Judge Child

as Wagner's long-term co-writer of the series (beginning in the final episodes set on Xanadu).

ynopsis

A dying member of Psi Division has a precognitive vision that Mega-City One will be destroyed unless the Judges can find the "Judge Child," a boy called Owen Krysler with extreme telepathic and precognitive powers and a birthmark on his head shaped like the Judges' Eagle. Krysler is destined to rule Mega-City One in its direst hour. Dredd is sent after the boy and tracks him across the Cursed Earth to Texas City where the Judge Child falls into the hands of the Angel Gang who escape from Earth. Dredd uses the ship Justice One to pursue the gang and the Child across a number of star systems and through various strange encounters with alien worlds.

Dredd becomes convinced that only by using Oracle Spice will he be able to find the Child, and after further dangerous adventures he gains this on the planet Necros. Oracle Spice gives precognitive powers to whoever takes it (similar to the spice from the Dune saga), but is very dangerous to the inexperienced user. Dredd orders a member of the Justice One crew, Judge Lopez, to take the Oracle Spice. This kills Lopez, but not before he reveals that the location of the Judge Child is known by the 'Jigsaw Man,' whom Dredd traces to the planet Ab. The 'Jigsaw Man' is a human called Prosser who had been the pilot of a spaceship hijacked by the Angel Gang, who are heading to the robot free planet of Xanadu. Prosser has contracted an alien wasting disease that causes him to vanish piece by piece, and just before he dies he tells Dredd that he believes the Judge Child is evil, because it was the Judge Child who caused him to catch the disease in the first place, apparently intentionally.

Dredd begins to doubt the mission but continues to Xanadu where he confronts and kills most of the Angel Gang, who had also begun to suspect the boy had been manipulating them. However the last of the Angel Gang is killed by the Child himself. Finally having hold of the Judge Child, Dredd looks into his eyes and sees that he is evil, abandoning him on the planet.

Dredd believed that the ruler of his city had to be pure and uncorrupted, and that Owen Krysler was unfit to rule. However for deliberately failing in his mission Dredd himself had to be judged, in the story's epilogue "Block War" in prog 182. This story introduced another major character, Judge McGruder, who thought that Dredd had exceeded his authority.

In a sequel called "Destiny's Angels," the Judge Child was executed for attempting to assassinate Dredd in revenge for depriving him of the opportunity to rule. In McGruder's eyes this vindicated Dredd's earlier judgement of him, and she authorised the execution herself.