Yassa discovers the body of a man with appalling injuries caused by acid burns, leaving him so badly disfigured that he effectively has no face left.

His memory slowly begins to return as he recalls running through the river, pursued by an unseen foe, and then losing his footing and falling into the acid.

The Dead Man discovers more artefacts which belonged to him and which help to jog his memory: a wrecked motorbike, an irreparably damaged handgun, and pieces of an old uniform, including a badge.

After one hundred days of bringing law to the lawless outside the city walls, he reached Crowley, where he was attacked by the Sisters of Death, who incinerated everyone, chased him into the acid river and left him for dead.

At the very moment of this revelation, the two Sisters of Death – Nausea and Phobia – manifest themselves in their hideous true forms, and burn Yassa's eyeballs out of his skull.

To preserve the mystery of the Dead Man story, writer John Wagner used a pseudonym, Keef Ripley, to disguise the fact that a high-profile creator strongly associated with Judge Dredd had written it.

It was also not made explicit that the story was set in Dredd's universe until the eleventh episode, in which the revelation of the Dead Man's true identity occurred.

The Dead Man contained a rare depiction of Judge Dredd in which he is not wearing his features-obscuring helmet, although he is instead disfigured by his earlier falling into an acid river.

It was preceded by a one-episode prologue, "A Letter to Judge Dredd" by Wagner and Simpson, a story which also had a significant impact on the events which unfolded in the "Tale of the Dead Man".

In the later story "Death Aid" (2000 AD progs 711-715, 719-720), Yassa is almost assassinated by a sniper as he boards his flight home; Dr Northgate intercepts the bullet and is killed.