JUDGE DREDD FEATURES ATTACK ON NIGEL FARAGE

One of the most in-questionable-taste comics from England is soon going to feature a story with a villain drawing from UKIP leader Nigel Farage:

Introducing the biggest threat to Mega-City One since terrorism, gurning new villain ‘Bilious Barrage’, who is set for a rough encounter with the famed law enforcement character when he uses a series of attacks to ignite racial tensions between native citizens and immigrants.

Writers have thus far remained guarded over the exact plot line of the story, called Judge Dredd: People Like Us. However, editors did indicate that clash may not end well for Barrage.

And it doesn’t take a massive leap of the imagination to pinpoint the inspiration behind Dredd’s evil new personality. The eagle-eyed among you may see a touch of Ukip leader Nigel Farage about Bilious.

“2000 AD has a long tradition of taking a pop at authority, stemming from its anti-establishment punk origins back in the Seventies,” 2000 AD editor Matt Smith said of the caricature, which is set to appear in the comic later this year.

“Whether it was Margaret Thatcher being executed on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral by the Volgans in the very first issue, to Tony Blair being lampooned as the monomaniacal superhero B.L.A.I.R. 1, or Nemesis the Warlock ruthlessly satirising organised religion, 2000 AD has always taken a pop at the powerful and the pompous and no one, not even today’s politicians, is safe.”

This reminds me of a time when Doctor Who took a shot at Thatcher towards the end of its initial run between 1963-89, and the later revivals may have featured at least one more story with a negative stance on her, written by Neil Gaiman. It doesn't take much to figure out this attack on Farage may be connected to his oppositions to Islamofascism. Very, very cheap. And all this in a comic that prides itself on making the USA in the future look like a totalitarian regime. From what they say about Dredd's take on Blair, though, it doesn't sound like they were as negative to him as some of the others if they portrayed his counterpart as a superhero.