Anderson, Psi-Division

Cassandra Anderson is the eponymous protagonist of the 2000 AD and Judge Dredd Megazine strip Anderson, Psi-Division. She was born with psychic abilities. When she was three years old she lived with her mother and father in Edgar Cayce block. At night time a man regularly came into her room and sexually assaulted her. Cassandra thought of him as 'the monster'. He told her that if she told her mummy then he'd kill her, and that her daddy knew and said it was all right. Cassandra made a doll out of Plasticine (or similar) and stabbed it in the heart to kill the monster, but her father died instead. This made Cassandra sad, because she loved her father.

After this incident, Cassandra was taken into the custody of Justice Department's Psi-Division, who hid the memories of what she'd done deep in her mind, behind a psychic barrier. (This would explain why Anderson used to refer to herself as "Mrs Anderson's little girl," but never mentioned her father.) Anderson became one of Psi-Divisions top operatives, though her rebellious personality and flippant attitude did not always make her popular with her superiors. Psi-Judges are allowed a degree of personal freedom denied to their non-psychic colleagues, but tend to be regarded as eccentric, and Anderson was no exception.

When the alien superfiend Judge Death first came to Mega-City One from Deadworld, Anderson sacrificed herself to become a living prison for his evil psychic essence, being encased in the miracle plastic Boing® in a comatose state. She was later released as a side-effect of Death's comrades the Dark Judges freeing him, and has become one of Death's most implacable foes.

Anderson is also a staunch ally of Judge Dredd (without her assistance he might not have been able to end the Apocalypse War), though he disapproves of her anti-authoritarian attitude. He once described her as having a "defective personality," but he later apologised for this and admitted that she was in fact his friend.

One of the most traumatic events in Anderson's life was the suicide of her best friend, Psi-Judge Corey, who had become convinced that people with beautiful abilities (Corey was an empath) shouldn't use them to do ugly things. (See quotes.) Shortly after this she had a mental breakdown, in the course of which she rediscovered the memories of her childhood abuse and how she had stopped it. She also witnessed the death of PsiKop Amisov shortly after she and he had both realised that they loved each other, saved the world from a supernatural entity that believed that it was Satan, and spent some time with her mind trapped in the body of a gorilla.

Anderson needed a break after all that, so she volunteered for a mission to Mars. While on the red planet, she met the alien race who had created Homo sapiens thousands of years ago and became overwhelmed with guilt at the state of humanity, Mega-City One and her rôle in helping to enforce an oppressive and unjust regime. She resigned from her post and went travelling round the universe in an attempt to 'find herself'. Having found herself on the planet Tartini-9, Anderson returned to Earth and was reinstated as a Psi-Judge by Chief Judge Volt. She has been defending Mega-City One from supernatural and non-supernatural threats ever since, has survived a number of catastrophes, and is still irritating Judge Dredd with her wisecracks.

Powers and abilities

Powers

Anderson has powerful psychic abilities. She is capable of:

Communicating telepathically with another psychic
Reading the minds of living people
Extracting latent images from a dead person's brain
Psychometry (reading an object's history by touching it)
Receiving psychic 'hunches' that prompt her to investigate certain areas or people
Receiving 'psi-flashes' that give her vital information about current or imminent events
Controlling the minds of animals and humans
Psychically detecting what happened at a crime scene before she arrived
Astral travel
Making people fall asleep
Putting thoughts into other people's heads

Abilities

Mega-City One's best Psi-Judge.

Strength level

Peak human female.

Weaknesses

Anderson is getting older, and she cannot use the anti-ageing treatments administered to other Judges because they would degrade her psychic abilities.

Paraphernalia

Equipment

Accessory pouch containing three heatseeker shells; helmet containing internal visor display (including infra-red) and respirator; uniform made from plasti-steel reinforced material.

Transportation

Lawmaster bike; elk (when on a mission in Sov territory).

Weapons

Lawgiver handgun which can fire six types of shell: heatseeker, rubber ricochet, incendiary, armour-piercing, high explosive and standard execution. Also daystick and bootknife.

Notes

Artists who have worked on Anderson, Psi-Division include:

Trivia

Brian Bolland based Anderson's appearance on that of Debbie Harry, lead singer in the pop group Blondie.
In Greek mythology, Cassandra was a Trojan princess with the gift of precognition. After she spurned his advances Apollo, god of prophecy, cursed her never to be believed even though her predictions were invariably true. Following the fall of Troy she was taken as a concubine by Agamemnon and eventually murdered by Agamemnon's wife Clytemnestra.
Anderson was introduced in the same story as Judge Death. Since then she has always been the light to his shade, symbolising life, joy and compassion rather than the sick mentality that believes that all living things deserve to die.
Anderson featured in a one-page humour strip written by Matt Smith and drawn by Jock in the 2000 AD 40th Anniversary Special. She was shown enjoying a flute of shampagne at a party with some other Judge Dredd supporting characters which was abruptly terminated when Dredd showed up.

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