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Chief Judge Fargo

Chief Judge Fargo
Real name
Eustace Fargo
Current alias
Chief Judge Fargo
Aliases
The Father of Justice
Alignment
Affiliation
Relatives
Mary and Nathan Fargo (parents); Ephram Fargo (twin brother); Arden Polders (sister); Joseph and Rico Dredd (clones); Judges Kraken and Rico (clones); Dolman (clone); Nimrod (clone); Vienna Dredd (daughter of clone)
Universe
Base of operations
Mobile

Characteristics
Gender
Status
Marital status
Occupation
Judge
Education
Harvard
Origin
Origin
Born January 9th 1999
Place of birth
Jaxville, USA
Place of death
First appearance
Death

2000 AD prog 107
2000 AD prog 1535

History[]

Chief Judge Eustace Fargo is a character from the 2000 AD strip Judge Dredd.

Early life

Fargo was born on January 9th 1999 in Jaxville, a rural town in the USA which changed its name to Fargoville after his death. Later in life Fargo would give the year of his birth as 2001 — perhaps because, as Dredd put it, "he wanted to be thought a child of the 21st century."

The young Fargo was a talented player of American football (which may be where he acquired his liking for face-covering headgear), but eschewed the lucrative career of a professional athlete in favour of a life dedicated to the law. He graduated from Harvard in 2019, and in 2027 he was made government special prosecutor for street crime. Aghast at the tide of lawlessness and corruption that threatened to overwhelm the USA, Fargo introduced a system of instant justice upheld by a new breed of Judge, trained from the age of five years old to be efficient and ruthless. These Judges would be celibate, completely free from emotional ties, and therefore incorruptible because they would have no interest in life other than the law.

Such a radical alteration of the country's legal framework met with some opposition, since it necessitated the rewriting of the Constitution, but in 2031 Fargo saw his vision become a reality. The new Judges hit the crime-infested streets with Fargo in the vanguard — the first Chief Judge of what would later become Mega-City One.

Downfall

Fargo's jurisprudential system worked well, largely because Fargo had a reputation for absolute integrity. As his 'son' Dredd put it, he was "a man of unshakable principle, who lived by the rules he set for others. No temptation could lure him from the straight and narrow, no bribe or favour corrupt him. Those who fell below his standards were quickly dealt with." This meant that the public trusted him more than they could ever trust any politician. It also meant that when two Judges discovered that he was having an affair with one of his assistants, Mrs Sequenta Tells (probably because she turned up to work wearing only a bathing suit), he was overwhelmed with guilt and tried to kill himself.

Second life

Fargo shot himself in 2051, and was succeeded by Chief Judge Solomon. Justice Department kept the news of his suicide attempt and his affair top secret, and faked footage to make it look as if he had died on the streets, defending the public. They even built a massive tomb for him in the Grand Hall of Justice. In fact, Fargo was still alive, but severely brain-damaged (so the corpse in the tomb must have been somebody else's, or a dummy). In 2052 he was placed into suspended animation.

In 2064 an ambitious young Judge called Morton Judd finally got permission from Chief Judge Goodman to grow cloned Judges from Fargo's genetic material, leading to the conception of Rico and Joseph Dredd. By 2070 the two young Dredds were old enough to help keep the peace during the Great Atom War, on the streets of what was now Mega-City One. When they were called from their duties to a medical research facility they were startled to come face to face with a reawakened Fargo, whom they had believed to be dead. He told them the facts behind his 'death' and asked for them to be his bodyguards.

Justice Department had defrosted Fargo because they had just discovered that President Robert L. Booth, who had started the Great Atom War, should not have been in power in the first place because he had rigged his election with the help of electronic voting machines. Fargo's advice, which they followed, was for Mega-City One to declare independence. When Booth retaliated by sending soldiers to kidnap Fargo, Joe and Rico rescued their 'father'.

Mysterious disappearance

Joe and Rico were there when the White House was stormed. President Booth escaped but was later captured and sentenced to one hundred years' suspended animation. Fargo was kept alive to advise the brand new city-state of Mega-City One, but became disheartened and frail after Morton Judd tried to assassinate him because he wouldn't let Judd clone compliant citizens. Fargo was returned to suspended animation, having first been given the chance to say goodbye to his 'sons'. (During this conversation he expressed doubts about the true value of his life's work.) Shortly afterwards history repeated itself when the Judges discovered that somebody had stolen Fargo's frozen semi-alive body and substituted another one.

Rescue and death

Fargo, asleep in his cryo-capsule, ended up in a cave in the Cursed Earth when the Judges who had stolen him crashed their flier. Still blissfully unconscious, he was worshipped by mutants and eventually rediscovered by none other than President Booth (whom Dredd himself had revived decades ago). In 2128 the insane Booth sent Mega-City One a sample of Fargo's genetic material and a ransom demand for one billion creds. Dredd and a hand-picked team of Judges rescued Fargo, and Booth ended up being shot to pieces by his own mutant army after they got fed up of his authoritarian attitude.

Reawakened for the last time in Mega-City One in 2129, Fargo asked to see Dredd and his brother. With his dying breath he asked Dredd to dismantle the nightmarish legal system that he had created.

The Fargo clan

Eustace Fargo had a twin brother called Ephram who forged a different path for himself, exasperated at constantly being compared to his 'perfect' brother. Ephram's descendants, the Fargos, are a clan of mutants with abnormally long chins who live in the Cursed Earth. Their existence prompted Judge Dredd to threaten Hershey with his resignation if she didn't repeal the laws making it illegal to be a mutant in Mega-City One. Now the genetically disadvantaged, too, can enjoy living in Eustace Fargo's fascist police state.

Powers and abilities[]

Abilities

Leadership skills; people skills; high intelligence.

Strength level

At best, peak human male; at worst, dying centenarian.

Weaknesses

Women.

Paraphernalia[]

Equipment

Cryo-capsule.

Transportation

Lawranger (prototype Lawmaster).

Weapons

BB gun (fifth birthday present).

Notes[]

  • Chief Judge Fargo was first drawn by Ron Smith, initially in his tomb and subsequently in a flashback. At this point it hadn't been decided that Dredd was a clone of Fargo, so all of Fargo's face was shown (see gallery).
  • After it was established that Dredd was a clone of Fargo, Fargo was only ever shown with the top half of his face obscured — for example, in a flashback by Brendan McCarthy during the story of Morton Judd, or in dream sequences drawn by Kevin Walker.
  • However, in 2000 AD prog 1795, keen-eyed readers were able to spot the version of Fargo's face drawn by Ron Smith on a 10,000 cred bank note in the Lenny Zero story drawn by Ben Willsher.
  • Fargo's first appearance in the main narrative of the comic, where he wasn't in a tomb, dream or flashback, was drawn by Carlos Ezquerra.
  • Judges cloned using Chief Judge Fargo's DNA include Judge Joseph Dredd, Rico Dredd, Judge Kraken; Judge Rico, Dolman (now no longer a Judge) and Nimrod.

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