end, and it died after firing Dredd's booby-trapped gun.
Tulk was with Rourke and Sola on the zoom line, spotted the Predator on infra-red, and led the squad in the undercity, where he was burned through his armor and survived.
Sola was wounded by the Predator on the zoom line and recovered in the med-bay of the Grand Hall of Justice.
Rourke was a hard-handed Judge who was the Predator's first victim in the city.
Millar and Rodman were the Judges who chased the Predator into the roof of the Shoppera and were found strung up dead.
Frank Breen was the Judge who found Undercity Gate 2012 forced open and was captured and killed in the Predator's lair.
Morse was the Case Judge who brought Schaefer into the investigation.
Gomer and his robot Ben found the Predator's pod outside the city and were the first to be shot.

Editions

Dark Horse Comics published Predator vs. Judge Dredd as three issues titled Round One, Round Two, and Round Three, with cover dates of October, November, and December 1997. The first issue went on sale on October 22, 1997, and the last on December 24, 1997. The indicia titles it Predator Versus Judge Dredd and carries copyrights for Twentieth Century Fox and Egmont Fleetway. John Wagner wrote it, Alcatena drew it, Perry McNamee and Jimmy Johns colored it with John Hanan III and Dave Stewart on the first issue, and Gary Fields lettered it. Philip Amara edited it with assistant editor David Land and designer Mark Cox, and the third issue was printed in Canada.

Brian Bolland drew the first cover, a Predator in Dredd's uniform, Dermot Power drew the second, and Igor Kordey drew the third, which also carries a pin-up by Martin Emond on the back cover. Dark Horse collected the series with Judge Dredd versus Aliens: Incubus in the Predator versus Judge Dredd versus Aliens hardcover on October 8, 2014. In May 2016, 2000 AD reprinted the crossover at the start of Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files 27.

Behind The Scenes

John Wagner created Judge Dredd with Carlos Ezquerra, as the credits page of the miniseries notes. The comic thanks Maury McIntyre of 20th Century Fox licensing and Gil Page of Egmont Fleetway. Schaefer's ancestor is the commando played by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1987 film Predator, and the Judges' files on earlier visits place the Predators in old New York in the 20th century. Because 2000 AD's Case Files series collects Dredd's stories in order, the crossover's place in volume 27 among his regular 1997 cases counts it as canon within Judge Dredd continuity.

Dredd met the hunters again in Predator vs. Judge Dredd vs. Aliens: Splice and Dice in 2016, where he hunted Dr. Niels Reinstöt's Xenomorph hybrids alongside a clan of Predators. Wagner also co-wrote Judge Dredd versus Aliens: Incubus with Andy Diggle, and Dark Horse paired the two stories in its 2014 hardcover. Predator vs. Judge Dredd is one of the Predator crossovers that set the hunters against heroes from other publishers.

Conclusion

Predator vs. Judge Dredd is John Wagner and Enrique Alcatena's 1997 miniseries for Dark Horse and Egmont Fleetway. It follows a single Predator from its landing outside Mega-City One through its attacks on the Judges at the zoom line and the Shoppera to its lair beneath the city. The comic ends in the ruins of old New York, where the dying hunter fired Dredd's booby-trapped Lawgiver and Dredd killed it with his knife.