IPC publisher John Sanders asked Pat Mills, a freelance writer and editor who had created Battle Picture Weekly and Action, to develop it.

Wagner, who had written a Dirty Harry-inspired tough cop called One-Eyed Jack for Valiant, saw that readers also responded to authority figures, and developed a character that took the concept to its logical extreme, imagining an ultra-violent lawman patrolling a future New York with the power to arrest, sentence, and if required execute criminals on the spot.

The task of visualising the newly named Judge Dredd was given to Carlos Ezquerra, a Spanish artist who had previously worked with Mills on Battle, on a strip called Major Eazy.

The story chosen was one written by freelancer Peter Harris,[d] extensively rewritten by Mills and including an idea suggested by Kelvin Gosnell,[2]: pp.70–72  and drawn by newcomer Mike McMahon.

Paul DeSavery, who owned Dare's film rights, offered to buy the new comic and give Mills and Wagner more creative control and a greater financial stake.

Veteran British artists Ron Turner and Barrie Mitchell were tried out, but the newcomer Dave Gibbons won the editor over with his dynamic, American-influenced drawings and got the job.

1, a super-powered secret agent inspired by The Six Million Dollar Man; Invasion!, about a "Volgan" (thinly disguised and originally billed as Soviet, but changed before printing to a "neutral" antagonist) invasion of the United Kingdom opposed by tough London lorry driver turned guerrilla fighter Bill Savage; and Flesh, a strip about time-travelling cowboys farming dinosaurs for their meat.

His "Robot Wars" storyline was drawn by a rotating team of artists, including McMahon, Ezquerra, Turner and Ian Gibson, and marked the point where Dredd became the most popular character in the comic, a position he has rarely relinquished.

Flesh had a sequel in 1978, set on the prehistoric oceans, and Bill Savage appeared again in a prequel, Disaster 1990, in which a nuclear explosion at the north pole had melted the polar ice-cap and flooded Britain.

Pat Mills took over writing Dredd for a six-month "epic" called "The Cursed Earth", inspired by Roger Zelazny's Damnation Alley, which took the future lawman out of the city on a humanitarian trek across the radioactive wasteland between the Mega-Cities.

Wagner returned to Dredd following the merger to write "The Day the Law Died", another six-month epic in which Mega-City One was taken over by the insane Chief Judge Cal, based on the Roman emperor Caligula.

A feature of the early years of 2000 AD was the opportunities it gave to young British comic artists: by the time the title celebrated its 100th issue Brian Bolland, Dave Gibbons, Ian Gibson, Mike McMahon and Kevin O'Neil were all established as regulars.

"The Judge Child" was drawn by Bolland, Ron Smith and Mike McMahon in rotation, and the later episodes marked the beginning of Wagner's long-running writing partnership with Alan Grant.

The pair would go on to write Strontium Dog, Robo-Hunter and many other stories for 2000 AD, as well as for Roy of the Rovers, Battle and the relaunched Eagle in the United Kingdom, and a number of comics in America.

He, editor Steve MacManus and artist Dave Gibbons devised Rogue Trooper, a "Genetic Infantryman" engineered to be immune to chemical warfare hunting down the traitor general who had betrayed his regiment, who debuted in 1981.

Halo was an everywoman in the far future, born into mass unemployment on a floating housing estate, who escaped the earth and became involved in a terrible galactic war.

Garth Ennis and John Smith had come to prominence writing for Crisis, a 2000 AD spin-off for older readers, while artists Jamie Hewlett and Philip Bond were the stars of Deadline, an independent comics and popular culture magazine founded by Steve Dillon and Brett Ewins.

Garth Ennis and Philip Bond contributed Time Flies, a time-travel comedy, and Hewlett was paired with writer Peter Milligan for the surreal Hewligan's Haircut.

Writer John Tomlinson and artist Simon Jacob created Armoured Gideon, an action-comedy series about a giant killer robot charged with keeping demons from invading earth.

The old IPC strip Kelly's Eye was revived, by the new creative team of Alan McKenzie, Brett Ewins, and Zac Sandler, in 1993, when the publishers realized they no longer had the rights to the character.

Written by Garth Ennis and drawn by Carlos Ezquerra, Peter Doherty, Dean Ormston and Chris Halls, the story teamed Judge Dredd with Johnny Alpha through the medium of time travel.

John Smith and artist Paul Marshall created Firekind, a slow-paced story about dragons and alien societies, which was accidentally published with its episodes in the wrong order.

However, in the 12-parter The Darkest Star, it transpires that the one to actually kill him was the Gronk himself; changed into a form designed by a cadre of Lyran necromancers to bring him endless agony, Alpha asked his friend to end his torment.

The "Summer Offensive" was an eight-week experiment in 1993, when new editor Alan McKenzie gave free rein to writers Grant Morrison, Mark Millar and John Smith, to a mixed reception.

Written by Wagner and drawn by Ezquerra, Mick Austin and Trevor Hairsine, it followed on from "Mechanismo", a series of stories in the Megazine in which Justice Department, opposed by Dredd, tried to introduce robot judges.

In 1997, writer Robbie Morrison and artist Simon Fraser, who had worked with Bishop on the Megazine, created Nikolai Dante, a swashbuckling series set in future Russia starring a thief and ladies' man who discovers he's the illegitimate scion of an aristocratic dynasty.

Rebellion continues to develop stories (and computer games) based on classic characters such as Rogue Trooper and Judge Dredd, and has also introduced a roster of new series including Shakara, The Red Seas and Caballistics, Inc..

A fictional reason for Tharg to use mechanical assistance was given when the robots "went on strike" (reflecting real-life industrial action that occasionally halted IPC's comics production during the 1970s and 1980s).

[38] Although the various stories and creators have also won awards, (see the various entries for details) the comic itself has its own trophies: 2000 AD has an extremely lively and thriving fanbase, which has produced a number of independent fanzines.

Another long-running fanzine, dedicated to the world of Johnny Alpha, is Dogbreath, originally run by the pseudonymous Dr Bob it is now being produced by FutureQuake Publishing.