Judge-Inspector Inaba is a supporting character in Shimura. She has made a pair of solo appearances as well.

The execution of Indigo Prime revealed a mini-universe in 2000 AD which wormed its way through several short stories, one-shots and another John Smith-scripted series, Tyranny Rex. For ease of reference, all of the non-Tyranny episodes are grouped together here as Indigo Prime, the name under which a few of them appeared. Indigo Prime is an organization which works to protect reality from incursions outside our understanding, but is also willing to manipulate time and space in the services of very rich clients. Its agents, under the jurisdiction of Major Arcana, tend to be almost shockingly amoral, but those characters which we do meet are incredibly interesting eccentrics, and the constant feel that there is so much more we could know is one reason the strip evokes such strong memories in its fans.

The first Indigo Prime agents we meet are Basalt and Foundation, in the 1986 Future Shock "A Change of Scenery," where the operation was called Void Indiga (TM). This operation is seen again briefly in "Woody Allen," a Tyranny Rex story from the 1988 Sci-Fi Special which introduces Major Arcana. Two disgraced former agents named Fervent and Lobe were introduced in another Tyranny story called "Soft Bodies." These two psychic cowboys got their own series, "The Issigri Variations," in 1989, which also features Major Arcana and the originally-introduced Basalt and Foundation, along with Lobe's former girlfriend Almaranda, an overweight fortune teller. Five additional episodes, with splendid art by Chris Weston, appeared under the Indigo Prime logo (used for the first time) in 1990 and fleshed out the grand concept, introducing us, at least briefly, to four other agents. (Some others make very curious cameo appearances.) After that, there was an Almaranda two-parter, and then there was the blood and thunder of "Killing Time," easily one of the wildest things to ever appear in 2000 AD. This was a truly shocking ten-part story in which agents Max Winwood and Ishmael Cord allow Jack the Ripper to complete his last murder in order for them to battle the Iscariot, a creature outside time and space who was using the Ripper to ensure its own freedom. Smith's scripting on this beast is a masterwork of horror - each episode builds upon the previous with some absolutely stunning moments and horrendous imagery. 2000 AD should always be dangerous and unconventional - it's what makes it better than any other comic - but heroes in adventure series just don't meet the sort of fate which awaits Winwood and Cord and the supporting characters.

The cruelty of "Killing Time" was followed by a worse fate for its readers: after spending five years building up and finally letting rip on a fantastic storyline like that, Smith says he became bored of the concept and dropped it. For years, Tharg featured color pinups of Winwood and Cord (Weston must have prepped dozens as possible front covers in 1991), but the incredible tapestry and background of Indigo Prime has been sadly abandoned. The tragedy is that any number of tired old "thrills" like Slaine or Rogue Trooper can limp back to 2000 AD for yet another pointless rehash, but one of the most unique and truly thrilling strips to ever appear in 2000 AD rests in comparative peace.

On the other hand, all times and places are relative to Indigo Prime; they could end up returning for a 13-week run when nobody suspects.

Trivia: Smith elected to change the organization's orginal name, Void Indiga (TM), after noting the similarly-coined Void Indigo, a Marvel graphic novel by Steve Gerber.

Top moment: Episodes nine and ten of "Killing Time" are inarguably amazing, but for sheer "did I just read what I think I did" quality, it’s probably the bit in which the previously macho "go ahead and kill me, I don't care" Dr. Culver breaks down and begs screaming for his life. Throne of Blood, The Godfather, The Wicker Man - there’s never been a death scene as amazing as that.

This sequel to Harlem Heroes, featuring several of the same characters in another bizarre "future sport," was even more violent than its predecessor.

Trivia:It was revealed in David Bishop's Thrill-Power Overload investigation into 2000 AD's history that the comic was very nearly cancelled in 1978 over the Inferno episodes in progs 68 and 69. The cliffhanger saw an unconscious Giant doused with rocket fuel from his damaged jet pack and about to be set on fire by their enemy Artie Gruber. IPC management was incensed over the imagery and very nearly shut the comic down. With the trademark infringements to be seen in Judge Dredd over the next few weeks, it was an interesting time in the Command Module...

"Kismet" was a one-off Time Twister about a time-travel tourism company. The company returned in a subsequent two-part adventure.

In the days before the Apocalypse War which devastated Judge Dredd's world (2000 AD progs 245-270), War Marshall Kazan had imprisoned his city's psychic judges in a hidden gulag, with "special" treatment reserved for Judge Viktor Zadek, who had attempted to kill the mad marshal. Almost twenty years later, a new city is being built where East-Meg One had once stood, and Zadek's specialties are needed to exorcise the ghosts of the war.

