Mega-City One has been the target of violent coups, crime wars, otherworldly onslaughts and foreign invasions – each being the brainchild of a villain wanting to see the city, Justice Department and/or Dredd himself perish... Sov agent Orlok the Assassin nearly brought the city to its knees with the Block Mania drug – a deadly precursor to the invasion from East-Meg forces. Judge Death, a Dark Judge from Deadworld, where life itself is considered a crime and the sentence is death. The sole surviving member of the infamous Angel Gang, Mean Machine Angel is a psychopath with a dial on his forehead regulating his anger levels! Judge Grice was a disgraced Judge who broke out of the high-security prison on the Saturn moon of Titan. He became de facto Chief Judge during his bloody coup. Crime Lord Nero Narcos unleashed what is sometimes referred to as the Second Robot War, tearing the Justice Department apart with his army of lethal drones, and booby-trapping the Judges’ Mark II Lawgivers.

In the 2080s speed and volume eating, ‘scoffing’, became a competitive sport and extreme obesity became the desired body image for many Mega-City citizens. In retaliation to the percieved injustice of the food restrictions following the Apocalypse War, militant elements of the obese founded the ‘League of Fatties’ believing they had an inalienable right to food, which they would take by any means necessary. Whilst an individual Fattie might seem a less than threatening figure, the first food raids saw massed wedges of obese activists trundling forward supported by their BeliWheels®. With their layers of flab providing a natural armour against anything but the most lethal weapons, little could stop them once momentum was gained. Large numbers of ‘Skinnies’ and ‘Bones’ were crushed in the stampedes and from belly flops but, after the death of several Judges trying to protect a food storage facility, a crackdown was swift. Most Fatties were confined to special Fat Blocks, kept on strict diets for the maintenance of public order and their own protection until their weight fell below the 300-kilogram mark.