Judge Dredd Epics: the Reading Order

It occurs to me that this ranking blog is hopelessly fiddly if you don't already know your way around Judge Dredd continuity! Sorry about that.

If you want to read ALL of Judge Dredd, good for you! The easiest way is to work through the Case Files Series, which as of 2025, takes you all the way from 1977 - 2009; very soon we'll hit Case Files 50. That's A LOT of comics to read, many of them as good as Sci-Fi / satire / crime comics get. Smaller collections cover all the longer/bigger stories published since.

This is only HALF of the collections!

Here's the list of the Epics (by which I mean, REALLY LONG JUDGE DREDD STORIES) covered in the Ranking, in their order of original publication. You could do worse in life than getting the Case Files with these stories in, and the collections for the stories that follow. Of course, the Epics are not the whole story when it comes to Judge Dredd...

1. Robot Wars Case Files 1

2. Luna City Case Files 1

3. The Cursed Earth Case Files 2 (but if you can, get hold of the Uncensored edition)

4. The Day the Law Died, aka Judge Caligula Case Files 2

5. The Judge Child Case Files 4

6. The Mega-Rackets Case Files 5

7. Block Mania / The Apocalypse War Case Files 5

8. City of the Damned Case Files 8

9. Oz Case Files 11 (but you'll enjoy it more if you read Midnight Surfer first, in Case Files 9)

10. The Dead Man (not in any Case Files, but in its own collection) / Tale of the Dead Man Case Files 14

11. Necropolis Case Files 14 (but do note, you're missing a trick if you don't read the older, short stories Judge Death, Judge Death Lives and Four Dark Judges (all collected in The Essential Judge Dredd: Dredd vs Death)

12. America (not in any Case Files, but collected many times, best to get the Essential collection that includes the preceding 'Democracy' themed stories.

13. Judgement on Gotham (not in any Case Files, but is collected with one other Batman team-up)

14. Raptaur Case Files 16 

15. Judgement Day Case Files 17

16. Mechanismo Split across Case Files 18 and 19

17. Purgatory (not in any Case Files; you'll need to buy Megazine 322) / Inferno Case Files 19

18. Wilderlands Case Files 21

19. Crusade Case Files 22

20. The Pit Split across Case Files 24 and 25

21. Darkside Case Files 25 

22. Fetish Case Files 26, but you might enjoy this one more if you've read some Devlin Waugh series)

The story 'Fetish' is not actually in any of the Devlin collections.

23. The Hunting Party Case Files 26

24. Beyond the Call of Duty Case Files 28

25. Die Laughing (not in any Case Files, and now only in a hard-to-find collection of Batman/Dredd crossovers. Honestly it's not THAT good, seek out the original floppies if you want to read it)

26. Doomsday Case Files 30

27. Dead Ringer Case Files 31

28. The Chief Judge's Man trilogy Split across Case Files 33, 34 and 37

29. Helter Skelter Case Files 34

30. Satan's Island aka Sin City Case Files 35

31. Dredd vs Aliens Case Files 36

32. Total War / Terror Split Across Case Files 39 and 40

33. Blood Trails Case Files 41

34. Mandroid Case Files 41

35. Origins Split across Case Files 43 and 44

36. Mandroid II Case Files 45

37. Blood of Satanus III Case Files 45 (and no, you don't need to have read BoS I and II. In fact, probably better if you don't as it'll set up false expectation for this MENTAL story)

38. The Ecstasy Case Files 47

39. Tour of Duty Split across Case Files 48 and 49, (but to really enjoy it you'll want to read a bunch of continuity-heavy stories from Origins onwards. Arguably, your best bet is the get the three Essential Collections)

40. Served Cold / The Cop likely to be split across Case Files 50 and... 53?

41. Day of Chaos likely to be split across Case Files 50, 51 and 52

...from this point on, for the time being, you'll need to get the trade collections for each story

42. Trifecta (you'll want to read some Low Life and some Simping Detective to get the most out of this)

43. Titan / Enceladus (you'll DEFINITELY want to read some Low Life to get the most of of these two)

44. Dead Zone

45. Dark Justice (possibly out of print now?)

46. Every Empire Falls (possibly out of print now?)

47. Machine Law

48. Cold Wars

49. Block Judge - in Megazine 396

50. The Small House

51. Nobody Apes the Law / Regicide

52. End of Days

...and from this point, we've hit stories that were not published until after I finished my Ranking project. Some but perhaps not all of these stories would have qualified.

53. A Penitent Man trilogy

54. The Citadel

55. A Better World

56. Iron Teeth trilogy - not actually completed yet, let alone collected!

57. One-Eyed Jacks

The best Judge Dredd crossover yet!