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Judy Janus was introduced in prog 842. Her debut one-shot introduced several subplots that were never developed. With Judge Anderson off learning about her humanity in the Megazine in the mid-1990s, Janus became her erstwhile replacement in the weekly with several dark and mean-spirited adventures. However, as Anderson returned to duty in the city, sharing space in the Megazine with another female psychic named Karyn, the city seemed choked with psis. Janus was the natural one to drop as Morrison and Millar left the books. The villain Faustus, incidentally, is another dull Millar indestructible man.

Joe was a coffee-drinking agent of PEST - the Planetary Exploration and Survey Trust. He appeared in six Future Shocks but unfortunately never graduated to a full series. His tales are mostly forgotten, which is a shame, as some of them, especially "Horn of Plenty," are quite clever.

As with Bato Loco and Cursed Earth Koburn, Johnny Woo (aka Hong Tong Judge Inspector Liu Chan Yeun) first appeared as a guest star in one of Rennie's Judge Dredd scripts and graduated, in time, to his own series.

Predating The Books of Magic by years, never mind Harry Potter, this story of a young man learning magic benefits from its slow pace, rural setting and gorgeous artwork. There was some question among the editorial staff as to whether the series actually belonged in 2000 AD, which may explain the very long gap between the initial "Summer Magic" adventure, and "The Night Walker" (which was announced, and apparently finished, well over a year before it appeared). More stories were supposedly forthcoming, but, as Alan McKenzie left the comic industry, it looks like Luke's journal will be closed for the forseeable future.

Top moment: On holiday with his family, Luke's cousin Kim asks him to tell her fortune, hoping for a large house and family. Luke instead sees her grisly death in a traffic accident.

Judge Death is a monster from a parallel dimension where the ruling judges decided that, as all crimes were committed by the living, life itself would be criminalized. After wiping out the entire population of his planet, Death visited Mega-City One in progs 149-151. A little more than a year later, he returned in the five-part "Judge Death Lives," wherein it is revealed, in possibly comics' greatest cliffhanger, that there are actually four Dark Judges - Fear, Fire and Mortis have come to our world to free him.

The Dark Judges appeared twice more to plague the Mega-City, but while Fear, Fire and Mortis are captured after the events of "Necropolis," Death remained at large, and was revealed in "Young Death," one of the series which launched The Judge Dredd Megazine, to be hiding out as a tenant in Mrs. Gunderson’s flat. It was this story, and his periodic appearances afterward, which began to treat the character less as a real threat and more as an over-the-top comic creation; previously the absurdity of the concept had been played straight, despite an almost Marvel Comics-styled "arch-enemy" antagonism with Psi-Judge Anderson. This reached a nadir when Judge Death appeared in the first of four Batman / Dredd crossovers, "Judgement on Gotham," attacking a crowd at a heavy metal concert while singing his own take on the Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil."

Although captured in this story, Death continued to make goofy cameos for years afterward, before making another bid for freedom in the fourth of the Batman crossovers, "Die Laughing." Mercifully, this was the last of the stupid "comedy" Judge Death stories. Most recently, he was broken out again and was seen in a six-parter in the weekly. Attempting to kill Anderson and believing himself successful, Death left Mega-City One to bring his brand of vengeance to the muties and outlaws of the Cursed Earth. While this was a welcome return to form and the first good Judge Death story in over a decade, we can't help but wish Death would remain out there for a very long time before returning to battle Dredd and Anderson; the character has just appeared far too frequently, and has lost virtually all of his impact through overuse.

Hershey has been one of the longest-running supporting members of the Judge Dredd universe. She was introduced in "The Judge Child" in 1981 and has regularly appeared as one of Dredd's staunchest allies, frequently turning to him for advice. In the Megazine, she appeared in a recurring solo series under the auspices of a number of writers, her cases generally dealing with city corruption and human issues (she was shown in "The Harlequin's Dance" to have a young nephew), and not the bizarre future crimes often seen in Dredd's series. Following 1999's "Doomsday Scenario" Dredd epic, Hershey became Chief Judge of Mega-City One.

Juliet November is a freelance pyrokinetic in Mega-City One, introduced in prog 1189. She got a short series of her own in 2003.

The least offensive of Fleisher's contributions, but only by comparison, this one is still very predictable, sexist and dated. Our hero is one of those "dese, dem, dose" he-man wumman haters that populate too much trash American fiction. Ridgway's artwork isn't up to his usual standards. The space shots look beautiful and are colored well by Perkins, but there are plenty of panels that include just the heads of the talking characters, without bodies or backgrounds.